#also I just got home but i am leaving again bc people are fucking going to drive me to eat dry wall

[skull-crusher]

thick Bubble fucker monday.

proof that bubble is peak design..

[mommahughes19-23]

imma tattoo artist - Q.H

@tattoosbymorgs : did some tattoos and then took my best friend to see my man play his favorite game..

tagged : @yfriend @_quinnhughes

location : VAN

_eliaspettersson : dude that dragon is SICK and I wish I didn't hate needles ...

luca.fantilli : next time I see you I wanna get my tiny love dinosaur

↪ tattoosbymorgs : make it happen lu - you know where I am, bring ya self

bboeser : I WANT YOUR JACKET. give it here!!!!

jackhughes : oh. wow. this is neat.

lhughes_06 : I think your friend is confused as to who's jersey she should wear ..

↪ tattoosbymorgs : DONT PRESSURE MY FRIEND YOU BULLY! SHE CAN CHEER FOR WHO EVER SHE WANTS

trevorzegras : wow... thats legit my bestest lil cousin ever PLEASE TATTOO ME ASAP

↪ tattoosbymorgs : first off im 2 years older than you, second off no, I saw you cheat on me with your other artist.❌

bradytkachuk : dang Quinn, talented and pretty, she's a keeper.

↪ tattoosbymorgs : what is that even supposed to mean?

↪ bradytkachuk : just that youre more skilled than young Quinten will ever be

↪ ehtkachuk : BRADY leave her alone

icole28 : best frienddddddd

lindholmelias : my two best friends ugh

zadorov_16 : I MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY OMG I WANT TO FREAKING COME HOME

elblue6 : so talented! love you sweetie.

dakotajoshua8 : will u ever tattoo me?

↪ tattoosbymorgs : probably not because you didn't say please

_tylermyers_ : well even tho you didn't wear any canucks gear I guess its fine... 🆘

↪ tattoosbymorgs : I LET MY FRIEND WEAR IT TO GIVE HER AN AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCE YOU FUCK😑😑😑

yfriend : the best time ever!!!!!!!!!! @j.tmiller9 MORE FIGHTSSS

emmamatthews : you crazy girl!! miss you!😜

austonmatthews : any luck convincing Quinn to let you tattoo him?

↪ tattoosbymorgs : you know the answer is still no.... why do you have to be so mean to me

lelexdemko : sweetie that is stunning! cant wait to see you next season!!😘

_quinnhughes : i smile just for you baby ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️😁😁😁😁😁

↪ tattoosbymorgs : I love you so much omg 💕💕💕💕💕

nilshoglander : this is a lot of pda idk if I can handle it👀

j,tmiller9 : I wanna get a tattoo by you ☺️

↪ tattoosbymorgs : NO. jk if you bring your children I might reconsider 😏

tdemko30 : @_quinnhughes get my number #35 tattooed on you 😁

↪ _quinnhughes : not going to happen bud

ehtkachuk : STUNNING MOMMAAA ❤️❤️❤️❤️

colecaufield : 🙈

_alexturcotte : 🥴

*TURNING THIS INTO A FEW PART SERIES OF QUINN x TATTOO ARTIST!GF*

A.N : HIIIIII - long note bc some stuff happened and idk it got me thinking.

ok so this is basically me just ranting about tattoo related things :)

This girl is (obviously) an actual tattoo artist who does real business and I am a HUGEEEEE believer in giving credit where it is due.... so I believe her name is Mar, ALL WORKS OF ART ABOVE ARE THE ORIGINAL WORKS OF MAR DO NOT STEAL OR CREDIT AS YOUR OWN. below you can find a link to her Pinterest where I am sure you could research more to find her other socials.

even if you dont want to know more about her work I encourage you to just look at some of it regardless because (again im not a tattoo artist just a girl with a few tattoos and an obsession) I believe she is mainly a fine line style artist and while being an artist of any capacity takes talent fine line is its own art. I know she also does some capacity of portrait work (I haven't seen any people just a few pet ones) and those are also a tremendously precise skill set. all in all I just think that people should appreciate the time, work, and effort these artist put into their work.

anywho I just wanted to say I would be honored for her to tattoo me.

tagged : @quinnylouhughesx43 @skylershines @jacktoria4ever @bunbunbl0gs @63kaprizov

[drdemonprince]

I went to visit my friend from high school for spring break in college one year. I'd had a crush on him in hs, it was not reciprocated but we remained close. I was also a late bloomer sexuality wise so it wasn't until college that I even would have been up for anything physical. ANYWAY. Decided to visit, figured this was my shot to try and act on that crush again. On the drive from the airport he came out to me as gay so, I figured, that's that. Explains why he wasn't into me in hs and why he didnt really have a reason back then.

I'm determined to hook up w someone on this trip though, so that's always simmering. We hang out with his local friend who is having a will-they-wont-they thing with a guy in their grad program. She is desperate to hook up but he's hot and cold.

We concot a plan to bait him with a possible threesome, spend an evening texting and sending him pics of us making out in a pool. (It's Miami, it just seemed like the thing to do lol) This guy is into it but he's busy that night and nothing comes of it.

A few days pass then it's my last day in Miami, my flight leaves at 6 am the next morning. She calls my friend after dinner like, holy shit it worked, he's coming over now, can you guys get here?

I'm like, fuck it, let's go. I'll bring my luggage and you can just drop me at the airport at 4 am or whatever. Forgot to mention, my friend from hs also has a crush on this other guy, so he's been down to help however he can haha

We arrive, the other guy isn't there yet, the three of us are drinking that whipped cream vodka that was popular at the time while we wait. Dude finally shows up AND HE BROUGHT A FRIEND. Unclear if he warned her ahead of time. Friend is... less cute but whatever, they brought weed. We smoke and dance some bachata and flirt etc...

Tbh my memory gets a little hazy here but somehow she ended up taking grad school guy and his buddy up to her bedroom, and I'm alone w my hs friend, we are smasheddd. I ask him, hey I know you're into guys but do you wanna fool around anyway? And we ended up making out in the bathroom, I tried going down on him but he was too drunk to keep it up so we petered off, then decided to go check on the others bc we realized we left this girl alone w two dude we barely knew.

Well they we having a merry little threesome upstairs and when we came to the door they invited us to join in!

That is how I ended up with my ass in the air getting railed by two strangers while I ate this girl out like a starving person. Grad school guy actually did us a solid w his friend bc that guys cock was huge. My only regret is I didn't get a chance to suck that guy off ;(

Eventually, they headed home and my hs friend and his friend stayed up w me until 3 am when I called a cab to the airport (idk why I ever thought we'd be sober enough to drive). Again, this was Miami but I'm fairly sure I won skankiest person in the supershuttle, which the exhibitionist in me loved. Slept it off on the plane home!

No regrets, best spring break of my life, opened my eyes to group sex and I still got to hook up w my hs crush :) and we stayed great friends!

ANON this is the most late 2000's story fucking ever. pinnacle whipped cream vodka. messily negotiated threesomes. people showing up to the sex party with surprise extra guests. gay guys fucking women. everybody being notionally bi but also not really. near drunk driving. i've been at parties exactly like these. my first apartment in college in 2007 had a pool and we were skanking it up in there miami style all the time. cheers dude

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for pretending to be sick in order to skip school even though I'm making my parents worried?

(I'm submitting this on a Monday. fuck Mondays btw.)

I (15M) am the only child of both of my parents (42F, 44M) and even though I love them and they love me, I feel like they don't really get me. since I was like 12 or so I started getting bullied by my classmates bc, essentially, I have "childish" interests (I like Adventure Time and video-games. my classmates need to realize we're technically still kids, but nooo they're not teenagers they're "Young Adults" and "Too Cool" to like anything remotely childish) and whenever I've tried to tell my parents that I'm experiencing bullying, they somehow end up thinking that I just don't want to go to school bc I'm lazy. I know being a parent is probably not easy but. what the fuck.

from my own experience I've noticed male and female bullies use different methods - guys hit me and use brute force against me while girls say hurtful things to me. one of the guys who bullies me, let's call him DH which stands for Dickhead (15M), is also extremely popular for some reason. he's very tall, very strong and he always uses that against me (I'm almost as tall as DH but I'm just lanky). he bullies anyone who is "beneath him" lol everybody bow down to the king of the fucking world.

today DH was making a scene at recess bc his girlfriend (15F) was wearing a skirt that was too short according to him. he was so mad at her that people were starting to form a circle around them. since DH is so popular people really respect his gf but they clearly respect him more bc today no one tried to help her. I don't respect DH, because he's a dickhead, so I stepped in and said something like "c'mon man what the hell, there's no need to humiliate your girlfriend like this, leave her alone". DH was pissed. he heatedly said that just because no girl will ever want to date me, that doesn't give me the right to tell other guys how to handle their relationships and their girlfriends. he got rlly mad and clearly he wanted to hit me so I ran like hell and proceeded to hide from him for the rest of recess. I felt like a little bitch tbh. DH always makes me feel like a little bitch.

before classes started again his gf found me and talked to me for like 5 minutes. she said I don't know DH like she does and that he's actually a really good boyfriend (HA, sure) and that I would be more liked and popular if I wanted to be, but it's "not normal" that I watch Adventure Time at 15. she also told me that DH intends to beat the shit out of me tomorrow. he said he'll "kill me" and ngl he has the physical strength to do so. this made me shit my fucking pants so today as soon as I got home I decided to pretend I was sick since I can be pretty good at acting. I told my parents I had a headache, I started fake-coughing, I said I felt really tired. I even managed to look pale on purpose by thinking of how fucking scared I was of DH and what he might do to me, and I raised the temperature of the thermometer by rubbing it against the fabric of my sweatshirt.

apparently I was so convincing that my parents agreed to let me skip class tomorrow and they even said I can skip it for the rest of the week if I don't improve (tbh I think I won't "improve" if you know what I mean) and I could see they were worried. this is the reason why I feel like an asshole. at the end of the day I'm making my parents worried, I'm lying about my health and I feel kinda guilty. but I'm too scared, and if I tell them the truth they'll just tell me to "man up" or they'll think once again that I'm just too lazy to want to attend school.

anyway. Adventure Time rocks 🤘🏻

[lunarlivs]

Ohh am I late for Sleepover Saturday? It's technically Saturday in my time again so I hope we're still good haha

Let's see:

FMK the big three, James, Sirius n Remus

3 things you love about Remus that you don't get to see often in fanfic/media representation

you are NEVER late for sleepover saturday!! it’s actually a 24/7 event here ^-^ thanks for asking!

god…. i actually thought of this for so so long and each answer leaves me hurt, but this is the one i feel most good about (and sorry for the long explanations)

marry: remus, because i think about marrying him every day every hour every second, i love that man and i think us living together would work. also i think that means we’d fuck and yes i am very much yes okay yes. james would make a better wife but rems is just my number one

fuck: sirius. i mean, i gotta fuck the hottest and prettiest person to ever have lived right? i think he’d be just a fantastic partner and if me and rem are already married we all can d- *get run over by a car*

which unfortunately means i’d kill: james >_< i love him but games the game sorry baby, next time i’ll marry and impregn- *gets run over by the same car again*

also THANKS FOR ASKING ABOUT REMUS you don’t know how happy it makes me to talk about him <33333 (also idk what you count as not seeing often but these are what popped into my head)

remus being a genuine LOSER. i mean, he’s very much accepted it and is content with it, but he is such a loser and a nerd. yes he’s got that secret charm of a brilliant mind and lovely brown eyes but to most people he is a man with bad posture and star wars stickers on his shitty computer, who wears the same jumper five days in a row and doesn’t remember how to talk to people. he is shy and kind and thoughtful but also the most awkward person you’ll ever meet and not in a good way. his hobbies include reading awful complex books about history, smoking on the parking lot behind his barista job where he is an absolutely bitch, crouching under doorways, saying ”actually” and correcting people who didn’t ask for it, and admiring sirius from afar (they’re still gonna fall in love obvi bc that certain something about his sad dude charm just pierces right through sirius’s though heart)

i love beefy remus. not necessarily muscular but just big, meaning tall and hairy and a soft stomach and thighs like treetrunks… you get the vibe, him and i are new acquaintances but love love love him

remus’s family dynamics can be super super interesting, idk if this is a rare thing but maybe just mostly something i’ve been thinking abour lately. him and hope being each others best friends (again to add to the loser part) and so similar in how they treat other people. she’s shown him how to make a house a home, they bake and cook together a lot, hope read him all the storybooks she could find when he was small. i love lyall being a nerdy funny old man who works with animals (or magical creatures) and loves nothing more than being out in nature with his family. they go on hikes with both of their backpacks filled with books and snack, they look at plants and animals and lyall keeps blabbering on whilest remus is just happy to be with his dad. in a world where remus has lycanthropy i love him teaching remus how to be with the wolf, and how to love himself though it all.

[jaskierx]

hi gay people in my phone who wants to hear about the Day i’ve Had

so like many of us i have a close friend from school who i was Weirdly Close with at the time and i was in love with her and i didn’t tell her and a few times we got drunk and made out and then one time we both got Really Drunk and had sex and i thought we’d go somewhere but in the morning she said she didn’t really remember it. and then later (by which point i had got together with my now husband) i told her i loved her in school and she told me she had been in love with me too but never told me and we were both kind of like ‘huh! well isn’t that something!!’

anyway i stayed with my partner and she dated a few people and eventually she started seeing this guy who is a dick and has moved her to a really remote area where his family live and she doesn’t know anybody there, she doesn’t have a job, she can’t drive, she’s relapsed with her ed, etc. and she’s marrying him next year and she desperately wants me to come to the wedding bc i’m all she has and he has vetoed it (understandably) bc he knows i don’t like him. and every time she’s drunk she messages me like ‘i wish you could come to the wedding. i’m really lonely here’ and i’ve made it so clear that if she ever wants out, i’ll make it happen, i’ll get her travel sorted, i’ll give her a place to stay, she is welcome to turn up on my doorstep unannounced in the middle of the night

and it’s been years now and i don’t see her much (like. once every couple of years) especially since she moved away. and we don’t talk very often anymore. so i kinda don’t think about it. it’s not something i’m actively worrying about. in my head i’d made my peace with it.

EXCEPT i had a really vivid dream last night (like the most vivid dream i’ve had in years) that she asked me to pick her up bc she wanted to leave him. and i did and he came home as we were leaving and had this big argument and we left anyway and went to my house. and she told me she loved me and had sex with me and my husband but in the dream it was like. entirely focused on her and then i woke up and my brain has felt like scrambled egg ever since bc it felt so fuckin real and i do not like it

bc it’s like. i don’t want to be with her. i love her and she will always be important to me but i don’t want to be her partner and i don’t want to sleep with her and i haven’t wanted that for years and years and i never want to be with anyone but my husband ever again. but i also don’t want her to marry that guy and be stuck there forever! i want better for her! he’s going to end up making her have a bunch of kids she doesn’t want and being his housewife forever and i just want to like. rescue her. which i don’t have the right to do. bc she can make her own choices and doesn’t need saving and even if she did i am not the person to do that

but i’ve spent the whole day sitting like 🫥🫥🫥 bc wtf is my brain doing man i don’t need this i had to go to work and have Meetings today. and instead i’m constantly turning the whole situation over in my head and also worrying that i’m a terrible person for essentially having a sex dream involving someone i know and have previously fucked while i’m asleep next to my partner yk. anyway!!!!!!

[waters-and-the-wilde]

okay speaking of wrestling and also apropos of 'Rita drags him in by his tie', I was previously having Thoughts about imminently post Got His Ass wherein Rita is bound and determined to drag Nureyev kicking and screaming back into being family again so uh. scenario.

Rita corners Nureyev for A Conversation after they Get His Ass, like plot resolution denouement loose ends and stuff where he's in the clear debt-wise, made his peace with Slip however that looks, he and Juno Have Talked but they're like just on the other side of Having Talked. like Things Are Okay but also everything's just so raw and they're being So Careful with each other, it's like the early days on the Carte Blanche again and it's hard to shake the feeling that any more disturbance is going to topple whatever they're trying to rebuild

so Nureyev is just. his whole brain is full of fire alarms. he's vibrating in place like a greyhound that just got picked up at the shelter after it got spooked and ran away from home. this time he has no high ground as the injured party, he and Rita have known each other for a year now so there's a lot less of her initial 'sniff out the new beau' hesitancy, and sure he knows Rita well enough that it's obvious she's not gonna up and Ruin Him on purpose when she wholeheartedly volunteered to get him out of the mess he was in but still. she's the most unpredictable person he's ever met, he has no idea how this is going to go.

like logically he knows that he and Juno are working shit out and logically he knows that Rita's kinder than the people in her life deserve and might continue to tolerate him, but ultimately she's Juno's best friend who might well just be about to give him the mother of all 'you're on thin fucking ice' shovel talks, like she can't possibly still approve of him anymore right??

so he's scrambling to do preemptive damage control, he's throwing everything he's got into trying to Fix This. going on about how he knows what she must think of him and how sorry he is and that all he has to say for himself is that he only wanted to keep Juno safe, that he couldn't bear the thought of dragging him down with him, not when he was free and their family was together and he knows he should have ended it when Juno asked him to and he just wasn't strong enough and Rita's like. yeah that's nice i know Mista' Nureyev, hey can I tell you what I said to Mista' Steel when he told me about leaving you in that hotel?

and Nureyev shuts up and braces himself and nods very seriously and then she's like, actually you might wanna take off your glasses for this, and now he's extra confused and possibly even more terrified, and she waits until he's put them in a little case and set it on a side table and then there's just kind of a blur and a whole Rita NYEEERRRRRRAAaGGHHH!!!! noise and WHOOMP

pillow to the face

(for context. in my brain. I sorta presume that Juno told her about what happened with Miasma at some point in the aftermath of Newtown bc he owed her an explanation about both times he went missing, and yes she was glad that Juno didn't run away on an adventure across the galaxy without her but she knows a dick move when she sees one and also probably has the full context of baby Mista' Steel's self-sabotaging romantic choices (Juno said there was a whole thing about him walking out when he was with Diamond so I am assuming that Rita was privy to any number of related incidents over the course of those years). finding out that he passed up the chance to run away on a romantic adventure with the mysterious and dashing gentleman who he'd been mooning over for month, who was apparently also smitten with him the whole time and saved his life and tried to take care of him when he lost his eye?? she waited until he was staring into the bottom of his glass and then started whaling on him with a pillow)

anyway Nureyev doesn't get a chance to do much except yelp and sputter and get his arms up before she whacks him with the pillow again. and again. and starts yelling like 'YOu! are! such! a! big! dumb! baBY! Just! 'Cause! YOU! Think! People're better off! Without you! Don't make you! All! Noble 'n stuff!'

and he gets with the program pretty fast, which is to say that he's just on the floor letting her do her worst because that's just what's happening now

'alright I yield! I surrender! have mercy your honor!'

'DAMN! RIGHT! YOU! DO! DidN'T! Captain! Mom! Teach! you! aNYThInG! Big! Stupid! Tough guy! Tryin'a! Do it all! Yourself! We're! S'posed to be! FaMBLY! Now you're! Stuck with us! FoReVeR!!'

tackles him with the pillow. starts tickling him. both of them are shrieking. he vaguely registers that Juno has appeared and is slouching in the doorway 'my love i beg of you call off the attack i'll do anything' and Juno's like 'sorry honey i'm a little busy' and is holding up something that is probably comms-shaped and 'Nooooo, Juno how could you, JUNO SINCE WHEN DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RECORD THINGS'

(and the thing is Nureyev was just letting it happen because he assumed this was catharsis for Rita's sake and sure it's not not for Rita getting it out of her system but she processes things pretty fast you know? and she runs out of steam and goes off to get a snack and he's just there on the floor with his hair in his face kinda punch-drunk and Juno sidles up and sits beside him and whoops turns out Rita found the Release Feelings Valve and Juno's like 'yeah she does that. went a lot easier on me but I think that was mostly because I'd just gotten out of the hospital when i told her about all that.')

(a couple months later Ruby turns up to scoop Jet in the nick of time from a dangerous raid on Dark Matters and he asks what it's been up to and it pulls up the footage that Juno copied to the databanks. he gets a good kick out of the fact that Rita was on the same page about the whole 'he is solitary and overconfident and alone he can only fail' thing and that she got the opportunity to address it in the most rita way possible)

[brianlefevre]

here's a song about macdennis i wrote a while back. i thought of it again bcs of the frank vs russia ep so im legally obligated to post. lyrics under the cut! (also i am by no means a good singer or writer just a warning)

Am I crazy baby? Am I crazy baby

I feel insane for loving you the way that I do

You say “don’t call me baby, Pet names are fucking silly

Oh god I can’t breathe I think I need to leave”

Backtrack to when we first met under the bleachers in high school

And you said you wanted weed it was a one time thing But you just kept coming back to me

You and your sister both went to college, you were so cool

I visited you every week, you graduated finally, and you asked “do you wanna move in with me?”

I said “of course, I do, of course I do” And we got an apartment and bought a new bar

And you got your sister and I got my best friend and we’d drink all night, thought the world was ours

We were crazy baby, Insane and so unsteady

But we lived our twenties like our favorite action movies

We were crazy baby, We were so unsteady

But you knew I’d be the wind beneath your wings

Fastrack to selling a house together, faking marriage was so clever 

So we did it again But you said we’re only friends even if we’d depend on each other ’til the end

And we’d go to that Italian restaurant every month

We’d always dress our best and I always suppressed the urge to ask are we really just friends?

You would’ve said “of course we are, of course we are why else would I live with you and run a bar?” 

That was enough for me I always believed that the world would forever be ours

And now, you’re standing in front of me

Your voice is a little bit weak

It’s valentines day and you always hated

Seeing people happy cause that was never you and me

And as you open up the crate I see your face, there are tears in your eyes

And the only time you ever cried was when you thought you were in love and didn’t have to lie

Maybe I’m in love Maybe you’re in love

Well it had to be one of the above

everything changed and you kept feeling pain

you looked at the gift I got you and said

 “you’re so fucking crazy, making me act insanely

I have to get away from you, I know what I should do”

I say “don’t leave me baby I know its really scary

But please stay” and you shut the door in my face 

And left me there

With forty years of memories just hanging in the air

In our empty home I wonder

How we changed so much since we met under the bleachers

[shadowsndaisies]

robin catching feelings

so someone sent me an ask but tumblr glitched and I can't find it but here's a little headcannon/my thought process on it:

ok so when does our birdboy realize??

already set that birdy had a small crush in ep 1 so what if robin did too? 

but what if he’s not fully aware until later, developing his feelings throughout all the things that are happening

but like more to come on the kernel of his crush from when they first met...

HERE'S WHY

chapter 6 (infiltrated)

Robin had some interesting feelings about wally and birdy’s kiss

Maybe he's not exactly sure why— just that it bothered him, and he kind of leaves the emoting alone for a bit. bc he does like her but mb he doesnt realize how much he likes her…. yet.

wally on the other hand notices the slightest hints of jealousy and will be supporting the information away for later

chapters 9 (bereft) and 11 (terrors)

so, in episode 9, they had the brain blast amnesia, and Kaldur got super sick. 

Robin was all jealous. Which is something he had to come to terms with it, especially because ain't no way Wally would let him go. 

So maybe wally presses on it a little bit and Robin gets defensive, so he decides to let it go… for now…

But after 11, when Robin and Birdy had their little moment on the sofa, he brings it up again because now he knows some things. 

That was when birdy did her reveal to him, so maybe he's like maybe… I…. am… into…. her...

also he called her beautiful… sooooo

so at this point homeboy knows he has a crush, but he's not exactly down bad

chapters 14 (revelations) & 15 (humanity)

so based off what was said just before, this is why 14 and 15 have such a big role. 14 gives us birdy’s big chance with Dr. fate. 

I mean the boys almost lost her, and that drives home for him because holy shit I could've lost her. 

so now he’s thinking about it…

he does not like the feeling he gets because he's lost plenty of people in his life already. 

And then in 15, right? Enter Z? It's common knowledge that zatanna’s pretty and she seems to have a little minor crush on him too 

because she's flirting with him, but maybe this is the distraction he needs because he doesn't want to fall for birdy. i mean look at B right? he doesn't have attachments bc they only end up in pain, and with all rob’s already lost he's not trying to make new ones.

which is why he's so dumb and flirts w zatanna— to keep his mind of birdy

which puts us at chapter 16 (failsafe) - when birdy reveals how she feels, outright and clearly

and his distraction tactic goes out the window bc fuck birdy is pretty and smart and tough and oh fuck. oh shit. this is more than just a crush

chapter 17 (disordered) 

his admission of being into her following therapy w dinah and his realization of not wanting to be batman. 

of wanting to be in her life, wanting to be a part of her life, actively.

of being there for her, there to catch her, whatever she needs

not wanting to be bruce- especially the isolation of it all

aka when we see birdboy is, in fact, down bad

from that point on we see his feelings grow

18 (secrets)

homeboy's got heart eyes watching ng stand up to the bat

19 (misplaced)

HUGE for their development bc birdy meets dick grayson for the first time

and he's out here showing the most secretive part of himself to her

21 (agendas)

our love birds go on a date (kinda) and they get to be yn and dick, and see how they do with each other over ng and robin, and it just reaffirms the feelings for both of them

everything tags: 

@butterfly-skinnylegend​​ 

dc taglist: 

@grey-water-colors​ @batarella​ @loninctzencarat​ ​​@escapenightmare

cnng taglist: 

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[inkovert]

Things I want to do in 2024

I've never been the type to make resolutions and I know we tend to put more weight on them than they actually are meant to have, hence why we never follow through with them. So! I am attempting to just make a list of things I am hoping to do in 2024. very low stakes. not going to think of these as goals, just things I want to do. and hope that I follow through with some of them.

Health-related

Planning my meals and keeping a food journal: I've been on a health journey for about the past year and I want to try to get back on track with that and be more consistent with it. I've been trying to be more consistent with preparing home cooked meals rather than relying on frozen meals/eating out, eating 3 meals a day etc, and that's been going well so far, but it could be better. I think one way to help myself be more consistent is planning my meals out (not like meal-prepping just literally being like this day I'm going to eat these things so I have a more structured "menu" vs throwing things together in my head the day of). I think I also want to start keeping a food journal. I peeped that iOS added a Journal app to the new software and I might try that out to see how useful it would be for food journaling, doing things like documenting my mood around the times I eat, what I eat etc.

Find a new dentist and start flossing: When I say I've been on a health journey over the last year I really mean in every possible way you can think of lol. Dental health was one of them. I've made a lot of improvements but I'm so prone to getting cavities that I think I could make a few more. I am one of the 60% of people who do not floss every day bc I found it hard/time-consuming/unnecessary. But I started doing it a couple weeks ago and... it wasn't so bad? I was pretty consistent with it until I went home for the holidays and that fell to crap bc I couldn't find the floss I had packed. anywho. I want to continue to be consistent with that and make that a habit, in addition to finding a new dentist bc the last one I saw was a bit too...assertive and I didn't like their staff so decided never to go back there again.

Personal/things that actually make me excited

Decorate my room: lol. Can you believe I've lived in my apt for two years and I've yet to decorate my room (even the bathroom has some stuff hung up on the walls). I literally have the decorations sitting in a pile by my bedroom door collecting dust. So yeah. I wanna actually do that. Tbf what stopped me before was that I wasn't confident I'd be able to stay in this apt for long. I thought for sure after a year they would jack up the price and I would be forced to move. But, we're now going on three years and things have been fine so I should actually properly decorate the place.

✨ Get a tattoo ✨ The sparkles are because this is probably the thing I'm most excited about on this list. I have wanted a tattoo for as long as I can remember. And I finally decided last year that I was going to say fuck it and get one. But unfortunately the finances weren't financing so it got delayed. But it's happening this year!! For sure!!! Hopefully in the next few months!! I need to stop delaying it and just do it!! So yeah. I've made my best friend keep me accountable each step of the way so I can stop procrastinating. So she gave me a deadline of Friday, 1/5 to at least have a list of tattoo artists I'm considering. We're doing this!!!

Actually leave my house and spend time in places I enjoy: Since my two closest friends moved away last year I haven't had a lot of incentive to go out and do things. So I've just been spending a lot of time at home by myself. And solitude is so nice. So comfortable. So blissful. But I need to end that. Or at least cut down on it a little. There are things I actively want to do in my city but every time the weekend comes I end up staying in my house doing nothing for 2 days straight. And it's been great. But I need to push myself to actually go out and do things by myself. Go to live music concerts, hang out at bookstores or coffee shops. Just something to have a change of pace and environment. I know I will be better for it. I'm gonna challenge myself to go out by myself at least once a month. If I do more? great. But we're starting small.

Writing-related

Track my writing: I'm not going to push myself to have word count goals or anything like that because I think that would be counter productive and take the fun out of writing for me. I actually wrote a lot last year (I just calculated it - 174, 817 words according to Scrivener; kinda insane can't remember the last time I wrote that much in a year) so I don't think I have issues with word quantity or writing enough and if it ain't broke don't fix it! But I do want to track my writing a little more closely. I just think it could be fun tracking the stats behind it and looking back at it at the end of the year. and also maybe help me continue this consistency with writing that I've suddenly developed?

Write something for fun: I can't tell you how much it hurts me that I don't have any fun/silly projects that I can work on on the side that I don't care about getting perfect. I think it will be nice and freeing and challenge my writing chops a bit to write something completely out of my comfort zone, totally absurd, and purely for my enjoyment. I've just been too crippled with fear to even try and idk why. I want to do it so badly but I struggle with coming up with ideas (and with working on more than one thing at once). We'll see it if it happens. this is just a list of things I want to do who knows if I'll actually do them.

Finish the second draft of MDE: just gonna throw this one in here out of obligation. refer to the last sentence of the previous bullet point. I wrote half of it in a year, maybe it's possible to write the other half in a year?

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. gonna come back to this in 6 months and see if anything I listed here actually panned out lol

[theskyexists]

The golden enclaves

Ok so i like how this starts with: Orion has been unutterably stupid

Please tell me that we will find out why

This was devastating.

But also WHY IS ORION SUCH A PIECE OF SHIT HE PROMISED TO GO WITH HER AND INSTEAD HE MADE HER LOSE HIM FOR NO REASON TO A FUCKING MAWMOUTH LIKE HER DAD WAS FUCKING LOST BUT NOT KILLED BECAUSE THE VICTIMS DONT DIE THEYRE DIGESTED FOREVER IN ETERNAL PAIN Jezus Naomi god it really is horrific what is up with this

Also, and I say this with absolute extreme disdain, El seriously only just now realised that she has perfect combat synergy with Orion and she COULD have destroyed Patience and freed her father from the eternal torment of being digested? Like......seriously? Did Liesel not even realise this, who is the only one with any brains? (I realise that Liesel at least had different priorities)

Also I am going to explain Orion's craziness and personality change in book 2 as such: he didn't have any mals to eat and so he went mad. He decided, like the piece of shit that he is, that he'd prefer to do months of battle against mals because at least he wouldn't be hungry.

The funny thing is that book 2 ESTABLISHED that El has ZERO absolutely ZERO idea of what goes on in Orion's head. Like. She doesn't get him AT ALL. So her prevaricating on how he's so misunderstood and pushed to be what everybody sees in him - he ALREADY TOLD YOU HE JUST LOVES EATING MALS HE DOESNT CARE ABOUT ANYONE OR ANYTHING HE JUST LOVES EATING MALS EL STOP BEING AN IDIOT AND PROJECTING YOUR OWN SHIT ON THIS POOR BOY

She's literally comparing herself to him again. Look he was a hero and I was an evil witch. Everybody thought that and wanted that from us. EL HE DIDNT FUCKING CARE OK????? Worse, (and it makes sense in this moment), she somehow threads her mum's direct look at his soul into this narrative as some kind of reinforcement of it. He didn't care El. He didn't care. He's just a hungry boy.....

In fact, I cannot remember her classmates ever hating El. Because....they didn't even know she was fated to be an evil witch archetype? They just avoided her bc she wasn't an asset to their survival they thought which was so absurdly idiotic since EL IS A GODDAMN MAL EXTERMINATOR and she never told anyone because of her stupid fucking hangups she could have been a fucking prep and made everybody's lives so much better so much earlier

'because he thought it was his job to make a way out for everybody but him'

This is why I didn't like the second book so much. El is so obviously delusional about this guy.

I cannot STAND IT!!!! HE LITERALLY TOLD YOU HE HAS NO HERO COMPLEX EL!!!! YOU WERE HAVING YOUR LOVELY FIRST TRY AT SEX WITH THIS COOL GUY AND HE SAID: NAH EL. I JUST LIKE TO EAT!!! MALS!!!!!

And the weird thing is she GOT it. When she was getting his mana as he was zipping around pulverising them she was like: OH he loves this. I guess I was wrong. So why are we back here??? Or do I remember that wrong??

I've forgotten how the magic system works. Shit. Malia? Oh yeah.... There was some sort of prophecy. She was gonna bring the enclaves down and kill lots of people or soemthing. so why the fuck did they leave the payment open???

Oh yeaaaahhh the enclaves got hit

"She really did an excellent job of making it seem perfectly ludicrous for me to be living quietly in my own home instead of keeping close tabs on the latest news from international wizarding circles."

LOL

Can seriously nothing kill a mawmouth but El? How is that even POSSIBLE. How did enclaves ever work then? The moment a mawmouth gets in its over

How the fuck is Liesel THIS good at manipulating El. Oh my god.

Her saying: hey bitch, stop feeling sorry for yourself, your boyfriend being dead, no thank you by the way for saving all of ours lives, I don't care about your other problems, or that you might want a break from the horrors with your mum, also come help me out with the worst most insanely horrible creature in the world AGAIN because I know only you can do it. Bitch. Your house sucks

That worked....

She's going to London to fight another fucking Mawmouth - something her mother doesn't even KNOW SHES DONE YET - and leaves her behind without even a hug of goodbye. AFTER FOR YEARS OF TERROR. I honestly....I'm speechless. I started to suspect El was insanely dumb in book 2 but damn, she really is perhaps the dumbest protag I have ever known barring Korra

I love Liesel. Liesel saw El, FOR WHAT SHE WAS, and she CALLED HER OUT,, and said: you are such a stupid fucking idiot. In book 2. Thank god she's around. She's the only good thing out of book 2 really in my opinion. She says to El: you are insanely powerful. You could change the whole world. Now DO IT! Stop sniveling in the fucking dirt!

Ok there we go. There's my El. 'i eyed him in enormous irritation' her fucking disdain for the preps is my endless delight. Even to her enormous personal disadvantage.

Oh I see. It's like Naomi novik read my harry potter post about the wizards being the Fae.

I remember reinterpreting els prophecy into its super obvious good meaning but can't remember what it was.

How the fuck can Enclaves be based in Malia if that's not allowed (murder? But that's illegal.)

Oh what??? There's still working wizards out there working on keeping the enclave running??? Oh damn. Ok so the class hierarchy becomes explicitly about adult production.

Liesel made her angry again. Made El who she is again.

Why isn't everybody fucking fleeing dude??? Why are there still even people there? Grt the fuck out! The enclave is compromised! Get out with your damn lives you preps!

Oh my god. Go after it! It's fucking going after someone else!!! Oh my god go after it guys!!! IT WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM EL???? CAN MAWMOUTHS KNOW SUCH THINGS?

I have to say. Naomi made a deeply op protag and is now taking a more powerful hammer to the self-delusion that El mysteriously developed about her own power.

Liesel, impervious to El's natural intimidation vibes.

Oof i love all the delicate injustices and horrors in Liesel's life. Ok no. I no longer do. It's too painful

'“So it’s better to have power, and it’s stupid not to take it when you have the chance.'

Yeah. In fact. If I was Liesel I'd be beyond furious at El. Somebody so gifted, SO powerful, and she's just pissing it all away.

Jezus christ. Jezus christ! Liesel! A sensible person of intelligence????

Oh right. The prophecy. Killing thousands doom destruction. WHO IS GETTING KILLED EL COME ON THINK!!! THINK FOR ONCE IN YOUR GODSDAMNED LIFE!!!!! or tell Liesel about the stupid prophecy and she'll do it for you -_-

It was a nice thought though, letting the commuters into the garden but damn, yeah they're gonna obviously only be enthralled.

A TERTIARY ORDER ENTITY.

LIESEL WAS TRYING TO SNAG EL THE ELDRITCH WHATEVER THE FUCK SHE IS FOR HER HIGHLY EFFECTIVE POWER THROUPLE?

And I mean. Alfie is literally bound to El too. Wait. Is Orion actually not coming back...? Are we never getting answers? El's gonna fall for Alfie and Liesel? No....

Love how Liesel and Alfie protectively jump up and go: OUR entity. Lol

Oh ok so the compulsions off. She doesn't think he'd help her after she saved his dad, his home, oh yeah saved the whole school that he felt responsible for, and didn't even insist on keeping him as a slave.

I must admit, I did not at all expect El to be hanging out with Alfie and Liesel after all that. I thought, more like her team, but yeah they're not exactly in England. Isn't there travelling magic. Also I expect that Claire or whatever had a family member eaten by the mawmouth.

I was thinking that: won't commute from an enclave be really dangerous? So. Yes. But like. Why then even work for them. Oh ok so you could just go live in a villages with a few other wizards in a circle

Sometimes novik is not consistent about the vulnerability of adult wizards. But this description seems more apt.

Liesel coming in to say 'stop it!' to eldritch monster entity El like she isn't going over the deep end suddenly and very badly. And succeeding. And then getting Yancy to say what El wants to know. Wow they're a good team. I propose Orion/El/Liesel/Alfie super extreme power ..... Thing? Uh. Bridge structure?

El seriously is like: hm. Why is Liesel helping me now? Already turned her down....

El. You saved the whole school. You made that possible. You killed three MAWMOUTHS. You treat Liesel like a person you respect. You are a fucking entity who could do incredible things with a whole lot of help on the bits you suck so terribly at. Liesel owes you, thinks you're a good person, and is probably genuinely into you, also you need HELP. In so many damn ways. Being sensible, getting around in the world, being smart, getting it together.

Liesel has the most practical magic in the world. Wait. Holy fuck. Is Liesel like...Hermione???? Like powerful power top Hermione???

Wow. Damn. Amazing sex scene here. It makes me laugh in delight almost. Wow Liesel is an insanely stabilising influence. Literally kissing the trauma out of her head for a bit. (Edit: uh is there a fanfic version of this out there...?)

There was something so absolutely wrong with Orion and everybody kept trying to tell El and she never saw it because he became a person FOR HER. And she keeps trying to blame his family but his family probably endlessly tried to connect with him but he was just hunting mals. His father responding like this- just absolutely devastated over Orion finally having acted like a human being with somebody is enormous proof. Uh yeah and the rest of the chapter confirms this explicitly.

It really is harry potter but cooler and grittier and more horrifying and more interesting. Our dark'ness dementia ravenway.... The bit about how really witches when caught up in the witch hunt really can't get themselves out because the 'mundanes' negate it by the disbelief.... A direct reference to Rowling's note about witches making the fire tickle and going in for multiple rounds. Also the whimsical magic. But it doesn't have that magic to the magic. It's uneasy.

Man. So that's why novik repeated el's misconceptions of Orion in her time of grief. To finally disembowel them conclusively later in this book.

Yeah. The big question is. Why did Orion become a human being for El?

I love how aadhya and Chloe and Liesel are all instantly INSTANTLY like oh fuck El sees evil she's evil. They are still an extremely well oiled team

Ok but like, El could just grab new York's mana pool right. But yeah she'd become like ophelia

Lol right. By destroying so many mals ( i really didn't think the estimation had been 92 percent but ok) the enclaves lose their power. That's how El has already smashed them....

Oh wow. I forgot about that malia is stealing life force.... And mals come from Malia....

Which means.....that Ophelia is a huge maleficar and Orion is a big old mal. But she certainly is smart enough to say: we should look into reproducing what you did

Damn.ophelia is smart. She's really doing some magic economics

I really didn't know enclaves were built on malia. I think that's a retcon actually. Not just that El didn't know though also that naturally. It's to make this numbers game fit - to say - there's another numbers game beneath the numbers game - to make the mana and malia interactions fit. And well done novik for that

Because the golden enclave really does become the better solution.

I'm not sure how El going in to kill patience is going to help her recover the scholomance though. I mean. Turns out El could have just cleaned the whole place up all along but yknow. I already knew that.

Why did they ever even send Orion away. They could have just unleashed him endlessly on the enclave's mals. Probably infinitely safer and more pleasant for the enclaves children.

Is El really going forward with this? His mum is a maleficer oh poor poor hero boy Orion.... He was never loved. HE LOVED THE SCHOLOMANCE FOR THE MALS EL NOT BECAUSE HIS MOM HIS AN ETHICAL EVIL MAGIC HACKER

Oh no...please tell me that isn't Chloe's only role. She came late to the team but she was fourth!

Aadhya??? WHAT is Liesel's deal? Uhhhh she ran the whole thing? She made everything possible? Do you think she did that because she's a steely selfish bitch? No.

It was a moment of both weakness and total insanity in the literal senses of the word. So maybe you can thank Liesel for sexing El back into a somewhat functional state Aad

'Liesel made an impatient dismissive gesture. “Yes! You have a hook in her yourself. And why will we yank on these hooks? To make her protect us, save our lives? She will do that for strangers, for nothing. What else? You are her ally. Have you asked her to do anything for you? To make someone give you an enclave place, or an artificer contract? Why not?Because you are also a great martyr, who does not want these things?” She snorted as Aadhya scowled at her. “No! You don’t ask because you know she would say no. I tried asking myself. But she will do nothing selfish for herself, much less anyone else. And she is not wrong,” she added, in a grudging tone of having been unwillingly persuaded. “She is too powerful. Once she started, there would be nowhere to stop. So there is only one use of our hooks: to help her stop. You had better be glad that I have one, and hold tight to yours, too.”'

I fucking love Liesel. What the fuck

Lololololol

Oh my god. El angry at Liesel AGAIN for....offering exactly what she needs and wants and doing so perfectly. Lolololololloll

Oh my god is this the garden in sintra with all its fun fake-magic masonry caves and structures???

IT IS!!! I LOVE THAT GARDEN!!! If you're just out to chill and stroll and tramp around lovely fake natural structures that still look cool!

Sad the characters are experiencing such frustration in such a lovely place.

Adult Disneyland....you're killing me novik. It really was a nice place. I mean I was there when there weren't many other people. It was just nice gardens with caves.

Novik describes the portalling system for the scholomance. Yes. It still doesn't make any sense.

Ok but like the gardens are closed at night. Mals can get in no problem.

What im getting from this is that i had incredible timing and normally that garden is packed with horrible tourists

So....how is it that El has a direct link to New York's mana pool THROUGH the pool right into the scholomance?? Because all the wards are down? Ok but uhhhhh it's out in the void??? That's the whole point

UHHHH actually El I don't think you felt Patience scrying for Orion you just felt Orion

How the fuck is Liesel like, exactly the sharp cold sense that El actually WANTS every time?

Ohh ok so Ophelia somehow did make Orion as he is. Somehow.

Well OBVIOUSLY the Malia source is fucking horrible if it can bring an enclave into being. Like come on. Probably produces a mawmouth or something. And you gotta feed it 50 people or whateve

Damn. They're gonna turn Liu into a mawmouth. Its a sacrifice. Uh Novik. You better not go there.

Wow they were gonna make Liu a mawmouth and make her eat her closest full grown wizard family? I think so. Lets see. Go El!

I KNEW IT!!!!!!! WHAT IS THE WORST AND MOST POWERFUL MAL? WHAT IS THE GREATEST PIECE OF MAGIC AND MALIA? AN ENCLAVE

fucking hell. They're squeezing Liu into a mawmouth. Fuck.

No..her hand...

When I am very moved by a scene, i read it out, the first time. This was the scene.

Oof. Orion just ate some wizards. Surely he has less deadly weapons???? He really is a mal

Uh

Oh he actually really is a maw mouth mal? He's a fucking maw mouth? Her dads now inside fortitude inside patience inside Orion, still getting endlessly tortured. Uh...

'for all I knew' NO. DEFINITELY YOUR DAD

Well idk he's had pretty good control so far. Just unfortunate those damn Beijing council guys tried to kill El

Aadhya and Liesel going into negotiations as proxies for El who'd absolutely fuck them up lol

What a coincidence! You wanted to go to India. Now youve been invited to India! She gets angry

OH. MY. GOD. El actually learned a lesson. Asking for help. And of the right person. Liesel.

Wait a minute. She's been destroying the enclaves. By destroying the maw mouths. The maw mouths REMAIN the foundation. So those 'random' attacks. They were her destroying the enclave foundations while still on scholomance. They're lined up.

So if she kills this maw mouth - but still, why wouldn't her new foundation hold up. Oh she realises it completely too. Shit. I forgot that Salta and Bangkok simply died. She did that

Well honestly, Orion isn't such a bad solution, except the mawmouths in him don't die and also apparently he can't help himself eat people now....

LIESEL KNEW???????? WHAT THE FUCK?!!!!! SHES EVEN SMARTER THAN ME??????

Then surely there must be a foundation in the scholomance. And perhaps Orion is now carrying the mawmouth that pins it.

What the fuck do you mean this ain't a trolley problem. Just start in on propping up all the damn foundations with some real ones El. Then go on a lil maw mouth hunt

Ok but she doesn't even call her mother. Right. She can't. Forgot. She doesn't even DREAM AT HER MOTHER. Or some other magical communication. Not even about the family welcoming her after all or the true meaning of the prophecy

Actually since when is El capable of just catching others spells. And get mana from them?? Like some sort of scholomance? Oh yeah she s just so horrridly op

She's....catching bullets out of the air. And...turning people into stone temporarily with them. Fucking absolute lol

I get the sense that novik got lost in the Sintra garden... Like multiple times. Which is very hilarious because my god. It is very easy.

So weird to have fond and vague memories of this precise settting

Ok so i was right. And Naomi novik is a little bit of a genius for this. Real Orion, the realest Orion, was the Orion of book 1. The genuine hero. When there were fewer and fewer mals to eat in book 2, he became more and more maw mouth, started behaving strangely.

Oof. Better run El. He's about to start..... Eating.

What a fucking BASTARD. COULD HAVE AT LEAST HELD ON ONTO EL WAS NOT AT LEAST S HUNDRED STEPS AWAY

Damn El people are getting EATEN OVER THERE HELLO STOP FUCKING STALLING

The thing is all this time I've been thinking CANT YOU KILL THE BITS AND NOT THE BOY. KILL THE MAW MOUTH BITS BUT NOT THE BOY? THE BOY ISNT SOME ORGAN THAT CANT BE AUTONOMOUS. YOU COULD SURELY EXTRACT HIM WHOLE BECAUSE HE IS. YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM ALL INDIVIDUALLY REALLY ANYWAY

Oh my god. No

She did something much more

Damn. I remember wishing el would become child guardian in the scholomance but it's true that Orion would also do very well

But he's not getting mana out ...wait. he can still extract mana out of mals he snaps into the void? Uh ok.

That book made a lot of sense. And was very very very good.

[urgonnagofar]

9/2 now i’m over the worst of it

hiiii everyone <3 (like two people) i hope you’re doing well. i got really fucking busy since i last journaled. but i really am doing better i made it to september fr. like i was seriously torn up about leaving my home and all of my friends. and especially my dog i miss her so bad it’s not even funny. but now that i’m here i’m not sure i’ve even cried once since i got dropped off. my duolingo streak did die and i almost cried over that. but i didn’t ! mostly just bc i was on a public bus. i also almost cried when i accidentally skipped one of my classes ON THE FUCKING THIRD DAY OF CLASS but that’s fine she’s persisting (i might’ve had a panic attack and called my mom) i have a super nice group of friends but they’re like literally all premed. the engineering college is literally the biggest one here where tf are they (they’re all guys) but oh well. i’m joining baja (build off-roading vehicle and race it competition team) and it seems like a lot of fun all of the people there are really nice. i do have my fantasy football draft tn so idk if i can go to the meeting 😭

tw depression, anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, self harm, hallucinations

so my there it goes moment. (this isn’t about anything romantic in the slightest) last september i was doing Really fucking shitty. like i was insanely stressed out all the time. i spent the spring of my junior year absolutely going through it. i quit self harming in march, because i saw what it was doing and how bad it was for someone i was sort of friends with, and decided that i really needed to quit. and it was so fucking hard. i wanted to go back to it so fucking badly. i started seeing shit all the time. if i saw anything red or felt something red i would just see/intensely imagine that it was blood until i checked. i’m pretty sure it was just stress induced from being so worried about quitting, but i don’t really know. through the summer it went away and things got a lot better. but my mom had been worried about how hard the classes were i was going to be taking senior year and i started getting extremely stressed out again. i was like paralyzed by worry that things were going to get as bad as they had been last year again, or even worse. they didn’t, but i spent a couple months with paralyzing anxiety. on the first day of school i could barely sit through my classes, and my heart was racing because i was so stressed out. but things got a lot better as time passed. i remember one day in december realizing for the first time in years that i could actually picture myself being alive more than a couple years in the future. and that i didn’t really want to die anymore. which was an absolutely insane thing for someone that has wanted to die since sixth to realize. things didn’t really get better linearly since then. there were a couple months where it was really really hard not to go back to self harming. but i didn’t. and things have gotten a lot better since. i was super worried about leaving my friends this summer, and though i absolutely do miss them, i made new friends here and im happy with my choice of where to go to school. im actually doing really well and am really happy with where i am. i’m a little bit sleep deprived, but isn’t every college kid? i finally feel happy and like im actually getting to enjoy my life. i do love my parents, but i also needed to get out of their house. last year when september started i don’t think i could have been further from having my there it goes moment. i wrote in the tags on a post abt there it goes that september and doing better would never belong in the same sentence until i was done with school. and i’m so glad that that changed for college.

i miss u all so much <3 sorry for the kinda intense trauma dump there it will probably happen again

[maladaptive-day-dreams]

Think of Me

Steve x gn!reader, angst, 1k words Inspired by the song Think of Me by Madi Diaz (song lyrics are bolded in the fic!)

CW: cheating (Stancy), mention of s3x/infidelity, yelling and fighting, angry reader, despondent but also undisturbed Steve (he’s accepted what he’s done and doesn’t care at this point)

Author's Note: omg wow I'm posting again whaaaaat. First person bc I didn't feel like going and changing it to you/yours, soz. I got a lil sad at this as a relatively new Stevie gal, but pls enjoy (also imagine this as the angsty kind of sad boi to follow...but don't feel too bad for him bc he cheated).

I know that something is wrong. Steve has been off for the last few weeks but I don’t know why and he hasn’t said anything. He’s been distant, less affectionate, only brief kisses on my cheek when he’s leaving versus the usual heady lip-locking. I can’t remember the last time he initiated sex, but I can remember the last time I heard him jacking off in the bathroom even though I told him I was up for it. Or the last time I heard him leave the house and come back three hours later smelling clean, but sweet.

It has me anxious. Like all of my atoms are under attack. But I don't wanna say nothing so I don't react.

I’ve been silent, haven’t brought it up or made it known that I felt him pulling away. No, I don't even notice him.

He’s in the kitchen and I’m in the bath.

“Yeah, I can't play normal and you can't pretend,” I say through the open doorway. I know he can hear me. I see his back tense as he pauses washing the dinner dishes.

“What are you talking about?” he scoffs.

“I can’t pretend that I don't know where you go, anymore.”

He turns, his face marred with a question but his eyes know what I’m saying. He wipes his hands with a dish towel before closing the distance between us and leaning against the bathroom door. I lean on my arms atop the side of the bathtub.

“Am I not enough?” I ask. Before he can interrupt I keep going. “Is it because of what happened last spring? With Vecna?”

He tenses. His eyes focused on the tile floor in front of him.

I continue.

“I know where you go,” I laugh, throwing my hands up and sinking back into the lukewarm bathwater. “I know where you go. Do you think I don’t notice? How you leave in the middle of the night? How you only to come back to bed hours later with damp hair and smelling like Mike?”

He looks at me at that.

“Are you that daft? I buy your body wash. It’s always the citrus one because you can’t stand any other scents, they give you headaches. But when you come back to bed you smell like Irish Spring. I know that’s what Mike uses because that’s what his mom buys him when she comes through my line at the grocery store.”

“You’re crazy. I go to the park and run and then sneak into the pool showers and that’s what people leave there. You know I have nightmares and that running helps.” He starts to turn around, back towards the kitchen

“Then how do you explain your clothes smelling like her room.”

He hesitates. And I stand up in the bath.

“I’ve been in her room before, I know her perfume. For fucks sake we made out for the first time on her bed two years ago at her Halloween party, of course I know what that room smells like. We made one of my favorite memories there that night.”

He doesn’t say anything. I dry myself off and put on my pajamas that were sitting on the toilet lid.

“I hope you fuck her with your eyes closed. And think of me.”

“Y/N,” he whispers, hand reaching for mine when I pass him as I leave the bathroom.

“No. I hope you love her with the lights low and think of me. Think of me waiting here staring at the ceiling, checking the clock for when you come home.”

“Please. You know we have history, you know that.”

I turn and face him. His eyes are watery, red, sad. “Yeah, yeah I do. But I thought you loved me? I thought you were over her? I thought you were just friends now?”

“We’re bonded,” he says grabbing my arms. “With everything we’ve been through, there’s no way I can live without Nancy in my life.”

I stare at him, waiting for him to continue his attempt at redemption.

“We never expected it to happen. We didn’t want to fall back into it but it just— We just did. It was familiar, it was comfortable, it was comfort for us.”

“Being with me wasn’t comfort enough? You had to go back to her?”

Angry tears dampened my cheeks. I ripped my arms from his grasp to wipe them away.

“I hope you fuck her with your eyes closed," I repeat. "I hope looking at her makes guilt burrow into your stomach. Put the shame off with some Benzos, swallow the feeling while you walk home. And think of me. Always.”

Steve’s staring at the floor again. Refusing to look at me.

“You aren’t even denying it anymore. All of the color has drained from your face.”

Nothing. No apology.

“I’m sorry and I love you is noise that you make now. Nothing more, they don’t sound like they used to. Like any feeling you had behind them has disappeared."

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Y’know at first, no, I didn't even notice you stayin' out—Stayin’ out all night. I didn’t think you’d be in her bed, running your fingers down her thighs. Lickin’ your lips in the low light. No, I didn't even notice you come home and kiss me with her chapstick on your lips. I didn’t think you’d do that to me. To us.”

“I-”

“We talked about marriage, Steve!” I yelled, storming into our shared bedroom. He doesn’t follow. “Kids! A life outside of this hellhole!”

I’m throwing as many clothes and things as I can into my duffle bag.

“But now?” I ask, slinging the bag over my shoulder and shoving my feet into my sneakers.

I walk back to the kitchen. He looks defeated. He’s not even trying to save this, to fix this.

“Fuck you, Steve.” I spit, anger mixing with heartbreak. “I can’t-I hope you fuck her with your eyes closed and think of me.”

It’s all I can think of now. I have no words, no defenses, no pleas. Just: “I hope you love her with the lights low and think of me. I hope you fuck her with your eyes closed, put the shame off with some Benzos, swallow the feeling while you walk home and think of me always. Think of me, think of me always.”

I slam the door behind me as I leave and head for anywhere but here.

[thegeminisage]

ok, its time for a QUICK tng update before xm*s proceedings. saturday we did "best of both worlds part ii" and "family" and last night we did "brothers" and "suddenly human."

best of both worlds part ii: I LOOOOOVED THIS EPISODE. mwah. EVERYTHING i wanted. creepy little cyborg implants. brainwashed picard. his beautiful perfect cgi tear (which may or may not have been cgi, this is a point of debate, experts please weigh in). data bravely doing a robot mind meld. 1000000/10 more borg episodes please please PLEASE

can you imagine if the borg has ben in tos btw. what a thought experiment, except for how i quite literally can't think about it or i'll get so excited i'll pass out

did guinan imply she and picard were lovers in this ep...girl you can do better

my one nitpick with william riker was him promoting that lady he hated instead of someone who deserved it, like worf or data. it probably would have given worf ptsd but can you imagine that enterprise having a captain and first officer being gay on the bridge again...wonderful. except this time there would also be deanna <3

"how much do you remember" "everything" AHAHAHAHA GREAT. GOOD. WONDERFUL. anyway

family: extremely unusual episode but i loved it nonetheless. i was really shocked worf's parents were so sweet!!! i fucking loved them. they're like the cutest people on earth i can't believe they raised such a taciturn and stoic guy like worf...

picard's family i wasn't sure about at first until the wrestling match in the mud. sometimes you need to punch a guy and his brother stepped up to the job admirably. i kept thinking he looked like michael caine, which would have been an incredible choice.

WESLEY.....................................................we don't need to talk about it

everyone's accents in this ep were wack. why does picard have a totally different accent from his brother. why is worf's accent different from his parents. ik its not that deep but its making me crrrazzzyyy

brothers: i didnt even get a look at the title of this episode before we started bc vumoo (the shady site im using to watch) doesn't display them but it was SUCH an unexpected pleasure to get a data episode

absolutely scuh-reaming at the ease with which he hijacked an ENTIRE goddamn starship. he's so competent i love that. a real "glad he's on OUR side" moment, not unlike spock commandeering the enterprise in "the menagerie" (rip i wish that had been a better episode).

lore grew on me really fast. i was neutral on him during his last appearance, the meme aside, but in this episode he was really fun and unsettling. brent spiner can do horrible, horrible things with his face

this ep felt a little cut off? i expected another confrontation with lore, a getting back of the chip, or at least some kind of burial or funeral for dr soong, but we just quit like 3/4 through the episode. maybe less time spent on the opening section of the hijack could have fixed this

anyway i love the foil between data and lore...one has support and the other does not...but it doesn't make sense for lore to get the emotions chip because it seems like he already HAS them??

oh yeah and data repeating "i am not less perfect than lore" got funnier EVERY time he did it. little man was really going thru it i was cracking up genuinely <3

suddenly human: this episode was wack

ok, did you guys read face on the milk carton when you were in school? i did when i was way too young to be reading it and it fucked me up real bad and i completely forgot about it until i watched this episode and then i got to unlock that memory in real time

anyway, while it is obviously the correct choice to return a child to their family when they are kidnapped as babies, it is also hugely traumatic for an older child to be ripped away from a loving home* and transplanted with strangers, which those books explore in horrific detail. so the whole episode i found myself going "i KNOW it's bad politics but could they not just CONSIDER leaving him with the only family he's ever known as a possible choice" and then they DID THAT and i wanted to be ill because it was obviously the worst choice in the world

* this is a different scenario than the first tng episode involving kidnapped children, which strongly resembled the residential schools from real life. THIS particular situation, minus the method of kidnapping (during warfare), more closely resembled the crazy cult shit happening in those books, where the kidnapped girl was being raised by people who thought they really were her biological grandparents and weren't bad people and her biological family also weren't bad people. a "no fault" situation EXCEPT FOR HE KIDNAPPENED THAT BABY DURING WARFARE.

anyway this is the second time tng has dropped the ball on this subject so i think from now on they should not do episodes like this anymore. really really really really bad.

NEXT TIME: "remember me" and "legacy"

[shatterthefragments]

Saw a positive post and it’s in my likes/drafts (I use my likes as a secondary drafts when I have too many drafts and it’s overwhelming) but uh whining below bc it’s. Uh. Yeah. Giving me major Feelings about an old friend.

All we ever did was hold onto our history without regard for if we should have a future. (I wonder if her maybe attempt to message me again over a year ago was to invite me to her wedding? She never got to it if she did mean to. Maybe she just realized we weren’t that close anymore with our little catch up) (as soon as you unfollow me I am unfollowing you too but I can’t just burn every bridge with my hometown while I still live in it)

No. I am not letting you back in my life.

All you ever caused me was grief. All you gave me was more stress.

And all we did was hold onto the fact that we went to preschool together. How cool is it that we’ve been friends our whole lives?!

And then we went to school together after a while separated and it was awesome to reconnect.

And then we fell apart but we caught up again when we bused home sometimes

(I would sometimes book it to the bus stop to catch an earlier bus if I didn’t have socialization in me at the time)

And in high school i just felt. So used. Once I had my license and all I already felt like a chauffeur to my family but then I also felt like one to you.

And I KNOW especially back then it was so much easier for me to visit you then you to visit me. (I NEED SOMETHING BACK I NEED JUST A SMIDGEN OF RECIPROCITY I JUST. I need a hug)

But then in college too.

And you ask me to do something for you.

And I do it.

And I really had a bad experience and. I. *screams*

I had just stopped thinking about it.

I serve. I serve others.

But fuck why does it always end up so negatively for me 😭. (Collecting bad experiences like they’re Pokémon)

And then we continued to sometimes see each other on the bus home but not that often.

And now you’re graduated and married and

You still follow my sister and I and a bunch of our other classmates.

I can’t burn it all down while I still live here

I can just. Avoid.

And with every card I make and every gift I send mum questions if anyone ever does the same to me as if I’m not an exact copy of her and wanting to make the people I love happy (which I have other feelings about) (but in several of my relationships it’s worth it. I sometimes even feel treasured)

I don’t love you.

(I dont even miss you)

And then ghosting me for so long when we were going to go on a trip together. We had a great time without you btw.

And everyone agrees that you owe me an apology over that.

And I will almost certainly never get one.

(The positions you put me in. I’m fine. But I don’t appreciate it at all)

I don’t miss you.

I only miss my peace of mind that if say. The day before we leave or the day we leave I feel fairly sure I’m actually going to see my friend(s). Things come up. Just message.

[marnz]

some thoughts about life right now;

i've been on a really intense project since late July and let me tell you, i am tired! i'm one of the few people at my job that specialize in this type of work--we are excited to train more--but for now i am just hanging out here preparing to trade one high pressure project for another for the foreseeable future. which ultimately is fine! even though it can be stressful, I would rather be doing this type of work, which is interesting and super fulfilling and matters a lot to me, than other types of work, which do not feel fulfilling and are actually pretty boring.

it's a little confusing to find myself here because last year i went on medical leave for mental health reasons and prior to that i was doing a very different kind of work, and when i came back in january they started me off with this new kind of work (which i do prefer) with basically no training from my supervisor. which is fine, i am comfortable learning on the fly and/or teaching myself, and i have both a lot of experience doing this and a lot of experience in Complex Projects, albeit in a different practice area. then i moved onto this project in late july. so like again very little training in this specific type of work but i assure you, nothing is as stressful as my last job was. and i do love this project! even though it's stressful! i've since learned that this is just going to be my specialty! which like...i am happy with the outcome but i feel like i sort of tripped and fell into it in the least expected way possible.

while thinking about it, i think i thought i'd only make it to this kind of work, this kind of project, by working hard--and i had a specific idea of what working hard looked like, what striving looked like. but i have been working hard for the last year or so, healing, learning, growing, recovering, all of it. and that is hard work. and by taking time to tend to myself, and grow and change and learn and heal, i became ready for this kind of stressful work. and that's not the narrative we have around this. culturally we have a narrative of self sacrifice and unpaid overtime and being really fucking type A and having unhealthy work/life balance, but as soon as I stepped away and said actually, i've had enough, i will not burn my life out for you, i started down a road that led me to doing the type of work i want to do in a healthier and more prepared way. and that's fucking awesome!

for now i am just trying to make it to the end of this project in mid october. which means coping skills, baby! wish i could write but i don't have capacity for it rn, and that's fine. so my priorities are: maintenance days (cleaning/chores). reading. knitting. baking. yoga. hiking. i want to make life as easy and cozy for myself as possible right now.

i haven't knit for several months and I'm thinking of trying my first sweater--this gorgeous sweater called Mountain Mist. however i've never done colorwork before so the pattern suggests doing the same colorwork in a swatch hat (here) to practice. i am SO HYPE!!! this pattern is also admittedly deeply my aesthetic. i showed it to my partner and he laughed bc it's so typically me lol. i also checked out the first book in Tana French's Dublin Murders series on audiobook to listen too while knitting. spooky season means murder mysteries. 🥰

also my work office is being remodeled so i will be working from home for the next 6ish months, and we're preparing to overhaul my little work corner in our house so it is better/more ergonomic/has more storage/is cuter. also i am going to get a standing desk for my poor knees 😵‍💫 recently worked from 8:30 to 9:30 and my knees hurt sooooo bad 😩

it's nice to know that a year ago i wouldn't have been able to handle this project or really know how to slow down and prioritize self care and after a ton of hard work on my mental health i'm now i'm like, well, it is a bit stressful but we got this. progress 😌💖