#I don’t actually know how to shop 4 furniture!! It’ll feel very nice when things are all out of boxes though ^^

[starfall-isle]

I am not gonna take her out of the blister packaging but I want 2 get my Ulala figure displayed so bad -.- I’m not putting her anywhere until I have a glass display case though and that could be a really long wait since I have to prioritize furniture first

[roodllle]

Year in Review - Animal Crossing New Horizons

I started writing this review/criticism in May of 2020 but decided to update it as the year went along and post it on the anniversary of NH’s release. I would like to preface that this is mostly going to be full of questions of criticisms, I love this game. I have not been able to put it down since I got it on March 20th. My first AC game was NL and then I played HHD. I was ecstatic when they announced NH at E3 2019 and kept trying to find other games to fit in my AC shaped hole in my heart but I wasn’t able to fill it till this game came out. I feel like the pace of the game is great with how you build up to unlocking terraforming and 5 stars, and I feel like the updates are well timed especially with how crazy 2020 was for everybody. That being said there were some things that irked me. 

Some of the points I will bring up came from other people/commenters I have seen on here, Discord, Reddit, and Twitter that I also agree with. Some other points are from Youtubers such as ShayMay and ChuyPlays. And others are from me. 

With that out of the way, let’s get on with the review. Warning, I guess, don’t expect this to be an essay, this is just a patchwork quilt made up of thoughts.

Terraforming

I wish cliffs/tiers had a smaller level? Like how we’re able to make stepping stones for our rivers if we don’t want to put a bridge down/use our vaulting pole. I just wish there was a cliff alternative. 

Another cliff alternative would be if we could put bridges between cliffs. I think we’ve all been there where we see this picture 

          thought ‘we can do that!!” then realized it was photoshopped

When we go into terraforming, I wish a grid showed up on our island. It would make it much easier to avoid hitting the wrong square when I’m trying to change a river. 

Having us be able to “close” a waterfall from a lower level but not create a new on at the same spot. 

Also the fact we can add a 4th tier but can’t put anything on it is just strange to me. I know we have to have a limit to how high we can go, but at least let me put nature stuff, such as trees/flowers/bushes, on top of it instead of just a flat piece of land. 

Houses

Why no ceiling items? Find it odd they added a bunch of stuff in HHD and didn’t add that to the new mainline game

There’s no reason I can think of to why we can’t access our storage when we’re crafting inside our house. 

Buildings

Dodo Airlines

The Dodo Islands right now are very boring and barely use them. I have enough money and materials to not go farming and save up all my NMTs for when I go villager hunting, which has also become a rarity. I think it would be a good idea to make some islands seasoned themed. Have them be all rare, but have an island where it’s fall and has maple leaves falling, a cherry blossom one, one with snowflakes. I wouldn’t recommend they make Holiday themed ones, but having seasonal ones would be nice.

When I mess up a dodo code or accidentally hit ‘make a bridge’ instead of incline, etc. why do I have to restart the ENTIRE conversation instead of the characters just being “oh? did you mean “x” or “would you like to retype it?” like is it that hard??  

Resident Services

As much as I love Isabelle this game has made me very indifferent towards her. I think they gave her a role that didn’t need to exist. They could have either let us roam around without any warnings to who was roaming around our island, in the campsite, or any weather updates. Just have us rely on our villagers, the TV, and our eyeballs. OR they could have given us a social media like app and/or a weather app. Instead, they gave us Isabelle that only announces something once a month.

Nook’s Cranny

This might just be me but can they add a little DIY area in the store? Maybe just make to where you can only customize things?? This is more out of convenience than an actual problem  

Speaking of customization, since you can make medicine but also buy can we do the same for the custom kits and bait. Like make it where we can buy bait and also make our own custom kits? I just think it’s weird that they give us either/or for medicine but not for the other 2 that I honestly use way more than medicine.

Why do the Able Sisters get to have all of the colors of an item in their shop but Nook’s Cranny can’t? And why can’t we just be able to customize all items that have multiple looks/colors? Example, why can’t I just be able to change the wood type for the antique set instead of having to buy each one? I get that the furniture catalog is already small, but that’s not my fault. They’ve decided to not add past furniture sets into NH. 

Able Sisters

Let us multi select clothes instead of it just being how much we can wear. idc if it’ll just put those clothes in our personal storage and then we’ll have to run home and put it in that storage, I just hate having to walk back in and out every time I want a dress in multi colors. ALSO tell us if we already bought it, like a little storage icon or something

Why can’t we hang any article of clothing on the back wall, why do we have to either make it or have the OG qr designer come to our island? 

Why can’t we have the transparent option when designing clothes? I think it would make many designer’s lives easier instead of having to make 8 versions of the same outfit.

NPCs

I have played this game almost every day since it came out, minus 2 days. I have also been able to make friends on discord that help with trading/cataloging/etc. I have all of Saharah’s, Kicks’, Label’s, and Redd’s items. I have all of the fish/bug models I want and have no desire to “catch them all”. I haven’t talked to Wisp in months because I have most of the items and his idea of “expensive” is 10k bells. The only NPC I actively look forward to is Celeste because even though I now have all of her DIYs, she still gives out star fragments, regular large or horoscope, when I talk to her. 

What I’m wondering is if they’re planning on doing anything else with these characters. Before I speak further I’m going to weed out characters that I am actually fine with. CJ and Flick will always be there if I want a bug/fish model, I understand that Saharah/Kicks/Redd have a ton of stuff to get and w/o the help of my discord friends, I probably wouldn’t have gotten everything till late 2021. 

So that leaves Label and Wisp. I understand Wisp is there for beginners, but now that I’m at a point where I am a bell millionaire and have most of the Nook’s items cataloged, there is no reason for me to talk to him. I wish Nintendo had put in a system where depending on the person who Wisp is talking to, it determines how much money you have in your bank account/looks at your catalog, Wisp’s item’s worth goes up.

As for Label...I never saw her as viable. I also thought the tickets were dumb and you don’t even have to talk to her to have her items show up in the shop the next day. I think it would be great if when you bought all of her items, she decided to join the Able’s sisters in their shop like in NL and then have Gracie show up in her place for the weekly NPC. 

Where is Blanca? Or Brewster? Or Shrunk, Katrina, Gracie, or Kapp’n and his family? I understand we will probably never see characters like Harriet or Pete because they have been replaced by a new system, but what is the excuse for these other characters? I’m hoping they show up in year 2 of NH but...we’ll see.

Villagers

I think having your first villagers living in basic homes is a good idea but one that quickly gets annoying. I found Sherb while villager hunting for the 1st time and have had him ever since, but his house is stuck at basic lazy setup. Instead of me going back and forth on whether or not i should trust somebody enough to hold Sherb, get somebody else out, then get him to move back to my island, You can have it to where you let them leave, then just wait till he comes to the campsite to visit and reinvite him. You get his actual house and he still remembers you. This could also go for you accidentally letting somebody go or letting somebody go then regretting it. Also it’d be fun to see some old villagers again.

I was curious and looked back on past games to see how many new villagers were released each game and NH has been the least amount. NL released 112 new villagers in total while NH has released 8. I’m hoping they might release more down the line but, hella disappointing imo. Along with the Sanrio update and adding those characters to the game, I am more hopeful that they’ll be adding new characters!

Having an “event” of sorts where you visit a villager’s house and they’re looking inside their closet. They look at you in surprise when you walk in and sheepishly explain that they were going through their clothes/items. They then decide to ask you for help since they can’t decide what to get rid of/what to keep and think you have a good eye for that sort of thing. Basically, a way to get rid of any clothes/items your villager somehow received bc I guess Isabelle scolding them isn’t enough.

A big problem I feel like everybody has is the villager dialogue. Yes they added sub personality types for each personality but they are not perfectly cut in half, ex. are the Sisterly types where there are 4 B types and 20 A types, like?? How I have “fixed” this problem is by having one of each personality type on my island so I always have different conversations with my villagers, but I understand not a lot of people do that. Some people just want normal/peppy types on their island bc they’re cute as hell, I get it. I know it would be...difficult to come up with unique dialogue for all 399 villagers, including Sanrio, but....you could at least for the “gimmicky” villagers. Some examples of these villagers are Ribbot and Sprocket, Lucky and Ankha, the super hero squad, and Kabuki. 

Quality Life stuff

Why cant we sit AND wish on stars? And I don’t mean the sit emote; why can’t I sit on a bench and wish on stars?

It sucks when I’m about to hit my rocks or just do a lot of dig work and then my shovel breaks in the middle of it. To show the tool is about to break, cracks should start to form on the handle and get deeper/longer as you keep using it, starting when you have 5 uses left. You can also add an auditory element by making the tool sound like its struggling when you are using it. Net/Shovel/Axe/Fishing Pole can have cracks show up on the handle, Slingshot can have crack show up at the bottom of the 2 spokes while having 1 at the top of the handle. And the watering can have cracks at the base of the can.

If our inventory is full when I dig up a flower, why can’t I replace it with another flower to bury? And if I can dig up an item at an diagonal item, I should be able to bury it again at the same angle.

Other

Having more...liveliness?? on the island, idk how else to say it. Example is whenever you travel by plane there's a chemtrail in the sky afterwards, maybe just seeing other planes go by throughout the day. Maybe you can get a hint Redd or Gulliver will be visiting you tomorrow if you see their boats beyond the horizon, Redd’s just crusin’ and the Gulls’ boats looking messed up. On a week where you don't have a new camper, maybe have an old villager visit. That leads me too

I wish villager’s doors could count as “exterior decorating” and we can just put any ornamental on there instead having to hope that your villager will put the wreath on their own door. 

Conclusion

If you read this whole thing holy shit, thanks!! Go treat yourself on my part lol If you disagreed with me or whatever feel free to chat with me about it! 

[sweetwriting]

TimKon Week 2020 Day 4: Happy Birthday to You!

Category: Gen or Pre-slash

Genre: Angst/Fluff, mostly fluff

Fandoms: DC Comics, Teamverse

Continuity: Post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint Future AU

Summary:  What kind of birthday party do you give a kid who was abused by her parents when your own birthdays were already outside of the norm?

Word Count: 1840

AN:  Hola everyone. This was inspired by an old WIP of mine. it's kind of a plot bunny of a different fic. Anyway enjoy

Prompt:  Raising A Child - Fluff

Can be read on AO3

October 16th

It was Helena’s first birthday with them. Tim didn’t know what to do. To be fair he wasn’t familiar with children’s birthdays. Most of his had been spent with his parents being brought to shows he liked or that they’d thought he’d like. And then they forgot it one year and the next they were out of commission.

Helena came from an abusive home and he didn’t want to overwhelm her too much as she had been prone to having panic attacks when he didn’t pay attention and did something that was apparently outrageously nice. So he wanted her to have a great birthday but not so outrageous she’d faint.

Conner had made fun of him because he was apparently over worrying over “normal stuff”, but Conner was the last person allowed to talk to him about that. Partly because he hadn’t celebrated a normal birthday of his….ever, but also because the only kid’s birthdays he had gone to were Traya’s and Jon’s.

Still Conner had been there since the beginning so he kind of had a say in what they’d be doing for her birthday.

Speaking of which, they were supposed to meet for lunch for that exact purpose and Conner was late. For the 3rd time this week. It was getting real annoying real fast.

He looked at his phone to see if he had received any new message. And he had. Apparently Conner was late because he was walking with a classmate of his and couldn’t use his powers. So Tim waited.

Ten minutes later, Conner finally appeared around the corner. With a very pretty girl on his arm. Tim couldn’t believe Conner was late because he was flirting...Actually he could…He probably would have been too if he were in his place…If it was just a normal lunch but they were supposed to talk about Helena’s birthday! It was not a normal lunch.

Conner waved goodbye after the pretty girl kissed his cheek and then “sprinted” toward Tim who was crossing his arms in annoyance. As he arrived next to him Conner looked sheepish.

“Look I know what it looked like but she started talking about a school project at first and I couldn’t blow her off and then she said we were walking in the same direction so I had to….and then I used the opportunity, I wasn’t gonna miss that but still!”

Tim raised an eyebrow, just to mess with him but Conner saw right through him, untangled his arms by taking one of his hand and dragging him toward the restaurant Tim had been waiting in front of.

They settled down and started having their lunch when Tim received a new email notification. Which he showed to Conner. Now that could be a nice present.

- - - - - - - -

October 21st

Helena had had a fairly good day so far. Tim and Kon had woke her up with a cup of sweet tea and croissant while wishing her a happy birthday, Kon had even decided to accompany her alongside Tim this morning (even if he was gonna be late to class). Ana and Alois had also wished her a happy birthday and none of their teachers had given them any test.

Now it was time to go home and wait for Tim and Kon to come back home (well…Technically Kon already had his own apartment but he was there so rarely she hadn’t known about it for 7 months, when he talked about being with his girlfriend which had brought a new surprise as she had also thought he was in love with Tim. Even if they had told her immediately they weren’t).

Whatever. She hoped her da they wouldn’t be too long to get home as she usually was one her own for about three hours on her own before Kon would be there. And it had been so nice up until now.

But when she got out of the school, both Tim and Kon were waiting for her? Along with Bart, Cassie, Rose and Kiran.

She ran toward them and hugged Tim and Kon at the same time…kind of, she was way too small to manage but she tried and she considered that it was what mattered. She then went to hug the other four. Apparently they were gonna celebrate her birthday together. The only things missing were her Tim and Kon’s families. And a few others. Granted too many of them might be a bit too much for her. Family dinners at Wayne Manor were already too much even if there was never the full family roster at once.

When they arrived home however Anita and Cissie were waiting for them along with Donald and Oshi who lived with Anita and Cissie’s parents. Helena liked them, well…mostly Oshi. Most of the time Donald was not fun. They were a bit older than her but always nice.

They all ate very small pieces of cake (but her par Tim and Kon prevented her from eating more than two small pieces) and celebrated (with presents and everything). However at 4:30PM they had to leave though Bart promised he’d come back later. Only to be replaced by Jon, Ma, Lois and Clark. Who celebrated with a different, but still small, cake. At 6PM, they left too, only to be replaced by Dick, Alfred, Barbara, Bruce and Cass. With another cake. Now she understood why Tim and Kon had refused to let her eat more than two pieces every time.

So far this was the best birthday ever!

Her fath Tim and Kon had basically allowed her to celebrate her birthday with her favorite people without getting overwhelmed. She was getting tired though and nodding off on Dick’s lap. That was their cue to start leaving. Though Cass was staying with them for the night as would Bart.

Once they were all gone Tim and Kon had asked Cass if they could leave them alone. Once they did, they all sat down on the carpet. They both looked pretty serious. Oh no. She should have known it was too good to be true. But she had started getting used to this life. Was this whole birthday thing just there to butter her up? They were never this serious with her unless they were talking about her parents and her stay here with her foster dad, Tim.

Oh nononononononono. Did her parents get the right to get her back? No. Last she’d seen them they were trash talking the Court assigned parenting classes they were supposed to take. They shouldn’t be able to take her back.

Suddenly she felt a familiar weight on her shoulders and she heard Tim say “it’s okay, it’s not bad news, it’s simply important”.

The next few minutes were spent with Kon tracing circles against her back and Tim guiding her breathing until she calmed down.

Once that was done she was slowly being glided on Kon’s lap, probably by the hands on her shoulders, even if she felt like she was in a warm cocoon, she loved his TTK so much. Kon kept tracing small circles on her back while Tim was patting her head slowly.

That was actually rather nice. The only good part about her panicking way too easily.  

But then Tim pulled away and got papers out of his bag. That was the cue to return to the conversation that hadn’t even started yet.

Tim took a big gulp of air. He seemed nervous. Which was making her nervous, but then Kon was hugging her and she felt better. She felt him nod against her.

“Ok so, it’s been a bit more than a year since you were found in the street and we hadn’t been able to celebrate your birthday back then aside from getting you actual clothes and furniture and a cake, so I wasn’t sure how to do this but I think up until now we managed pretty well. Now since your parents never made an effort to go to the court mandated parenting classes during that time, It’s actually possible for you to be adopted as of last week.”

She could feel her heart start shrinking. They were going to make her go away.

“Which is why I sent a form as soon as I was allowed to do so. Now of course it’ll depend on whether or not you also want to become officially my kid. I merely sent the form so that I could have the papers ready when we talked about it so here goes.

Helena, would you like to officially become my child and live with me until you decide you’re too good for me and move out to live your life even if you’ll always have a room here ? We had already kind of talked about it but it always seemed too soon for that. It’s nothing to feel pressurized about. I won’t be mad if you don’t want to and we just won’t sign the papers. It won’t change the fact that I love you and you’ll always have a home here if you want to”

Helena froze. She had been staying here for a year. Tim and Kon had taken care of her so much. But what if it was like with her previous adopted parents? They had loved her very much before her dad decided to close his shop. On the other hand Tim and Kon had Cass and Bart and Dick and everyone else also looking after her. She knew she could talk to them and be listened to. At least Bart and Cass would listen to her (Dick tended to be a bit blind about Tim’s shortcomings which was pretty cute most of the time but could be irritating at others). She could feel her eyes start to well up when she heard a voice from behind her.

“Maybe it was too much. We should probably wait before telling her the other news”.

She turned to Kon and asked him in the most polite way she could muster what he meant.

“What? What is it? Kon? You can’t just say that and not tell me! That’s no fair!”

He looked above her head at Tim and he probably received a positive answer because he smiled and explained.

“Tim and I signed a Co-Parenting agreement. Of course it’s only if you accept his adoption and want me to be involved too but…yeah, I’d like to be your official parent too”.

She was crying now.

They wanted her too.

They really did.

It wasn’t just wishful thinking. It wasn’t them just being nice to her because she was sad. It’s not like they had never told her they loved her but it was always so hard to believe, even if they showed it every day.

“As if I’d say no to that !”

And she launched herself at Tim with Kon right behind him who scooped them in a hug.

This was the best birthday ever.

AN:    - Alright so here Donald and Oshi are Anita's parents who returned to an infant state in YJ. As such they’re like a couple years older than Helena.

- Helena is, in fact, Helena Kyle (her favorite color is obviously Red, that's why she imprinted on Tim). Basically her parents were nice at first but life became hard and they ended up moving to try their chance in Cali and it didn't work out so they took it on her. Red Robin now Flamebird found her right after she ran away and took her to the emergencies where she met Conner who was waiting for them (Tim had called on the way) so Tim could disappear and change. So until she learned their secret IDs, she thought the first one she had met was Conner even if only by a few minutes. Also she calls him Kon 'cause she doesn't like Conner as a name. She writes it "Con" to people who don't know about the secret (because that's how she wrote it when she thought it was just a nickname). She just turned 8 - Jon was born a year after Canon ended for the Pre Flashpoint universe so he's a year and a half - two years younger than Helena. - Bart, Conner and Cass have their own room because of how often they come. - Tim and Kon live in California. They moved there a couple of months before finding Helena. Kon needs sun ok. Tim's working fo the police station as a civilian working his way up so he can have his two years of work in law enforcement so he can open his detective agency with KOn. Kon's a double major of Law and Psychology (with a minor in international Law)

[suicidalcatz]

DOG DAYS ARE OVER : CHAP 4

AN: Hello ! In this chapter we go on an investigation! But also we get closer to God Jake. I’m writing the 7th part at the moment, and I think the 8th one will be the end of my dream, but not of this fanfic. Let the fluff begin !

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x reader

Genre: College AU

Previous parts: Prologue ; Chap 1 ; Chap 2 ; Chap 3

Masterlist : here

Chapter four : Need a hand ?

It became obvious to both Mandy and I that I was starting to have a crush on Jake. How could I not ? For a far as we knew him, he was perfect in every way.

At first it was discreet. My new hobby of staring at him during lectures was unnoticed by both of the Kiszkas, or if Josh noticed something, he at least thought it was me waiting for his next paper ball notes and getting impatient. Regarding my class daydreamings, they weren't new so classmates and teachers didn't think much of it. Although it became very apparent something was up when I started unintentionally drawing his face several times in the workshop during portraits studies. Even though my photo reference was Kurt Cobain. It could've been easily mistaken for a very bad observation job (and it did), if it weren't for Mandy who saw me coming home after a long day with a painted 50x70cm Jake canvas under my armpit. Judging by my defeated look, she didn't address it, but she knew.

It's a few days later that we had that talk. It was getting so bad that I began mistaking people in hallways for him, smiling or even giggling to myself as I was remembering stuff he did or said, and again, drawing him.

- I can't focus on anything, I sighed defeated. I have this assignment due to next week and I can't draw any character right. I even dreamed of us doing grocery shopping.

I let my head bump loudly against the dining table as she made me a cup of tea/coffee and placed it in front of me. She knew perfectly how I felt because we all went through the same, that's why she softly pulled the chair opposite mine to sit and have a chat.

- You should talk to him more, get to know him, she encouraged. He's nice and now we sometimes hang out so it's not that weird wanting to know him better.

She was right. Sooner or later I'll had to talk to him and even tell him how I feel anyway. Not now though, it was too soon. I kind of got struck by lightning when I first laid my eyes on him and it got worse when we spoke, but it still rarely happened for people to fall instantly like that. There was no way he'd understand if I just confessed my feelings out of the blue. I should wait and see if there's any chance that my feelings are shared, because there was no way in hell I'd tell him if I wasn't sure I had a chance to date him. Speaking of which...

- Should I ask him out on a date?

As an answer, Mandy smacked my head accross the table with an empty box of biscuits.

- Are you out of your mind ? I just told you to wait ! I know you're impatient to get into his pants but think about all the times you rushed things and how many times it worked.

Raising my head to rest my chin against the plastic flowery tablecloth, I considered it, looking at her munching on chocolate biscuits, browsing a fashion magazine for inspiration. Defeated once again, I let out a sigh and shifted so my cheek was against the table.

- First of all, I don't want to get into his pants- Not yet. Second of all, you're right. I don't want to screw up this time because it'll be so awkward afterwards.

She closed her eyes and quickly nodded because she knew she was of good advice, as usual.

- You forgot something essential boo. You don't know if mister doe-eyed guitarist is single.

Fuck, that's right. Neither of them mentionned it but it's not something you just blurt out. We exchanged a look, and she grinned at me in a knowing way.

- Let's investigate.

The first thing to do was to go on his Facebook. It did seem a bit wrong searching him like that instead of asking straightforwardly, and as if karma thought the same, we found that his infos were set on private. We didn't even bother searching for instagram or twitter as nobody puts their real full names on these, so the second thing to do was to go on the field.

Despite all the departments, the school was small so buildings were close to each other and all communicated (except for the fashion workshop). I kind of knew where everything was, since you could tell just by looking at the people hanging around. And as cliché as it sounded, it was true. Illustration students were always carrying ridiculous amounts of art supplies. Entire bags of paint, books and pencil case in their backpacks, giant portfolio under an arm, A3 sketchbooks in the other, and somehow they still found a way to carry their coffee cups. Architecture, Carpenters and Furniture Design students were often seen with big mock ups and models in their arms, tools or wood. Photo and Fashion peeps were carrying the less stuff since they worked mainly on computers in the Photography dep and let all their mannequins and fabric either at home or in the Fashion workshop. It was as easy to spot dudes from the Music dep, with their guitar on their back, hanging around the Architecture building, smoking, chatting, and drinking soda or coffee.

Their building was near the park, so they were mostly seen in that area. And thank God because I would've look so stupid passing by purely « by chance » in an area where no one ever went except for the people who actually studied there. The park was great. A lot of us used to play ball, sit on the grass to drink, chat or have lunch. It was big enough that the Architecture jocks built some cabins in a corner of it to host parties. I still don't understand how the school allowed that, but anyway, the plan was simple, make a little detour to see if I could spot Jake.

It was so cold outside that students were just hurriedly passing by, quickly making their way inside where it was somewhat warm. As a result, there wasn't many people in the park at this hour of the day and I wondered if Jake was in the dorms or in class before catching a glimpse of his hair in the corner of my eye. Okay time to be discreet. I put my bag down near the trash to fake looking for something while watching him. Fuck he looked good with a scarf and head covered with a beanie. Aside from his looks, he seemed rather bummed. Passers by kept shaking him off as he tried to hand them yellow papers. Probably flyers.

- Jake, I'm taking 5 !

Some guy just beside me doing the same task called him loud and clear, and I think I just saw my life flash before my eyes when Jake turned around to reply and locked eyes with me. I instantly felt very dumb, crouched next to the trash with my hands on my bag. The mental image I had of myself at that very moment was that of a raccoon. Running away was out of the question since he was approaching my way already, one hand holding the flyers and the other in his jacket pocket.

- Hey.

- Hi, I replied without moving an inch.

- Need a hand ?

Shaking out of it, I got on my feet by myself and lied about just passing by. Karma really was a bitch, wasn't it ? Henceforth no more weird MI6 strategies for me. Avoiding staring at the blushed tip of his nose, I gazed at my hands and saw his in the process.

- Are you giving out flyers ?

- Oh yeah, for the Christmas school festival, but no one is either interested or invested in it unfortunately. It's a shame, I think it's gonna be great. I don't know what's holding them, he added while scratching his beanie, it's free and there's gonna be music and food and booze, what more could we need ?

To be fair I understood both parties. Jake was right but some students probably had exams or homework, and it was freezing and they were doing it outside. Well if we were honest it never stopped anybody from partying so maybe the event wasn't the issue.

- I saw people displaying posters, I remembered, can I see the flyers ?

Without missing a beat he handed them all to me and dear lord I almost got blind just by looking at them. That yellow and black and these awful drawings weren't doing anything good for the event. He must've saw it on my grimacing face because he sighed.

- That bad ?

- Honestly ? It looks like a Bee Movie add.

It actually made him let out a chuckle before puting a hand to his heart.

- That hurts.

That flawless smile made my cheeks burn, thank god they were already red because of the cold. His thumb brushed mine when I handed the flyers back to him, and at this moment I knew I was gonna act without thinking again, because my brain went on vacation the second his skin got in contact with mine.

- I can make you new ones, if you want.

His eyes searched for any traces of a joke on my face before realization hit him and his brows frowned lightly.

- Are you sure ? 'm not an expert but this looks like a lot of work.

As backup to his words, he shook the big bundle of paper between his fingers. Jake genuinely looked worried about me, and all the work it'd put me through. Deep down I knew there was a little voice in my head screaming that helping him only meant more sleepless nights but all the other parts of my brains ignored it when two gentle brown eyes stared at me with concern.

- It'll be fine, I assured with a smile. I'm working fast. I just have to do one design and the rest will be printed, right ? No big deal.

Hand on his hip, Jake let out what sounded like a relieved breath and cracked a smile.

- Thanks, I really appreciate it. Do you have a pen ?

Of course I did, I even got one on my coat pocket for some reason. Things I just forget to remove. He gave me the flyers for me to hold while he uncapped the black marker and took my free arm.

- I'm giving you my number, so you can text me if you're having troubles for the design, and show me some pics if you need advice.

With cold fingers, he gently grabbed my wrist and pushed back the fabric to expose my already shivering skin, and started writing numbers on my veins. It tickled, and I got goosebumps, mostly because of the cold wind but also because of his hand around my arm. The soft touch of his calloused fingers felt right on my skin, replacing the freezing feeling of his digits by a sweet wave of heat and I unconsciously held my breath to focus on the new sensation. He let the ink dry a bit before covering my arm again, raising his chin to meet my face.

- I could've write it on one of the flyers but I got a feeling you would've lost it, wouldn't ya ?

A playful smile danced on his face and once again I found myself mesmerized by him, nodding and chewing on my lip in a childlike manner. Jake tapped me on the shoulder to thank me again, saying he'll make it up to me, but I was too absorbed by the burning feeling of his skin on mine.

- I have to go, he said after sliding the marker back inside my breast pocket. My band's playing at the christmas party by the way, I hope you'll come!

[let-it-raines]

Betting on the Bullseye (24/30)

Summary:Emma Swan loses a drunken bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush - if you can call him that - to be her date to her office’s annual fundraising gala for Boston’s Children Shelter. Killian Jones is that celebrity. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost all because of the ridiculousness of the situation. 

What she doesn’t expect is for him to say yes.What she truly doesn’t expect is to actually like the man.

Rating: Mature

A/N: You guys are continuously awesome, and I appreciate you! 

As an FYI, I have this story completely written now, down to the last word, so if anyone was worrying about that, you don’t have to! But mostly I wanted to let you guys know that I’m going to be out of town for a week, so there won’t be any updates next week (but maybe an extra one this week)💕

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr:Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | 

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @artistic-writer @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @galaxyzxstark @lifeinahole27 @andiirivera @ultimiflos @hollyethecurious @thejollyroger-writer @superchocovian @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @notoriouscs

“Happy birthday,” Killian hums against her neck, kissing the sensitive skin and rubbing his chin into her. She claims that it doesn’t tickle her, but it always does. He hopes it’ll work to wake her up since nothing else will today. “Your alarm has been going off for fifteen minutes.”

“Hmm,” she mumbles, twisting to the side and burying her face in his bare shoulder, ignoring the sound of her alarm like she has been while he’s listened to it wondering just how long she’s going to sleep through it. He swears sometimes it’s like she’s dead to the world. Other times she’s woken up by a whisper of a touch. There’s no in between for her. “That doesn’t sound real.”

“It is, darling,” he promises, nudging her stomach with his knee until she flips back onto her pillow, opening one eye while she stares up at him. He knows that he’s got a smirk on his face, that she probably finds him to be obnoxious, but he’s been awake for longer than her. He’s not nearly as annoyed by life as she is. Then again, the only work he has to do today is finish up packing Emma’s things to take to the new place this weekend. He can fall back asleep as soon as she leaves for work and not have to get dressed until they go out for her birthday tonight.

“Can you go to work for me? I would love you for the rest of my life.”

“While that’s a promising offer, I’m just not sure that it’s worth it.”

“Hey,” she protests, opening up her other eye as her lips part, her teeth showing the slightest bit before she presses them together again.

“Just speaking the truth.” He leans over in the bed and quickly slants his lips over hers, waiting for her to open up to him until he can make it a little deeper, leisurely exploring her mouth and waking her up as he gets lost in the kiss and the way that Emma’s nose is buried in his cheek, her hand softly gripping in his hair. God, he loves when she messes with his hair. “You need to get up and get ready.”

“I can stay in bed for thirty more minutes if I don’t shower.”

“Yeah, but you won’t want to shower after work and before we go to dinner, so you should shower now to get it over with.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but when he kisses the tip of her nose, he can see her smile despite the still dimmed lighting in the room. “I don’t like that you’re reasonable.” “You do. I promise. Now go get ready, Swan.”

She mumbles and groans, but eventually she gets out of bed and turns the damn alarm off before she heads into her bathroom to shower. He’s a bit of an arse, so he doesn’t bother getting out of bed even though he should likely fix her breakfast since it’s her birthday and she hasn’t been too happy about turning twenty-nine. Knowing her, though, she won’t want to eat anything but a yogurt with how late she’s running, so he’ll make her food some other day. It’s the least he can do if he’s going to be up anyways.

He’s only been staying with Emma for a week and a half, and they’re still in her old apartment until the furniture they’ve bought gets moved to their place. It’s got a new mattress and bedframe like they both wanted and a couch, but everything else is still shipping or they haven’t found what they wanted yet. It was a pretty quick turnaround on buying the apartment in Seaport, so they weren’t exactly expecting to be able move in so quickly. He was expecting to have at least a few more weeks, but after they closed on the place, he called Robin and Will to help him pack up his clothes and a few personal items from home. It’s a bit of a disconnect walking into a place he’s lived for years and seeing it furnished only to turn a corner and realize that the books on his shelves are missing along with some of the photo frames he had on the side table in his study. He was going to leave them, but he wanted some personal mementos.

His clothes were easy enough to pack, especially since he only packed his winter things for the next few months, but that odd feeling of emptiness washed over him when he noticed that only his shorts and some swim trunks remained. That emptiness went away when he was hanging his things and a few of Emma’s in their closet, one that they get to share, and those awful Christmas sweaters they both own were hanging side by side, green tassel sticking out against all of the black and navy clothes that he owns. He’d never get rid of them, though. They mean too much to the both of them, so they’ll stay hanging in the closet.

God, it’s both weird and wonderful that they’re getting to share everything in a home together.

The wonder is most definitely going to fade once they get into an argument over the dishes or making the bed every day, but he doesn’t care in the slightest.

Maybe he’ll go buy those barstools Emma saw when they went shopping on Sunday. She’d really liked those, but they weren’t sure if the stools were the right size. He checked, and they are. That’d likely be a nice surprise, especially if he gave them to her today.

Barstools for his girlfriend’s birthday present. It’s what every woman wants.

Or a necklace with a pearl pendant hanging at the end of the chain because gifts are difficult and Emma never wants anything. He’d seen her look at the necklace, though, and she’d run her fingers over her collarbone for awhile after she saw it. It’s simple and beautiful, and he thinks Emma will like wearing it most days just so that she has something to fidget with. She’s always doing that with her earrings or bracelet, so a necklace should be nice, right?

A necklace and some barstools. And this hot chocolate basket that he’s been putting together, her swan mug hidden away in it. For someone who claims that it’s her favorite mug, she sure as hell doesn’t notice when it’s missing for weeks on end.

Yeah, those should be fine things to give her before tonight.

He donated some money to her work and to a few of her favorite charities, but he’s not going to tell her about them. He thought about it, but it doesn’t quite seem right. They’re in her honor and will help out a lot of people who need the help, and that’s all that matters to him.

He hears the water shut off in the bathroom, and he takes that as his cue to get finally get out of bed, throwing the covers off of his legs and slowly moving off of the old mattress so he can get some sweatpants out the suitcase he’s living out of, pulling them on and up over his hips so he won’t freeze while moving out to the kitchen. He may not make her breakfast, but he can at least make her some coffee so she won’t be cranky at work.

Coffee would also be really nice for him. Emma’s alarm went off for far too long, and he can feel the slightest pounding against his temple.

“Do you think it would be too obvious if I called in sick to work?” Emma ponders as she walks into the room a few minutes later, a towel still wrapped around her head but her lashes coated in mascara and face powdered so that her freckles have faded. “I mean, they know it’s my birthday, but people get sick on their birthdays. It’s just a day.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, the liquid still a little too hot from his lack of creamer, and shrugs his shoulders while Emma grabs a mug out of the cabinet and starts making her cup.

“You could, but if you don’t go to work, your other option is to stay here with me and pack up your belongings.”

“I mean, packing is very sexy. I could stay and we could forget about packing for you to give me all of your love and attention since it is my birthday after all.”

“For someone who has been dreading this day, which you literally just said is only a day on the calendar, you’re really milking it.”

“I am indeed,” she smiles, holding up the carton of milk she just got out of the fridge. Emma Swan, a woman who doesn’t like to let bad jokes pass by her. “I just don’t want to go to work. I’m working with Kathryn all day and blegh.”

“Did you just say the word blegh instead of making the sound?”

“Yep.”

“Weird.” “Debatable.”

“I’m sorry you have to work with Kathryn, but hopefully she won’t be that bad today. And I feel like you’re going to have a good day today, signing your new contract and all that, you badass of a woman.” He takes a step toward her and leans down to brush a kiss across her temple, knowing the toothpaste on her tongue won’t mix well with the coffee. He loves her and is proud of her for negotiating a raise that she deserves for her time there and for all the good work she’s done this year, but her really is not a fan of toothpaste mixed with coffee. “And when all is said and done today, I promise I’ll give you all of my love and attention.”

“That’s all I ask.”

When Emma leaves for work, he takes a quick shower and gets dressed to go to Gold and Williams to pick up some of the furniture they saw the other day. He’ll pack later. He’d honestly just feel better if he went ahead and got the furniture now, mixing in with the morning crowd on the train as he makes his way to the south end. He’s still got some work to go on navigating Boston, but he’s figuring things out. It’d help if he had a car here, but he doesn’t want to buy another one when he has a perfectly good car back in California. Then again, it’s either leave it there or take a road trip across the country every time he travels.

That would be ridiculous. The miles and time alone.

Maybe he’ll get Emma to take a road trip with him when she has off for Thanksgiving since they’re spending it with his family so that they can spend Christmas with Emma’s. Or maybe he’ll simply become a master of taking the train.

Or he could ship his car across the country. That’s a thing.

It takes a few minutes in the store for him to find the barstools, telling the man who’s helping him, Eric, that he wants four of them before he wanders throughout the rest of the store, looking at the chairs for the living room they’d both liked the other day. It’s odd shopping without Emma, but then again, she did most of their apartment viewing by herself so a chair seems like a much smaller thing. They can always return it if it doesn’t fit, but he likes the blue velvet and gold accented frames that surround them to go with the light gray of their couch. By the time he’s left the store he has put in orders for the barstools, arm chairs, lamps for their bedside tables, and a loveseat to sit at the foot of their bed all to be shipped to their apartment. He knows that Emma liked the loveseat because he distinctly remembers her sitting down on it and tracing her finger over the teal material and talking about how good it would look with the blue and green accents on the pillows on their bed.

He’s never thought this much about interior decorating, but Emma is having such a blast starting with a clean slate that he’s enjoying it. He likes watching everything come together too.

The rest of his morning is spent packing up Emma’s apartment, sectioning off her clothes and tying them up in bags so they’ll be easier to unpack. All of her dishes but a few they’ll need over the next few days go into boxes, wrapped in bubble wrap, and he makes note of the appliances she’s missing. He’ll ship some of his things from home here. He won’t need a fully stocked kitchen some place he’s not living full time, and there’s no need to buy more plates when he and Emma eat out off of paper plates most of the time anyways.

Maybe they need a few more plates for when they have guests. He’s thinking about flying out Liam, Elsa, and Aiden for Christmas and having them stay over so that they can meet everyone. Of course, he’ll have to fly in Anna and Kris as well. He could offer to fly in Anna and Elsa’s parents, but they’re apparently visiting after the holiday.

It’s something to think about, though.

When he tackles her shelves, that’s an animal in and off itself. She’s got everything marked for keep or donate since nothing in her apartment can stay here, and honestly, he’s a little confused by some of the markings. There are several rocks that don’t look like anything, but Emma has them marked to keep so he packs them away. He assumes Leo has given them to her, but he’s honestly got no idea.

The music on his phone stops playing as it rings, and he reaches to the side and slides his finger across the screen, tapping the speaker so he doesn’t have to pick it up.

“Hey, Will.”

“Why the bloody hell do you have me watering these plants if you don’t even live here anymore? Can’t I just let them die?”

“Nice to hear from you too,” he scoffs, wrapping up a picture frame. “And yes, you have to water them until I get them moved to Liam’s or Rob’s. Or yours. I think you’re rather fond of the plants, mate.”

“I don’t like your bloody plants.”

“It’s okay to like the plants. They’d make your apartment look less like a bachelor lives there.”

“A bachelor does live there.”

“Seriously, take the plants with you.”

“If I take the plants with me, then you won’t pay me to water them.”

“Technically I also pay you to dust, but you never do that.”

“I’m not your maid. I’m your friend.”

“Who likes the money I pay you out of the goodness of my heart for helping me with my house.”

“You’re the most generous man in all of Hollywood,” Will chuckles as the distinctive sound of the ceiling fan in Killian’s study spins. It’s got this thing where it clicks if it spins too quickly. He needs to fix that. “What are you doing today? You got plans? Rob, Rol, and I are going to watch the Kings play later. You want to join us from afar?”

“What time?”

“Six our time.”

He clicks his tongue as he wraps another frame that’s filled with a picture of Emma holding both Leo and Brody the day after Brody was born. God, that had been such an awful day for him, but Emma looks so besotted with those boys that it doesn’t even matter. It worked out for them anyways. They worked it out.

“I can’t,” he admits, feeling the smallest tinge of guilt, but this is how things are going to be sometimes. Not all of the time, but still. He’ll have to take the three of them to a match sometime soon. Maybe he’ll buy them passes for Christmas. “It’s Emma’s birthday, so we’re going out. I’ll try another time though, okay?”

“Aye, that’s fine. It’s not like it’s going to be a good one anyways. Tell your lady I said happy birthday.”

“I will. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. Are you not working at the bar tonight?”

“No, I’ve got today off. Oi, man, I’ve got to tell you about this guy who came in last night.”

He and Will keep talking until Killian’s finished packing up the bookshelves, everything sorted into different boxes and bags and stacked up next to the door as Will regales him with stories of the bar and Roland’s attempt at ice skating for the first time last week. Robin’s also apparently been dating one of the moms of one of Roland’s classmates. He leaves for a little bit of time and suddenly everyone is getting their lives together. He absolutely cannot wait to annoy Rob about this the next time they talk. The man would rather die than talk about his dating life, so he kind of wonders how exactly Will knew about Robin’s new woman. He never explained. Eventually Will has to go, and Killian’s left spending the rest of the day doing as much packing as he can, only stopping to eat a late lunch and drink another cup of coffee.

“How is it so cold outside?” Emma asks as she pulls off her jacket and takes her beanie off, shaking her hair out and closing the front door behind her. “Seriously, it’s freezing out there. Have you been outside today? Probably not. You’ve probably been packing this entire time. Sorry I couldn’t call at lunch. I missed it to read over my contract one more time. Your girl has officially got herself a pay raise.”

“Congrats, love,” he laughs, taping up a box and then putting his tape down so that he can walk over to the kitchen where Emma’s puttering around in the cabinets. They’re mostly empty now, but she’s probably trying to find a glass. “Do you feel less stressed?”

“Exponentially.”

“Good.” He presses a kiss to her cheek before reaching above her and getting a glass out of the cabinet to hand to her. “I actually went and got some furniture for us this morning, some of the stuff we looked at on Sunday, and it’s being delivered to the apartment. And then I was packing up some things we hadn’t gotten yet. I was about to go work in your hallway closet.”

“I can do that,” she blurts, her cheeks flushing, and he quirks his brow as the gears start turning in his mind over why she wouldn’t want him messing with the closet.

“You’re hiding something.”

“I am not.”

“You’re a horrible liar, remember?”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

“So what do you have hidden in the closet? I’ve been in there before, so I know that it’s not dead bodies or anything.”

“Gross.”

He shrugs. “I’m just saying. I’m also going to go look.”

He sidesteps out of Emma’s way, the curiosity too much, but he also knows that if Emma really doesn’t want him to look, she’ll tell him to stop. And he will. Whatever she’s hiding isn’t bad or untrustworthy. He simply doesn’t know what it is.

“Killian,” she chuckles, grabbing onto the back of his shirt and tugging him back so that he turns around and backs himself up against the wall to look down at Emma. Her eyes have widened, and her lips are somewhere between a smile and a quiver. He simply can’t tell. “Please don’t look in the closet.”

“I won’t if you really don’t want me to. I just wonder how you didn’t think of me looking in there while you were gone today.”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot about your deep, dark secret?”

“It’s not a deep, dark secret. It’s a surprise for you.”

“For little old me on your birthday?”

“Oh my gosh,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes and leaning forward to pat his chest. “You’re so cocky, but yes, for you. It was – I was – do you just want it now?”

He does, but he can be patient.

“You can save it. Today is about you anyways.”

Emma groans, actually groans, and it’s a bit of a mixture between frustration and pleasure. He’s got no clue what’s going on right now. Absolutely none.

“It’s not a big deal,” she starts, stepping to the side and sliding open the closet door, the old folds of it crunching the slightest bit. “Like, it’s really not a big deal. I was going to put them up at the new apartment and let you, you know, just notice when you noticed.” She bends down and picks up a small box, and when she hands it to him, he can see Liam’s address on the return label. What the hell? “Just open it or whatever.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, looking up at her and noticing the way she’s fidgeting, her feet never staying in place. “Swan, unless there’s something super freaky in here that my brother has sent you, and I’m not sure where the limitations lie, I promise that there’s no need to be nervous.”

It takes a bit of work to open the package. Liam really doubles down on masking tape and he’s working with just his nails, but eventually he gets into it, the cardboard folds moving open and revealing a few envelopes that are full of pictures…of him. They’re of him. There’s one of him as a child with his mum, a blue popsicle melted all over him. There’s another of he and Liam at his graduation, another of them when they’d just moved into the apartment in California, and several others that he’s seen before but not in a long time. These are from the books that Liam keeps, that he’s made sure to save even when they were in the system and could barely have belongings. These are his childhood, the fond memories of his childhood, and despite how much he’s always loved them, for a long time it was difficult for him to look at some of them, especially the ones with his mother.

“Did you,” he starts, putting the pictures back in the box, “did you ask Liam for family photos so you could put them up in the apartment to surprise me?”

“Yeah. I thought – I thought it would be a nice thing for you to have some of your home here. And, like, I figured it was a better thing than a picture of Queen Elizabeth or, like, a palm tree that would just die in this climate. I know it’s not a big thing but I – ”

“Emma,” he laughs, dropping the box to the ground and stepping forward to wrap his arm around her waist, holding onto her tightly as he pushes her up to the wall and quickly slants his lips over hers, feeling the softness of her mouth as she gasps into his own. He knows that he’s surprised her, that she didn’t expect such a fierce moment over what she very obviously thinks is a big deal but won’t admit, but the truth of the matter is that it is a big deal. They’re flush against each other and into the wall, and when his tongue moves against hers, she cants her hips up to his as he matches her rocks, the two of them moving together.

He knows that they’re both sentimental, that they both hold onto things from their childhood, that they hold onto the happy moments, but he also knows that they’re often only sentimental about it late at night when maybe exhaustion has gotten to them. Sometimes it’s when they’re walking on the beach by his house, Emma wrapped up in a sweater that reaches her thighs as she tells him about the first time she made a friend who she got to stay around for more than a few months before she was moved to another house in the state. It’s a sometimes thing, not an always, but it means the absolute world to him that Emma would do this.

She hasn’t moved the mountains, but he would never ask or expect her to.

He’d go to the end of the world for her, and he knows that she’d do the same.

Emma’s hands move over his shoulders, and it’s what snaps him into attention before he moves his lips from hers and trails them along her jaw, burying his face in her neck and breathing her in as his heart pounds against his ribcage.

“So you like them?”

He nods into her neck before he pulls back, looking into the gleam of her eyes before he leans forward and kisses her noise, his breath still catching up to him as he rests his forehead against hers. “I love them. Why were you so nervous?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is a bit high, the smallest bit broken, and he groans a bit knowing that it’s all because of him, that their hips are still pushed together with Emma pinned to the wall. “I wanted to do something big for you to make Boston your home a bit more easily, but I couldn’t think of anything. And I don’t know. I figured you wouldn’t pack up all of the pictures you have at home so that you would still have them when you’re there. It was the least I could do, and I wasn’t going to make a big deal about them, but then you were going into the closet and yeah.”

“I did pack some of them,” he chuckles, leaning back and flashing her a grin so that she’ll stop biting her lip. He’s just now noticing that his hand has traveled up her shirt, and he wonders when he started tracing her spine. “Not all of them but a few, but I don’t – I hadn’t gone into those pictures for years. It’s so hard to see Mum’s face sometimes, but this is good. I appreciate it. Really. I don’t need you to do big gestures. I don’t – Emma I’m happy to be here. I can’t say it enough. I’m happy to be here and to be with you.”

“Yeah,” she nods, moving her hands back up his arms to his shoulders before her hands cup his face, soft pads caressing him as he leans his cheek into her so that he can kiss her wrist, “I’m happy too. We should probably stop making out in my hallway and get ready for dinner.” She pats his face as her lips curl into a smile that makes her eyes crinkle. “You need time to fix up that face.”

“My face looks fine.”

“Obviously you already packed up all of the mirrors in this place.”

It doesn’t take long for the two of them to get ready even though he needs to take a shower, and after he gives Emma her gifts, clasping the ends of her necklace together over the back of her neck, they make their way outside so they can drive to dinner. Emma has work in the morning, so neither of them are really planning on drinking too much or staying out late.

“So this place is really called the Barking Crab?” he asks as they walk from the parking deck to the restaurant, moving through the surprisingly crowded streets even with the chill in the air. Emma had put on a short black dress earlier, had checked the weather, and then quickly changed into black jeans and a sweater so that she wouldn’t freeze. As much as he appreciated the dress, he appreciates Emma not dying of hypothermia more.

“Yep. It’s good and fun, right on the water obviously. You’ll like it because as much as I know that you like the occasional stuffy restaurant, how can you pass up eating greasy food out of baskets?”

“You can’t,” he scoffs, reaching down to wrap his hand over her palm while they walk. “And it’s seafood, so how can it get better?”

“If it were a cheeseburger.”

“I’m sure they have those here, but considering you picked the place, Swan, I don’t think you can complain.”

“We already talked about this. It’s my birthday. I can do whatever I want.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“It definitely is.”

“So if you committed murder, you think you could get away with it by saying it happened on your birthday?”

“You took that from zero to one hundred real quick.”

“I was making a point.”

“One I’m choosing to ignore.” Her steps hurry then, heels clicking against the pavement, and he has to quicken his step to keep up. “I see Mary Margaret at a table.”

“She got one outside? It’s freezing.”

“They have heaters.”

“Still.”

“You’ll be fine,” Emma laughs, squeezing his hand tightly before releasing him and running up to meet her friends, wrapping Mary Margaret in a tight embrace, the two of them rocking from side to side.

She’s already moved onto David by the time that he gets there, so he bends down and presses a kiss against Mary Margaret’s cheek, asking her how she is and about the kids before he’s hugging David and doing the same to him. He’s just about to settle down when Ruby and Dorothy show up, so it’s another mess of hugs and too much conversation all happening at once. He’s only met Dorothy in a professional capacity, but he feels as if he knows her a bit from Emma and Ruby talking about her. She’s great, if not a bit shy, but that’s honestly not an option with Emma and her friends.

Okay, so it’s not an option with Ruby, but he doubts Dorothy would be here if she didn’t fancy Ruby.

Eventually the all sit down around the table Mary Margaret got for them, Emma sliding into the chair next to him and opening up the menu to read through all of the cocktails out loud.

“You’d like the Dark and Stormy, babe,” she tells him, pointing to the rum on the menu, “or maybe the Tea Party since, you know, you’re a Brit in Boston.”

“So damn funny,” he scoffs, tapping his fingers against her thigh from where his hand has been resting.

“I’ve never even thought about that before,” David laughs, closing his menu. “You may also like the Bloody Mary.”

“You’re all regular comedians.”

“Aw, he’s kind of crabby,” Ruby sighs, her lips curling up into a smile. “So obviously the Crabby Margarita will also work for you.”

“I believe a margarita would be better for Mary Margaret.”

“Oh I’m not drinking tonight, but I appreciate the pun,” she sighs sweetly, obviously not going to get in on teasing him about his heritage. “Besides, tonight is about Emma and being one year away from thirty, flirty, and thriving. We should totally be making fun of her.”

“What kind of alcohol puns can you make about Emma, though?” Dorothy asks.

“Not really any,” Ruby admits, shrugging her shoulders before taking a sip of her water. “Though, usually when we’re making fun of Emma, we talk about the great tequila incident of 2012.”

“No.”

“Wait,” he laughs, twisting his head to look at Emma and the absolute look of horror that is covering every inch of her skin, “what is this now? I’ve never heard of it, and I really feel like I should know about something that’s called the great tequila incident of 2012.”

“Babe, you really don’t want to know.”

“I really do,” he promises, excitement running through him as he looks between David, Mary Margaret, and Ruby to see which of them is going to break and tell this story.

“So Emma and I were living in this awful apartment,” Mary Margaret begins, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear only for it to fall back from not being long enough, “and we have absolutely no money. I’m a teacher fresh out of getting my Masters and Emma’s just gotten hired as an assistant PR director after that shitty receptionist job she’d had, so we, literally, never go out to do anything because we don’t have money. Ever.”

“Until your homegirl got hired at the same place as Emma,” Ruby adds, excitedly moving her shoulders up and down while Emma’s leg taps underneath his hand.

“Yeah, so we went out to celebrate Ruby getting a new job because she’d spent so damn long in school, and your girlfriend who is about ready to bolt right now, has a few too many drinks. She’s always been a bit of a lightweight.”

“That’s rich coming from you, honey.”

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes at her husband before looking back at him. “That’s not the point. You’re just mad because you weren’t there that night. Anyways, we’re at a bar and Emma has had too much tequila, so when Ruby suggests that it’s time to go home, Emma just refuses. I mean, absolutely refuses because that awful song Call Me Maybe is on, and she insisted that she had to go around quoting it to every man in the bar before she gave them her number.”

“Please tell me you didn’t, Swan.”

“I did,” she groans, leaning into his shoulder and burying her face in his jacket. “I had to change my number because I kept getting calls asking to talk to the hot blonde that gave away her number and then proceeded to ask every single person if they’d be willing to go on a Segway tour with them by saying ‘we could see Boston, and then I could show you my place.’”

The laughter starts in his stomach, but it makes its way up his entire body, his core and his shoulders shaking as it bubbles up and out of his mouth, nothing containing it as Emma keeps her face buried in his shoulder despite the fact that he must be moving her. It’s not the most embarrassing thing in the world. Not really, but he’s imagining Emma singing the song and propositioning all of those people while Ruby and Mary Margaret were likely curled up in balls laughing at her.

“Why a Segway tour, Swan?” he laughs, squeezing her thigh. “What about that would lead you to taking these guys back to your place?”

“I don’t know. I was drunk. I obviously wasn’t thinking.”

“So now Emma isn’t supposed to drink tequila, and if she does, she either has to sing the entirety of Call Me Maybe or pay for all of us to go on a Segway tour of Boston.”

“Emma, love,” he soothes, moving his hand from her thigh and wrapping it around her shoulder so that he can rub it up and down her arm as she obviously replays the night in her mind, “I’m going to need you to stop drinking too much in front of Ruby and Mary Margaret because it seems to get you into all kinds of predicaments.”

“But that’s how she met you,” Ruby points out, and he smiles at the thought. “I’m still waiting for my boat, by the way. I want it to be called The Love Boat. I’ve said it before, but I obviously need to say it again. I think red will be a good color for it, not tacky at all.”

“You’re not getting a boat,” Emma groans, her cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red. “Also, are we ever going to order? Because it’s my birthday, and I want to eat.”

They do eventually order, and soon the table is full of ridiculous cocktails and water glasses as well as crab, lobster rolls, shrimp, and more seafood than six people will need. But they manage to eat most of it between laughing and sharing more embarrassing stories about Emma. He’s got several up his sleeve, but he’d rather listen to the tales of when all of them were in university together (apparently David came along a bit later, but he knows the stories well enough) and just starting out. Emma is so comfortable with her friends, comfortable with letting them tease her and share things from a time when she likely wasn’t sure of trusting people too much, and he’s not sure if he’s ever been more thankful for three of the people sitting across from him.

They were the ones who Emma opened her heart up to and who didn’t let her down for the first time in her life, and he’s exponentially glad that she has them.

“I’m going to run to the restroom,” Emma mutters after she takes another sip of her water before placing it on the table.

“I’ll join you,” Mary Margaret adds only for Ruby and Dorothy to say the same thing. “And you two cannot make a joke about women traveling in packs to the bathroom when the two of you do stuff like that all of the time.”

“Wasn’t going to, honey,” David sighs, smiling up at his wife. Mary Margaret simply smiles back before she’s walking away, trailing after everyone else as they disappear into the restaurant and out of sight. “So do you feel like you’ve officially been initiated into a Boston man? You’re eating seafood by the harbor when it’s freezing outside. All you need is to be wearing a Sox cap.”

“Well, I did leave my hat and my jersey at home. I knew I was forgetting something when we left the apartment. But yeah,” he shrugs, fingering at the condensation on his glass, “it feels good to be here. It’s definitely not California, but I’m happy. I can’t wait to get into the new place, though. I’m tripping over boxes every two seconds.”

“You never know how much stuff you have until you move, and Emma’s a packrat so that’s got to be awful.”

“It’s not that bad,” he admits, twisting his head and looking out at the water past all of the people who are crowding the streets. “We’ve gone through everything and either donated it, trashed it, or packed it. I don’t think either of us really expected to be able to move so quickly.”

“But when has anything in your relationship ever gone as normal?”

He clicks his tongue, not really sure how to answer that. “Eh, depends on what you’re saying is normal. I think we do what works for us. We haven’t been together for years or anything, but we’ve been together for awhile. And besides two or three days, once we were in, we were all in.”

David’s eyes slant for a moment, the blue turning into slits, and his lips flatten out into a straight line while he looks at Killian. He briefly sees David tilt his head to the side, something almost unnoticeable, but then he’s widening his eyes again as his features relax. He was just being studied, and he’s honestly not sure why.

“You’re going to propose.”

If he were holding his drink instead of thumbing at the water on it while it rests on the table, he’d drop it. He’d drop it and then likely freeze for the chill that’s blowing over the restaurant, the temperatures continuing to fall the longer they stay out here. He can feel the heat as it moves across his face, red flames tickling his skin, and he knows that it’s not from the nip of the air or the warmth of the heater that’s just behind their table.

“Possibly,” he concedes, his eyes glancing over to where Emma had disappeared into the restaurant. As much as he’d like to talk about his thoughts and his plans and the rings that he’s been looking at when he can, he knows that they don’t have a lot of time. “How the hell do you know that?”

“You’re not as suave and mysterious as you think.” He raises a brow, and waits for David to continue. “You love her. You love her in the way that I love Mary Margaret, and while you two are different, it’s still the same.”

“Aye,” he smiles, eyes only straying from David to look to make sure no one is returning to the table, “I do. I love her, and I want to marry her. I know that now isn’t the time, that things are crazy with the move, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Killian, that’s incredible,” he laughs, his own face covered in lines while he reaches down to break off a piece of bread. “Emma is like a younger sister to me, and I love her. I just want her to be happy. And you’ve grown on me too, so I guess I want that for you.”

He winks, knowing that he’s got a smirk curling up on his lips. “I tend to have that effect on people.”

Emma comes back to the table first, her hair now pulled up in a ponytail, and sits back down in her chair, her hand landing on his knee and squeezing while Mary Margaret follows closely behind her.

“Where are Ruby and Dorothy?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Emma mumbles.

“They’re asking the chef if she’d be willing to make Emma a small birthday cake,” Mary Margaret explains as she rolls her eyes a bit at Emma. “Emma’s embarrassed because she doesn’t want the entire restaurant looking at her as they sing.”

“I’m not embarrassed. I would have been fine if Killian and I had just stopped for milkshakes on the way home.”

“Nonsense, Swan, you’ve got to have your birthday cake.”

Ruby and Dorothy come back to the table with the promise that Emma is going to have a birthday cake brought out to her in a few minutes. Sure enough their waitress comes to the table with a serving dish full of cake, Emma’s name written in sauce on the white of the plate, and everyone sings to her while he watches her attempt not to blush. It doesn’t work, but she tries.

And later that night after Emma has fallen asleep claiming too much cake and seafood, he scrolls through his phone at the pictures from tonight. There’s several of he and Emma, even more of shots he had to take for she and her friends, but as he does, he never uploads a photo of her face online, not since the night they met at the charity gala. Who he’s dating isn’t a secret, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to control what he puts out there on the rare occasions that he does post things online so that Robin doesn’t get onto him about not being social media savvy enough.

So it’s that thought that has him posting a photo of Emma as everyone sings to her. Her hands are covering her face, the loose strands of her ponytail doing the rest of the work, but he can still see the slightest bit of her smile under the glow of the candle light and the bulb lights the restaurant had up.

KillianJonesOfficial: Happy birthday, my love.

He wants to say more, but he thinks he’d rather keep those thoughts to he and Emma. She’s the only one who really needs to hear them.

[mearcatsreturns]

Hope for Dummies, chapter 2

There's not a guidebook to hope, but they could sure use one.

Abby’s and Luka’s feelings deepen, even as the reality of being a med student and attending physician starts to sink in. 

Look, I should just accept who I am as a person, and know that it's 50/50 that a one-shot will stay that. @somekindofflowergirl did egg me on, but really, I didn't want to leave this 'verse just yet. I'm planning for 4 chapters now, sigh.

Also, I'm not a medical professional, so please excuse any errors you find in that regard.

Also on ao3. Over 5k words this chapter.

Ch. 2

Luka ends up staying in the hospital a few more days than he’d like. Of course, anything more than overnight qualifies, but his pleas to leave are met with emphatic no’s from all the doctors who see him, especially when they find out he sold his bed and was planning on sleeping on his couch.

Finally, Abby offers to let him sleep at her place until he’s well enough to buy a new bed for his apartment. “Besides, I’m a nurse and can check on him to make sure he’s following doctors’ orders,” she tells his ICU doctor and Kerry.

Both of them judiciously ignore Kerry’s eyerolls. They cannot, however, keep from blushing when he’s okayed to leave, on the condition that they “keep...activities...to a minimum” while he heals.

She still has work, so it’s not like she’s waiting on him as his own personal nurse or anything, though the mental image of that does make his eyes glaze over in a way that has nothing to do with illness.

She drives him back to her apartment and helps him up the stairs, which does manage to quench his ardor. In fact, by the time she assists him into her bed—a place he’s dreamt of being again for the last two years—he’s so tuckered out that he falls asleep immediately.

When he wakes up and wanders out, she’s in the living room watching television, and he startles her with his quiet, “Hey.”

“Shit! You’re awake!”

“Slept a whole lot, but I think I’m hungry now. And besides, you need to go to bed soon too, don’t you?”

“Luka, I was planning on sleeping on the couch. You don’t fit, and you’re healing.”

He sighs. “But you need your rest. You’re working a lot and need to sleep better.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just trying to take more shifts before I start med school again so I’ll be a little better off financially,” she says.

“Abby…”

After a couple moments, Abby throws her hands up in concession. “Fine, but I’m not kicking you out. For the little bit that we’re both here, we can share. Unless...you hate that idea.”

Luka really didn’t have words for how much he opposite-of-hates the idea, even if his vision of sharing a bed was very different. “No, I just—I take up a lot of space, and I still get feverish sometimes.”

“Hopefully the fevers will subside soon. And I know how much space you take up, it’s fine,” she says, cheeks his new favorite shade of red.

He smiles. “I’ll try not to be all over you. And it’s just until I get a new bed.”

Looking very much like she’s about to protest, she eventually just says, “I have next Tuesday off, and I can take you shopping for a bed if you’re feeling up to it.”

“That will be nice.”

“Okay. Oh, and there’s some chicken noodle soup from the deli in the fridge for you.”

“Okay.”

&&&

He is feeling better on Tuesday, so they head out mid-morning to a mattress store. It’s simultaneously torture and bliss sharing Abby’s bed, but he really is doing far too well to do so without it being a flimsy and transparent excuse at this point. She’s just as ornery in the mornings as he remembers, but the soft warmth of her nestled up to him in slumber is so comfortable. And it occasionally also makes for uncomfortable moments while he tries to will away his body’s reactions to her nearness.

So yes, it’s time for him to buy a bed and go back to his apartment, though he doesn’t really want to be away from her again.

As soon as they go into the retailer, a salesperson comes up to them. “Looking for a new bed for you two, Mr. and Mrs…?”

Luka can feel the color heating his cheeks, and Abby undoubtedly matches. “Oh, ah, we’re not married.”

“Well, that’s certainly not a problem for us,” the salesman says with a wink.

He glances over at Abby, breathing a sigh of relief at how obviously torn she is between mortification and amusement. She leans into amusement. “Well, show us your king-size beds. I mean, look at this giant.”

With a knowing smirk at them, the salesman leads them to that section of the store, Luka just shaking his head all the while.

Eventually, Luka settles on one that’s firm enough for his taste, but Abby still sighs happily when she sinks down into it. A few blocks away, he manages to find a bedroom set he likes and some bedding. While she doesn’t weigh in much, he does try to pick things that she doesn’t grimace at (she did not care for the black leather headboard he’d been eyeing briefly, alas).

By then he’s tired, and they go back to her place for one last evening together like this. His new furniture is to be delivered the next day while she’s at work, though she promises to come over when she’s off to make sure he gets settled in and isn’t overdoing it.

Back at her place, they change into their pajamas and settle onto the couch to watch TV before going to sleep. Luka aches at the simple domesticity of it, and for a moment, he wishes he didn’t have to leave, or that there were some loophole for them to pursue this right now.

Instead, as they climb into the bed that night, he just says, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me stay here, and for looking out for me so that I didn’t have to stay at the hospital.”

She reaches out and squeezes his bicep as she gets comfortable beside him. “It’s no trouble, Luka. Consider it my way of trying to pay you back for letting me stay with you for two months.”

“Mmm, you don’t owe me a debt or anything. Besides, you didn’t sleep in my bed back then,” he says, taking her hand in his.

“I think...that would have gone very differently.”

He laughs. “Yeah, probably.” There are a million things he wants to say, but now isn’t the time so instead, he just sighs, adding, “Good night, Abby.”

“‘Night, Luka.”

&&&

Due to a scheduling snafu, it’s a couple days after he’s moved back into his place before Abby can come over to see how he’s getting settled in again.

She arrives at nearly ten, and after he shows her how his new furniture is set up, they go for a walk. It’s a nice late summer night, they’re young-ish, and it shouldn’t be wasted.

They end up walking near the lake along the same path they took on their first date, and Luka laughs, pointing this out to Abby as they sit at one of the benches.

Her mouth quirks upward. “Well, I kept an eye on the shadows. No muggers tonight.”

Snorting, he changes the subject. “You start med school again tomorrow. Excited?”

“Yeah, it should be good. I’m doing a surgical rotation, so I won’t be in the ER as much, unfortunately. When do you start back at work?”

“Next week. I wanted to go in sooner, but Kerry wants me to take it slow at first. Why surgery?”

“Oh, I promise I’m not defecting to become a surgeon. I just think it’s really useful if you’re an ER doctor,” she says.

He nods. “It is. Though I’m glad you’re not wanting to be a surgeon. You’re not arrogant enough.”

“Do you think I could get there with some practice, though?”

“No, it seems like a skill they’re born with.”

She giggles, and he beams, glowing at having amused her. “Oh, the new nurse who’s taking over for me started today.”

“Yeah?”

“She seems okay. She’s a single mom, so...all the respect, but she’s kind of intense.”

“And she’s the nurse manager?”

“Nah, I think they’re making Connie do that for now, but they just needed someone else since I am abandoning nursing.”

“I’m sure she’ll get used to it, but no one can compare to you,” Luka says loyally.

Abby huffs. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but honestly, I hated being nurse manager. I’d rather just be with the patients.”

“I understand. I know I could maybe have bigger prospects if I wanted to do something in administration like Kerry, but…”

“Yeah.”

The bask in the relative calm of the evening, staring out at the water. Finally, Luka breaks the comfortable silence. “So, nervous?”

“Yes and no. It’ll be weird to start med school again after three years. I won’t know any of the other students anymore, and in some ways, the approach to medicine between nursing and doctoring is completely different. But, you know, I’ve done it before, and the faces will be familiar.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says with a grin.

“Oh, shut up. Some of those faces are very nice,” she says, lightly punching his arm.

“Hmm, I wonder who you can be thinking of.”

“Susan, obviously.”

“I never knew you felt that way about her.”

“I would have said something sooner, but you know how it is. She and Chuck are actually still seeing each other, by the way.”

“Her ex-husband, the flight nurse?” Luka asks, glad the streetlights aren’t bright enough to show how he’s blushing. Catching Susan and Chuck together always reminds him of when Susan caught him, which now just makes him think of someone catching him and Abby...he shakes his head before he can get too distracted.

“Yep. I don’t know how serious they are, but that’s a thing.” Abby shrugs as if to say she doesn’t get it.

“Hmm. Well, you’ll have to tell me all the gossips at the hospital. You know I don’t know anything unless people tell me.”

She smiles, scooching closer to him to bump his thigh with her knee. “Of course. I’ll tell you all about the new med students and residents so you’ll be prepared.”

“Shit, is Romano still the acting Chief of the ER?”

Abby groans. “Unfortunately.”

“Ugh.”

“On the bright side, he probably won’t be for long. I’m taking bets for who murders him first.”

They exchange a look before saying in unison, “Kerry!” He can’t help laughing, and soon she joins in.

&&&

Abby’s kind of glad Luka isn’t there for her first week back in med school. It goes well enough, but it’s a little bit of a struggle adjusting to all being new (again) and yet not. She’s up in surgery, so working with Elizabeth is a nice change of pace.

Elizabeth is finally starting to dip her toes back into the dating world, which, good for her. Abby’s glad to see her moving on, even if she still seems hesitant. Then again, Abby can’t imagine losing someone like that she loved, had committed her life to. If Luka hadn’t come back from Africa, if his malaria had been worse...and they weren’t even dating. She pushes it out of her mind, unwilling to dwell on the ramifications of that when she has patients to see.

Luka is coming back today. Well, he’s already back, Abby just needs a reason to head on down to the ER to say hello. She hasn’t seen him since their walk the previous week, but they’ve talked on the phone a couple of times. She’s filled him in on the other two med students she sees a lot, Neela and Lester. Neither of them are exactly outgoing or social, but maybe she’ll warm up to them.

“Abby, I have to do this emergency appendectomy, but the ER is calling for a surgical consult. Do you think you could head down?” Elizabeth asks apologetically.

Jumping at the opportunity, Abby tries to respond as casually as she can, “Sure. Absolutely. Who needs the consult?”

“Dr. Kovač, I believe. There’s a trauma with a penetrating knife wound.”

“Okay, I’ll head down.”

“And Abby? Say hello to Luka for me,” Elizabeth says, visibly holding in a laugh at Abby’s excitement.

Abby’s face burns, but she hurries to the elevator nonetheless.

She heads over to Trauma 2 as quickly as she can, smiling at the sight of Luka showing Pratt and Lester one of his techniques for maintaining a patient’s status when the severity of the injury is still unknown while Sam keeps an eye on the patient’s vitals. “Hey, I heard someone needed a surgical consult?”

Luka’s face lights up at the sight of her. “Yes, that’s us. Nice to see you down here.”

“Thanks. What have we got?”

“Penetrating wound to the lower abdomen, but we need to know if the metal missed the organs or if he’ll need surgery.”

“Is this an assault case? I heard it was a knife.”

“Accidental and not a knife, actually, but his work foreman removed the metal when he panicked?”

“Okay, well let me take a look,” she says, pulling on a pair of gloves, still smiling at Luka.

“And Abby?”

“Yeah?”

“The white coat looks good on you.”

&&&

They all start to get back into the swing of things. Whenever Abby’s and Luka’s shifts intersect or overlap, they get in the habit of going for coffee together at the Jumbo Mart or at the Roach Coach before shifts start or during breaks. Abby wonders if Luka gets nearly as many knowing looks as she does, or if he simply doesn’t notice. Maybe he’s just better at ignoring them.

“When are you coming back down from surgery? We miss you,” he says, putting on his best puppy dog look. They’re sitting at the dinky little table in the lounge with their styrofoam cups of steaming coffee.

That face should be illegal, she thinks. “I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.”

“Well, I’m plenty fond already. When are you done with your rotation?”

“Um...a couple weeks, at the beginning of October. I still have a couple more six-week non-ER rotations to go, though, and I’m not sure if I want to leave them to the end.”

“You should leave them for the end.”

“I should?” She’s uncertain. While he wouldn’t lead her astray as a doctor, she needs to make sure his reasons are...professional.

“Yes. Next year, you’ll be in the ER all the time. For the rest of your life you might be. So save them for the new year, and enjoy the little break before the ER takes you back.��� Luka’s unflagging confidence in her as a doctor, as always, warms her.

She smiles at him. “That makes sense. I’m thinking...NICU and Psych? My experience in OB could help, and god knows I’ve been around Psych enough.”

“Those sound good,” he says with a smile, before he looks away. “Uh, listen, Abby...speaking of absence and fondness…”

Her heart sinks and she just looks at him.

He clears his throat and continues, “Carter and I have, ah, been keeping in touch.”

“Oh, okay?” Is he leaving (her) again?

Luka runs a hand through his hair, and she represses the urge to reach over and straighten it. “He’s started seeing someone. And...he thinks it might be serious.”

“Wow, already?” She’s not hurt, not really. It’s just fast, and she resents that she can’t exactly pursue what she wants with Luka right now. But there’s also relief in knowing that this is the news, not that Luka wants to go back.

“Yeah, apparently they met in Kinshasa after he took me there. I don’t know her, other than what Carter has told me.”

He still sounds nervous, so she reaches over and places her hand over his. “Luka, it’s fine. I’m just glad he got you back safely.”

“You’re not upset?”

“I mean, I’m not thrilled, but Carter and I are done.”

Leaning back in his char, he considers her, though he places his other hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “I just...I know you lo—cared about him a lot, and you put a lot into your relationship. I didn’t want you to be hurt if you found out from someone else.”

“I did care a lot, and I loved him—as a friend. But we were pretty doomed from the start. He wanted to change me, and I was, I don’t know...looking for stability? It felt like we should work because we were such good friends, so it was hard to admit that we both fell short of each other’s expectations.” Her throat is a little dry at offering up so much, but Luka needs to know.

“He did care about you too, though.”

“I know. But he also had this vision of me that wasn’t—isn't—who I am, and he tried to get us to fit this idea he had of us.” She blows out a breath and takes a gulp of coffee before continuing, staring down at her cup. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decides, continuing, “I kind of mentioned it before—before you went to the Congo, but one of the things I regretted from when you and I were dating is that I let Carter come between us. If I had kept you closer, the same thing would have happened between Carter and me, and I didn’t want that. Not because...not because he mattered more, but I just—I don’t want to be the girl who doesn’t learn from her mistakes. I did so much to make that relationship with him work, Luka, but I don’t think it should be that hard.”

He pulls his hands away from hers and wraps them around his cup, not meeting her eyes. “We tried before and didn’t make it work.”

“I know. But I also don’t think it’s that simple. We didn’t try as hard as we could have, and we just didn’t talk about stuff, and there was so much going on. I cared so much it scared me, but I...I didn’t really know how you felt.”

Luka sets down his cup and reaches for her with both hands, turning her to face him. “I don’t want you to doubt that I care. Ever.”

“Then tell me. Talk to me.”

“I’ll try. But sometimes I’m better at showing,” he says, leaning toward her. His lips are an inch away when the door bursts open, and Susan comes rushing in. They jump apart.

“Hey guys, sorry, but we have multiple GSWs coming in. Luka, I need you out there. And Abby, stick around in case we need a surgical consult.”

Giving each other one last longing look, they follow after Susan.

&&&

Luka wants to bring up that they nearly kissed again, he really does. Or better yet, actually kiss Abby. It just doesn’t happen that day, or the following. Then they’re not scheduled together for a while or are busy with other things for so long that he just about loses his nerve.

Meanwhile, Alex—the son of that new nurse, Sam—starts coming around more, trying to spend time with him. Luka can’t say no to him, no more than he can to any child. Sam doesn’t seem to like it or him, but he doesn’t much care.

Finally, Abby is done with her surgical rotation and comes back to the ER. He comes in one day to find her at the admit desk, going over something on the computer, and he can’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. “It’s a stranger!”

Her brow furrows in confusion before smoothing out, her lips twitching with amusement. “Generally, it’s ‘hey, stranger,’ but sure.”

“Good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.”

At that moment, Romano comes by, snapping his fingers at him and Abby. “We don’t pay you to stand around and make time with nurses, Mr. Croatia. Or nurses pretending to be doctors, whatever you are this month, Lockhart. Let’s go, people.”

Luka clenches his jaw, but Abby catches his eye and places her hand on his forearm as they head away from the admit desk.

“Well, Dr. Kovač, can I observe the patient that just came in?” she asks with a roll of her eyes.

“Not only that, but you can place the chest tube,” he says, relaxing at how easily she brushes off Romano’s nasty words.

They get the patient taken care of, then head to lockup to get the meds the woman will need. He lets Abby handle it to make sure she can handle prescriptions. She can, of course, so when she’s about to leave, he reaches for her hand, pulling her back into the small space.

She squeaks as she nearly crashes into his chest. Steadying her, he pulls her closer.

“We got interrupted a couple weeks ago.”

Her eyes drop as a blush spreads across her cheeks, though she doesn’t pull away. “I thought you’d forgotten. It’s been a while.”

“I didn’t forget, I just…”

She looks up at him questioningly. Ah, to hell with words. Luka lowers his head and brushes his lips across hers. He pulls back, raising his eyebrows to see if he’s overstepped. When he sees that her eyes are closed and she just leans into him further, he presses his lips to hers in a far more demanding kiss. She returns it with enthusiasm, and he’s running through his extensive knowledge of the hospital’s layout to think of the closest supply closet when he hears a giggle.

They pull apart and freeze at the sight of Haleh laughing as she walks away from the entrance to lockup. Turning toward each other, they stare helplessly.

Finally, Abby clears her throat. “So, that was…”

“Yeah,” he agrees, letting out a breath.

She hesitates, then says, “Um, maybe we should continue this—this discussion!—later?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he says, missing her as soon as she walks away to get back to work.

&&&

It doesn’t happen, at least not in the way they intend. It’s the next day when they’re working together that what’s growing between them sputters to a halt.

He’s supervising her when she tells their patient that the procedure that will help him is a simple one, a quick fix with no lasting repercussions. Abby’s heart sinks when he makes a face and asks to speak to her outside the room.

“Abby...it won’t be as simple as that. It looks like he probably retained some infected tissue from his last procedure. Surgery is going to have to operate, and they may even need to amputate.”

She pales. “I—I didn’t realize...it didn’t seem…”

“That’s why it’s important to take a thorough history and not make any promises before you know the full extent of the injury or illness,” Luka says, eyes searching her face.

“I’m sorry. I just thought...nine times out of ten…”

“I know. You’ll learn, Abby. We’ve all had to.” He’s still looking at her as if there’s more he wants to say, but that this is also horrifyingly embarrassing and he doesn’t know how.

She looks down. “Thanks.”

“Now for the hard part.”

Taking a deep breath, she nods. “I have to go in and tell him I was wrong.”

“Yes.”

So Abby goes in, feeling all the while that she’s lost something. She only hopes it’s not Luka’s respect.

&&&

Luka finds Abby in the lounge when her shift is over. She looks so glum and sad, and he knows that what he has to say probably won’t help, and he aches. He just can’t see a way around it.

“Hey,” he says.

She looks up, and her mouth twists in a half-hearted smile. “Hi.”

“Want to get coffee? You can tell me how the rest of the shift went.”

“Sure,” she says. She’s the farthest thing from an idiot, so she obviously knows their conversation will be more than that.

They walk over to the Jumbo Mart and he buys her a coffee. They head out from there, walking aimlessly. He’ll have to go back in, but they need to talk, and he prays with everything in him that he doesn’t mangle things.

“It...it went okay. I sent Mr. Johnson up to surgery, and they’re going to try to go in and remove all the infected tissue before considering amputation. He was upset, but not really with me. Which was worse, somehow,” Abby says when they’re nearing one of the parks.

“It’s hard,” is all he manages for a while. Finally, he clears his throat, toying with the sleeve on his coffee cup. “I...I want nothing more than to kiss you and tell you it’s going to be okay, but I can’t. Kiss you, that is.”

Her face falls, and she turns her head away from him. “Right.”

“Not because I don’t want it, eh? I-I just can’t be your teacher and this. I’m not objective, and it’s not fair to you or the other med students.”

“I know,” she says, letting out a sigh. “It’s for the best, probably. I really did miss you as my friend, Luka. We’ll still have that, right?”

He sets down his coffee cup and reaches over to place his hand on her shoulder. “You can never lose me as a friend. You just, well...even when we weren’t connecting a lot, I always knew I could count on you, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Her answering smile is bittersweet, and she puts her hand over his. “That’s how I feel too, you know. And there’s no ‘deserving’ in friendship, okay?”

“Okay. Uhh, want a ride home?” He forgets that he has to go back in his desire not to part from her, then decides he’ll make it work if he has to.

“Um, no, but thanks. I need to swing by the store on my way home.”

“Send me a text or page when you get home? It’s late.”

She stands, stepping away from him. She’s still smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Will do.”

Luka watches her until she disappears from sight, then finally turns back to walk to the hospital, his heart heavier than it has been in months.

&&&

They’re doing okay at this friendship thing, Abby thinks with a smile as Luka walks away. It hasn’t been without its awkward moments, but they can still get coffee and talk and joke, and they even went to the movies a few days ago. It works.

It’s Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean they get the day off, especially not with Romano on his bitter rampage against happiness and joy. Still, it’s not enough to dampen her spirits. She’s back from her lunch break that she spent reviewing for her boards with Luka’s help. It’s strangely invigorating, having him quiz her, in a way it isn’t when she and Neela try to help each other out.

She’s interrupted in her musing by Sam coming up beside her. Sam follow’s Abby’s gaze to Luka and raises her eyebrows. “So, what’s his story? He’s been spending a lot of time with Alex, and he’s obviously a good guy, but...I have to ask.”

“He’s a wonderful man,” Abby says firmly.

Sam’s look turns speculative. “Is he single? Alex is pushing that hard, and I’ve heard enough that it seems like he might be a good time. I haven’t gotten laid regularly in forever, and I sure wouldn’t mind if he’s willing.”

Abby tries not choke, even as she fights the urge to yell, “Mine!” Luka is her friend, but that’s all they are right now. She has no claim over him, and yeah, he probably misses female companionship, since he sure hasn’t had any that she’s aware of since getting back from the Congo. “Um, you’d have to ask him.”

She didn’t hear her approach, but Chuny comes up behind them. Abby jumps at her loud snort. “He might not be dating anyone, but he sure isn’t single,” Chuny says, giving Abby a blatant once-over.

“I don’t—that’s not—well…” Abby sputters, but can’t think of how to end the sentence without telling them things that are frankly none of their business. She wouldn’t mind telling Chuny, probably, but she hardly knows Sam.

Sam flushes and winces. “Oh, sorry.”

Chuny just smiles at Sam. “Trust me, it’s not worth it when he’s hung up on this one here,” she says, gesturing at Abby, “and has been for like three years.”

With that rather enigmatic interjection that she’ll have to think about later, Chuny leads Sam away, and Abby is left staring, feeling distinctly out of sorts.

And she’d been doing so well.

&&&

After their shift—their crazy shift involving a helicopter crash, explosions, and saving Susan’s ex-husband/boyfriend—is finally over, Luka heads toward the L platform. His heart skips a beat and he lets out a sigh of relief when he sees Abby there, staring blankly at the tracks. “Abby?”

She starts at the sound of her name and shakes her head, “Luka? Are you okay?”

He grins at her. “Boring shift, eh?”

“Piece of cake,” she agrees with a laugh. “But hey, speaking of cake, or pie, I guess, what are you doing here? I thought I overheard Alex and Sam talking about inviting you to dinner. It’s Thanksgiving.”

He slides down next to her on the bench. “It is. And I’m thankful to be here.”

“And...you said no to Sam and her son?”

“I wanted to spend the evening with people who I care about,” he says, bumping her shoulder lightly.

A smile spreads across her face slowly. “Well, I can’t offer you anything but leftovers and freezer meals.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off hers. “I’m okay with that.”

She blushes, but doesn’t look away from the steady heat of his gaze. “Or, uh, we could go somewhere?”

“That works too,” he says, unable to keep from smiling back at her. “In fact, the hotel—the one I used to live at, you remember—I think it serves a Thanksgiving meal.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” She’s bouncing on her feet, and it’s the cutest thing he’s seen in...well, since this afternoon when he last saw her. “It’ll be faster to walk than take the train.”

“It will be,” he agrees, then offers her his arm.

After a moment’s hesitation, she takes it, and they head back down the stairs. It’s snowing, but it’s the light kind that Luka always enjoys early on in the winter. They’re quiet until Luka says, “Sam told me about a conversation she had with you and Chuny today.”

“Oh yeah?” He smirks at the forced casual tone of her voice.

“Mmhmm. She said Chuny didn’t think I was single, but that you weren’t sure.”

Abby opens her mouth, but looks to be at a loss for what to say. Luka knows the feeling all too well, so he continues, “And I told her that while I might not be dating anyone, I’m only interested in one woman.”

His heart speeds up at her sharp intake of breath. “Oh.”

He puts his gloved hand over her small hand tucked into his elbow. “Yeah. The only reason I’m not pursuing that woman is because I can’t right now. But I probably will in June, unless she doesn’t want me to.”

“She wants you to,” Abby blurts out.

“I don’t mind if you change your mind, okay? But I meant what I said when I got back. I’m fine with waiting for you.”

“Yeah?”

He wants to erase the uncertainty he hears, the uncertainty that he’s partially responsible for. “You’re worth it, Abby.”

They keep walking in silence, then she squeezes his arm. “You are too. Worth the wait.”

He pulls them to a stop. “Really?”

“Yep. We...I’m scared, Luka, but I’ve used fear as an excuse to push you away before, and all it did was hurt us both. I—I want to try. In June, of course.”

“Of course.”

She takes a deep breath. “But what does that mean? Do we just...keep going like we are?”

“I like spending time with you like this, and I’m glad we talked about this. Just if we change our minds we can tell the other person, yeah?”

“Deal,” she says, beaming up at him, and it’s all he can do not to whoop loudly with joy.

He might not be completely successful, if her giggle is anything to go by.

Friends hold hands at dinner, right?

[basshouse]

Donkeys Down Under Part 2

Make sure you start with this blog post, its the first in the series and this is a serial! 

In the first post, I started with How We Got Here.  Next up: 

Where we are. 

We live on Centaurus Road in Hillsborough, Christchurch (not-so-subliminal hint: sending a package will cost you an arm and a leg, but it’ll be worth it to see the smiles on our faces if you include a few packets of Hidden Valley Ranch mix).  

Christchurch is the biggest city on the South Island, with a whopping 375,000 people or so  – pretty big considering the whole country is just under 5 million people, and only about 30% of them live on the South Island at all. You can do your own research on the city’s history and geography if you like. The city is big enough to have good restaurants, bars, craft beer, and various forms of mild entertainment like tennis clubs, live music from time to time, exercise options...more cosmopolitan than we expected but super easy navigate and access to surfing beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, coasts, bike trails. 

Our house is perched on the Port Hills, a short walk from the renowned Rapaki Track and a 10 minute drive to Sumner Beach (our regular surfing spot). The house has great views, an extra room for guests, and a lot of character – including:

A bathroom with handmade cat tiles and a shower with a strong homemade underwater motif.

A crazy garden full of roses, really loud birds, the odd hedgehog, and a zillion fruit trees that we don’t know how to manage.  Seriously, you should have seen me and Jason and Anily trying to shake down a tree full of plums without any useful protective gear – next time we’ll get out the ski goggles and helmets. 

A small plant growing up through the living room floor.  

A bathroom sink that’s even smaller than the one in our house in Seattle – really! 

Checkerboard linoleum floors. 

Sailboat wallpaper in one room and the ugliest damn curtains you’ve ever seen in others. Like, mauve. And flowered. Sometimes at the same time.

A fantastic sunroom that is the home of our new ping pong table and our surfboard rack.  Thankfully we did not have to get rid of the college dude vibe we had so carefully cultivated with our basement kegerator, Pacman machine and discarded drum set in the last house; we just evolved it a little -- the NZ version has a slightly more active characteristic. At this point Jason and I won’t be the ones playing the drinking games, but as I like to say, the best thing about being a grown up is giving yourself the permission to buy the toys that let you be the grown up you want to be.  Actually, I will probably never say that again because it’s a lot of words, but I’m committed to the philosophy behind it. More on toys and activities and drinking later.

The house has a fat deck with views of the Southern Alps

A super steep driveway and very slippery stairs (consider this your warning and legal disclaimer). 

You can’t see all the awesome details of the house in the satellite picture, but you can click and then zoom around if you want to see where we’re situated:

Our house is in a great spot.  It’s an easy bike ride to school and work and a short trip to the best grocery store in town, where you can buy a box of Gorilla Munch cereal for $8 and a small bag of Cheetos for $5 – in the international aisle, of course.  I refuse to document what else is in the American section.  I haven’t broken down and paid for the  Cheetos yet, but Anily really likes to eat Gorilla Munch before school, so, yes, this blog DOES contain a shopping list for things you should put in your extra suitcase when you come to visit (see if you can spot them all).  

We feel really lucky to have this house, and there are a few good lessons wrapped up in how we got this place with its weathered wood and tiny sinks and toilets.  One, surely, is not to lean too far for the toilet paper, especially if you can’t count on your core strength.  For not only are the toilets tiny, the seats on them are weak, and butt cheeks can be slippery.  Let’s just say the quality of the toilet seats has been a topic of more than one conversation among the American crew here, and one of us (not saying who) has a story that ends with a minor injury and a full bathroom clean up before coffee.

Anyway, for the real estate buffs out there, here’s how we won the rental house lottery: we landed in CHCH with ZERO idea of where to live and not much of a plan. We’d never been to this city, and luckily we had the sense not to commit to anything in advance.  That’s lesson #2 : it’s just too hard to know the vibe of a place without having feet on the ground, and internet research isn’t reliable for choosing a long-term place to live, so don’t commit if you don’t have to.  Good thing too, since most of what we read online in advance would have had us living on the west side of town, which is pretty much a mall, but of the NZ variety, which – shout out to my SA peeps – is reminiscent of the Central Park Mall in 1987, only without a Spencer’s and sub in a Kmart as the flagship instead of the Jacque Pen-nay’s. 

So we got to town, I went to work, and Jason started with schools.  Like many other places, school attendance is based on where you live, though there are schools that have open enrollment.  We got here at the end of the Seattle school year and basically decided to throw the kids right back in school until the summer break, which is December here.   Nice, right? A whole year of school to go with your whole year of winter, love you!  But honestly, it was the best thing for them to start socializing and acclimating without any academic pressure since they were already bored and missing friends after 20+ hours of plane travel and a couple days of down time.  A public school that we’d read about – Cashmere High – had an open day for potential students literally the day after we landed.  Jason took the kids to it, they liked the school, James sank a couple shots in the gym, we saw that surfing and skiing are on offer as school sports, and we immediately focused our energy on finding a place to live in the Cashmere school zone.

Which brings me to another lesson, the most important one, and something I need remind myself of constantly: don’t make it harder than it has to be.  Take the path that presents itself, make one important choice at a time, follow the clear option, and change direction if you need to once things gets going.  We followed this rule, sometimes unconsciously, throughout the process of getting to NZ and settling in; we took one step at a time, from job interviews to visa applications, to decisions about furniture and packing and pets.  We had no choice, really, it was the only way to handle such a monumental mud slide of hard decisions and logistics, and in the end all the right things happened.  As is the case with the house: once we knew the kids liked the school well enough, we decided to focus energy not on asking more questions or exploring other options, rather we focused on a house search, and in fact this house was the first one we looked at.  Another pro tip?  Show up with 6 months’ worth of rent in cash if you can, and try not to   come off like a criminal, just a decent family who is happy to pull the odd weed out of the navy blue 80s style living room carpet and furnish your own tiny, shockingly expensive fridge.  Because  listen up Americans: here in NZ, the appliances are small and ludicrously expensive, you can negotiate prices in the store, and it’s BYOA to the rental party. I’m not complaining, because that would be some seriously lame 1stworld problem whininess, it’s just something different. 

It took us about a month of AirBnBs to find and move into the house, which was a very cool way to experience other neighborhoods, including a couple beachside communities which would have been our first choice for living but made school and sports and commuting much more complicated (not worth it). 

This isn’t really a story, but it’s  possibly one of the best memories I’ll have in life: the four of us camped out in our living room for almost 6 weeks with literally nothing but an inflatable mattress that deflated progressively and then aggressively at the end, a ping pong table, 4 plastic place settings, a huge (expensive!) television, a few surfboards, and the contents of our duffle bags.  Binge watching “That Seventies Show,” huddling together near the wood burning fire place, waiting for your shipping container to arrive? That’s what brings a family together. 

The day the container arrived was like Christmas, but the one where your kids find out Santa isn’t real: a great day, followed by lots and lots of boxes and paper, the satisfaction of making your kids learn how to construct Ikea furniture, and sadness because once everything is put in order the kids scatter to their own rooms and beds and desks and laptops and you’re not all negotiating  screen time and eating off your ping pong table.  You’ve exited one phase and entered another, and if you’re smart you’ll stay present to them both.  

Just to close this out, here’s a great picture of Jason at one of the AirBnbs we stayed in: 

This is a view from a different one, in Lyttleton: 

Cuties!  XO.

[ctrl-shift-esc]

“The greatest gift you could ever give me is , consistency.” - Veronica 

Spoil Her with Consistent Quality Time 

Good morning from my living room, 

which is now, not as empty as it used to be. This place is filling up quicker than I thought!

It feels good to be getting the furniture we need, and decorating it to feel like home. I’m all about nesting…

I’m currently recuperating from 3 weeks of full time work on set. As a reward I’ve allowed myself to take the following 4 days off. Can’t say it’s been easy to refuse work, and commit to my time off. Who knew! (anyway, that’s a future post to come). For now, I am finally going to write about the little getaway to Victoria BC, Eric and I decided to take a few weeks back!

[ ferry ride to Victoria Bc. ]

With Eric’s job, we don’t get to see each other everyday, we don’t even get the weekends together. We go a straight 20, or now , 14 days without seeing each other, consistently… Not to mention that when he does come home, he’s more often than not, tired from working 14 to 20 days straight 12 hours a day, understandably.

On my end, I take as many days of work as I can while he’s gone. So that when he’s home I press on the breaks a little bit to be able to soak up as much time as I can with him. A luxury I get from making my own schedule. That being said, sometimes life happens. Things come up; weddings, friends or family visiting, or plain old responsibilities. Yes, being with each other should technically be enough. But sometimes it’s not. We all like to think that living our day to day lives together is enough to upkeep a romantic connection. But I’m afraid to say, that it might not be. Eventually the relationship can feel strenuous. Sure enough, it did. 

Life happened and we were (or I was ) feeling more and more tired. Feeling exhausted, and becoming short with one another. We were spending his time off dealing with responsibilities and attending to other people (which isn’t, by any means, lack of fun!) but we, in consequence, put quality time for ourselves on the back burner. It can be easier to forgive, for a relationship with a regular schedule. However, only having one week a month together, doesn’t allow for that kind of leeway. Rest assured though, it’s nothing a little Quality Time can’t fix! 

So we did just that, recently, many of my friends had been talking about Victoria, and Eric and I had been saying , we should go “One day”. Well “One Day” doesn’t make shit happen. I’ve learned that you need to set a definitive “By When” for things to start moving. Even if it’s in a year from now, at least the plan is made, you’re now working towards something. A week prior, we decided we we’re going to Victoria BC. for 1 night. Quality time doesn’t have to be the four seasons, Fairmont or Sandals resort to make you feel like you’re living a fairytale. It can be simple, quaint, and on the DL. 

Sure the pressure is on, to have an over the top romantic getaway, like you see in Rom Coms. Especially when you’re parched, and dehydrated from the lack of romance the past few months. Take it from someone like me; who has slight control issues & often needs / wants everything to be perfect. It’s easy for me to get ahead of myself. I’m not going to lie, I was originally looking at hotels like the Fairmont, and the Hilton. But then I opted for a quaint hotel right on Douglas st.; The Strathcona. 

[ picture credit: strathconahotel.com - Google, images ]

We got lucky, the Strathcona is actually surrounded by a few party places. Which we only found out about, when we got there. Since we had decided to go on a Sunday, we missed the noise and drunk people by one day. Phew! I’m not mad about it. It was indeed a quaint and cute place to spend the night. It reminded me of the Audrey Hepburn days (as if I know what those were like…). Fine, it reminded me of Old Movies. Made me want to dress shabby chic and walk the streets! 

We hurried upstairs to drop our bags, then, hurried right back down to go for a nice car ride along the water. I think, this was the highlight of the trip. To drive around, on a fall day with my love, by the ocean. Looking at beautiful houses that make you daydream about your best (future) life. Pit stopping to get coffees and hot chocolates along the way. It really allowed us to reconnect. To forget about the “Have To’s” and the “Must’s”. And to simply be present in the “Now”. 

That night was date night. I’d been recommended a lovely restaurant by a customer at work - Il Terrazzo. A hidden Italian restaurant & this lady swore by it! So obviously, we had to visit! It was everything I was craving. If you know me, you know; I’m all about those “hole in the wall”, quaint, cozy, rustic, ambient, places. And this was just that. It’s not a secret place, it’s actually quite known, but it’s also, quite literally, a hole in the wall. 

[ picture credit: waymarking.com - Google, images ]

You turn into an alley and the front entrance is off into a corner. The food was majestic, and the service was great. The ambiance, was perfect. I can’t wait to go back. Brick walls, large windows, wooden chairs and accent wooden  beams, were the main decor. They had multiple art displays, candle lit lighting. It was definitely romantic to say the least. 

In just a short 8 hours away with Eric, I already felt refreshed. I felt like I could breathe again. This, is what Quality Time does. It is so very important in a relationship. 

The next day was about spending our time exploring. Walking around, trying new restaurants. I had heard of Fan Tan Alley, by one of my friends who used to be a local. Although Fan Tan alley isn’t just visited by Victoria residents, it’s known to be quite the tourist attraction. And now, ‘twas on my radar to track down. 

[ Fan Tan Alley, Victoria BC ]

It’s an alley way, between two very close buildings. Which somehow holds space for several little artisan shops. I Am So In My Element! Not only have we found that Victoria is by nature the cutest - coziest little town, I was with my best friend, my boyfriend, exploring everything new. I’m happy. 

You might recognize the famous entrance way to Fan Tan Alley below -  Instagram seems to have taken the utmost liking to it…

We spent our day laughing, eating and shopping. 

And … Bickering. Yes. that’s a reality. When you’ve reached a point in your relationship where you’re both thirsty for quality time, there’s possibly a resentment build up. As I like to say, you’re no longer calibrated. Also, in our case, we only have so many days where we can talk things through properly. It unfortunately happens to be when we’re physically together… 

If there’s one thing I need to remind myself, it’s that; it takes the bickering, the fighting, the talking at each other, the eye rolling, and the time-outs, to get to an understanding. Unless you’ve mastered your communication, then you’ll inevitably have misunderstandings and long talks about your feelings. Especially if you’re trying to change or better anything in your relationship. 

Even though there were the small cringing moments, the memory I have of that weekend, is the way I felt spending undivided time with Eric. It was worth every minute. The good and the Not so good. 

[ me being creepy, in Fan Tan Alley ]

between all the laughing and bickering we tried this lovely seafood place called Finn’s. 

Another, cozy/ rustic place, by the water. 

I opted for the lobster lunch, which was surprisingly not as expensive as I thought it deserved. Its prices were equivalent to Bridges on Granville Island, in Vancouver, yet served bigger portions . The food was once again v tasty. See for yourself. 

[ now I’m hungry again… great ]

I recommend to any couple to go spend a day getaway in Victoria BC, or anywhere for that matter – any day!

It was nothing short of a breath of fresh air! Quality time, seems to replenish a withered connection with ease. Spending so much time apart can make you forget the little things that brought you together in the first place. It takes those times to rekindle and be reminded who you are as a couple. And I promise you it’ll feel good. Why do you think we always hear stories about how people fell in love on vacation? Because there’s something about being away, & forgetting about your To Do list, that is magical. 

The best present you could offer anyone in a relationship - I believe, (among other things ( like communication, loyalty, respect))- is consistent quality time. The effort, and the willingness to keep at it. 

So there it is.

A little quality time goes a long way - spoil her with consistency.

Until next time - enjoy the next few pics of our trip! 

[ The ferry ride was a windy ride ]

[ I look at you when you don’t know I am. ]

[ One of Eric’s favorite things to do, is to take Very awkward pictures of me… ]

[ Victoria BC. ]

On that note

Ctrl+Shift+ couples who travel together stay together - where are you guys going next?

[badwitchgame]

Busy with Blender

Thanks to Grant Abbitt’s tutorials on YT (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFUrFoqvqlN8seaAeEwjlw) tutorials, I’ve picked up a few quick skills. Until he makes the part 4 of the tutorial with the texture painting, I decided to hit WoW and made a few screenshot about objects and houses and tried to make them in Blender.

First attempt: Barrel and cart:

I really liked this one, despite the fact that it’s super low poly, it is quite obvious what it is and even with basic shading, it looks very good.

2nd Attempt: House in Evelynn forest:

and the reference screenshots:

It had some very strange angles The house normally would just straight up but as they made this “cartoonish” in WoW they distorted the house from the sides:

Also it was not super obvious how the walls go. I think they are double sided planes, not actual geometry, at least around the windows for sure. I don’t know how to do that yet. Also as I was studying the structure from all sides, I noticed a few optimizations as well. The geometry was not really obvious, since the texture painting created a lot of “illusion” geometry, it was hard to tell what is shape, and what is texture painting sometimes.

In any case, it was a good exercise and it kept me pumped so I ended u modelling a few more things in Blender:

A signpost:

and a bed scene:

Without texture painting these all look a bit plain, but I think I make good progress in understanding and creating simple models.

I also bought Portia on PS since it was reduced price. I thought it’ll be different but after playing it for a day, I can’t say I’ve seen a more snowflake friendly game in my life. There’s absolutely no conflict in it in a meaningful way. Everyone is nice, the weather is pretty, whatever you are tasked to do is super easy, the whole game feels like a safe place simulator..

Regardless, I bought it because of the art style. It was quite OK, although the lack of texture painting results in a very low quality models some places. I’m positive I could make 60-70% of the models I’ve seen so far. I don’t know about the programming aspect or game systems just talking about models of houses, walls generic objects around the world etc. Some are surprisingly badly made for a fully released product, but it was quite consistent in execution. If nothing else, the game gave some hope that I can make a game one day, since if they could release and sell this quality of assets, it is absolutely doable to make something with similar quality (or better) solo.

The more I dig into game making, the bigger the task seems to be, but so far I’ve not seen anything I couldn’t solve (maybe bunny fur on the “official” blender Udemy tutorial, but that’s useless anyways.). Models can be made with blender. repetition and level design can be learned from WoW, and how they re-use parts of their models and textures to build variety in the scenes without actually making new models. Sound design and music theory can be learned from Udemy tutorials and programs like FL studio or that strange midi generator can make music. Concept art and drawing can be learned, I bought a complete drawing tutorial on Udemy as well. Eventually I will be able to make models, concept art and music. Animation I have a book on that I can read. UE4 I have a complete course as well as an UE RPG course as well. All I need is just the game idea and execution. After seeing some ideas I still have more idea on what I don’t want to do than what I do want to make. I liked the wider game design of Portia, but that conflict-less blank characters are just creeping me out. I liked the huge sunsets and the ancient ruins on the horizon, I like how bright the game is, although it does terribly miss dark areas and creepy, evil places etc. As I played Portia, all I thought was maan, this is TOO cheerful, this is TOO happy. This game is like Stardew Valley on drugs for overly sensitive people. For those who cannot deal with conflicts so they need their game too to be without real confrontation. Portia surely doesn’t follow the typical “Hero’s journey” since there’s nothing heroic in it. nothing to overcome or learn from, nothing to challenge. FFS the first dungeon doesn’t even have enemies and the game is proudly presenting it as a safe place to explore. I expected some reaction from the bus driver when I started axing the rainbow lamas everyone was just watching cheerfully as those nightmare monsters went off with a puff and dropping a nicely folded leather.

I definitely don’t want to do that. I want extraordinary creatures like in FF and PoGo, I’ll probably want companions like pets etc.

About what the game would be.. Probably a journey with many easter eggs and side quests. Something where decisions shape a world state, Regions are similar size as WoW areas with similarly packed with small towns, areas of interest etc. Something that can be explored, and quests would lead to the next areas. Player can choose where to go from similarly hard areas.

I do want some form of building in the game and regarding that I had the idea of a player building their house, either as freeform building like in Conan exiles or upgrade it and have fixed attachments added to it like Skyrim or WoW garrisons. I can restrict the building area in each region and the player can cast a spell to “pick up” their house and move it to the next area or build more and travel between them. Like in NMS. NMS building system is good, just the building pieces are not good enough.. All the buildings look like cubes.

Both building systems (upgrade with fix pieces or free building from parts) have its charms. Pre-made parts probably easier to make. I potentially would like to end up with a “howl’s moving castle like monstrosity where towers and planks are sticking out. The pre-made and upgrade system can also be combined with shelves and furniture so people can customize it. I do enjoy free building better though, free building is one of the cornerstones of Conan exiles, without it I’d probably not played it for this long. The idea that you can just set up shop anywhere on the gigantic map and build a massive base, castle, whatever you want is pure imagination. You see a place or a cliff side and you have an idea what could look good there. Or you just settle on a random place and follow along what the world gives you, build inside a cliff side, or set walls along the vulnerable openings. You can climb a mountain to get a good vista or a cool sunset and start building there. Originally I wanted something like that, but I admit I have no idea how to make it work well. It works for Conan because it barely has a story. remove the bracelet, fill the shopping list and no ending.

The problem with Conan’s ending is that it’s non-existent and I realize now that it was a conscious choice. During my first play-though I thought it makes no sense to remove the bracelet. By the time you can do it you are king of the world, you have a palace, you have an army of thralls, you have many beasts following you, you own an oasis, you conquered all bosses and enemies in the game. And you cannot die. Why would you want to remove the bracelet and become mortal again and walk into the desert? So it makes sense that the developers don’t want you to finish the game. 80% of Conan exiles is building. it’s not about finishing the story. This is a strange relationship between what the game tells you and what it is actively trying to force you to do. By story they want you to remove the bracelet, but every game elements wants you to stay and keep building on new locations. Conan exiles still pulls me back occasionally just purely to build and make a new base. There’s nothing in terms of story in the game for me, I’ve seen every corner of it, yet when new building pieces came out, I feel encouraged to go back and build a new base because  of the free form building.

Things that can make a game infinite:

- Random levels to play on (Diablo’s Rifts)

- Free building where you can build any house you want (Conan exiles)

- Character customization (Maple story 2)

- Free form crafting (Paper life)

The problem with these is the more random a game gets, the harder it is to write a consistent and freely explorable story to it. The more random the game is, the more possibilities are for the player to miss / skip story either by accident or by simply going towards something that is more interesting on the map. You can either write a main story arc or small hubs with mini stories perhaps? Maybe you can have mandatory quests and optional quests as in other games.

What I aimed for at the very beginning was 2 states for each areas. For example you have a woodland forest, and depending on your actions it will be a trade hub because you made it safe or a bandit hub if you selected certain choices. This can result a “World state” that can be used for New Game +. You go through the game, make your choices, and that results a world that has less or more problems. When you finish, you have the choice to restart, but the world is in the state you left it. If you left the woodland that became a trade hub, in NG+ you find a rich area that have a set of problems coming from being rich (eg attacked by bandits). If you left the area in the main play through as a bandit hub, you have quests to liberate it or profit off it etc. Liberating the bandit hub results a trade hub, neglecting or exploiting a trade hub results a bandit hub. If all areas have 2 states, you can play through the game at least 2 times.  

[lastbluetardis]

Perfect Match (19/22)

This was inspired by this post about soulmates, and after @quite-right-too requested someone write it. I am going to try and write a little bit of this every week and track them through childhood and into teenage years and eventual adulthood.

Thank you very much to @chocolatequeennk​​ for listening to me pitch ideas and for offering her opinions and ideas.

Ten x Rose, Soulmates AU

Chapter Rating: Explicit

James grew up hearing the legends of soulmates. How two—or three or four or however many—people could find each other by writing messages to each other on their skin, and he spent much of his time imagining himself with a soulmate, someone who would be his perfect match.

AO3 | TSP | FF

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22

“So, I was thinking,” James murmured, slipping his hand under Rose’s (well, his, he thought happily) t-shirt to trace circles across her belly. He never knew seeing her in his shirt would be so sexy.

Rose hummed and turned her neck so she could look up at him. “S’always a dangerous thing for you.”

James mock-frowned and lightly pinched her. Rose swatted his hand, then rolled onto her back to look at him without straining her neck. She bunched her pillows around her head and gave him her attention.

“We can move into our flat in ten days,” James said.

Rose nodded. They had been in San Francisco for nearly two weeks, making arrangements to sell the furniture and appliances Robert didn’t want to take home to Scotland, which had been almost everything.

They had arrived back in Scotland a few days ago, and now it was time for them to begin planning their own move.

“And I was thinking, maybe we could stay with your mum for a few days before we get our keys?” James suggested, replacing his hand on her stomach. He loved feeling her skin against his, and not even their seven beautiful weeks together had been enough to quench that desire. “If it’s all right with her, of course. I just thought it might make it easier for us to go shopping for furniture for the flat. What do you think?”

Rose caught his hand in hers and gave his fingers a squeeze.

“Sounds good,” she said, shoving aside her anxieties about them needing to go out and buy all the furnishings for their flat. When James was moving out of his Boston apartment, they’d come to the agreement that he would sell his old furniture and they would use the cash to buy whatever they wanted in their new flat. And while Rose had been excited at first that they would get to decorate and furnish a flat together, she was now getting nervous about spending his money. Furniture was expensive! “I’ll call Mum, but I’m sure she won’t mind. She loves you, y’know. And it’ll be nice to spend a bit of time with her.”

James cringed as his cheeks heated up. Rose never complained once, but the reminder that he’d relied on her so heavily to stay sane these last seven weeks filled him with embarrassment.

“We can shop for plane or train tickets today, then,” Rose said, oblivious to his self-consciousness. “Once I get the go-ahead from Mum.”

“Ehm, actually, we may want to have a car with us in Oxford. I was going to take my car, so, ehm, we’ll have to drive ourselves.”

And this was how, with five days to go until they could move into their flat, James and Rose packed up his beat-up blue sedan with all of the clothes and trinkets they had in Scotland and headed down the M6 to London.

oOoOo

“Ooh, how about these?” James asked, walking up to a pair of tall and sturdy chifforobes. He ran his fingers across the sleek, dark wood, pleased that they were virtually identical. No need to worry about matching the bedroom furniture when it came pre-matched!

“Sure,” Rose said, stuffing her hands into her back pockets as she surreptitiously peeked at the price tag.

“Roooose,” James whined. “I want your help with this! You’ve said ‘sure’ to the last five dressers we’ve looked at!”

Rose shrugged and said, “If you like them, get them.”

“I want you to like them too,” James argued, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. Rose didn’t seem to be at all interested in shopping together. “This is our flat. We’re decorating it together.”

Rose shrugged and continued meandering along the aisles of the second-hand furniture store they were in. James sighed, and stared longingly at the chifforobes before he followed Rose, wondering if she had her eye on something else.

The longer they spent in the shop, James realized she didn’t. Nor did she have an opinion on any of the other pieces of furniture James suggested to her.

“Look, Rose, if you don’t like anything here, we can try somewhere else,” James said impatiently when she’d nonchalantly hummed at the dining room table and chairs he’d pointed out.

“Everything you’ve stopped to look at has been lovely,” she said stiffly. “Just pick something. Which ones did you like best?”

“God, Rose, why are you being so stubborn?” he asked, raking his hands through his hair. “I want your opinion! We’re supposed to be doing this together. Why are you acting like you don’t care?”

“Because it’s your money!” she finally snapped. Her cheeks pinkened and she turned away from him to rub her thumbnail through the grain of wood of the table.

“Oh,” he breathed, and she felt him rest a hand on her shoulder. “Rose, love, look at me.”

Rose sighed and her shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, turning around to face him.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” James whispered, picking up her hand before she left a scratch in the wood. “I should’ve realized…”

“I’m trying, I am!” she said, hating how self-conscious she was, and hating that doing something as simple as shopping with her soulmate made her uncomfortable. “But for eighteen years, I’ve been told to always watch my money. And to not let people pay for me. Or that Mum got the final word on what we spent any money on. It’s just…”

“I get it,” James murmured. “But please, love. I want this flat to be ours. Yours and mine. I want you to love it too. I want it to feel like home for you. Besides, if you make me pick our furniture, there’s almost a one-hundred percent certainty that you’ll dislike how it all matches. It would be a waste of money for us to buy furniture you don’t like the look of and probably won’t use.”

Rose sighed; he did have a bit of a point. James, bless him, just didn’t have an eye for decorating. And she knew she needed to let go of her issues with money, but it was so hard…

“I really liked those chifforobes we looked at earlier,” she muttered to the floor, trying to not remember the price tags and what the grand total of this shopping trip would cost James. No, cost them.

“Me too,” James whispered. He moved his hands up to her jaw and stroked the apples of her cheeks softly. “I know that it isn’t easy to let go of life-long habits. And I’m sorry I got short with you. I should’ve realized. I’ll try to be more patient.”

Rose exhaled in relief, and she covered James’s hands with hers.

“I’m trying to be better,” she promised. “I really am trying.”

“I know, love.” He leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “Now come on. Let’s go have a look at those dressers, eh? Then we can work on matching the rest of our flat from there?”

Rose nodded shyly, and took his hand in hers and guided him back to the front of the store to square away pieces of their bedroom furniture.

Over the next several days, they scoured nearly every shop in and around London to furnish their flat. Buying a bed and a couch were the most entertaining for them, as they flopped and bounced all over the furniture to make sure it felt comfortable no matter the position they were in. (“Oh, we’ll be trying many positions, will we?” James had asked with a filthy smirk that made Rose’s belly swoop deliciously.)

On the night before they were due to move into their flat, Rose snuggled up tight to James in the small double bed in her bedroom. Her mother, thankfully, decided they could be trusted to share a bed, after having caught them both sleeping together on the sofa every night throughout their stay during Rose’s orientation weekend.

“I’m really excited for this,” Rose whispered, running her fingertips up and down the bumpy ridges of his ribs.

“Oh, me too,” James answered. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. To share a home with you.”

Rose smiled into his shirt. So had she. When she was younger and her mother was still unaccepting of James, Rose would lay in her bed and try to imagine her future with James, a future where she would be able to escape her mother’s negativity and simply be with her soulmate forever. She was so glad Jackie had come around and she hadn’t had to choose between James and her mum.

“Love you,” she murmured, tugging the duvet up to her neck as her eyes grew heavy with sleep.

“Love you, too.”

They got off to an early start the next day. They were meeting their landlady at the property at 9am to get their keys, and it was a little over an hour’s drive from Jackie’s flat. James filled a travel mug of tea for Rose and himself before he ushered his drowsy soulmate to their car.

James adored how sleepy Rose was in the mornings, as though she couldn’t be coherent until she’d had her first cup of tea. He learned very quickly to not engage her in thoughtful conversation until she had time to fully wake up. So he settled into the driver’s seat and flicked on the radio before taking her hand to make the leisurely drive northwest.

Rose became more animated and talkative as they got nearer to their flat, and she was nearly bursting with excitement when they pulled up to the semi-detached house that was their new home.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Rose breathed when she saw it. She’d only seen it in photographs and online virtual tours, and it looked even cozier in person.

James grinned giddily at her as he parked the car in the narrow driveway off the side of the house. The landlady was already there, and the small old woman hobbled up to them.

It was quick business getting their keys, and James and Rose eagerly jogged up to their new home. James opened the door with a flourish, and let Rose inside first, but just as they were about to have their first look around at their new home, a moving truck pulled up along the street.

“Bet that’s for us!” James crowed. He pecked Rose on the forehead and said, “I’ll direct them inside, and you can have them arrange it however you want. I trust your eye better than mine.”

The truck contained their living room set, and Rose stood in the middle of the room as she mentally mapped out the best way to arrange their furniture to optimize functionality and aesthetic. After a few minutes, their couch, area rug, coffee table, and end table were all in place, and Rose love the way it all looked together against the gleaming hardwood floors.

“Dining set’s coming in!” James hollered from the front door.

Rose had them set the table in the space between the kitchen and the living room, right in front of the sliding glass doors that led to a patio area.

“What do you think, love?” James asked, and he leapt lightly onto one of the dining chairs before vaulting onto the high kitchen bar that acted as a barrier to their dining and living room space. His head bounced into one of the hanging lights, and he winced as he rubbed at his head and reached up to steady the swinging light. “We should get some chairs to put here, don’t you think?” His gaze wandered over her shoulder, and his face brightened as he, too, noticed the door to the patio. He jumped off the bar and rushed over to her to slide open the doors. “Oh, that’s beautiful! We should get patio furniture come spring! We could eat outside! Won’t that be brilliant?”

Rose laughed at his enthusiasm; he was worse than a toddler on a sugar rush, but she wouldn’t have him any other way. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I love our home,” she murmured into his back.

He giggled high in his throat, and spun around in her arms.

“So do I!” he proclaimed, and he leaned down to press his lips to hers in an enthusiastic kiss.

They were soon interrupted by a knock on the door, which revealed Jackie and Mickey, ready to help them unpack.

“I’ll start getting boxes from the car, love,” James said. “Why don’t you unpack the kitchen?”

Robert arrived mid-morning just as more furniture was delivered. Rose walked the delivery guys down the hall to where the first-floor bedroom was. She and James had agreed the spare bedroom would be their home office, and Rose immediately started working on making the room study-friendly. She had the movers set the couch against the wall overlooking the window, while the desk was shoved catty-corner to the window.

“It’s coming together nicely, darling,” Robert said, holding out a takeaway cup of tea and plate with a muffin on it for her.

Rose only now realized how hungry she’d gotten, having skipped breakfast in the excitement of moving.

“Thanks, Dad!”

Robert’s hand faltered, and the mug of outstretch tea nearly toppled to the floor before he got a grip on it. Rose was about to take it from him, and ask if he was all right, when she suddenly realized what she’d said.

She bit her lip and glanced up at him, trying to discern his expression. He looked utterly baffled, but he didn’t look angry. If anything, he looked… happy?

“Erm… I… Well…” She fumbled over her words before she twisted the ends of her hair around her fingers and asked, “Was that all right?”

Robert blinked rapidly for a moment, looking achingly like James when he was trying to analyze a situation, then he set the tea and muffin on the desk and stepped up to Rose with his arms out.

She walked into his hug, and buried her nose into his collar. She didn’t remember her dad at all, but if she could have picked a dad to have, it would’ve been someone like Robert.

“Of course it is,” Robert whispered, brushing a kiss to the top of her hair. “I’m so honored.”

Rose smiled into his shirt, feeling so happy and loved.

“Love you,” Rose murmured. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Love you, too, darling.”

The rest of the day passed in a whirlwind of delivery people and boxes. James ordered a pizza for everyone around early-afternoon, and afterwards, Robert told them he was going on an errand for a few minutes.

An hour later, he managed to surprise them when he came back with a pantry-full of groceries.

“You always need to eat,” he said when Rose tried to protest the sheer amount of food he’d bought for them. “It’s cheaper to cook than dine out all the time.”

Rose and James thanked him profusely, and started stocking the cabinets and fridge.

As the afternoon waned into the evening, and the people delivering their bedroom set still hadn’t arrived, James was getting worried that he and Rose might have to bite the bullet and stay with Jackie one more night. But just as they finished shelving their various books and movies, a ring at the door heralded their arrival.

“Is there anything else we can help you unpack?” Jackie asked after Rose and James came back downstairs when their master bedroom was arranged. She glanced around the flat; there were empty boxes littering the floor and random items that hadn’t found a permanent home yet, but apart from that, they were more or less moved in.

“I think we can take it from here,” Rose said. “Thank you all for your help. James and I will have to invite you all ‘round for dinner soon, when we get more settled.”

When they were finally alone in their home, they walked around and made a running list of things they still needed. Mostly their list consisted of decorations and a few bits of furniture to aid in organization, but there were some immediate items they needed, namely toiletries and cleaning supplies.

“Right,” James said. “Fancy a trip to Tesco?”

Twenty minutes later, James was pushing a trolley along as Rose tossed in various shampoos and conditioners and soaps and lotions. He tripped to a stop in the middle of an aisle, and his cheeks heated up as he tried to subtly ask if they might need this particular item soon.

“So… ehm… I was thinking…” He scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck and he stared resolutely at the shelves of condoms rather than at Rose. “D’you think we might be wanting these? Maybe? Might do to stock up just in case, y’know. No harm in being prepared, eh?”

Rose hugged his arm to her chest as she laughed.

“Nah, we’re fine without ‘em.”

James’s stomach dropped. He’d really hoped he could make love to her sometime in the immediate future. He was more than ready for that final step, and he’d thought she had been too. Unless she’d just been humoring him these last few weeks? Maybe she hadn’t been as comfortable with the progress in their intimacy as he’d thought? Oh, God, what if he’d pressured her into touching him and letting him touch her?

Rose must have seen his escalating panic, because she squeezed his arm and said in a rush, “No, no, no! Not in the way you’re thinking! It’s just… I’m on the pill.”

James’s knees felt weak with relief.

“Oh, thank God,” he breathed, trying to slow his racing heart. “I got really worried for a minute.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, leaning up on her tiptoes to brush her lips to his cheek. “You know I’ve loved everything we’ve been doing together, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he answered, tilting his head to brush his lips across hers. “Me too. Why didn’t you tell me you were taking birth control?”

Rose shrugged and said, “There wasn’t really a good time for me to say so, I guess. What would you have had me do, accepted my birthday roses with an added ‘oh by the way, whenever we’re ready to shag, I’ve got us covered, no worries!’”

“Yeah, that might’ve done,” he teased, and then he reached out for a box of condoms anyway. “If it’s all right with you, I’d still rather have some of these. Just in case. Oral contraceptives can be finicky. If even one dose is missed, we’d be vulnerable to pregnancy.”

Rose smirked up at James. She’d learned about all of this during her trip to her gynecologist, but she knew he sprouted off facts when he was nervous.

They returned home an hour later, laden down with supplies. Rose went to stock their bathroom while James put away the laundry and cleaning supplies.

“What do you want for dinner?” he asked when Rose joined him in the kitchen. He honestly didn’t feel much like cooking, but when he opened up their fridge, he was pleasantly surprised to find the leftover pizza. “Will this do?”

“Absolutely,” Rose said.

They sat at their new dining room table and ate cold pizza, and drank the wine James had opened in celebration.

“We’ll have to get some curtains or something,” James said, nodding to the glass doors that opened to their patio.

Rose hummed in agreement, but for now, she enjoyed her unobstructed view of the setting sun.

Slow and quiet music suddenly filled the silence, and Rose looked over to see James had his phone out.

“Dance with me?” he asked. He stood and held out his hand, and Rose grinned as she was reminded of their first formal date.

She let him pull her to him, and they moved with ease and grace as he rested his hands on her hips and she held on to his shoulders. They moved in slow circles around the room, and Rose rested her head on his chest, letting the steady beat of his heart surround her.

“Welcome home, my Rose,” he whispered into her ear.

“Welcome home, my James,” she replied, and she tilted her head up to catch his lips in a gentle kiss.

She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck to deepen the kiss, sighing in pleasure as familiar heat pooled deep in her stomach. She scratched lightly at his hair, shivering at his appreciative moan.

They explored each other’s mouths as their hands wandered; by now, they knew exactly where to lick, bite, suck, and touch to pull the sweetest of sounds from each other’s lips.

James’s hands dropped to her bum as Rose settled her hip against the firm ridge of him beneath his zipper, and his mouth popped away from her neck.

“Bed?” he asked, slowly grinding into her touch and sighing at the pleasant warmth their movements gave him.

“Yes, please,” she whispered.

They reluctantly broke apart, and Rose grabbed his hand as she led him up the stairs and to their bedroom.

James smiled as they stepped into their room, admiring the way the burgundy duvet looked against the dark woods of the bedframe and chifforobes.

“I want to paint the walls eventually,” Rose said, grimacing at the plain white paint currently on them.

“I suppose the room could do with a splash of color,” James agreed. He stepped up behind her and let his fingertips graze across her breasts as he murmured, “But I think we were in the middle of something else.”

“Quite right,” Rose said, spinning in his arms. She draped her arms around his neck and brushed her lips across his cheek until she whispered in his ear, “Make love to me, James.”

His breath hitched and he leaned back to look at her.

“Are-are you sure?” he asked.

Rose nodded and bit her lip. “Are you?”

“Oh, yes.”

They’d both been wanting to take this next step for a couple weeks now, and their first night in their new flat seemed like the perfect moment.

They took a few moments to strip down to their pants, and crawled onto the bed together. Their nerves had killed some of the heat they’d generated, so Rose rolled onto her back and urged James on top of her, and she reclaimed his lips in a gentle kiss. She felt his muscles relax, and hers followed, as they settled into the familiar territory of snogging.

She let her hands wander across his skin, scraping and teasing, as she felt James reciprocate her touch. He hardened against her hip the longer they touched and tasted each other, and Rose felt her arousal building steadily once more until she was throbbing for him.

James kissed his way down her collarbone, across her breasts, and down her belly. When he peppered kisses down her knickers and overtop where she was aching for him to touch her, Rose sucked in a sharp breath as she sussed out his intentions.

“Can I?” he asked, looking up at her from where he was pressing small, suckling kisses to her inner thighs.

Rose squirmed in equal parts arousal and embarrassment. Did blokes really want to go down on girls?

“You-you don’t have to,” she stuttered, wondering if he would like how she looked, smelled, or tasted.

“I want to,” James said, and Rose couldn’t find any hint of reluctance in his earnest tone. “But if you’re not comfortable with it, I won’t.”

“I want to,” Rose said, the crack in her voice belying some of that bravado. “I just…”

She trailed off helplessly, and she could feel her arousal ebbing again in her nervousness.

James seemed to sense this, and he crawled back up her body to press a series of soft kisses to her lips. She could feel how hot and hard he was in his pants, and she shuddered in desire. She kissed him back and let him play with her breasts as he dipped his hand under her knickers to restoke the flames of her arousal.

His finger slipped through her more easily the longer he kissed her. He moved to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, a place that sent deliciously hot chills into her belly.

“How about I try it,” James suggested, slowly fluttering his middle finger around the sides of her clit, “but if you don’t like it, or still are uncomfortable, I’ll stop?”

Rose breathed out a sigh as she tilted her head back, and she eventually nodded.

James grinned excitedly at her and pressed an enthusiastic kiss to her lips with an exaggerated sucking noise. Rose giggled at her daft soulmate and tried to calm the butterflies in her belly as he settled his shoulders between her thighs once more. She felt his fingertips dip below the waistband of her knickers and tug, and she helpfully lifted her hips to help him slip the scrap of fabric off of her.

“Gorgeous,” he murmured when she was completely bare to him. This was a sight he was sure he would never grow tired of seeing: his soulmate laid out before him, utterly naked, utterly beautiful, and utterly his.

He pressed distracted kisses just above her curls as he shimmied out of his boxers, sighing when the heated flesh of his erection touched their cool sheets.

“Let me know if you want me to stop,” he reminded, kissing her thigh as he swiped his thumb across her clit.

She sucked in a sharp breath, and her legs fell open to give him more room. He hooked one of his arms under her knee before bracing his hand on her hip as he tentatively kissed his way down to where she was damp and throbbing.

Her flavor exploded on his tongue as he swiped it through her folds to lap at her clit, and he was pleased with her shuddering moan. All of her muscles were still tense, and James stroked her hip soothingly as he focused on making this good for her. He had no idea of what he was doing, but he tried to replicate what his fingers had done to give her pleasure, as well as follow his instincts on what he wanted to do to her.

“God, that feels so good,” she moaned, reaching down and burying her hands in his hair.

James preened, so proud of himself that he was able to pleasure Rose so completely. If he could spend the rest of his life between Rose’s thighs, bringing her to orgasm, he would die a very happy man.

His own arousal was building along with Rose’s. Every moan and gasp sizzled down his spine and into his cock, hardening him further with every passing minute. She was getting so wet and squirmy, and he knew she must be close. But just as he was about to slip his finger into her and bring her to orgasm, her fingers tightened in his hair and she gasped, “J-James, stop. Stop.”

James froze, and his belly coiled uncomfortably. Had he hurt her? Was she getting bored with his attentions? Was she frustrated it was taking him so long to make her come.

“What is it?” he asked, willing his voice to stop shaking.

“Was close,” Rose mumbled. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were dark and her breath came in raspy pants. James was confused.

“Wasn’t that the point?” he asked, still not having moved from between her thighs. But when she tugged on his hair and patted his shoulder, he climbed up the length of her body and sprawled out in bed beside her.

“I-I want you inside me,” she murmured, and her cheeks stained a darker pink. “If you’re ready?”

James’s mouth went dry, and he crushed his lips to hers. Oh, this was it! This was the night he would finally get to make love to his soulmate! Arousal and anticipation fizzed through his veins as he kissed her thoroughly and let his fingers trace across any piece of skin he could touch.

“I’m ready,” he murmured when he realized he hadn’t answered. “And you’re sure?”

Rose smiled shyly at him and urged him to crawl on top of her.

He bit his lip as he hovered above her, suddenly so nervous. What if it wasn’t good for her? What if he didn’t last long enough and left her unsatisfied? What if he did it wrong and he hurt her?

“Hey,” she whispered, and she moved her hands to his cheeks. “It’s just me, James. Don’t be afraid.”

James’s eyes fluttered shut at the utter love and trust in her voice. She was right, of course she was right. This was his Rose, and he was her James. There was no one in the universe he would ever feel more comfortable with than her.

He lowered his hips until his erection was nestled against her curls, and he leaned down to lazily move his lips across hers. He swept his tongue against hers and sighed into her mouth when she pulled his bottom lip between her teeth and scraped them across it.

He reached down and swiped a finger through her folds, pleased that she was still so wet. He then took his cock in hand and rubbed the tip of it through her, slicking himself up. She sighed in pleasure as he focused on stimulating her clit, hoping to get her far enough along that she might be able to come.

“Ready?” he asked shakily, letting the tip of his cock bump against her entrance.

“Ready,” she replied, and her fingers tightened in anticipation in his hair.

He pressed in achingly slowly, gritting his teeth against the hot, wet, friction. He met with some resistance, and he paused.

“S’okay,” Rose whispered, but the trembling in her thighs told him otherwise.

James pressed his lips to her forehead as he surged forward.

Rose bit her lip to stifle a whimper as her face pinched in discomfort and her nails dug into the skin of his back.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” James whispered, curling his arms under her shoulders to hug her. He nuzzled his nose into her neck and pressed soft kisses to that place on her neck that had made her moan earlier, hoping her discomfort would soon go away. She shivered in his arms as he suckled at her skin, feeling the burning pinch fade into the background as her arousal dominated her senses once more.

“I-I think you can move,” Rose said, tilting her hips up against his. “Just… slowly?”

“Of course, love,” James murmured.

He pulled out carefully before slowly sliding back in, watching her face for any hints of pain or displeasure. To his utter relief, the grimace on Rose’s face smoothed out into one of relaxed pleasure and she started to become an active participant in their lovemaking.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. It was sloppy and ungraceful as they both were jostled by James’s movements on top of her, but it still felt amazing and their giggles at their lack of coordination helped chisel away at any lingering awkwardness.

James groaned low in his chest as she tightened her thighs around his hips and tightened her inner muscles around his cock, giving him a sudden surge of pleasure.

“Feels so good,” Rose sighed, tentatively lifting her hips to meet his careful thrusts as she mindlessly scraped her nails up and down his spine.

“Yeah,” James grunted, increasing the speed of his thrusts as he was spurred on by a mounting sense of urgency. All too soon, he felt the telltale tingling low in his belly, and he bit his lip as he stopped moving.

“What? What is it?” Rose asked, her muscles clenching torturously around him.

“I-I was about to come,” James admitted, burying his face into her neck as he tried to catch his breath and get a grip on himself. He refused to let their first time be over in less than five minutes, or to leave her unsatisfied. “You feel too good, love. Sorry. Give me a minute.”

“Take your time,” Rose murmured, running her fingers through his hair. Feeling him fill her so fully and completely, even when he wasn’t moving, felt amazing.

He hummed and arched his head closer to her touch before he let her pull him down for a kiss. It was much more graceful now that neither of them were moving, and James sighed against her lips at the warmth bubbling deep inside him, pleasurable but manageable. He sucked on Rose’s bottom lip as he balanced his weight on one of his forearms so he could play with her breasts. She whimpered below him and arched her chest into his hands and thrust her hips up into his. He hissed at the motion, but he felt a little more confident that he wasn’t about to come in the next ten seconds.

“Okay, I think I’m all right,” James whispered. “Ready?”

At her nod, he tentatively arched his hips forward, setting a slow rhythm that felt brilliant for both of them, and James was still so in awe that he was making love with his soulmate, his best friend, the love of his life.

“Oh, Rose,” he moaned, gritting his teeth against the swooping in his belly. “I love this. I love you.”

“My James.” She ran her fingertips up and down his ribs, and her nails occasionally bit into his skin when he moved a certain way that made her see stars. “Love this, too. Love you so much.”

His stomach tightened again in warning as he started aching for harder, faster, more.

“Shit,” he growled, clenching his teeth in frustration as he slowed down once again.

“No, keep going,” Rose begged, digging her feet into his bum to spur him on as she bucked her hips against his. Heat was coiling deep inside her, fanning higher and hotter as they continued moving together, and she was desperate for it to consume her.

“Rose, I’m gonna come soon, love,” he warned urgently, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to stave off his imminent orgasm.

“Me too,” she grunted, tightening her muscles around him. “God, don’t stop, James, please!”

Sweat broke out on his brow as he willed himself to hold out just a little bit longer, but knew the inevitable climax was mere seconds away.

“Oh, please, love,” he choked out, trembling as the pleasure started to overwhelm him. He was breaking out in hot chills and he was nearly aching with pleasure and desire and desperation. “Come for me, Rose!”

One of Rose’s hands left his shoulders, and he felt the back of her hand graze his stomach before her hot little fingers moved down to where they were joined. He felt her rubbing herself and she panted his name as she clenched around him tighter and tighter.

James whimpered and buried his face into her neck as his hips moved of their own accord, thrusting sloppily into her as he frantically chased his release.

She murmured into his ear and scraped her nails down his back as her legs wrapped more tightly around his hips, cradling him in her, and he was lost. He gasped out her name as his back arched in pleasure more acute than he’d ever felt before.

“F-fuck,” he grunted, pressing his hips flush to hers as waves of aching relief shattered through him.

His face pinched into an expression of pure bliss as Rose felt him pulsing deep inside her. Her stomach swooped and the pressure deep inside her broke as she watched James lose himself to his orgasm.

Her hands scrabbled for purchase on any piece of him that she could touch as her own orgasm swelled up within her and flooded her with pleasure more intense than anything she’d ever felt. She cried out his name as she arched beneath him, riding out the last of his climax as hers peaked.

She was barely aware of anything other than the utter love and safety and pleasure she felt in that moment, surrounded by James. God, she loved this man. She loved him so much she ached. Through the black spots in her vision, she looked up at her soulmate: he was breathing harshly against her shoulder, where his forehead was resting, and he was holding himself up on shaking arms.

Rose wrapped her arms around him and tugged, urging him down on her. He followed immediately, and she found his weight comforting rather than crushing. His arms wriggled under her shoulders until he was hugging her as fiercely as she was holding him. He nuzzled his cheek into her breasts and sighed happily, his eyes still closed and his face utterly relaxed.

She moved one of her hands to swipe his hair away from his eyes before she pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead. He leaned into her touch, and he finally forced his eyes open to look at her. Through his dazed, blissful expression, he looked worried.

“Did you come?”

Rose giggled at him and pressed another kiss to his forehead.

“Yeah, I did. You didn’t notice?”

“Was a bit preoccupied,” he said dryly, but Rose could hear his relief and pride mingling in his voice.

“Well I did, and it was wonderful,” Rose murmured, continuing to stroke her fingers through his hair.

“Can’t believe I missed it,” he mumbled. “Travesty.”

“Hmm, I guess you’ll just have to do something to fix that, eh?” she teased.

“Oh, I plan to,” he growled, and he lifted up on his forearms to catch her lips in his.

[whence-the-woody]

2020 

I used to do big, reflective summaries of my year and even tho I am feeling reflective today, I wasn’t able to do that last year and I actually really like the format I went with last year of just listing memz so I’m going wih that. Intention review etc will be in another post. So, my 2020 memories:

Jan

Gearing up to leave a job I hated, packing up my life to move away properly for the first time. Going flat hunting with my mum and my brother and having a literal choice of one

I did Home which I dont really remember so it was probably fine

This was the month the Gallavich wedding aired and gaslit me into believing there was still anything positive about that show/ship. Tbf at the time I was LIVING for it

Cinema kick with Mum including CATS. What a moment. 

Feb

Last day at said crappy job (just weird and awks. I didnt really know how to feel) and starting a new one - everyone was so lovely from the off and even tho I was bored at times I was optimistic

Staying with my brother for a few days, him helping me move in which was all very nice. 

My flat having no hot water for the first week - I only cried about it once. And me having nothing but an air bed for 3 weeks. Not ideal but grateful to have amenities and furniture by the end of the month

I think this was both kareoke night for one persons birthday and a 90s party for another - both excellent nights

People were talking about COVID by the end of the month but I was like pfft we’ve been here before with swine and bird flu, it’ll be all hyped up then go nowhere 

I think I was getting my first allocations by the end of the month which I was grateful for because going from an insane workload to none at all was tricky and I wanted to get going

March

Oh March 2020. How we did not see you coming. 

Before the lockdown even happened I remember people were panic buying. I stocked my freezer a bit, not because I was worried but because so many shelves were empty. All the shops starting looking apocalyptic and I was despairing over how silly everyone was being. You couldn’t get online shops anymore and there was no loo roll to be found - still think thats just so dumb. I had to go to 4 different stores to find oats and was so annoyed, weird little tidbit but I remember it. 

 I remember sitting down on my new furniture - eating a meal I had made, watching John Mulaney and feeling good in my new home - and seeing the Boris announcement. Other countries had already locked down so I had mentioned to my manager that I might have to go home to my Mums if it happened here - she had asked, I didn’t really believe it would. I had arranged for a friend to visit that month and when she cancelled I was like I think everyones being dramatic but okay. Then the 23rd, they announced a lockdown from midnight and I straight away messaged everyone to say I was panicking, asked my manager if I could leave and packed to drive back to Mum’s the next morning. I was in my flat about 6 weeks. 

I know for a fact that March felt like the longest month to ever happen but now I cant remember anything else from it - the announcement was so late in the month, I wasn’t working from Mum’s for that long before April. I think we were told to WFH if we could mid-month but I didn’t. Cant for the life of me now think why it felt so long. I know for those last 2 weeks I was refreshing the news constantly to see what was happening. I was still skeptical and thought the numbers were too low for such drama

April

WFH for real. Excruciating daily calls “to check in”. Working my first cases from home, only on the phone, with no idea what I was doing. Taking turns wearing headphone with Mum because we were both having confidential conversations. 

Walking my pup to get my alloted hour of exercise. Taking regular breaks to go outside - I think this was when there was a heatwave. Eating lunch outside. Sometimes doing weights or yoga during my lunch break - that part was actually pretty great 

Discovering podcasts - especially FDRF. They were the real MVP. 

Still constantly checking the news for updates. 3 weeks turned into 6 and so on and so on. 

I came back to my flat for one of the long weekends. I had accepted that it was going to be longer then 3 weeks and I needed more stuff. I went for a very hot walk through a ghost town - at the time it still seemed like there were too many people about. Still picnics in the park happening. 

Everyone flinching when they say each other and steering well clear. It made you feel tainted even though its what we were suppossed to do. 

Clapping for carers - absolute bullshit placating, hated it. 

Always being left off the list of keyworkers.

Still feeling like yeah its bad but ?? This cant go on forever 

A year of build up to a move then the rug was pulled out from under me, I tried not to complain because others had it so so much worse but it was hard. Is hard. 

We watched all of Location, all of Marvel, Bake off etc etc. I cried when Tony Stark died. 

I went back through my ENTIRE tumblr. I realised how little had changed really, it was very existential. 

May 

I had to come back to my new city because I was on a duty rota for 2 weeks. I was actually very excited and had a good time. I got to see people IRL!! Including some I was working with. It was definately a heatwave at that point - we were swealtering in our cars and full PPE but I was so glad to be out and about and back in the city. Putting a face and proper clothes on again was very weird

I dont remember anything else from May specifically. I think March and April lasted 10 years but then May June July were a blink. I think I had accepted how bad everything was by that point, I had stopped looking at the News for updates. I think this is where zoom started to be a thing maybe. 

June

Honestly not a clue. I was between My place and Mum’s because of the duty rota. I don’t think I came back FT until end of June. I know things were starting to open up again and it was all moving far too fast - I definately wasnt going to run out to the gym or pub but alot of people were. We were suppossed to go on holiday for a week this month, with my brother and the dogs but obvs that was cancelled - it was such a lovely place as well, shame. 

Yoga was still random but I did a weight workout every day this month which was great

July

Turning 25. I was definately back in the city FT, going back into work. My Mum came to stay in my place for the first time. My brother came over too. We went for a walk, had a picnic in the rain then ate cake back at mine. My Mum got me a microwave for my birthday because Im AN ADULT

For my birthday also me and my Mum watched Hamilton for the first time. This then took over my entire life and was played at all hours of the day 

Kept going with daily weight workouts, moved up another set. I think this is where I re-did Revolution

August

Ready to start socialising again. More restrictions were being lifted too quickly which I knew but also I had to GTFO

A friend came to stay with me for the weekend. Hes not very mobile so we couldnt do much - went for a short walk into town, sat by the river and got severely sunburned. We went to a restaurant for the first time in 6 months - I had pancakes. I made him watch Hamilton which he did not appreciate enough. Also watched Truman show for the first time while eating burritos - what a mindfuck that movie is I mean really

Went for a very long very hot walk with a friend all around the fields surrounding the city. We stopped for a drink and cake halfway, more drinks were then had in her garden. This was our first time hanging out alone and it was really lovely, we spent much more time together after that. Shes probably who Ive seen the most this year. 

A couple of weeks after that we went for bottomless brunch, followed by I think 3 or 4 other bars. The joys of getting day drunk. 

I think this was the month I started using friend/dating apps and got OBSESSED. They’re just so silly and judgey and fun, I love it. 

My 6 month tenancy ran out which I chose to renew. I started negotiations with my landlord for a pet agreement. 

I think this is where I re-did Dedicate. I think weight workouts fell off a little bit because I was pretty busy. Instead of running started doing 3 walks a week which was nice. 

September

First time hanging out with more then one person - did a Hamilton viewing party with 4 of us. There were american themed snacks, it was great. Not a boozy night which was needed. I think I then went for coffee with 2 of the girls this month. 

First time meeting up with 2 girls I met on an app - I’m still friendly with one, not the other. It was mostly a good time and I’m very proud to have done it but then drunken politics came up and it got AWKWARD. 

Nagging and nagging and nagging my landlord until she signed the pet agreement and LET ME GET A CAT

My obsession with apps was replaced with a cat shelter/app obsession. It was very frustrating because I wanted to rescue and they make it very hard so I eventually found a for sale ad and contacted them - it was a rescue though as far as I’m concerned, she was in a horrible situation for an “owner” who had no clue and had only had her for a couple weeks before giving up and putting her up for sale. I rescued her okay. I think it was 3 or 4 weeks after getting agreement that I went to pick her up. So getting everything ready for her was a big part of this month

I did manage to fit in a 5 day holiday. It was suppossed to be solo travel abroad but ended up being a Mon-Fri with family. We did some NT walks it was nice.

Then it was literally that weekend my brother drove me to Wales to pick up my new fur baby. Instantly fell in love obviously and my whole life became about her from that point on. They told me she was really timid and scared, she had been hiding in her current place, but I was so impressed with how curious and confident she is. She was wary at first, a bit flinchy, didnt like being petted with 2 hands, didnt like loud noises, wouldnt come on the bed or sofa, wouldnt come into the living room really. I put child locks on alot of doors but shes not mischivous so its never really been an issue. She loved to play from the get go and did come to me for a fuss from day one. I adore her basically. The first time she jumped on the sofa, sat next me on the bed, slept on my bed, let me stroke her with 2 hands, her first vet trip, every little first and win has always been a massive victory, Im a v proud mama. She was no name for a few days but quickly somehow became my Myshka (the whole long list I had went quickly out the window somehow)

Did some more regular yoga. Tried to do 5 weight workout a week but it was a bit random. Walks fell off because of anxiety over leaving the cat. 

October

Alot of WFH to be with the cat. Definately obsessed. 

We had our team day on a farm, that was lovely

Saw my friend for Halloween - watched Hocus Pocus for the first time, had cocktails, watched a boring horror movie then Rocky Horror which is just exceptional. Lockdown 2.0 was announced but we were tipsy and over it. 

A very stressful month work-wise, lots of deadline, threat of Ofsted, management changes, admin changes, not getting enough sleep because work stress and struggling with productivity. My health suffered a bit too because I didnt have time for lunchtime exercise anymore. 

November

Technically there was a lockdown but it felt no different because everyone was still in school and work, I dont think people even tried this time. 

The election, refreshing the results constantly. I fully expected a T win and was happy when he didnt but still disappointed at how close it was, as was everyone 

I bought my first Christmas tree and my own decs. Christmas shopping obvs. 

I downloaded Tiktok and started to question far too much about my identity. its ongoing. 

Most important was SUPERNATURAL. I had alot of feelings, it was an absolute rollercoaster my god. What a time to be alive that was. 

A couple of outside coffees in the park which is always nice. I went to a new friend’s house for tea and met their dog, also nice. 

I did a SV for the first time in a very long time and it reminded me of everything I used to hate about my old job, so happy to have left there

Test weekend taking the cat to stay with the family dogs, she did great, shes a champ

December

Pretty standard Christmas month. Had a christmas movie night with themed snacks and hot chocolate with one friend. Had another friend come for the day to do the same - first time I had seen her in a year after 3 cancellations, that was very lovely

Constant restriction changes and crappy government pissing me off but it didnt affect my plans luckily

All the Tier 2, Face Hands Space signs feeling very dystopian

Brother’s 30th plans got cancelled coz COVID. Back up NYE plans got cancelled got COVID. Actual NYE was fine tho the normal show/song/crowd was cancelled coz of course COVID 

OVERALL

Not so good shit

I mean the whole thing in general yknow

Alot of plans couldn’t go ahead - various groups I wanted to join, a new gym, more nights out with more people, more chances to meet new people ETC

My diet has been an inconsistet shit show BUT TFB there were months where you couldnt predict what was going to be on the shelves, you couldnt get orders and the whole world felt so pointless and dark like why even care about that shit yknow

My exercise also wasnt consistent though I dont feel too bad about it. I was always doing something I feel like even if it was just walking

Ive ended the year with the same amount of savings I started with which isnt exactly bad since I moved and furnished a flat and got a new pet but it isnt great

I hate WFH with a burning passion and im worried the world has accepted that as a new normal and im not okay with it

None of this shit is over yknow

Just a general hopelessness is the face of big world things yknow. Theres really nothing we can do about it, just gotta ride that wave and vote when ya can

No travel - I had such plans!!

Good shit

My new fur baby who I love and adore beyond sanity

Starting a good job in a great city with lovely people

Growing so much in confidence because Fuck it, everything is pointless anyway and theres no point in planning or caring so imma just do me

Exploring so much of who I am through new relationships, my own environment, little things like exploring my style, picking up old hobbies, trying new routines and habits

Strengthening some friendships and maintaining others despite the insane obstacles

Maintaining a positive relationship with My Mum in particular, and my whole family

Trying new things in my new city. Still managing nights out, a somewhat proper birthday and a short trip

No actual mental breakdowns which this year feels like a win. My mental health is actually in such a better place then it was this time last year. The job was killing me, thank fuck I got out when I did 

I redid more then 1 30 day programs and did 2 straight months of weights 

My family, friends and I are all safe and well 

Music of the year:

Hamilton

An awful lot of Panic! 

Anyone - DL

Partition (idk dont question me)

Basically alot of drama while trying to hold on to both my emo and club days - fuck I miss clubbing yall. I dont even like clubbing. 

Media of the year:

I should acknowledge Shameless even though I came full circle on it and have now fully abandoned the whole thing and prefer my own AU where Milkoviches get what they deserve 

Schitts Creek

Supernatural 

Hamilton obvs

Marvel technically, it was alot of hours

Staged

Derry Girls

Pose

The Old Guard

Pride - which is not new but we watched it on Christmas eve and I cried in my mums lap okay 

Ship of the year has to be Destiel I mean standing ovation for that rage inciting moment followed by a solid month of absolute chaotic good, it was glorious in its destruction. 

2021 INTENTIONS TO FOLLOW 

[filipeteimuraz]

The Best Website Builder

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The best thing about using a website builder is knowing that, in a world where an online presence is absolutely mandatory, the technical proficiency to build and publish that presence isn’t.

Sure, you can sign up for web hosting, implement a template, and launch your own WordPress website. But there is an easier way. We should know: We’ve built some of our own business sites with website builders. It’s easy, fast, and unobtrusive to use an all-in-one tool.

Every one of our picks for the best website builders will help you get your site up beautifully and simply:

Wix Best for: Automating the tough choices

Squarespace Best for: Beautifully designed templates

Ucraft Best for: Building a one-page site for free

Onepager Best for: Quick set-up

What we look for in a website builder

Ease of use: everything’s all in one place, and it lets you get on with your real business. No technical proficiency required. No need for a designer or other outside help.

A beautiful final product: a professional, well-designed website that reflects your business.

Customer support: It’s there if you need it, but everything is intuitive enough that you don’t feel like you do.

We also ask questions in 5 key areas

Style and templates What do the templates look like? How customizable are those templates?

Usability How easy it is to get started? Or, how long does it take to build a nice looking site?

Ecommerce and business needs Can I sell things on my site? Can I add a menu? A form? A map? Reservations?

Pricing How much does it cost? Which tier should I start on and when will I need to upgrade? If it’s free, what’s the trade-off?

Domains, emails, and other bonuses Does it come with a free domain? Does it come with email addresses? Any other extras I should be looking for?

Our top picks for the best website builder

Wix

Quicksprout Pick

Best for: Automating the tough choices

Paid plans start at $11 / month (billed annually)

Free trial period: 14 days

Sign up

It’s easy to choose Wix as a website builder. It truly takes on the name. Wix’s artificial intelligence asks you a few questions and literally builds your website before your eyes — unique color palette, features, and design all in one. It’s the best tool we’ve seen to get a site that matches your vision, even if you don’t know yet how you’d articulate that vision. Honestly, building a site with Wix’s AI felt a little like getting our minds read.

Wix has been at the forefront of this revolution, and is looking to closely combine AI and website building.

—Why AI is the best tool to help build your next website, TechRadar

To start, click create site. You’ll be asked a question: What kind of website do you want to create? From there, the AI will help you build your website. (You can opt-out and go it alone at this point, too, but we appreciated the AI’s help.)

One of the first screens you’ll see when you build a website with Wix.

We loved how easy it was for us to find a template that matched our vision. The AI stayed with us as we edited the page, a little pink square in the bottom (it looks like a chat pop-up) helping us pick the next thing to edit and showing us how to do it. The Wix AI matched our business to its online presence, used our logo to create a color palette for our site, and gave us a template pre-populated with our logo and address. Connecting images from existing social media accounts made it easy to pull in all the assets we already owned.

As AI progresses, it will be harder and harder to know which site was built via AI and which was built via a designer. You can think of it like passing a “design turing test”, i.e. in the future humans will not be able to differential between the two. Then, it’ll have to get innovative. Instead of mimicking what it is learning from what’s created, it will get better and more experimental. It’s easy to see how soon most websites that are created use AI in some way. —Wix VP & GM of Consumer Experience Nitzan Achsaf told TechRadar

There’s a lot of variety between the Wix themes, and the personality of each theme matches its name well. The Business Advisor had a spot-on graphic of an analytics dashboard, while Astrologer features an astral hero image.

Some of Wix’s business-centric themes.

Editing your desktop site with Wix requires some patience. To change the text on a text box, you’ll need to hover precisely in the right spot. We did some deep breathing and were able to find enough inner zen to make all the changes we needed. The mobile editor has the serene helpful feel we wish the rest of the editor maintained. It’s super easy to click through the options for how your menu, quick actions, and scroll options work on your mobile page. What you change in the mobile editor doesn’t affect anything that happens on the desktop.

Wix’s editor requires patience — and some clicking around.

We prefer its easier-to-use mobile editor.

Wix does have a free tier, but we don’t recommend it. It has some of the most in-your-face “this was not paid for” company branding we’ve seen — an instant trust breaker. Wix free sites also have one of the most cumbersome domain structures: yourusername.wix.com/sitename so we’d be QuicksproutEditorial.wix.com/Quicksprout. Connecting your actual domain also allows you to attach a Google Analytics profile and add email accounts if you’d like ($5 / account / month, or about half that with an annual plan). Unfortunately, none of this pricing is very upfront. Wix wants you to connect your domain before you see the email pricing, for example. We found answers to pricing questions in the support center, not the user flow.

Take note: all of Wix’s plans are automatically set to auto-renew. Sticker shock is real, especially if you signed up with an introductory promo pricing (at the time of publish, premium plans were a full 50% off, for example). There are many frustrated customers on TrustPilot who’re unhappy with this. It is possible to turn off your auto-renew, but you’ll need to do it more than 14 days before your plan’s anniversary — and if you do it during your 14-day free trial, your trial will be cancelled immediately.

As for which paid plan to pick, you have 7 options: 4 “regular” and 3 “ecommerce.” The difference really boils down to whether you’ll be accepting payments on your site or not. If you’re not sure about how much bandwidth you need, you can always start with a smaller subscription: if you go over the limit, you’ll get a notice from Wix (with no penalty) and use that as your signal to upgrade.

Squarespace

Quicksprout Pick

Best for: Beautifully designed templates

Plans start at $12 / month (billed annually)

Free trial period: 14 days (plus an additional 7-day extension)

Sign up

“Build something beautiful” is right. There’s no doubt that Squarespace wins the design and beauty contest here. The user interface has a bit of a learning curve and there’s not much of a Squarespace community to help you out, but the page you’ll end up publishing will be phenomenally good-looking.

Squarespace’s templates are all modern and beautiful.

But, building a website with Squarespace can feel a little like building IKEA furniture: in the showroom it’s all so beautiful and simple, but somehow it feels a little more complicated to put together than it promised. It can be hard to understand where exactly you are in the editor. We kept getting notifications that we were editing demo content, or that we would see the social logos once we connected our social media, or that we could unlock this or that feature with a paid subscription, but Squarespace didn’t go the extra step to make it easy to make that required move. It was a lot of fumbling through a beautiful interface, not exactly sure what changes were real, or where to head next. We also had some issues saving changes — an error message popped up and we had to move on, without our changes.

Editing a site in Squarespace has a bit of a learning curve.

Unlike IKEA, Squarespace is pricier than other website builders. That all being said, we love the way sites built with Squarespace look, and think it’s one of the simplest ways to create a beautiful, contemporary site.

Ucraft

Quicksprout Pick

Best for: Building a one-page site for free

Paid plans start at $6 / month (billed annually)

Free trial period: 14 days

Sign up

We love the free Landing Page option from Ucraft: create a single, mobile-ready page and connect your domain for free. The free version doesn’t get rid of the Ucraft branding but it’s minimal and not invasive. The template has all the features we’ve identified in our anatomy of a high-converting landing page. You can drop the branding by upgrading to a $6 / month Basic Website plan, and sell up to 50 items on the $14 / month Pro Website plan. If you have more items to sell, upgrade again, but note that once you upgrade, you can’t drop back down to a less expensive plan.

Ucraft’s themes are elegant and streamlined. It’s one-page free sites are designed to be a long scroll with anchored sections. Build a Ucraft site using drag-and-drop blocks and elements.

We’re also impressed with the $229 Lifetime plan. If the subscription set up (and realization that if you love the site you build, you’ll be paying that monthly fee for… forever) isn’t your favorite, then this is a nice compromise. You still get the easy-to-use editor and tools of a website builder, and the one-and-done payment.

Onepager

Quicksprout Pick

Best for: Quick set-up

Paid plans start at $8 / month (billed annually)

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We were so surprised to name Onepager a top pick. The templates look dated and the product tour video hasn’t been updated in six years. But Onepager is so dead simple and easy to set up that we were able to publish a workable website for a local pizza shop in minutes. Yes, every webpage builder claims you can get started that fast, but with so many options, templates, and features, we’ve found that we’re distracted and deep in the weeds of perfecting our site, not publishing it. That wasn’t the case with Onepager.

Onepager is a simple website builder with a simple interface.

The Onepager templates aren’t very modern, but they’re straight-forward and the user interface is helpful, and we were pleased with the overall look of our super-quick site. (And, as we written about before, websites with simple homepages convert better.) For a small business that just wants to stake out its territory online — as opposed to, say, building an online empire — we think Onepager fits the bill.

We’d also recommend it to anyone who gets asked all the time to build a website for a friend, a family member, so-and-so’s neighbor who has a family business. For $15 a month, you can build up to 5 sites. With the $199 per month agency plan, you can build up to 150 sites with a white-labeled version of Onepager’s editor platform.

The 26 other website builder platforms we considered

Adobe Muse

As of March 2018, Adobe has stopped releasing updates to its website builder software, acknowledging that simpler site builders like Wix and Squarespace have taken over: “For simpler websites, we’ve seen the emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) website creators that use customizable templates to quickly create responsive websites that can be easily modified by the designer or a client.” — End of service for Adobe Muse

Cargo Collective

Honorable Mention Amazing templates and designs perfect for artists and art galleries, but definitely not for everyone. If you’re after templates designed for displaying images and image galleries, definitely take a look.

Cindr

True to its slogan, Cindr is very fast to use: add in new “blocs” and move them, but want to do much customization (say, if your team doesn’t have exactly 2, 3, 4 or 6 people on it…) and you’ll quickly get frustrated. We certainly were.

Duda

There were too many deal-breaker annoyances on Duda’s own website (broken links, unclear organization, scroll bars on pages that don’t scroll, and typos) for us to recommend building your site with theme. And it’s just as well, as its primary focus is on white-labeling and reselling web designs, not on creating and building your own site.

GoDaddy GoCentral

We’ve never loved the customer support from GoDaddy and GoCentral is no exception. There are only 8 templates, and you can only make extremely limited font and color changes on them. No moving or resizing. The GoDaddy forums are full of frustration and confusion. Case in point: GoDaddy updated live templates so their headers no longer looked the same. Support recommended changing themes if you didn’t like the new header. What a nightmare.  

Homestead

The Homestead website itself looks like its from a different era. And the 27 featured templates from its collection of hundreds! have that same late-90s look.

Jimdo

We really like using an AI questionnaire to launch our website, and we adore the ease of pre-populating the images from our Google Places, Facebook, and Instagram feeds. But, Jimdo’s editor was glitchy (images would appear as blank boxes, then reappear) and the design customizations were super limited. (Is it impossible to have a full width image header without a color filter? Seems so.) Wix makes all the same promises, and delivers.

Moonfruit

We really wanted to love this Moonfruit. It’s clean, it’s modern, it’s easy to flip into mobile view as you edit, it has a helpful dashboard that lets you know how much of your 500 free MB storage you’ve used. And maybe it’s worth considering. But we found that the template-free starting point left us feeling more confused than empowered. The result: a lot of haphazard clicking and website that looked more amateur than any other we’d built.

Simvoly

Not recommended. We were intrigued by the marketing lingo Simvoly opens with: funnels, analytics, A/B testing. Oh my! But, this platform shows lots of sloppiness that keeps it out of any competition for the best: typos in the animations on the Simvoly homepage are just the beginning. The builder doesn’t have an undo/redo function, or any way to save a draft page without publishing it. Simvoly knows the right buzzwords but doesn’t back it up with its product.

Site123

We wanted to like the AI assistance for building our theme, but didn’t. We answered one question about our site (we’re a DJ, or a Diner) and got sent to a pre-built page for us to customize. There’s no sense of adding your own personal style or browsing through templates to pick the site structure you’d like. Want to change templates? You’ll need to go back and answer that one question differently. To get a design we liked, we felt like we had to cheat the quiz.

SiteBuilder

You have to sign up before you can even browse the templates. That’s a dealbreaker for us, but they also have no free plan and once the promotional pricing wears off, your cost will double.

SiteZulu

Not much to love here. Only 31 themes, the mobile version of our test site was buggy, and its the ecommerce “upgrade” is the free PayPal embed button.

SnapPages

SnapPages is one of the most expensive website builders on the market. For the price, it doesn’t offer anything you can’t get elsewhere. Recently acquired by Subsplash, we expect SnapPages to focus on selling its services as part of the Subsplash service packages aimed at churches and nonprofits.

Strikingly

This Y-Combinator-backed one-page web builder shouldn’t be compared to a full-fledged website builder like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. It’s in the simplicity of getting something launched where single-page builders work best. But, Strikingly just isn’t as good as uCraft, which lets you connect your own domain for free and has a more beautiful and user-friendly interface, or Onepager, which is so dead simple you can literally publish a complete (albeit super simple) site in minutes.

uCoz uKit

uCoz has a clean and modern interface, that is intuitive and easy to use (though noticeably slow to load). We didn’t love that we needed to sign up to see the templates, that most of the templates are very similar, and you’re extremely limited in editing the templates. Once you’re in a template you can’t change things like text styling and can only choose from one of three colors. This keeps you from making bad design choices, but also makes picking a template a much more important choice.

Virb

We don’t recommend Virb, the MySpace competitor that pivoted to become a website builder in 2010 — while the one $10 plan is simple, but there’s no way to preview the editing tool, and honestly we couldn’t even figure out how to sign up. We clicked log in (but were told we didn’t already have an account…). Let us know if you can figure it out. By watching the Virb tutorial videos on its Vimeo account, which were uploaded six years ago, we got a sense that the tool hasn’t been updated recently, and here’s the deal breaker of deal breakers: it’s not WYSIWYG. To add social buttons, you’ll need to go to a menu, click add widget, and who know where they’ll show up on the page. We live in a world with the ease of drag-and-drop editors and can’t go back.

Vistaprint

Vistaprint does offer some limited templates you can build yourself under its “Digital Marketing” offerings, but it’s still a business-card first business. In fact, one of the major selling points it offers is just that: your website can match your business card.

Voog

Voog advertises that it’s the simplest multi-lingual site builder, that is you can build your site in one language and then add all of the copy in up to 10 other languages. Your user will choose the appropriate language with the little flag logo in the corner (you can also pre-select language based on user location). But, this is a feature Wix, Squarespace, and others also offer. We think it’s better to go with one of those bigger names for a few reasons: Voog’s site itself loads very slowly with noticeable lag on pages with more than one image, and its own pricing page doesn’t automatically notice the country you’re in. When your big claim is matching content to the user country, this is a big miss.

Web.com

A hard no from us here. Before you even get to browse the template, you’re signing up for introductory pricing that’s $1.95 for the first four weeks, then bumps up to the “current rate” which is $22.95 a month right now, with no promise that it won’t be more later. And the fine print asserts there are 4 weeks in a month, so there are 13 “monthly” billing cycles in a year. No thanks.

Webnode

A simple (almost too simple) designer with a super high price point. For no ads, you’ll pay $11.95 a month on the required annual plan. At that price, you can do far better.

Webs

Built by three brothers and then acquired by VistaPrint in 2011 for $117.5M in cash and stock, Webs looks like it hasn’t been touched since. The editor is slow, and the templates are dated — the default “line” has the scrollwork of a fancy wrought-iron fence, for example — and the templates, which are arranged in an awkward horizontal scroll, don’t respond to the system’s filter so premium and free templates are intermingled. Can’t recommend.  

Websitebuilder.com

A strong no. Uninspiring templates, buggy interface, a support chat portal that doesn’t work (and legitimately suggests unplugging your router to solve the problem), and terrible customer reviews that call out inaccurate billing and incorrect charges. We don’t doubt it: the terms of service say in order to unsubscribe from auto-renewals, you’ll need to turn to phone or chat, not simply update your account settings.

Webstarts

There’s so much freedom with Webstarts: you can literally move anything you want anywhere on the page. The problem with this is that it’s easy to move something on the desktop editor in such a way that it won’t show up on mobile. For a website builder, it’s freedom to a fault. We like to see when the software stops us from making bad decisions we don’t even know we’re making, without any fuss. Mobile-optimization doesn’t click in until the Pro Plus level, which is $14.32 a month, billed annually (~$172).

Weebly

In Q2 2018 Weebly was acquired by Square and has been increasingly geared towards entrepreneurs and online store owners (really gunning for online shops like Shopify). At least in its marketing, that is. When we checked out the one-star reviews on TrustPilot, we knew we couldn’t recommend Weebly. Another dealbreaker? There’s no undo button. Once you exit a module in the editor all of the changes you made are permanent. Delete a module, and want to undo it? Sorry, you’re simply out of luck.

WordPress.com

We love WordPress and run our site on WordPress, but an easy-to-use website builder it’s not. Dive into WordPress.com and you’ll be quickly launched into a world that feels like you need technical expertise. (You don’t really need much, but the menu layout and wiki-style simplicity feels much more demanding than others. And it most certainly is not drag-and-drop intuitive.) If you’re up to using WordPress, we recommend picking a great web host, registering a domain name, and going through WordPress.org’s “famous 5-minute installation.” You won’t pay the monthly subscription you’d pay with WordPress.com and you get all the same features — you’ll just need to do some of the hands-on work. Read more about the difference between self-hosted WordPress.org and fully hosted WordPress.com on the WordPress.com blog.

Yola

Yola is expensive and wants to upsell left and right. You’ll need Silver ($119 annually or $14.99 monthly) to ditch the Yola branding, and they’d like you to get Mobile Plus (an extra charge to make your business phone number and address show up on the bottom of mobile pages — this is free with Wix) and the $10/month ecommerce upgrade is simply a free Ecwid plugin Yola would love to charge for. The editor is a bit buggy, you can’t add a blog (Yola suggests embedding a Tumblr page…) and we don’t think the high price point and upselling are worth it for the mediocre product.

Recap: The best website builders

Wix Best for automating the tough choices

Squarespace Best for beautifully designed templates

Ucraft Best for building a one-page site for free

Onepager Best for quick set-up

   http://www.quicksprout.com/best-website-builder/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-best-website-builder.html

[statusreview]

Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”)

I’m not gonna lie. Simultaneously choosing a bunch of finishes – like paint colors for walls and ceilings and trim and doors, cabinets for two kitchens, and tile for six bathrooms (plus two mudroom/laundry rooms along with two kitchen backsplashes) has felt overwhelming at times. Heck, planning just one room, like a bathroom renovation on its own, can feel overwhelming… and here we are planning six different bathrooms, two different kitchens, and 10 other rooms simultaneously! But we’ve managed to keep our heads on straight (so far) and even have some advice to offer through it all.

So whether you’re working on a new construction and have to make a lot of decisions like this all at once, or just trying to systematically renovate your home while keeping each room in mind so it all ends up feeling cohesive without being boring or too repetitive, this post is for you. We actually talked a little bit in this week’s podcast about how we chose each side of the duplex’s (not white!) kitchen cabinets and tile, but we knew that collectively showing you a bunch of our selections all in one post – and breaking down our process for picking them – might help other people out there who have burning questions like these ringing in their ears:

“Is this tile/paint color/cabinetry the right choice?”

“Am I going to regret this?!”

“How is this all going to look together?”

“Am I being too safe and boring? Too out there and crazy?”

“I keep going round and round – how can I actually make a decision?!”

Basically, this is the stage where you’re past all of your inspiration gathering and general planning (we shared our duplex style planning with you here) and you’re trying to take those images you saw on Pinterest or in a magazine (or just that dream room that lives in your head) and make it a real room in your real home. How do you do that? You have to find actual products that you can buy and paint colors that will tie it all together (and did I mention there’s a budget that you have to work with too)?

So here’s what we do to keep things feeling organized and to help focus ourselves and visualize things a lot better – you know so it feels less like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded – and more like following a streamlined process of steps to narrow things down and picture them before you make any final decisions.

First, Make A List

Before you start attempting to making finish selections, you need to know what decisions need to be made. And what helps us to to keep things feel more manageable is to arrange that in the order that each selection needs to be made (with the most urgent ones up top). For example, with so many decisions ahead of us – rugs, furniture, art, bedding, the list goes on and on –  we’ve chosen to focus on just the most urgent things that we need to select before any of that: paint, tile, cabinetry, plumbing, and lighting. These are the things that will go into each of the duplex’s freshly drywalled rooms to make them feel like actual rooms instead of white boxes (if you haven’t seen the most recent video tour, watch that and then come back to this post since it’ll make a lot more sense).

However you make and organize your list is up to you. For us, what starts off as a paper list often ends up as a spreadsheet once we start ordering. Here’s an example of one we used when ordered lighting for the pink house. Those first two columns (item & quantity) are the list we’re talking about. We took inventory of exactly what each space was wired for (did we need a pendant? a can light? a wall sconce? a chandelier? a fan?). It usually helps to walk through your space in person or look at a floor plan (or both!) to make sure you’re not missing anything.

The chart above is incomplete because at some point we typically move over to a more visual list, like a mood board, so we can better see how everything is coming together. Here’s one we’re in the process of making for the duplex, but more on that  – and the actual items in it – in a minute.

Then, Pick Your Star(s)

We learned long ago that a room where too many things scream for your attention can get chaotic. Plus, choosing which pieces will be the focal point relieves the pressure to make every single item in a room “interesting” which can be a tiresome, budget busting, and sometimes impossible goal. So we often break design choices loosely into two categories: stars and supporting players. The stars are the items you want people to notice when they first walk in – like the bold wallpaper, colorful rug, large chandelier, or dramatic paint on the walls.

Some rooms have only one star, others may have several – that’s up to you. But pretty much everything else functions to support those items – like the neutral couch that falls into the background or the white wall that helps your starring artwork or chandelier stand out. For example, readers of our email newsletter know that we’ve been hung up on the idea of colorful doors in the duplex. In fact, we’re using one of the exact colors we saw in this showhouse that we worked on earlier this year (Sherwin William’s Oyster Bay), which is pictured below, for all of the interior doors on one side of the duplex.

We knew if the doors were going to be “stars” then the wall paint around them probably shouldn’t compete for attention. So all of the walls are going to be a very light warm gray (SW Spare White). The interior doors, all of which are solid wood five-paneled doors, are actually going up in the duplex this week and we snapped some in-progress photos over the weekend. They haven’t been painted yet, but I photoshopped the image below to give you an idea of what the other side of the duplex might look like. For that side we picked a muted pink tone (SW White Truffle) which should pair nicely against the same very light warm gray walls on that side (they’ll also be SW Spare White).

We also picked our stars for the bathrooms to help focus our tile shopping. We learned from doing the pink house that we prefer a fun tile floor versus a fun tile shower wall in a bathroom (we can enjoy our cool patterned hex tile floor in the master bath from any vantage point nearby, but the pretty accent tile that we used on the back wall of the hall bathroom’s shower is often hidden by the bathroom door swinging in front of it and the shower curtain itself. Choosing to focus on some playful and beachy floor tile greatly simplified the process of tile shopping because we could focus our efforts on finding interesting things for just that area, knowing that almost anything would work with some incarnation of white subway-esque tile on the walls of the shower.

Next, Give Yourself Limiting Parameters

Having a million ideas and possibilities is exciting at the start of a design project, but at some point you have to face reality and actually order something. So I know limits don’t sound fun, but they ARE YOUR FRIEND at this stage. Some parameters may be out of your control – like your budget, which clearly puts a cap on your tile’s price per square foot. Or your contractor’s requirement that you order lights from certain vendors or something like that. Plus, you may already know that you want only a certain color, or finish, or size.

Whatever parameters you’ve established, it’s helpful to use those to filter results when you’re searching online. Sites like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair are becoming better and better about their search filters. USE THEM. This will save you time and keep you from going crazy.

One parameter we set for ourselves when shopping for floor tile was “no super small tiles like the patterned hex we laid in the master bathroom at the beach house.” As much as we love how that floor turned out – it was very, very, VERY time consuming to install compared to the other spaces where we used larger tiles.

Choosing larger tiles with interesting patterns instead of relying on smaller tiles isn’t a parameter that makes sense for everyone or every tile project – but it really helped our decision-making process when we imposed that limit on ourselves. And the good news is that we were still able to have some fun within that guideline. For instance, we discovered that The Tile Shop sells these long 4″ x 24″ porcelain tile planks in several hues (their display shows all one color being used together) but we realized it would be fun to use all three tones together. So we bought an equal amount of pink, white, and taupe tiles to create our own large-scale herringbone for one of the mudroom floors. This was us mocking it up on the store’s floor:

We also wanted extremely durable tile materials – porcelain and ceramic only. They’re both hardworking non-porous surfaces that are typically much easier to maintain than marble and cement tile (both of which are porous, so they can get stained and you need to worry more about sealing them, etc). So that material parameter immediately cut out a ton of higher maintenance (and higher budget) choices for us. So again, it really helped us focus on the best options for this project.

Lastly, Visualize Before You Finalize

By this point we often still have 10 million tabs open in our web browser with potential options. So after a couple of passes of nixing things we don’t feel strongly about, we usually find it helpful to visualize all of the pieces together. Believe me, you can go round and round liking 20 things and not knowing how they’ll fit together or how you’ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from browser screen to browser screen – and then you finally visually group them so you can see things together AND IT MAKES THE DECISION 100% EASIER!

The actual way that you choose to visualize them will vary – it may be a mood board of some sort (we use Photoshop) or you can just pin everything to a Pinterest folder to see them all together as a group. Heck, you can even print things out to make a collage and swap things in and out to see what combos you like most. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving one thing in and pulling another thing out will help you see what works well together.

For instance, while we were sifting through tile options we kept a Photoshop file like this open – and we kept dragging different contenders in and out (this isn’t the final version below, btw – it’s what it looked like in the middle of the process). It was a quick way to evaluate what looked good together and what didn’t – and much easier than clicking from tab to tab in our browser, which can make your head spin and leave you feeling like you might never make a decision.

*Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post*

As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved on to creating the floor plan images that you saw earlier, where we just dragged selections into actual rooms on each side of the duplex. Not only can we see everything in one place, but we can also stay organized as to what is going where.

With two identical-but-mirrored floor plans, sometimes it’s hard to keep things straight, so this definitely helps us stay on top of where each tile or cabinet color (or door color) will go. Plus we have the added benefit of getting to see how everything will look all together on each side of the house.

So now that we’ve shared a little bit about our process for selecting items, we’ll tell you about the items we chose themselves!

Duplex Tile, Cabinetry, & Paint

We didn’t set out to create a “pink side” and a “blue side” but once we chose the two interior door colors, it started to naturally lean that way. But we still plan to inject both colors – along with mint and various neutrals and wood tones – throughout each side as we furnish and decorate. So, in the end, it won’t feel as monochromatic as this mood board suggests.

Here are the product links for you guys, as promised:

Mudroom floor in pink, white, and taupe

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

Kitchen backsplash 

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Kallarp

Interior doors: SW White Truffle in semi-gloss

Interior walls: SW Spare White in eggshell (both sides)

Interior trim: SW Extra White in semi-gloss (both sides)

Kitchen backsplash

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Askersund

Interior doors:  SW Oyster Bay in semi-gloss

Mudroom floor

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

The wood tone on both sides is just to represent the wood floors, which are oak hardwoods that we plan to sand down and stain with Minwax Provincial (the same stain we used for our own floors in Richmond).

You can hear more about how we chose the kitchen cabinetry in this week’s podcast, but we knew we wanted to do non-white cabinets on the lowers to keep things a little more unexpected and playful (if you can’t take a few fun risks at a beach house where people will only stay for a week, where can you?!). To stick to our tight kitchen budget, which is around 4-5K for each fully finished kitchen (including appliances), we wanted to work with the stock options at Ikea since we have been really happy with their cabinetry at the pink house. And we were psyched to find both a wood toned cabinet and a painted cabinet option that we loved. In one duplex kitchen we’re pairing this pink tile with these gray-turquoise flat front cabinets. We will probably do a few white uppers on each side too – maybe with some open shelving.

On the other side of the duplex in the other kitchen, instead of colorful cabinets, we’re pairing these beachy wood flat front cabinets with a similar tile, but in a blue colorway. We bought both tile choices from The Tile Bar and they look like cement tile, but they’re porcelain! Three cheers for easier maintenance and added durability.

Here’s a look at some of the other tiles that we purchased. Three of these are from Wayfair (top right, bottom right, and bottom left), since we had such good luck ordering tile from them for the pink house, and the one in the top left is from Home Depot. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s seem to be upping their tile game lately, so it was fun to find an option like this there! And all of this tile is porcelain – again: super durable – and it’s all specifically made for floors, since we don’t want to get anything too slick that’s not meant for that surface.

I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in separate rooms with a lot of “supporting players” – like white subway tile, very light gray walls, fluffy white towels, white vanities, and wood/neutral touches. So in the end they should add some fun and interest to each bathroom, but not be too overwhelming since they’re all going to be tempered by everything else in the room. Here’s hoping, anyway!

P.S. If you missed last week’s duplex video tour, go watch that because Sherry talks about a lot of plans we haven’t covered here – like the window we’re adding to each of the hall bathrooms – and the shelves we’re adding to each side of the master bedroom in front of the exposed brick chimneys. And just for comparison’s sake, you can check out how the pink house turned out. It feels a little more old/historic since there was more original stuff that we could save in that house. Sherry keeps saying that she thinks the duplex will feel like its playful younger sister with a beachier and slightly more colorful wardrobe. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”) appeared first on Young House Love.

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Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”)

I’m not gonna lie. Simultaneously choosing a bunch of finishes – like paint colors for walls and ceilings and trim and doors, cabinets for two kitchens, and tile for six bathrooms (plus two mudroom/laundry rooms along with two kitchen backsplashes) has felt overwhelming at times. Heck, planning just one room, like a bathroom renovation on its own, can feel overwhelming… and here we are planning six different bathrooms, two different kitchens, and 10 other rooms simultaneously! But we’ve managed to keep our heads on straight (so far) and even have some advice to offer through it all.

So whether you’re working on a new construction and have to make a lot of decisions like this all at once, or just trying to systematically renovate your home while keeping each room in mind so it all ends up feeling cohesive without being boring or too repetitive, this post is for you. We actually talked a little bit in this week’s podcast about how we chose each side of the duplex’s (not white!) kitchen cabinets and tile, but we knew that collectively showing you a bunch of our selections all in one post – and breaking down our process for picking them – might help other people out there who have burning questions like these ringing in their ears:

“Is this tile/paint color/cabinetry the right choice?”

“Am I going to regret this?!”

“How is this all going to look together?”

“Am I being too safe and boring? Too out there and crazy?”

“I keep going round and round – how can I actually make a decision?!”

Basically, this is the stage where you’re past all of your inspiration gathering and general planning (we shared our duplex style planning with you here) and you’re trying to take those images you saw on Pinterest or in a magazine (or just that dream room that lives in your head) and make it a real room in your real home. How do you do that? You have to find actual products that you can buy and paint colors that will tie it all together (and did I mention there’s a budget that you have to work with too)?

So here’s what we do to keep things feeling organized and to help focus ourselves and visualize things a lot better – you know so it feels less like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded – and more like following a streamlined process of steps to narrow things down and picture them before you make any final decisions.

First, Make A List

Before you start attempting to making finish selections, you need to know what decisions need to be made. And what helps us to to keep things feel more manageable is to arrange that in the order that each selection needs to be made (with the most urgent ones up top). For example, with so many decisions ahead of us – rugs, furniture, art, bedding, the list goes on and on –  we’ve chosen to focus on just the most urgent things that we need to select before any of that: paint, tile, cabinetry, plumbing, and lighting. These are the things that will go into each of the duplex’s freshly drywalled rooms to make them feel like actual rooms instead of white boxes (if you haven’t seen the most recent video tour, watch that and then come back to this post since it’ll make a lot more sense).

However you make and organize your list is up to you. For us, what starts off as a paper list often ends up as a spreadsheet once we start ordering. Here’s an example of one we used when ordered lighting for the pink house. Those first two columns (item & quantity) are the list we’re talking about. We took inventory of exactly what each space was wired for (did we need a pendant? a can light? a wall sconce? a chandelier? a fan?). It usually helps to walk through your space in person or look at a floor plan (or both!) to make sure you’re not missing anything.

The chart above is incomplete because at some point we typically move over to a more visual list, like a mood board, so we can better see how everything is coming together. Here’s one we’re in the process of making for the duplex, but more on that  – and the actual items in it – in a minute.

Then, Pick Your Star(s)

We learned long ago that a room where too many things scream for your attention can get chaotic. Plus, choosing which pieces will be the focal point relieves the pressure to make every single item in a room “interesting” which can be a tiresome, budget busting, and sometimes impossible goal. So we often break design choices loosely into two categories: stars and supporting players. The stars are the items you want people to notice when they first walk in – like the bold wallpaper, colorful rug, large chandelier, or dramatic paint on the walls.

Some rooms have only one star, others may have several – that’s up to you. But pretty much everything else functions to support those items – like the neutral couch that falls into the background or the white wall that helps your starring artwork or chandelier stand out. For example, readers of our email newsletter know that we’ve been hung up on the idea of colorful doors in the duplex. In fact, we’re using one of the exact colors we saw in this showhouse that we worked on earlier this year (Sherwin William’s Oyster Bay), which is pictured below, for all of the interior doors on one side of the duplex.

We knew if the doors were going to be “stars” then the wall paint around them probably shouldn’t compete for attention. So all of the walls are going to be a very light warm gray (SW Spare White). The interior doors, all of which are solid wood five-paneled doors, are actually going up in the duplex this week and we snapped some in-progress photos over the weekend. They haven’t been painted yet, but I photoshopped the image below to give you an idea of what the other side of the duplex might look like. For that side we picked a muted pink tone (SW White Truffle) which should pair nicely against the same very light warm gray walls on that side (they’ll also be SW Spare White).

We also picked our stars for the bathrooms to help focus our tile shopping. We learned from doing the pink house that we prefer a fun tile floor versus a fun tile shower wall in a bathroom (we can enjoy our cool patterned hex tile floor in the master bath from any vantage point nearby, but the pretty accent tile that we used on the back wall of the hall bathroom’s shower is often hidden by the bathroom door swinging in front of it and the shower curtain itself. Choosing to focus on some playful and beachy floor tile greatly simplified the process of tile shopping because we could focus our efforts on finding interesting things for just that area, knowing that almost anything would work with some incarnation of white subway-esque tile on the walls of the shower.

Next, Give Yourself Limiting Parameters

Having a million ideas and possibilities is exciting at the start of a design project, but at some point you have to face reality and actually order something. So I know limits don’t sound fun, but they ARE YOUR FRIEND at this stage. Some parameters may be out of your control – like your budget, which clearly puts a cap on your tile’s price per square foot. Or your contractor’s requirement that you order lights from certain vendors or something like that. Plus, you may already know that you want only a certain color, or finish, or size.

Whatever parameters you’ve established, it’s helpful to use those to filter results when you’re searching online. Sites like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair are becoming better and better about their search filters. USE THEM. This will save you time and keep you from going crazy.

One parameter we set for ourselves when shopping for floor tile was “no super small tiles like the patterned hex we laid in the master bathroom at the beach house.” As much as we love how that floor turned out – it was very, very, VERY time consuming to install compared to the other spaces where we used larger tiles.

Choosing larger tiles with interesting patterns instead of relying on smaller tiles isn’t a parameter that makes sense for everyone or every tile project – but it really helped our decision-making process when we imposed that limit on ourselves. And the good news is that we were still able to have some fun within that guideline. For instance, we discovered that The Tile Shop sells these long 4″ x 24″ porcelain tile planks in several hues (their display shows all one color being used together) but we realized it would be fun to use all three tones together. So we bought an equal amount of pink, white, and taupe tiles to create our own large-scale herringbone for one of the mudroom floors. This was us mocking it up on the store’s floor:

We also wanted extremely durable tile materials – porcelain and ceramic only. They’re both hardworking non-porous surfaces that are typically much easier to maintain than marble and cement tile (both of which are porous, so they can get stained and you need to worry more about sealing them, etc). So that material parameter immediately cut out a ton of higher maintenance (and higher budget) choices for us. So again, it really helped us focus on the best options for this project.

Lastly, Visualize Before You Finalize

By this point we often still have 10 million tabs open in our web browser with potential options. So after a couple of passes of nixing things we don’t feel strongly about, we usually find it helpful to visualize all of the pieces together. Believe me, you can go round and round liking 20 things and not knowing how they’ll fit together or how you’ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from browser screen to browser screen – and then you finally visually group them so you can see things together AND IT MAKES THE DECISION 100% EASIER!

The actual way that you choose to visualize them will vary – it may be a mood board of some sort (we use Photoshop) or you can just pin everything to a Pinterest folder to see them all together as a group. Heck, you can even print things out to make a collage and swap things in and out to see what combos you like most. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving one thing in and pulling another thing out will help you see what works well together.

For instance, while we were sifting through tile options we kept a Photoshop file like this open – and we kept dragging different contenders in and out (this isn’t the final version below, btw – it’s what it looked like in the middle of the process). It was a quick way to evaluate what looked good together and what didn’t – and much easier than clicking from tab to tab in our browser, which can make your head spin and leave you feeling like you might never make a decision.

*Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post*

As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved on to creating the floor plan images that you saw earlier, where we just dragged selections into actual rooms on each side of the duplex. Not only can we see everything in one place, but we can also stay organized as to what is going where.

With two identical-but-mirrored floor plans, sometimes it’s hard to keep things straight, so this definitely helps us stay on top of where each tile or cabinet color (or door color) will go. Plus we have the added benefit of getting to see how everything will look all together on each side of the house.

So now that we’ve shared a little bit about our process for selecting items, we’ll tell you about the items we chose themselves!

Duplex Tile, Cabinetry, & Paint

We didn’t set out to create a “pink side” and a “blue side” but once we chose the two interior door colors, it started to naturally lean that way. But we still plan to inject both colors – along with mint and various neutrals and wood tones – throughout each side as we furnish and decorate. So, in the end, it won’t feel as monochromatic as this mood board suggests.

Here are the product links for you guys, as promised:

Mudroom floor in pink, white, and taupe

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

Kitchen backsplash 

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Kallarp

Interior doors: SW White Truffle in semi-gloss

Interior walls: SW Spare White in eggshell (both sides)

Interior trim: SW Extra White in semi-gloss (both sides)

Kitchen backsplash

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Askersund

Interior doors:  SW Oyster Bay in semi-gloss

Mudroom floor

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

The wood tone on both sides is just to represent the wood floors, which are oak hardwoods that we plan to sand down and stain with Minwax Provincial (the same stain we used for our own floors in Richmond).

You can hear more about how we chose the kitchen cabinetry in this week’s podcast, but we knew we wanted to do non-white cabinets on the lowers to keep things a little more unexpected and playful (if you can’t take a few fun risks at a beach house where people will only stay for a week, where can you?!). To stick to our tight kitchen budget, which is around 4-5K for each fully finished kitchen (including appliances), we wanted to work with the stock options at Ikea since we have been really happy with their cabinetry at the pink house. And we were psyched to find both a wood toned cabinet and a painted cabinet option that we loved. In one duplex kitchen we’re pairing this pink tile with these gray-turquoise flat front cabinets. We will probably do a few white uppers on each side too – maybe with some open shelving.

On the other side of the duplex in the other kitchen, instead of colorful cabinets, we’re pairing these beachy wood flat front cabinets with a similar tile, but in a blue colorway. We bought both tile choices from The Tile Bar and they look like cement tile, but they’re porcelain! Three cheers for easier maintenance and added durability.

Here’s a look at some of the other tiles that we purchased. Three of these are from Wayfair (top right, bottom right, and bottom left), since we had such good luck ordering tile from them for the pink house, and the one in the top left is from Home Depot. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s seem to be upping their tile game lately, so it was fun to find an option like this there! And all of this tile is porcelain – again: super durable – and it’s all specifically made for floors, since we don’t want to get anything too slick that’s not meant for that surface.

I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in separate rooms with a lot of “supporting players” – like white subway tile, very light gray walls, fluffy white towels, white vanities, and wood/neutral touches. So in the end they should add some fun and interest to each bathroom, but not be too overwhelming since they’re all going to be tempered by everything else in the room. Here’s hoping, anyway!

P.S. If you missed last week’s duplex video tour, go watch that because Sherry talks about a lot of plans we haven’t covered here – like the window we’re adding to each of the hall bathrooms – and the shelves we’re adding to each side of the master bedroom in front of the exposed brick chimneys. And just for comparison’s sake, you can check out how the pink house turned out. It feels a little more old/historic since there was more original stuff that we could save in that house. Sherry keeps saying that she thinks the duplex will feel like its playful younger sister with a beachier and slightly more colorful wardrobe. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”) appeared first on Young House Love.

[interiorstarweb]

Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”)

I’m not gonna lie. Simultaneously choosing a bunch of finishes – like paint colors for walls and ceilings and trim and doors, cabinets for two kitchens, and tile for six bathrooms (plus two mudroom/laundry rooms along with two kitchen backsplashes) has felt overwhelming at times. Heck, planning just one room, like a bathroom renovation on its own, can feel overwhelming… and here we are planning six different bathrooms, two different kitchens, and 10 other rooms simultaneously! But we’ve managed to keep our heads on straight (so far) and even have some advice to offer through it all.

So whether you’re working on a new construction and have to make a lot of decisions like this all at once, or just trying to systematically renovate your home while keeping each room in mind so it all ends up feeling cohesive without being boring or too repetitive, this post is for you. We actually talked a little bit in this week’s podcast about how we chose each side of the duplex’s (not white!) kitchen cabinets and tile, but we knew that collectively showing you a bunch of our selections all in one post – and breaking down our process for picking them – might help other people out there who have burning questions like these ringing in their ears:

“Is this tile/paint color/cabinetry the right choice?”

“Am I going to regret this?!”

“How is this all going to look together?”

“Am I being too safe and boring? Too out there and crazy?”

“I keep going round and round – how can I actually make a decision?!”

Basically, this is the stage where you’re past all of your inspiration gathering and general planning (we shared our duplex style planning with you here) and you’re trying to take those images you saw on Pinterest or in a magazine (or just that dream room that lives in your head) and make it a real room in your real home. How do you do that? You have to find actual products that you can buy and paint colors that will tie it all together (and did I mention there’s a budget that you have to work with too)?

So here’s what we do to keep things feeling organized and to help focus ourselves and visualize things a lot better – you know so it feels less like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded – and more like following a streamlined process of steps to narrow things down and picture them before you make any final decisions.

First, Make A List

Before you start attempting to making finish selections, you need to know what decisions need to be made. And what helps us to to keep things feel more manageable is to arrange that in the order that each selection needs to be made (with the most urgent ones up top). For example, with so many decisions ahead of us – rugs, furniture, art, bedding, the list goes on and on –  we’ve chosen to focus on just the most urgent things that we need to select before any of that: paint, tile, cabinetry, plumbing, and lighting. These are the things that will go into each of the duplex’s freshly drywalled rooms to make them feel like actual rooms instead of white boxes (if you haven’t seen the most recent video tour, watch that and then come back to this post since it’ll make a lot more sense).

However you make and organize your list is up to you. For us, what starts off as a paper list often ends up as a spreadsheet once we start ordering. Here’s an example of one we used when ordered lighting for the pink house. Those first two columns (item & quantity) are the list we’re talking about. We took inventory of exactly what each space was wired for (did we need a pendant? a can light? a wall sconce? a chandelier? a fan?). It usually helps to walk through your space in person or look at a floor plan (or both!) to make sure you’re not missing anything.

The chart above is incomplete because at some point we typically move over to a more visual list, like a mood board, so we can better see how everything is coming together. Here’s one we’re in the process of making for the duplex, but more on that  – and the actual items in it – in a minute.

Then, Pick Your Star(s)

We learned long ago that a room where too many things scream for your attention can get chaotic. Plus, choosing which pieces will be the focal point relieves the pressure to make every single item in a room “interesting” which can be a tiresome, budget busting, and sometimes impossible goal. So we often break design choices loosely into two categories: stars and supporting players. The stars are the items you want people to notice when they first walk in – like the bold wallpaper, colorful rug, large chandelier, or dramatic paint on the walls.

Some rooms have only one star, others may have several – that’s up to you. But pretty much everything else functions to support those items – like the neutral couch that falls into the background or the white wall that helps your starring artwork or chandelier stand out. For example, readers of our email newsletter know that we’ve been hung up on the idea of colorful doors in the duplex. In fact, we’re using one of the exact colors we saw in this showhouse that we worked on earlier this year (Sherwin William’s Oyster Bay), which is pictured below, for all of the interior doors on one side of the duplex.

We knew if the doors were going to be “stars” then the wall paint around them probably shouldn’t compete for attention. So all of the walls are going to be a very light warm gray (SW Spare White). The interior doors, all of which are solid wood five-paneled doors, are actually going up in the duplex this week and we snapped some in-progress photos over the weekend. They haven’t been painted yet, but I photoshopped the image below to give you an idea of what the other side of the duplex might look like. For that side we picked a muted pink tone (SW White Truffle) which should pair nicely against the same very light warm gray walls on that side (they’ll also be SW Spare White).

We also picked our stars for the bathrooms to help focus our tile shopping. We learned from doing the pink house that we prefer a fun tile floor versus a fun tile shower wall in a bathroom (we can enjoy our cool patterned hex tile floor in the master bath from any vantage point nearby, but the pretty accent tile that we used on the back wall of the hall bathroom’s shower is often hidden by the bathroom door swinging in front of it and the shower curtain itself. Choosing to focus on some playful and beachy floor tile greatly simplified the process of tile shopping because we could focus our efforts on finding interesting things for just that area, knowing that almost anything would work with some incarnation of white subway-esque tile on the walls of the shower.

Next, Give Yourself Limiting Parameters

Having a million ideas and possibilities is exciting at the start of a design project, but at some point you have to face reality and actually order something. So I know limits don’t sound fun, but they ARE YOUR FRIEND at this stage. Some parameters may be out of your control – like your budget, which clearly puts a cap on your tile’s price per square foot. Or your contractor’s requirement that you order lights from certain vendors or something like that. Plus, you may already know that you want only a certain color, or finish, or size.

Whatever parameters you’ve established, it’s helpful to use those to filter results when you’re searching online. Sites like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair are becoming better and better about their search filters. USE THEM. This will save you time and keep you from going crazy.

One parameter we set for ourselves when shopping for floor tile was “no super small tiles like the patterned hex we laid in the master bathroom at the beach house.” As much as we love how that floor turned out – it was very, very, VERY time consuming to install compared to the other spaces where we used larger tiles.

Choosing larger tiles with interesting patterns instead of relying on smaller tiles isn’t a parameter that makes sense for everyone or every tile project – but it really helped our decision-making process when we imposed that limit on ourselves. And the good news is that we were still able to have some fun within that guideline. For instance, we discovered that The Tile Shop sells these long 4″ x 24″ porcelain tile planks in several hues (their display shows all one color being used together) but we realized it would be fun to use all three tones together. So we bought an equal amount of pink, white, and taupe tiles to create our own large-scale herringbone for one of the mudroom floors. This was us mocking it up on the store’s floor:

We also wanted extremely durable tile materials – porcelain and ceramic only. They’re both hardworking non-porous surfaces that are typically much easier to maintain than marble and cement tile (both of which are porous, so they can get stained and you need to worry more about sealing them, etc). So that material parameter immediately cut out a ton of higher maintenance (and higher budget) choices for us. So again, it really helped us focus on the best options for this project.

Lastly, Visualize Before You Finalize

By this point we often still have 10 million tabs open in our web browser with potential options. So after a couple of passes of nixing things we don’t feel strongly about, we usually find it helpful to visualize all of the pieces together. Believe me, you can go round and round liking 20 things and not knowing how they’ll fit together or how you’ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from browser screen to browser screen – and then you finally visually group them so you can see things together AND IT MAKES THE DECISION 100% EASIER!

The actual way that you choose to visualize them will vary – it may be a mood board of some sort (we use Photoshop) or you can just pin everything to a Pinterest folder to see them all together as a group. Heck, you can even print things out to make a collage and swap things in and out to see what combos you like most. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving one thing in and pulling another thing out will help you see what works well together.

For instance, while we were sifting through tile options we kept a Photoshop file like this open – and we kept dragging different contenders in and out (this isn’t the final version below, btw – it’s what it looked like in the middle of the process). It was a quick way to evaluate what looked good together and what didn’t – and much easier than clicking from tab to tab in our browser, which can make your head spin and leave you feeling like you might never make a decision.

*Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post*

As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved on to creating the floor plan images that you saw earlier, where we just dragged selections into actual rooms on each side of the duplex. Not only can we see everything in one place, but we can also stay organized as to what is going where.

With two identical-but-mirrored floor plans, sometimes it’s hard to keep things straight, so this definitely helps us stay on top of where each tile or cabinet color (or door color) will go. Plus we have the added benefit of getting to see how everything will look all together on each side of the house.

So now that we’ve shared a little bit about our process for selecting items, we’ll tell you about the items we chose themselves!

Duplex Tile, Cabinetry, & Paint

We didn’t set out to create a “pink side” and a “blue side” but once we chose the two interior door colors, it started to naturally lean that way. But we still plan to inject both colors – along with mint and various neutrals and wood tones – throughout each side as we furnish and decorate. So, in the end, it won’t feel as monochromatic as this mood board suggests.

Here are the product links for you guys, as promised:

Mudroom floor in pink, white, and taupe

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

Kitchen backsplash 

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Kallarp

Interior doors: SW White Truffle in semi-gloss

Interior walls: SW Spare White in eggshell (both sides)

Interior trim: SW Extra White in semi-gloss (both sides)

Kitchen backsplash

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Askersund

Interior doors:  SW Oyster Bay in semi-gloss

Mudroom floor

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

The wood tone on both sides is just to represent the wood floors, which are oak hardwoods that we plan to sand down and stain with Minwax Provincial (the same stain we used for our own floors in Richmond).

You can hear more about how we chose the kitchen cabinetry in this week’s podcast, but we knew we wanted to do non-white cabinets on the lowers to keep things a little more unexpected and playful (if you can’t take a few fun risks at a beach house where people will only stay for a week, where can you?!). To stick to our tight kitchen budget, which is around 4-5K for each fully finished kitchen (including appliances), we wanted to work with the stock options at Ikea since we have been really happy with their cabinetry at the pink house. And we were psyched to find both a wood toned cabinet and a painted cabinet option that we loved. In one duplex kitchen we’re pairing this pink tile with these gray-turquoise flat front cabinets. We will probably do a few white uppers on each side too – maybe with some open shelving.

On the other side of the duplex in the other kitchen, instead of colorful cabinets, we’re pairing these beachy wood flat front cabinets with a similar tile, but in a blue colorway. We bought both tile choices from The Tile Bar and they look like cement tile, but they’re porcelain! Three cheers for easier maintenance and added durability.

Here’s a look at some of the other tiles that we purchased. Three of these are from Wayfair (top right, bottom right, and bottom left), since we had such good luck ordering tile from them for the pink house, and the one in the top left is from Home Depot. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s seem to be upping their tile game lately, so it was fun to find an option like this there! And all of this tile is porcelain – again: super durable – and it’s all specifically made for floors, since we don’t want to get anything too slick that’s not meant for that surface.

I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in separate rooms with a lot of “supporting players” – like white subway tile, very light gray walls, fluffy white towels, white vanities, and wood/neutral touches. So in the end they should add some fun and interest to each bathroom, but not be too overwhelming since they’re all going to be tempered by everything else in the room. Here’s hoping, anyway!

P.S. If you missed last week’s duplex video tour, go watch that because Sherry talks about a lot of plans we haven’t covered here – like the window we’re adding to each of the hall bathrooms – and the shelves we’re adding to each side of the master bedroom in front of the exposed brick chimneys. And just for comparison’s sake, you can check out how the pink house turned out. It feels a little more old/historic since there was more original stuff that we could save in that house. Sherry keeps saying that she thinks the duplex will feel like its playful younger sister with a beachier and slightly more colorful wardrobe. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”) appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”) published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[lowmaticnews]

Our Duplex Paint, Cabinetry, & Tile Choices (Let’s Just Say They’re Not “Safe”)

I’m not gonna lie. Simultaneously choosing a bunch of finishes – like paint colors for walls and ceilings and trim and doors, cabinets for two kitchens, and tile for six bathrooms (plus two mudroom/laundry rooms along with two kitchen backsplashes) has felt overwhelming at times. Heck, planning just one room, like a bathroom renovation on its own, can feel overwhelming… and here we are planning six different bathrooms, two different kitchens, and 10 other rooms simultaneously! But we’ve managed to keep our heads on straight (so far) and even have some advice to offer through it all.

So whether you’re working on a new construction and have to make a lot of decisions like this all at once, or just trying to systematically renovate your home while keeping each room in mind so it all ends up feeling cohesive without being boring or too repetitive, this post is for you. We actually talked a little bit in this week’s podcast about how we chose each side of the duplex’s (not white!) kitchen cabinets and tile, but we knew that collectively showing you a bunch of our selections all in one post – and breaking down our process for picking them – might help other people out there who have burning questions like these ringing in their ears:

“Is this tile/paint color/cabinetry the right choice?”

“Am I going to regret this?!”

“How is this all going to look together?”

“Am I being too safe and boring? Too out there and crazy?”

“I keep going round and round – how can I actually make a decision?!”

Basically, this is the stage where you’re past all of your inspiration gathering and general planning (we shared our duplex style planning with you here) and you’re trying to take those images you saw on Pinterest or in a magazine (or just that dream room that lives in your head) and make it a real room in your real home. How do you do that? You have to find actual products that you can buy and paint colors that will tie it all together (and did I mention there’s a budget that you have to work with too)?

So here’s what we do to keep things feeling organized and to help focus ourselves and visualize things a lot better – you know so it feels less like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded – and more like following a streamlined process of steps to narrow things down and picture them before you make any final decisions.

First, Make A List

Before you start attempting to making finish selections, you need to know what decisions need to be made. And what helps us to to keep things feel more manageable is to arrange that in the order that each selection needs to be made (with the most urgent ones up top). For example, with so many decisions ahead of us – rugs, furniture, art, bedding, the list goes on and on –  we’ve chosen to focus on just the most urgent things that we need to select before any of that: paint, tile, cabinetry, plumbing, and lighting. These are the things that will go into each of the duplex’s freshly drywalled rooms to make them feel like actual rooms instead of white boxes (if you haven’t seen the most recent video tour, watch that and then come back to this post since it’ll make a lot more sense).

However you make and organize your list is up to you. For us, what starts off as a paper list often ends up as a spreadsheet once we start ordering. Here’s an example of one we used when ordered lighting for the pink house. Those first two columns (item & quantity) are the list we’re talking about. We took inventory of exactly what each space was wired for (did we need a pendant? a can light? a wall sconce? a chandelier? a fan?). It usually helps to walk through your space in person or look at a floor plan (or both!) to make sure you’re not missing anything.

The chart above is incomplete because at some point we typically move over to a more visual list, like a mood board, so we can better see how everything is coming together. Here’s one we’re in the process of making for the duplex, but more on that  – and the actual items in it – in a minute.

Then, Pick Your Star(s)

We learned long ago that a room where too many things scream for your attention can get chaotic. Plus, choosing which pieces will be the focal point relieves the pressure to make every single item in a room “interesting” which can be a tiresome, budget busting, and sometimes impossible goal. So we often break design choices loosely into two categories: stars and supporting players. The stars are the items you want people to notice when they first walk in – like the bold wallpaper, colorful rug, large chandelier, or dramatic paint on the walls.

Some rooms have only one star, others may have several – that’s up to you. But pretty much everything else functions to support those items – like the neutral couch that falls into the background or the white wall that helps your starring artwork or chandelier stand out. For example, readers of our email newsletter know that we’ve been hung up on the idea of colorful doors in the duplex. In fact, we’re using one of the exact colors we saw in this showhouse that we worked on earlier this year (Sherwin William’s Oyster Bay), which is pictured below, for all of the interior doors on one side of the duplex.

We knew if the doors were going to be “stars” then the wall paint around them probably shouldn’t compete for attention. So all of the walls are going to be a very light warm gray (SW Spare White). The interior doors, all of which are solid wood five-paneled doors, are actually going up in the duplex this week and we snapped some in-progress photos over the weekend. They haven’t been painted yet, but I photoshopped the image below to give you an idea of what the other side of the duplex might look like. For that side we picked a muted pink tone (SW White Truffle) which should pair nicely against the same very light warm gray walls on that side (they’ll also be SW Spare White).

We also picked our stars for the bathrooms to help focus our tile shopping. We learned from doing the pink house that we prefer a fun tile floor versus a fun tile shower wall in a bathroom (we can enjoy our cool patterned hex tile floor in the master bath from any vantage point nearby, but the pretty accent tile that we used on the back wall of the hall bathroom’s shower is often hidden by the bathroom door swinging in front of it and the shower curtain itself. Choosing to focus on some playful and beachy floor tile greatly simplified the process of tile shopping because we could focus our efforts on finding interesting things for just that area, knowing that almost anything would work with some incarnation of white subway-esque tile on the walls of the shower.

Next, Give Yourself Limiting Parameters

Having a million ideas and possibilities is exciting at the start of a design project, but at some point you have to face reality and actually order something. So I know limits don’t sound fun, but they ARE YOUR FRIEND at this stage. Some parameters may be out of your control – like your budget, which clearly puts a cap on your tile’s price per square foot. Or your contractor’s requirement that you order lights from certain vendors or something like that. Plus, you may already know that you want only a certain color, or finish, or size.

Whatever parameters you’ve established, it’s helpful to use those to filter results when you’re searching online. Sites like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair are becoming better and better about their search filters. USE THEM. This will save you time and keep you from going crazy.

One parameter we set for ourselves when shopping for floor tile was “no super small tiles like the patterned hex we laid in the master bathroom at the beach house.” As much as we love how that floor turned out – it was very, very, VERY time consuming to install compared to the other spaces where we used larger tiles.

Choosing larger tiles with interesting patterns instead of relying on smaller tiles isn’t a parameter that makes sense for everyone or every tile project – but it really helped our decision-making process when we imposed that limit on ourselves. And the good news is that we were still able to have some fun within that guideline. For instance, we discovered that The Tile Shop sells these long 4″ x 24″ porcelain tile planks in several hues (their display shows all one color being used together) but we realized it would be fun to use all three tones together. So we bought an equal amount of pink, white, and taupe tiles to create our own large-scale herringbone for one of the mudroom floors. This was us mocking it up on the store’s floor:

We also wanted extremely durable tile materials – porcelain and ceramic only. They’re both hardworking non-porous surfaces that are typically much easier to maintain than marble and cement tile (both of which are porous, so they can get stained and you need to worry more about sealing them, etc). So that material parameter immediately cut out a ton of higher maintenance (and higher budget) choices for us. So again, it really helped us focus on the best options for this project.

Lastly, Visualize Before You Finalize

By this point we often still have 10 million tabs open in our web browser with potential options. So after a couple of passes of nixing things we don’t feel strongly about, we usually find it helpful to visualize all of the pieces together. Believe me, you can go round and round liking 20 things and not knowing how they’ll fit together or how you’ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from browser screen to browser screen – and then you finally visually group them so you can see things together AND IT MAKES THE DECISION 100% EASIER!

The actual way that you choose to visualize them will vary – it may be a mood board of some sort (we use Photoshop) or you can just pin everything to a Pinterest folder to see them all together as a group. Heck, you can even print things out to make a collage and swap things in and out to see what combos you like most. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving one thing in and pulling another thing out will help you see what works well together.

For instance, while we were sifting through tile options we kept a Photoshop file like this open – and we kept dragging different contenders in and out (this isn’t the final version below, btw – it’s what it looked like in the middle of the process). It was a quick way to evaluate what looked good together and what didn’t – and much easier than clicking from tab to tab in our browser, which can make your head spin and leave you feeling like you might never make a decision.

*Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post*

As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved on to creating the floor plan images that you saw earlier, where we just dragged selections into actual rooms on each side of the duplex. Not only can we see everything in one place, but we can also stay organized as to what is going where.

With two identical-but-mirrored floor plans, sometimes it’s hard to keep things straight, so this definitely helps us stay on top of where each tile or cabinet color (or door color) will go. Plus we have the added benefit of getting to see how everything will look all together on each side of the house.

So now that we’ve shared a little bit about our process for selecting items, we’ll tell you about the items we chose themselves!

Duplex Tile, Cabinetry, & Paint

We didn’t set out to create a “pink side” and a “blue side” but once we chose the two interior door colors, it started to naturally lean that way. But we still plan to inject both colors – along with mint and various neutrals and wood tones – throughout each side as we furnish and decorate. So, in the end, it won’t feel as monochromatic as this mood board suggests.

Here are the product links for you guys, as promised:

Mudroom floor in pink, white, and taupe

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

Kitchen backsplash 

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Kallarp

Interior doors: SW White Truffle in semi-gloss

Interior walls: SW Spare White in eggshell (both sides)

Interior trim: SW Extra White in semi-gloss (both sides)

Kitchen backsplash

Kitchen lower cabinets: Ikea Askersund

Interior doors:  SW Oyster Bay in semi-gloss

Mudroom floor

Master bathroom floor

Hall bathroom floor

The wood tone on both sides is just to represent the wood floors, which are oak hardwoods that we plan to sand down and stain with Minwax Provincial (the same stain we used for our own floors in Richmond).

You can hear more about how we chose the kitchen cabinetry in this week’s podcast, but we knew we wanted to do non-white cabinets on the lowers to keep things a little more unexpected and playful (if you can’t take a few fun risks at a beach house where people will only stay for a week, where can you?!). To stick to our tight kitchen budget, which is around 4-5K for each fully finished kitchen (including appliances), we wanted to work with the stock options at Ikea since we have been really happy with their cabinetry at the pink house. And we were psyched to find both a wood toned cabinet and a painted cabinet option that we loved. In one duplex kitchen we’re pairing this pink tile with these gray-turquoise flat front cabinets. We will probably do a few white uppers on each side too – maybe with some open shelving.

On the other side of the duplex in the other kitchen, instead of colorful cabinets, we’re pairing these beachy wood flat front cabinets with a similar tile, but in a blue colorway. We bought both tile choices from The Tile Bar and they look like cement tile, but they’re porcelain! Three cheers for easier maintenance and added durability.

Here’s a look at some of the other tiles that we purchased. Three of these are from Wayfair (top right, bottom right, and bottom left), since we had such good luck ordering tile from them for the pink house, and the one in the top left is from Home Depot. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s seem to be upping their tile game lately, so it was fun to find an option like this there! And all of this tile is porcelain – again: super durable – and it’s all specifically made for floors, since we don’t want to get anything too slick that’s not meant for that surface.

I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in separate rooms with a lot of “supporting players” – like white subway tile, very light gray walls, fluffy white towels, white vanities, and wood/neutral touches. So in the end they should add some fun and interest to each bathroom, but not be too overwhelming since they’re all going to be tempered by everything else in the room. Here’s hoping, anyway!

P.S. If you missed last week’s duplex video tour, go watch that because Sherry talks about a lot of plans we haven’t covered here – like the window we’re adding to each of the hall bathrooms – and the shelves we’re adding to each side of the master bedroom in front of the exposed brick chimneys. And just for comparison’s sake, you can check out how the pink house turned out. It feels a little more old/historic since there was more original stuff that we could save in that house. Sherry keeps saying that she thinks the duplex will feel like its playful younger sister with a beachier and slightly more colorful wardrobe. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

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