#because it is! remembering i forgot after and going aw fuck literally is progress!

[gibbearish]

(random words bolded for ease of reading)

the best protip i could ever give to fellow adhders (but also applies to everyone) is to always keep an eye out in conversation for people who start to say something then get talked over, and once the current conversation thread ends, swing back around to them and go "what were you about to say?"

benefits:

- that person knows they were heard and feels validated and supported

- the person who interrupted them realizes they did so in a way that doesn't publically call them out, allowing them to process it on their own without shame clogging the pipes

- you yourself are less likely to interrupt others, and the times you do are more likely to be easily forgiven bc the other person knows it wasnt because you thought what you had to say was more important, but just because Mouth Move Faster Than Brain Sometimes

- there's automatically a new topic of conversation waiting in reserve

- professional environments see this as "attention to detail" and "mindfulness" and "teambuilding skills"

- helps combat subconscious bigotries/power dynamics that lead to certain people getting talked over more than others (eg misogyny/racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc)

- ^ again may help you be more mindful of those patterns in yourself and work to unlearn them

- people who like you will want to emulate the behaviors of yours they see as good

- i know people will say "create a positive space around yourself and itll domino effect" all the time and it sounds like wishy washy hippie bullshit but genuinely i cannot emphasize enough that it really does work

- like ive watched it happen in real time, i don't think i have a single friend now that hasn't picked this up from me because They Like When I Do It, It Makes Them Feel Good

- nobody likes being interrupted and everybody gets interrupted All The Goddamn Time. like i need to really drive it home that im not exaggerting when i say you'll be a sorely needed reprieve if you make an effort to do this

- and they really will start doing it in return, likely without you even having to ask if that stresses you out

- it's a small and easy way to make the world a bit kinder for everyone

- godspeed my beloveds~

[taizi]

the ship sways but the heart is steady

chapter three: build bridges with these arms 

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, lan zhan/wei ying, jiang cheng/wen qing word count: 3794 summary: Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying puts his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. To absolutely no one’s surprise except Wei Ying’s, his family goes with him. read on ao3

x

Jiang Cheng doesn’t remember dropping the phone, but he must have, because Wen Qing is holding it now and talking to A-Li in the sharp, rapid-fire way she speaks when she’s frightened. He doesn’t remember getting off the couch or leaving the room, but he’s pacing back and forth on the veranda, the warm glow of the porch light pushing away encroaching nightfall. And he doesn’t remember Wei Ying coming after him, but his brother is there, watching with wide, anxious eyes, his hands balled into fists in the front of his shirt.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” Jiang Cheng bites out, his heart beating so fast it’s painful. “I can’t believe she didn’t fucking—she didn’t fucking call? She couldn’t let us know that—that our sister—”

“Maybe she meant to,” Wei Ying says hoarsely. “Maybe she—forgot.”

“Our mother never forgot a single thing in her fucking life as long as she could hold it against us.” He’s so angry he feels brittle with it, as though moving too much or too fast would cause his body to break. “A-Li asked her to call us and she didn’t. A-Li wanted us there and we weren’t.”

His baby nephew was coming early, and his sister was having an emergency C-section, and his brother-in-law was pacing a waiting room by himself for hours waiting desperately for good news, and Jiang Cheng was just fucking around in a lake the whole time.  

A-Li’s voice was so tired and shaky that Jiang Cheng knew, inherently, how bad it was.

She didn’t say it on the phone, of course she didn’t, but she didn’t need to. All of Jin Ling’s useless uncles have been reading every article about pregnancy and prenatal care that they could get their hands on from the moment A-Li told them she was expecting, and they each, to a man, could probably write a white paper on the risks of preterm labor.

Yanli could have died from complications. It wasn’t unheard of even now, in the twenty-first century. She could have bled too much, could have been gone, and Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have known until it was too late. He wouldn’t have been there to hold her.

Mother was supposed to call. She didn’t.

It’s like the sudden collapsing of some integral foundation. The weight-bearing limit was reached and the floor is crumbling beneath him and this building he’s lived in his whole life that he mistook for mortar and stone is actually some childish construction of paper and wax. This place he thought would withstand storm and fire and erosion is finally falling apart after so many years of careful repairs, so much frantic patchwork.

Mother hurt them over and over and over again, but she was still their mother. Family is just hard, Jiang Cheng had always thought. Family hurts. That’s just the way it is, it just costs you every day, and you’re always discovering how much farther you can push your threshold, how much more you can actually take.

Except... his siblings never hurt him. Never on purpose. He doesn’t look at A-Li or A-Ying and feel anything but fondness and exasperation and loyalty for them. He would do anything for them.

Wen Ning plainly adores his sister, and Wen Qing’s world revolves around her brother. None of their immediate relatives stepped in to help them after the fire, clearly screening their calls, none of them eager to sacrifice their time or money, but Granny has been almost a constant presence in their lives since they got here. She adopted all of them, no relation required.

Wei Ying came to the Jiangs when he was five, an emergency placement with the second family listed on his parents’ will, because his legal godfather was dealing with the death of his brother and sister-in-law, and the subsequent adoption of his young nephews. By the time Lan Qiren could be reached and came dashing to New York, it had been almost a week, and Wei Ying and A-Li and Jiang Cheng were all comfortably attached at the hip.

Rather than uproot his traumatized godson again, so soon after the initial upheaval of his young life, Lan Qiren reached an agreement with mother and father to let Wei Ying stay with them. He paid for all of Wei Ying’s expenses and then some. Jiang Cheng only knows because mother likes to complain about being short-changed when she’s drunk.

And then when his nephews were a little older, and he could step down from his role as director of a ridiculously prestigious music school, Uncle Qiren retired, and relocated his family from Suzhou to New York City. Wei Ying always had a second place to go home to if he needed one. His siblings were always welcome there, too. Uncle Qiren was strict and never let them get away with a goddamn thing, but he keeps all their pictures on his desk.

Family, Jiang Cheng finally realizes at twenty-three years old, isn’t supposed to hurt.

You’re supposed to be loved. You’re not supposed to have to buy it.

Wei Ying is crying in that awful, silent way he cries, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed to make a sound. Jiang Cheng storms over and drags him into a hug that’s probably too tight, and Wei Ying hugs him back just as hard, and for a moment that’s all there is.

Night is creeping in around them, inky and inexorable. They’re suspended in the warm orange porch light like a couple of sailors marooned at sea. Jiang Cheng holds onto his brother, and finally lets go of someone else.

#

It is silently agreed-upon that Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying need to see their sister. Wei Ying tries to apologize for leaving in the middle of retiling one of the bathrooms and Wen Qing gets properly angry with him for it.

“He’ll finish when he comes back,” Jiang Cheng promises, which ends up sounding more like a promise that they’re going to come back at all.

“The tiles in the bathroom are literally the least of my concerns,” Wen Qing snaps, and that sounds more like she’s saying she doesn’t need a promise, she knows they will.

They barely pack anything, they just sort of move around the house in anxious circles until the airport shuttle shows up, and then they shove on their shoes and grab blindly for bags and jackets.

Goodbyes are made on the veranda. After living together and rebuilding a home together, the embraces come easily. Jiang Cheng doesn’t even have a chance to feel self-conscious about any of it.

“The tickets should be in your email,” Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying checks his phone and frowns. “You only got two?”

Lan Zhan says, “I will stay here.”

His eyes are dark and unreadable, but Wei Ying must see something in them that Jiang Cheng doesn’t. He drops his bag and shuffles forward and Lan Zhan puts his arms around him. He stands there like some ancient, immovable structure, like a load-bearing wall, like Wei Ying could bring absolutely anything to him and Lan Zhan would help him hold it.

“Give the bunnies a hundred kisses for me while I’m gone,” Wei Ying mumbles against Lan Zhan’s shoulder, muffled and wet in a telling way.

“A hundred kisses,” Lan Zhan agrees solemnly, and presses the first one into Wei Ying’s hair.

A-Yuan, holding Wen Ning’s hand, largely confused and a little troubled by the tense atmosphere, earnestly assures that he’ll take care of the bunnies. Wei Ying ruffles his hair playfully, and then finally seems ready to go.

“Try not to let the place fall apart without me,” Jiang Cheng says to Wen Qing.

“I’ll do my best,” she replies. She doesn’t reach out to him with her hands, but her eyes seem to.

Jiang Cheng can’t get her eyes out of his head.

#

Yanli is pale and tired and beautiful. She lifts her head as they come into her private hospital room, and then lifts her arms immediately, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying both run to her like they’re children again. She’s sobbing, trying to wrap her frail arms around them as hard as she can.

“I missed you so much,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Jiang Cheng can’t think of how close they came to losing her or he’ll go insane. He just sits on the edge of the bed and holds both of his siblings and doesn’t make fun of Wei Ying for crying as much as Yanli.

Jin Zixuan comes in with a nurse and a bassinet at that point, and there are deep bruises under his eyes and his clothes are as unkempt as Jiang Cheng has ever seen them, but he’s smiling.

The nurse bustles around cheerfully, checking vitals and talking to A-Li about how well the results of some screening or another turned out, but Jiang Cheng can’t focus on anything except the tiny little swaddle of butter-yellow blankets that Jin Zixuan is lifting out of the bassinet.

“A-Ling, this is your Uncle Cheng,” Jin Zixuan says softly, passing the infant into Jiang Cheng’s arms. He doesn’t take his hands away until Jiang Cheng’s apparent panic must have faded, and then he’s suddenly sitting there holding his nephew.

Jin Ling is faintly purple, and his tiny limbs are all curled up like he still hasn’t realized he has room to stretch them out now, and his face is pinched in a moue of absolute distaste for the world in general.

“Oh my god,” Wei Ying says. He leans against Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, smoothing a finger against the soft mop of dark hair on Jin Ling’s head, and the tiny seashell curl of his ear, impossibly gentle. “What a weird-looking baby.”

“Shut up, you asshole,” Jiang Cheng snaps. Now he’s crying, too. “He’s perfect.”

Yanli is beaming at them, leaning into the arm that Jin Zixuan wraps around her shoulders, and asks about California. Wei Ying launches into animated chatter about all their projects and all their progress. Surrounded by them, some jangling, dislocated thing in Jiang Cheng’s chest finally begins to settle.

#

The day that A-Li and Ling-er are discharged from the hospital, Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng are skulking around the overpriced gift shop on the first floor. Lan Huan is with them, and Jiang Cheng is trying to talk him down from spending eighty dollars on a giant teddy bear, when he sees her.

His mother, making her way through the lobby toward them. Something cold and sharp replaces the warm golden core of him in an instant. He puts a hand on Lan Huan’s shoulder and says, “Keep my brother here.”

Lan Huan blinks. His eyes follow Jiang Cheng’s gaze, and his pleasant expression sours.

“Of course,” he says. “He can help me pick out a bear.”

“Jesus christ, with the bears,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and shoulders past him to get out of the gift shop, cutting his mother off outside the door.

“So you’re finally home,” she says by way of greeting. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“We’re not doing this here,” he mutters, hyper-aware of Wei Ying puttering around somewhere not even ten feet away. Turning on his heel, Jiang Cheng leads the way past the gift shop, away from the busy atrium and the receptionist’s desk, trusting his mother’s need to have the last word will compel her to follow.

He stops abruptly in an empty hallway somewhere between the billing and record departments and turns to face her.

“I didn’t come here today to play childish games,” mother says, sounding weary of him, of all things.

And it hurts, how much Jiang Cheng still loves her. How much he still wants to love her. His entire life is a series of attempts to trick her into feeling something for him, feeling anything for him. Trying to win her affection. Attempting the impossible.

“You didn’t call,” he says.

Yu Ziyuan scoffs. “You made it fairly clear that you weren’t interested in anything I had to say to you.”

“A-Li wanted you to call,” Jiang Cheng insists, the temper he inherited cresting inside him like a wave, or a wall of fire. “She could have—do you even care that she could have died? That she was scared? She wanted you to call us. And you just decided not to, to get back at us for disobeying you? I’m twenty-three years old! If I want to go to California to help my friends, I’ll go to fucking California!”

He’s never in his life raised his voice at her like this. A small, childish corner of his heart quails from the stunned anger on her face.

He clenches his fists to keep his hands from shaking.

“You stay the fuck away from us,” Jiang Cheng snarls. “All of us. I mean it. We’re done.”

Family, he thinks, isn’t supposed to hurt.

When he starts to step past her, mother grabs his arm hard enough that her long nails manage to pinch even through the sleeve of his denim jacket.

Knee-jerk, he rips himself away from her. He never forgets to flinch.

His mother stares at him like she’s never seen anything like him before, her hand hovering in the air between them. Jiang Cheng takes a step back, and then another.

He thinks of his sister’s precious life, his nephew’s, used as some sort of bargaining chip.

“We’re done,” he says. It comes out quieter than he meant for it to. It comes out sounding like he really, actually means it.

If something flickers in his mother’s expression, if her hand trembles, if she shifts towards him, he doesn’t see it. He’s already spinning around and heading back the way he came, not quite fast enough to call it fleeing. When Jiang Cheng rounds the corner, he runs headlong into someone who catches him by the shoulder before he can stumble.

Wei Ying’s gray eyes are wide and full of pain. Jiang Cheng doesn’t need to know how much he overheard to know that all that hurt is for Jiang Cheng’s sake, and A-Li’s, with hardly any left over for himself. Wei Ying never had to wonder if Yu Ziyuan loved him—he always knew she didn’t, no matter how much his siblings tried to convince him she did.

Jiang Cheng sinks forward against him, head falling against Wei Ying’s shoulder. He’s still trembling with anger, but now it feels more like grief.

Wei Ying hugs him, cheek pressed to Jiang Cheng’s hair, and after a moment he rocks them both from side-to-side.

“Come on, A-Cheng,” he says gently. “You’ll feel better once you see how much Lan Huan spent on Ling-er’s teddy bear.”

“Oh my god,” Jiang Cheng mutters. He already feels a little bit better.

#

They end up leaving a week later. A-Li promises to come visit the second the baby is cleared for travel, and kisses Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying both on the cheek. Jin Zixuan waves goodbye at them with Ling-er’s tiny hand.

Flying stand-by gets them home whole hours ahead of schedule, and they land in California at something like two in the morning. Neither of them want to wake up their friends, so they spend a small fortune on an Uber instead.

Predictably, Wei Ying’s eyelids start to droop the second the car pulls onto the highway. Jiang Cheng only nudges him awake when they enter city limits. As they pass the township sign, Jiang Cheng’s heart twists in his chest, like a dog perking up at the sound of a key in the front door. The Uber driver squints in confusion at the GPS screen, so Wei Ying leans up over the middle console to direct him down the proper county road.

They pull up in front of the villa and Jiang Cheng’s whole body sort of sighs in relief.

Wei Ying is beelining towards the front door before Jiang Cheng is even entirely out of the car, juggling bags to dig his keys out of his pocket. He’s got that look on his face of single-minded focus, a look that says he is going to get to his fiance in the next two minutes even if he has to break a window to do it.

“You’re so dumb,” Jiang Cheng says, and shoulders him aside to unlock the door.

“Your face is dumb,” Wei Ying retorts maturely. He kicks off his boots and drops his bags by the door, and then races for the stairs like it’s been thirteen years since he’s seen Lan Zhan instead of like thirteen days. “Night!” he whisper-shouts over his shoulder.

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes and locks the door behind him. He leans against the wall to tug the laces of his sneakers loose and tosses them toward the shoe rack. Shouldering Wei Ying’s bags with his own he deposits all of them inside the big French armoire that functions as an entry-way closet.

Reflexively, he checks in on the rabbits on his way through the living room. They’re fast asleep in their expansive two-story hutch that sprawls half the length of the wall. Muttering derisively about his brother’s taste in men, Jiang Cheng snags a blanket off the back of the sofa and steps through the narrow doorway into the den.

Wen Qing is fast asleep at her desk, face buried in her folded arms. She’s been doing this ever since she resumed her classes.

Shaking his head, Jiang Cheng leans over her laptop to save all her work, then closes it so it’ll have some battery life left in the morning. He drapes the blanket over her slumped shoulders carefully.

“I’m home,” he tells her quietly. She doesn’t wake up, but he didn’t mean for her to.

#

Wei Ying is greeted the next morning by a screech. A-Yuan flings himself away from the breakfast table to attach himself to Wei Ying’s leg.

“You’re back!”

“I’m back!” Wei Ying says, hauling the kid up into his arms. “And I brought you so many souvenirs from New York!”

There are mouth-shaped bruises on Wei Ying’s neck, because of course there are. Jiang Cheng prays to god for any shred of fucking patience and pointedly doesn’t look at him or Lan Zhan. How fucking dare they be like that right in front of his eggs.

When they’ve eaten, Granny says, “Everyone has a big surprise for you two.  They hurried to get it done before you got home. A-Ning, go find your sister. Let’s show them.”

They’re shuffled outside, through the conservatory and down the back steps, and Jiang Cheng sees it a half-second before Wei Ying does. He grins, full and wide, and hears his brother gasp.

“You finished the dock!” Wei Ying yells. “It looks amazing!”

He goes running down the hill with Wen Ning and A-Yuan like a summer storm composed of loud, delighted noises and waving limbs. Lan Zhan follows slowly with Granny hanging onto his arm. Jiang Cheng watches after them, reaching into the corners of his chest for the pain that always comes hand-in-hand with moments of impossible joy like this, but he can’t seem to find it.

“The contractor said he would give us an estimate on a pavilion,” Wen Qing’s voice says from behind him.

Jiang Cheng turns to find her standing on the porch, leaning against the door, her hair still messy from sleep. She’s holding the blanket around her shoulders where he left it. Her eyes are reaching for him.

He’s braver than he was when he left.

“That’s a pretty permanent fixture,” Jiang Cheng says, heart beating wildly. “You sure you’re invested in something like that?”

She sighs in that way that means she’s laughing and comes down the steps to join the rest of her family by the water.

#

When the pavilion is finished, they have a wedding there.

It’s a small ceremony. The Lans are invited, of course, along with Jin Zixuan’s half-brother and a scattering of close friends, like Mianmian and Nie Huaisang. A-Yuan is the ring-bearer, and when he’s successfully delivered the rings to the grooms, he lifts his arms in a bid to be held.

Laughingly, Wei Ying scoops him up. His hair is loose and his eyes are bright, and Lan Zhan is looking at him the way he’s always looking at him, like he would follow him absolutely anywhere.

Just this once, Jiang Cheng will allow it.

The daylight is fading fast, and the night is going to be perfect and clear. Yanli and Wen Ning are spinning each other around in time to the music, totally out of step with everyone else and laughing brightly. Granny is taking a fussy A-Ling back up to the villa to put him to bed in the nursery that every single one of them spent way too much time and energy on, leaving Jin Zixuan free to nurse a glass of sparkling grape juice and stare judgmentally at his half-brother for flirting with Lan Huan. Jiang Cheng might join him for some judgmental staring, actually.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are slow-dancing with a giggling A-Yuan held between them. The water rocks gently against the posts, crowded with the lily pads and lotus flowers that Jin Zixuan carefully maintains for A-Li. Wen Qing crosses the dock to Jiang Cheng, and her hand slips easily into his.

And none of it hurts. It isn’t supposed to.

Their house waited empty for a long, long time, but they’re all finally home.

[something-very-special]

they ran over the seals

More Replicant playthrough observations and general nonsense under the cut. For reference, up to the keystone quest; completed the Forest of Myth and Junk Heap.

This fucking game I swear to god.

A vaguely coherent ramble about sidequests An observation about sidequests in general in this game -- and I don't recall if I ever voiced this somewhere public or it was just a personal observation from my time with the original -- is that the quests in the first half of the game are all relatively easy to complete. There's that one asshat who wants 10 goat hides, but other than him, most of the sidequests are either very much based on finding characters, or gathering a sensible number of items that are either relatively common, purchasable, or given a guaranteed spawn for the duration of that quest.

The sidequests everybody remembers having to do are in the second half, where everybody is demanding and awful and I'm sorry ten MACHINE OILS do you know how goddamn rare those are? They're goddamn rare.

(We'll not discuss Life in the Sands.)

This is generally agreed to, in the technical vernacular, 'suck'. And it's always funny that the most interesting sidequests are the ones with very minimal requirements (Yonah's cooking, getting Popola drunk, the Lighthouse Ladoh my god everything's gone blurry I'm not crying you're crying who am I kidding we're both crying). That particular aspect of the design also feels intentional, not really gating your ability to progress the really meaningful or funny sidequests behind an unreasonable number of rare items. The other aspect of the design is that these quests are not meant to be completed in a single playthrough; most of them are single-stage and just absolutely unreasonable, but if you're going through the game four times you have a... reasonable chance of getting everything you need more or less naturally.

Nobody does that but I think that was the intended design. I think it's a good idea, although the execution of expectation is flawed so I don't really blame people for saying those sidequests suck. (Although I will in turn blame people for saying the sidequests suck as a blanket statement. Yeah getting that guy who burned his kitchen down a billion Broken Motors is aggravating but did you not find that old man's dog? Speak to Ursula on her death bed? Solve a murder? Then again I think tracking down that rotten son who's trying to get away from The Family Business only to learn his father is a con-artist and get literally no reward is the height of comedy so maybe I'm not the greatest point of reference.)

But that asshole in Facade can get bent. I can't exploit my garden properly, jackass! I am no longer a god of time. (I kid, of course.) (This guys sucks even when you can fix your clock.)

Forest of Myth It didn't even occur to me to wonder how they would incorporate the comprehensive voice acting into the Forest of Myth. I like how it plays out, although I wish the voices maybe had a fade as you went deeper into the dream instead of just cutting out at some point, especially for the lines where the characters are being ascribed actions by the narrator that they themselves aren't doing near the start of the Deathdream. But it's just delightful to go back to it. The second half of the game really sticks in your mind both for emotional reasons and because you play it at least three times per full playthrough of the game, but the first half is just so much fun.

Protip: Talk to everybody after you've finished the dream sidequest. Weiss tries to dissuade you. Don't let him dissuade you. I'm still delighted by the Mayor; "We're building a statue of you, made of solid gold. I know you don't own a horse, but we're going to put you on a horse."

I forgot about Yonah being a disaster chef Papa Nier's reaction to the stew is better. Brother is still funny but Papa Nier just expecting to die is comedy gold.

For anybody curious, the joke about the cakes is that Yonah made 'fruit cake' using some of the worst possible fruits for cake-making. If only she'd thrown a tomato into the mix, too.

Lighthouse Lady Every time. what the fuck is a canal I'm aware of the addition of the new-old content but it didn't occur to me until Popola suddenly starts nattering on about fixing the canal when I'm expecting Yonah to talk about a penpal that oh, yeah, I guess Seafront would have had something going on the first half that would play into the second half? (I assume it does. Be weird to introduce these characters just to have groundwork for an added sidequest. ...but it was a cute sidequest.) But look Popola my boy is supposed to be in the next area I visit could we-- I mean he's on the way could we just-- no-- fiiiiiiiiiine. (It was short and sweet, though, and I appreciate that the couple's love is exemplified by them both calling Weiss a floating magazine in tandem.) On a related note but was I the only person suddenly concerned when the sidequest completion maxed out at 50% and not 51%? I had to double-check with a guide just to make sure, since I've spent the last decade telling people to make sure you hit 51% before going on to Part II.

MY BOY I love that nowadays, Emil is everybody's son. But I really wish I could go find somebody only familiar with Automata and just watch their reaction. (I'm guessing there are streams out there that fulfill this but man I'd love to get it in-person.) If you're only familiar with him from Automata this has to be a mindfuck.

Personal anecdote, but I've had the privilege of playing NIER with somebody else almost every time I've gone through it. I had a wonderful experience of doing a replay some years back with somebody who had experienced it with me before but didn't have the most solid memory of the beginning (and had actually missed the entire weapon's lab the first time through). I get to the boy at the piano introducing himself and the 'Wait, what?' was a thing of beauty.

MY ANDROID This was a welcome mindfuck for me; finding Sebastian and having him 'reactivate' in such an unnatural, mechanical way. I don't recall if it was ever officially confirmed that Sebastian is an android (I know that it's just understood that this is the case but I'm not I can't recall a specific one) but the little flair they added to his animation caught me completely off guard. I liked it!

Destroying the food source A lot of people will cite a major inciting incident for the game as being when the protagonist heading back into the village and killing the child Shades just outside the entrance. This moment is such a great bit of subtle foreshadowing that's so easy to miss... but kind of joining that, just before the Knave of Hearts attacks, I realized that the Shades out on the Northern Plains are clearly ramping up for an assault of their own by murdering the sheep. The sheep population at this point is decimated (which is great when you realize you haven't gotten the Sheepslayer trophy and you're about to enter Part II and you don't know if the boar drifting minigame got carried forward with the inclusion of 15 Nightmares). You go out onto the Plains and you will find not only small clusters of sheep left behind instead of the vast, terrifying herds from the start of the game, but until you get their attention the Shades are prioritizing killing the sheep. (Also annoying because that doesn't count toward my sheep murder number.) The Shades will be out there also killing sheep earlier on, but since the whole map is in Overcast mode after talking to Yonah it's especially prevalent to go out to the Northern Plains and seeing the slaughter. And I realized-- they're cutting the Village off from a primary food source. Shades don't eat and they don't have any beef with the local ungulates (at least, no more so than anybody else does), so why are they hunting down the sheep? To deprive their enemies of resources. Sheep are extinct by the timeskip. It's actually really clever of them, and a really clever indication of their sentience and intelligence before it's fully verified.

"Let's get these shit-hogs!" Everything about the way Kaine and Emil interact across the entire game is perfect I will brook no argument this is objective fact.

Emotive Rectangles I wrote an essay about this before but it really bears repeating that the job the original animators did with this scene is just phenomenal. The way Weiss drifts, flits, flips, fans his pages, drunkenly swerves, shoots around the room in defiance... He's a goddamn rectangle, but there is so much emotion and personality in this scene just based on the movements conveyed through a what is effectively just a box. Ten years later and triple-A titles with full facial capture don't have this much seething personality. I really have to give props to the cavia animators, wherever they wound up. That studio could really put some subtle love and care into their titles, utterly unnecessary and easy to miss but you can tell that whoever was working on it was giving it their all. The books are probably the exemplification of this, but every time I go into Seafront and visit the seals I can tell that the guy on seal duty was having just the best day. They made Emil so pretty There's an FMV cutscene right smack in the middle of the original game after the battle against Noir. I understand why it was a necessity on a technical level, but it always looked pretty out of place and a little uncanny valley compared to the rest of the graphical fidelity. That's no longer a necessity so this cutscene is rendered in-engine. I admit I was actually curious to see it redone this way and it looks fantastic. I single out Emil since he is the focal point of cutscene and because his particular high-poly model had some pretty weird difference from his in-engine model, but he and Kaine both look great. But, like, it's almost mean how pretty he is.

They made Brother Nier so pretty Yeah okay you got me he's kind of hot. Kaine's expression when she wakes up and looks him over is... significantly easier to read now. Good voice, too. (Ancient rumors tell that one of the issues with international releases of RepliCant was that they couldn't find an English VA with a voice that 'fit' Brother Nier. He sounded good out the gate but hearing him growl "Let's go TAKE CARE of those KIDS" during the thief sidequest-- I got chills. It sounds so silly but there's a kind of percolating fury to that delivery. Papa Nier was like frustrated but mostly disappointed dad; I felt like Brother was going to take care of those kids, and nobody was going to find the bodies. Younger Brother Nier just never stops looking goofy to me but Older Brother just looks great in motion, between the alterations they made to the movement and just the entire weaponry system. The distinction between the two halves of the game was always a little odd in the Gestalt version-- not odd enough to really raise eyebrows if you didn't know about RepliCant, but of course you can tell that this age gape between the optimistic doe-eyed dogooder and a man largely ruled by his fury and calloused by tragedy is what the timeskip was going for. Swab me down and call me Ishmael, it works. Younger Brother wasn't quite clicking with me-- not because of any writing or voicework issues, but I've got Papa Nier on the back of my mind and it's impossible not to compare and contrast the delivery and dialogue between the two. I know that this is intentional, too; Younger Brother is supposed to be that happy-go-lucky video game protagonist, always doing the right thing and helping people, in order to contrast against the man he becomes. Even just edging into Part II the effect is dramatic and it recontextualizes Younger Brother into a much more effective overall character. And let me reiterate, I enjoyed my time with Younger Brother just fine, I have no issues with him. But he's up against Well Meaning Big Dummy Part I Papa Nier. No contest. And I'm excited to see where Older Brother goes from here.

Speaking of voices I mentioned this before but the delivery on the character's lines is different. The entire game was re-recorded and quite a few lines are still pretty similar to the original, but there are some that are... definitely different. Part of this is a difference in the relationship between characters based on their life experience and ages-- Weiss is much more of an ass to Younger Brother but has a much more even respect for Older Brother (neither of which are like the rapport he established with Father). Some of Kaine's lines feel more aloof, dismissive, and almost tired in the front half of the game. I haven't really gotten to a point to dig into Emil's rapport with the other characters, but the delivery feels more hesitant and uncertain (which I think is more in line with his Japanese VO, but I'm prefacing that on an untrained ear and a presumption rather than recent memory). It's been interesting to see not just where hey adjusted dialogue (and how-- there are some lines that didn't need to be rewritten), but also how they adjust tone and delivery. Dealing with Younger Brother is one thing, but as I said, I'm very excited to see what's different in the second half, especially being much more familiar with that part of the game. Speaking of Voices! Halua got dialogue! I... preferred when it was inferred (and the implications of "I'll always be watching over you" are borderline malicious given the results of their fusion dance, yeah THANK YOU HALUA this is GREAT). Halua's delivery also felt a little too innocent and upbeat both for the situation and when compared to her narrative voice in The Stone Flower, where she comes across as much more cynical and cold. But given what she's been through and the nightmare she's finally escaping I guess she's allowed express happiness. She's certainly earned the right to having a spoken line. No matter what. Every fuckin' time.

"Here we go." This was always a great line to kind of ease in to the officially-official start of Part II-- every time you start up a New Game+ you're greeted with Emil musing about his conflation of Halua to Kaine, and then the phrase "Here we go". There's a lot in that one line. On a personal level he's grounding his thoughts in the moment and steeling himself for what comes next and pushing through his pain and sadness and fear. Whatever Nier told him in the facility he's still terrified, desperately terrified, that Kaine -- who was the one who told him his life had meaning -- is going to reject him. And why wouldn't she? Ultimately they don't know each other, not really. He understands at that moment that his relationship with Kaine is based on confused memories of his sister, that maybe the bond he thought they established isn't actually real. As soon as he frees Kaine he's going to have to confront her, like this, and how could she ever-- she won't-- but he can't just leave her. Whatever happens next. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. (God it matters.) "Here we go." On a meta level, that's our introduction into the second half of the game. The first half is all prologue. This is where we'll be spending the rest of our time, even to the point that 'New Game+' skips straight ahead to this moment. Now that we've finished the establishment, this is where it all builds and where it all matters. Here we go, audience. The ride starts now. You get up to this point now in Replicant. You get the same lead-in. My dumb ass even whispered "Here we go", because I can't help myself. And he says, of course he says--! "Anyway." ... ...a-anyway? What the hell kind of line is that? "Here's some deeply personal musings that are also an indication of my own discomfort as I babble to myself just to fill the void so I can stave off thinking for just a few more seconds. ANYWAY." What a... bizarre decision. Just bizarre.

Upgraded melee combat The introduction to the armored Shades always feel kind of rough-- the defenses on those Shades are significantly higher than anything you've faced and the new weapons you're given to combat them just aren't that good. (If you got lucky you could have a fully-upgraded Faith by now, which is nearly three times as powerful as the 'heavy' two-handed sword you're given; if you downloaded the 4 YoRHa pack for Replicant you've probably been able to upgrade one of those weapons once, which are also a really nice strength boost that leaves the freebie heavy swords and spears in the dust). As an introduction to the new weapon types it always feels like rough going. But then you get a chance to get decent weapons and the combat system truly opens up, and compared to the first game you really feel it. At this juncture I would always just bustle off to Facade and grab the Phoenix Spear and never look back-- the raw power compared to the rest of your arsenal coupled with the triangle dash is basically the bread and butter of the rest of the game. It's not exciting, but it's effective. No more triangle dashing, which was deeply disappointing... but both weapons definitely feel good. I am also somewhat ashamed to admit that it wasn't until now that I realized attacks weren't just about rhythmic input-- you can hold the attacks down to do different charged hits and combos depending on when you execute them in your combo, similar to Automata. I, uh... I felt a bit dumb. But hey, wow, it's a welcome adjustment and it makes all of the weapon types feel equally valuable for different purposes. I never liked using the heavy blades in the original release because they just felt too slow for the damage output they did, even if their 'point' was mostly to sheer off armor (and they definitely felt too slow for use in crowd control). Now they're still heavy and slower, but not to the point that you're basically leaving yourself open just trying to attack. Spears now do crazy sweeping combos and multi-hits. Both of these properties were borrowed from Automata and I find myself prioritizing melee combat and almost forgetting I have magic because honestly it just feels intuitive and fun. I feel like Kaine and Emil might have gotten a power boost as well? Not that I can really confirm this but going into some of the Junk Heap rooms I'd focus on killing a few robots in the corner and then turn around and just see a field of item drops and no more robots. Don't take my word on that, of course, but they felt a little more effective, and a placebo effect is still an effect. "You're staging a protest? That's fun!" Emil. Rebel without a cause. Will not hesitate to kill you if you trespass on his property. (Might explain the statues in the courtyard, actually.) I'll have to double-check this dialogue because I definitely remember more of a melancholia before we get to roasting marshmallows. I think Papa Nier actually offers to talk to/implicitly threaten the villagers to let them in the Village whereas Brother offers to sleep outside with them... which is actually kind of funny. In the former it comes off as Emil and Kaine maybe kinda-sorta not wanting to be allowed in the Village for their own reasons (they're not happy reasons but they're reasons nonetheless) and reassuring Father that no, it's okay, it's fun! The latter is almost telling Brother to stay inside because he'll ruin their sleepover.

(They're absolutely having giggly girl talk about him outside the gates, 100%.) they ran over the seals All I want in Seafront is to enjoy the music and run out to the big beach and hang out with the last living seals and they put a fucking pirate ship on top of them. Oh, wow. Gideon. Wow. OG Nier featured a Gideon that tried to keep himself together and then had fits of mania. You'd be concerned about him during some of the dialogue but generally speaking he came across as... functional. The delivery on all of his lines is now so insanely murder bonkers, like every line he's addressing you like you're already chained to the wall of his serial killer dungeon and it's glorious. I don't know if the distinction between the games is deliberate (in that Gideon in Gestalt was just more even-keeled between his 'rip 'em apart' snarlings and was always just totally nutso in RepliCant) but I do appreciate it. It's a good mirror to Brother Nier's own anger, which only ever seems to be mollified when he's talking to his friends (even kindly accepting sidequests there's a pretty consistent -- not universal, but consistent -- air of barely-bridled frustration). The other characters that Brother encounters are various reflections of himself if things had just been a little different-- Gideon was a representation of the kind of obsessive madness that would have eaten Brother alive if he hadn't had his network of support. Gideon's constant fury and bloodlust even bleeds into him just saying "What can I do for you?" He has no anchor to keep himself sane, nobody to stay human for; he's all mania, all anger, and he only takes any real interest in Brother on his return because he sees an opportunity to act out his vengeance. After defeating Beepy and Kalil he even goes so far as to not only blame Beepy for killing Jakob, but for also killing their mother, which is patently insane but really speaks to how far his justifications and fury have taken him. Papa Nier responds to his anger toward Beepy by basically backing away slowly and saying "Oookay then". Brother, however, actually commiserates; "That's enough. [...] We get it. We really do." This is definitely one of those moments where Brother's context works better than Father's; he absolutely sees himself in Gideon. He completely understands him and sympathizes. He recognizes the madness of his own quest, he sees where it could take him, and there's a resignation when he speaks to Weiss: "Revenge is a fool's errand." "...yeah." Papa Nier has a similar delivery and similarly implies that he understands how terrible his quest is, but there's something decidedly haunting in Brother's sympathy. Also just verifying something on the wiki and this bit of 'Trivia' really jumped at me:

Gideon is the only character to only cause the deaths of other characters. In his case, he caused a platform to crush Jakob and ordered the deaths of P-33 and Kalil, with P-33 surviving.

Metal AF.

[archonssun]

Kiss Bang

Kiss Bang

August 20, 2020

WC: 1964

-----

When you fell asleep on the gunner, his face had immediately flushed a violent crimson. No matter how much time had passed since you and Prompto got together, the blind always reacted this way when surrounded by the others. Noctis had been the first to notice, a sly smirk alighting on his lips. He had known of his best friend's feelings for you since he and Prompto had met you in high school.

***

It had been their last year of high school, and they were hanging out in the arcade they frequented. Prompto was watching Noct try his hand at one of the shooter games, the blond smirking as the prince fumble terribly.

"C'mon, Noct, just admit it," Prompto smiled, clasping his friend's shoulder. "You're just not good at shooter games."

"Like hell I'll ever admit that," the prince grumbled. He was about to give it another go when you showed up. Both he and Prompto could only watch in awe as you decimated the pixelated enemies, far surpassing even Prompto's score. When you finished, you had taken the top spot on the leaderboard with a small smirk. As you turned, Prompto caught sight of your eyes. They were breathtaking. Literally, he forgot to breathe.

"Dude, you're turning purple," Noct muttered, and Prompto inhaled deeply -- too deep, because he started coughing. Your (e/c) hues turned to him, concern evident in your gaze as you watched the blond struggle to breathe. You vaguely remember seeing him around school, but couldn't for the life of you remember what his name was -- or if you actually knew it.

"Hey, are you okay?" you asked, placing a hand on the blond's shoulder. His blue-violet eyes clashed with your own, making you inhale sharply.

Bang.

"Ye-yeah," Prompto stumbled, hurrying to stand straight and giving you a shy smile. "I-I'm fine, thanks."

***

You couldn't get the blond boy out of your head. He was beautiful: the freckles that painted his cheeks and nose, that gentle smile he had given you. And, fuck, his eyes. They were the most intense color you had ever seen, a sea of blue encased in violet. You were sure that no human being could possess eyes like his, and yet--

"(Y/n)!" your friend yelled, snapping you out of your reverie. Your head snapped up, looking them in the eyes. They had a small frown on their face. "You okay? You've been acting weird ever since you talked to that blond..."

"Yeah, I'm fine," you reassured them, taking a sip from your soda. Your friend watched you skeptically, but you paid them no mind -- your brain was filled with thoughts of the blond, and only him. Why hadn't I talked to him before? Had I just never noticed him? No, I clearly remember seeing him in the halls at school... so why--

Again, you were pulled from your thoughts by your friend's voice, dragging you into a conversation. So engrossed talking with your friend, you didn't notice a certain blond watching you.

"Prompto, stop staring. It's creepy..." Noct mumbled, the prince trying the shooter game again. Prompto's blond brows furrowed at his friend's choice of words, yet he didn't stop. Blue-violet orbs looked at the uniform you wore, and Prompto frowned. You went to his school, so why hadn't he seen you before? You looked to be about the same age as him and Noct, but he couldn't be certain.

The more he watched you talk with your friend, the more Prompto wanted to get to know you. You had overtaken him in his best game, beating out his score several times over. That wasn't just luck -- you had undeniable skill with guns. But he couldn't help but wonder if that was all you were skilled with.

Even days later, Prompto was on the lookout for you at school, and as the weekend rolled around he couldn't help but feel a certain pang of disappointment. The longer he went without seeing you -- without talking with you -- the lesser his chances felt to even approach you.

"I just don't get it, Noct," the blond whined, trailing after the prince. "She was wearing our uniform, but I haven't seen her at all."

"What's blondie on about?" Gladio grumbled, joining the two boys.

"A girl he met at the arcade," Noct answered plainly.

"Not just any girl!" Prompto defended. "She was awesome! Noct, you saw the way she used guns! You can't tell me it wasn't amazing!"

"Guns?" That had piqued Gladio's interest, amber eyes turning to the blond. "What did she look like?"

"Why?" Prompt asked slowly, his eyes narrowing.

"Because now I'm curious," Gladio snorted. He stretched his arms over his head, closing his eyes for the briefest of seconds. "Besides, the Guard just got a new recruit, around your guys' age. She's pretty handy with guns, too. So, tell me: what did she look like?"

"She had (e/c) eyes and (h/c) hair, and was about this tall," Prompto began, lifting his hand up to his shoulder. A smile was quick to split his face. "Man, you should've seen her! She was amazing, Gladio!"

"(E/c) and (h/c), huh?" the Shield muttered, hand lifting to rest on his chin. "Sounds like (Y/n) -- the new recruit I was telling you about."

(Y/n). Prompto let the name roll around in his mind before a smile came to his face.

"You think we'll get to meet her today?" Prompto blurted out, his face growing hot when he realized what he had said. Gladio let out a hearty laugh at the expression on the blond's face.

"Yeah. She's training with us today."

***

"Whoa." Prompto had to agree with Noct. Never in a million years did he think he'd see someone so comfortable with firearms, yet (Y/n) used them as if they were extensions of your own body. You were quick, too; never wasting a single second as you demonstrated for the others trainees. Your body was firm in its position as you fired, moving nary a centimeter from the gun's recoil.

Prompto’s tongue was nearly hanging out of his mouth as he watched you. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say the blond was awestruck.

“Noct! Noct!” he whispered, tugging at the back of the prince’s shirt. He heard Noct snort, but he turned to watch you regardless. Yes, the prince had seen you utterly kill it at the arcade game, but watching you use live firearms -- it made Noct uneasy. The way you moved, the way you carried yourself made it seem like you were born to fight.

When training had wrapped up, Prompto found the courage to approach you. You were maintaining your gun.

“He-hey,” Prompto stuttered, and you turned to face him. When your eyes met his, you nearly dropped your gun, not expecting to see the blond again -- least of all here.

“Hey,” you replied quietly, your eyes straying to look at the table. Prompto noticed this, and a small frown alighted on his features for a split second.

“I’m Prompto,” he smiled, hand outstretched. You only saw it because you had dared to look back at him. You hesitated for a moment before clasping his hand in your own.

“I’m (Y/n).”

“I know.” Your raised brow had Prompto trying to backtrack. “I-I mean -- Gladio, he--”

“I guess he told you, then,” you grinned. “That man has got to learn how to keep his mouth shut.”

“Sorry…”

“Not your fault,” you shook your head, taking your hand back and finishing with your firearm. It reminded Prompto why he had approached you in the first place.

“Hey, I was wondering,” he began, eyes shifting to look to his right. His hand came to rest at his nape, a slight flush painting his face and ears. He was silent for a few moments before his blue-violet eyes flicked back to meet yours. “Could you teach me?”

“Teach you?” you parroted. You had seen him during training; he didn’t need help with firearms.

“Yeah, teach me.” His lips pulled up in a brilliant smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Why me?”

“‘Cuz you’re the best gunner I know.”

Bang.

***

Your (e/c) eyes opened slowly, a slight smile on your lips when they were met with blond hair. Carefully, you sat up. It was rare that you woke before Prompto, and you intended to capitalize on it. A hand went to run through his hair, and you bit a knuckle of your free hand to keep from laughing. Prompto had let out a purr-like sound when you had touched his hair. His arms wrapped tighter around your waist, nose burying itself in your stomach.

“Need some help there?” Gladio smirked, but you shook your head.

“He needs to get some rest,” you whispered, smile turning gentle as you watched the blond. “He’s been pushing himself too hard lately.”

“That’s so he can keep up with you,” Gladio snorted, and you pouted at the man before looking down at Prompto. You had known the blond for three years now. When he had asked you to teach him, you had been skeptical at first. You didn’t think you could teach him all that much; he had already been one of the best gunmen you had seen, even at seventeen. Fairly quickly, it had turned into you being the one taught.

“He doesn’t have to worry about that,” you pout. You ran your hand through the blond strands again. “He’s already far out of my league, in many ways.”

***

After you had spoken with Gladio, you watched Prompto progress at an unnatural pace. He was a prodigy with firearms, you knew this, but you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy that struck your breast. It was there for not a moment before it was gone, leaving guilt in its place.

It had become a struggle to keep up with him, now. He was above and beyond what you could ever hope to be, at least in your lifetime. No matter how hard you tried, all you saw was his back as he kept going forward.

“Babe, you okay?” Prompto’s voice startled you, making your head snap up from where it rested on your knees.

“I’m fine, Live Wire,” you cooed. “Just a bit tired.”

“Then come on,” he grinned, grabbing your hand and pulling you to your feet. He laced your fingers with his, his smile turning from blinding to soft -- filled with love and adoration -- and pulled you into the tent. Your own smile graced your lips as you followed after the blond. He took up his spot between Gladio’s sleeping bag and Ignis’s, pulling you down with him.

Prompto’s arms wound around your waist, pulling you into his chest. His lips resting against your forehead, you could feel the smile that had yet to disappear.

Kiss.

“I love you, (Y/n),” he muttered, pressing kisses to your temples.

“I love you, too, Live Wire,” you giggled. The hands at your back disconnected, one going to your hand. His fingers, woven with yours once more, gave your hand a light squeeze. Suddenly, your eyes were met with seas of indigo, Prompto touching his nose to yours.

“My little dead-eye,” the blond cooed.

Bang.

“Fuck, why’re you so cute, dammit?!” you pouted. Prompto’s laugh encased you as he pulled you to his chest. You smiled against him, the vibrations of his chest eased your mind; there was no reason to feel envy towards the blond. You had both trained long and hard for the Crownsguard, and not once had he thought himself superior to you. You snuggled against his chest, “Thank you, Prompto.”

“Anytime, babe.”

-----

Let me know if you wanna be added to the tag list!

Tag List: @katerleegrand, @orgawnas, @kirahhhh, @naisitaable​, @kenkopanda​, @blossattic​, @gladiosamicitias​

[cantgetoutofmyheda]

Falling in Love in a Quarantine: Part 6

OP | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

—

PART 6: Day 13

It had become a routine, now that Clarke was back on a strict dayshift schedule—both women woke up at the same time, Lexa would go for a run while Clarke would take a class on her spin bike, and after their respective showers, Clarke would join Lexa in the kitchen. They’d catch up about their morning workouts, talk about the shows or movies they had each watched in bed the night before, all while Clarke watched Lexa make some sort of extravagant breakfast for them before Clarke would have to leave for her shift at the hospital.

This particular morning, the smell of something baking and another smell of something insanely savory and likely artery-clogging caused Clarke’s stomach to grumble. The aroma was enough for her to pounce on the plate as soon as Lexa put it down.

“Okay, what’s all this?” Clarke’s hungry eyes scanned the plate.

Lexa laughed, taking the seat across the blonde, “Well you said the other night you were craving biscuits and gravy but I put a little spin on it. It’s a ham and cheddar scone with bacon gravy. Got creative with the leftovers we had from earlier this week.”

“How do you make cooking look so easy?” Clarke asked, her mouth full of flakey-scone goodness, not caring that her manners disappeared as soon as the food hit her palate. “This is insane.”

“It is easy,” Lexa shrugged. “I’m glad you like it.”

“God,” Clarke said after swallowing another mouthful—she wasn’t even sure if she had thoroughly chewed the bites in her mouth. “Can I keep you here forever?”

Lexa raised a brow at the statement, “If you’d like?”

Especially after her recent conversation with Raven, though Lexa was (hopefully) completely unaware of Clarke’s recent realization, the blonde couldn’t help but feel sheepish after the question came out of her mouth. “I mean, this is the best I’ve eaten in my whole life. And it doesn’t hurt that you’re not awful company.”

“Always had a way with words, Griff,” Lexa offered. “I must say, I do enjoy being here. It’s almost been two weeks and we haven’t annoyed the hell out of each other yet.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Clarke laughed. “I think we’ve known each other too long and know too much about each other’s personalities to let something like that happen.”

“So there’s nothing about my existence here that you’d change?” Lexa raised a brow with her question.

Clarke wasn’t sure if her friend was trying to get to a certain point with what she was asking, “Not a thing. Would you change anything about how I’ve been?”

“Clarke,” Lexa smiled. “I wouldn’t change anything about you or the way you do anything in a million years. That’s why I… that’s why you’re you.”

Clarke smiled and nodded, before turning back to her breakfast. The two ate in a comfortable silence. But what Clarke didn’t understand is why her friend—her best friend—felt the need to stop herself from saying something the pair used to throw around all the time. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she couldn’t remember the last time the pair had exchanged “I love you’s” with each other. It had been a saying that ended every phone call, something they would exchange every time they parted ways—and sure, it started back when they were drunk college kids, but they were, in fact, best friends. And they did, in fact, love each other, so why did Lexa stop herself from saying it a mere few minutes ago?

“Clarke,” Lexa’s voice snapped the blonde out of her daze. “You’re going to be late if you don’t leave soon. I put some leftovers last night in a bag for you in the fridge to eat later.”

“Oh, right,” Clarke set her fork down and started to gather her things to start her trek to the hospital. “Sorry, I was out of it for a second.”

Lexa raised a brow, “Everything okay?”

“Mhm,” the blonde nodded. “Everything’s good. I’ll see you tonight?”

“I’ll be here.” Lexa grinned before adding, “Where I’ve been for the last thirteen days.”

Clarke smiled, “Good.”

---

“Well, well, well, look who finally picked up my FaceTime,” Anya smirked onto the screen.

Lexa raised a brow, “You literally haven’t tried to FaceTime me this whole time, Ahn. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I know,” her friend laughed. “Figured it would be a good intro, though. Anyway, how the hell are you? Week going well?”

“Yeah,” Lexa smiled. “Week’s been good. Work hasn’t been too crazy so nothing to be totally stressed about. Been cooking a lot, which you know I love. And Clarke and I have started a few shows that we’re both loving so all is well over here.”

“What shows?” Anya asked.

“I don’t know,” Lexa shrugged. “Hollywood. Little Fires Everywhere. The Stranger. Good mix of everything, I guess. We have a good cadence going on, trying not to binge anything too quickly so we don’t run out of the good shit.”

“Nice,” Anya nodded. “So things are all merry at Casa Griffin?”

Lexa offered a soft smile, “Yeah, things couldn’t be better. How’s it going with Raven?”

“Pretty well, but seems like you and Griff have it all figured out. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from you guys,” Anya wiggled her brows at her friend.

“Ha,” Lexa started. “It’s just easy for us to fall into a schedule together. Morning workout routine, breakfast together before she heads to the hospital, dinner when she gets home, and wine and Netflix at night. It’s a pretty simple formula.”

“A domestic formula,” Anya added. “You guys sound like an old married couple.”

“That’s not the first time you’ve said that,” Lexa pointed out. “Remember during the hurricane forever ago when Clarke and I stayed at her mom’s? I seem to remember you making similar comments.”

“The hurricane in which you opted to stay with your best friend and her mom instead of your girlfriend and her mom?” Anya laughed. “It’s hard to forget that. Remember the fight you and Costia got in because of that?”

“In my defense,” Lexa raised her chin. “Cos’ mom hated me and Abbey loves me. It was a no brainer.”

“Dude, you ditched your girlfriend to be holed up with Griff,” Anya laughed again. “As smart as you are, kid, you can be pretty dense.”

“Whatever,” Lexa muttered. “Did you call to make fun of me or was there something else?”

“Just wanted to check in, seems like you’ve been so busy with Griff that you forgot the rest of us existed,” Anya said. “Are you guys joining the Zoom happy hour later or are you going to be too busy wining and dining your live-in girlfriend when she gets home from the hospital?”

“Anya,” Lexa’s tone started to show frustration. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to get at. Care to stop dancing around the lines and spit it out?”

“Fine,” Anya cocked her head to the side. “Are you boning Griff?”

“What the fuck, Anya. No.”

“Well,” Anya started. “Do you want to? Because you’re getting pretty good at playing house with her.”

“We’re literally in a fucking quarantine, Anya,” Lexa snapped. “What else am I supposed to fucking do? I can’t leave the house, so yeah, I’m going to take care of things around here for Clarke while shes risking her fucking life everyday at the hospital taking care of everyone that’s clinging on to life.”

“You’re getting awfully testy,” Anya quipped. “I can drop it.”

“I’d appreciate it if you did,” Lexa said, starting to calm down. “She’s my best friend, you know that.”

“And as your other best friend,” Anya started. “And this will be the last time I bring it up, but as your other best friend, I don’t think it would be such a bad idea to explore.”

Lexa didn’t necessarily submit to her friend’s badgering, but she wanted to get a deeper understanding of where this was all coming from, “Why exactly are you bringing this up?”

“Because like I said,” Anya responded. “I don’t think it would be such a bad idea to explore.”

“Okay, well I need to take Sandy out,” Lexa, confused as ever from what Anya was suggesting, responded, trying to find a way to end the call. “I’ll catch you later for the happy hour. Tell Raven I said hi.”

“Yeah,” Anya nodded. “Sounds good. Talk later.”

---

“So how’d it go?” Raven approached her girlfriend from behind as Anya hung up the FaceTime with Lexa, craning her neck to place a soft kiss on her cheek.

“Operation Clexa is in progress,” Anya smirked.

[swan--writes]

For Dewey song fics can you write six degrees of separation by Coldplay please x

This got a little intense, sorry.

Warnings: no happy endings here, dead dove: do not eat

Words: ~2915, unedited again

You shouldn’t be thinking about it. Yet, here you were, staring at your dark ceiling and thinking about it.

There were so many more productive things you could be doing with your energy. There was a book on your nightstand that you had been meaning to read, there was a show you had been meaning to watch. You could doodle, you could journal, you could call a friend. It had been at least an hour since you first lied down, you knew you weren’t going to get to sleep any time soon.

A glance at the clock dismissed the idea of calling anyone, but you still pulled yourself up and slipped out of bed. Your estimate had been right, you had been lying in bed for an hour and four minutes. It was late, your roommates would kill you if you made too much noise. But it was late enough that the threshold for too much noise was higher than usual.

You padded to the kitchen on bare feet and washed your favorite mug. As soon as you felt the warm water on your hands, your breath went shallow.

You’ve read the books, you’ve watched the shows.

Immediately, you shut off the water and leaned heavily with your hands on the sink.

What’s the best way?

You squeezed your burning eyes closed for exactly five seconds.

No-one knows.

The feeling of water had become almost unbearable, but at seemingly random times. Showers were a crapshoot now – sometimes you enjoyed them as much as you had before. Sometimes you stood under the water, waiting for your skin to fall apart like paper. Like a sticker on a water bottle. Like a friendship on the fast track to Out of Time.

Meditate, yeah, hypnotized…

In the year and four months of your friendship, the most that had happened between you and Dewey was a drunk kiss that both of you half-forgot.

Anything to take it from your mind.

What you remembered was the moment you had fallen apart. It was your fault.

But it won’t…

It was your fault, and you didn’t regret it.

Go.

Your hands curled tightly around the lip of the sink.

You’re doing all these things out of desperation.

With your lips pressed into a tight line, you pushed a sigh through your nose.

You’re going through six degrees of separation.

Through rapidly blinking eyes, you saw your mug sitting beside the sink. It was wet, with a few soap bubbles clinging here and there. Good enough.

Seven minutes later, you were curled up under a fluffy blanket, on your couch, with a scalding hot cup of tea. You turned the TV on and promptly retreated into your own head. The place where your quartz pendant rested against your chest was the only cold spot on your body, and the weight of it felt like it was crushing your sternum. It was meant to keep you grounded, though, so you supposed it was doing its job.

First, you think the worst is a broken heart…

The rerun on the screen before you couldn’t distract you from it. Nothing ever could.

What’s gonna kill you is the second part.

The last time you saw Dewey Finn, you were getting lunch with him. You had rehearsed the conversation you knew you would have with him a million times.

“So I’m standing at the front of the room, looking at these kids–”

“For once.”

“–and I notice something smoking behind the backup singers.”

“Oh no.” Oh no. The pit of your stomach sank, even as you watched his bright eyes, his animated hand gestures. Dewey loved his job, the kids he taught. And you loved him.

You loved his stories, his voice, his hands and the way they danced across every instrument he played. You loved the way his hair flopped into his face, and the way the sunlight liquified his irises in his early-morning snapchats. He snapchatted you every morning so he wouldn’t go back to sleep. You loved that too – loved that he would think of you for that. That he was so comfortable with you, so open. Dewey was your favorite person, and you adored him.

“I have no idea who it was, but one of them set the drumkit on fire.”

“What?” Here, you laughed. You had to.

“The skins were on fire, I swear.” You could barely make out his words through his laughter, and over your own. You were bent forward over the table, and he leaned toward you, shaking his head. “I’m not lying.”

“Jesus…”

He straightened in his seat and slowly let his laughter fade, wiping away the few tears that had managed to escape him. “So I’m sorry I had to cancel on you last week, Rose was not happy with us.”

And, there it was. There she was.

Dewey would never get back together with her, not with the way they had left things. Even in the face of your uncertainty, your confusion when it came to him, you felt confident about that. In the grand scheme of things, however, it made almost no difference when it came to you. For all his ‘doneness’ with Rosalie, he was still using her as a shield. You couldn’t remember the last time you had a conversation with Dewey where his ex hadn’t come up.

Whether he might have had feelings for you, in this or any timeline, the fact remained that there was a principal-sized divide between your feelings and your friend, and you couldn’t see a way through it. For the longest time, you could at least see around it – you and Dewey could still be friends after you talked about it. But the more you thought about what you would actually need to say to him, the more you were forced to face the truth. The thing you knew yourself well enough to understand on the deepest level you possessed.

Without a chance – without a maybe – your friendship with Dewey had no future. You liked each other as people, you trusted each other as friends, the foundation was solid. But yours was the kind of relationship that either progressed or petered out. You couldn’t wait around for him to either process what had happened with Rosalie or realize how much you cared about him anymore. This had to stop.

“Yeah, um…about that,” you began. From there, you let it out. You spoke slowly, deliberately, trying to convince yourself – and him – that this wouldn’t be forever. That you needed to take a step back, but that it was temporary. The light in Dewey’s eyes said that he believed you, and he understood. He thanked you for talking to him about it, apologized for the distance that had begun to creep in between you, and walked you down the street in the rain before you had to part ways. You thought about asking him for a hug. You immediately thought better of it.

And the third is when your world splits down the middle.

Tonight, sitting in front of the practically muted TV with a cup of tea and a crystal crushing your sternum, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe you should have told Dewey the truth. By now, it had been two and-a-half months, and here you were, still thinking about it. Was it guilt? Was it love? You had loved him, hadn’t you? Or maybe you only thought you did, because it was so easy to believe what you were feeling was love.

On the other hand, maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was just your desire to be loved, to be wanted by someone who wasn’t a completely awful or creepy or useless person. Maybe it was relief at finding someone who actually seemed to care about being your friend, and maybe once the shock and awe of having someone in your life who genuinely wanted to be there had worn off, you got bored with the new status quo. Maybe you deserved for the crystal at your sternum to shove its cold way through your skin, through your bones, to ricochet through your whole being and tear you apart the way your heart was growing ever more convince you already were, and make real what you felt you might deserve.

Maybe you had kicked the only person you wanted to lean on when it came to all of this right off the map of your life because you were just so convinced that your relationship had been destined for more than it could ever be. Maybe you just fucked up, and now it was too late to take it back.

No.

Groaning quietly, you took a long sip of your tea, letting it warm the spot where the quartz sat. You pulled your blanket around yourself more tightly and shook the last of the darkness off, literally shaking your head. Dewey wasn’t the first person you had had these feelings about, even if you had felt the strongest about him. Stewing like this wasn’t going to help you move on, and you always moved on. There was no sense in it. You knew you had to let it go.

And fourth, you’re gonna think that you’ve fixed yourself.

It was only natural, then, that you would see him the next day.

You had gotten to the record shop first, you were confident about that much. When you first walked in, the store had been Dewey Finn-free. And yet…

“Fuck,” you breathed. He wasn’t looking at you, and you were fairly confident he hadn’t seen you at all. Dewey was a terrible actor, he was ignoring your presence too convincingly. He was standing in the next aisle, but the shelves were so low that you could see him clearly from the waist up.

You could also see the person he was with, and they were touching his arm the way you used to. The way you wished more than anything that you still could.

Fifth, you see them out with someone else.

Dewey’s…companion had their back to you, you couldn’t tell who they were, or if you even knew them. Short brown hair, black coat, delicate hand. Could have been a friend. Could have not. Either way, it didn’t matter. You had to get out of there.

All you could hear on your way to the door was the sound of your own breath. Mentally, you were kicking yourself mercilessly. You should have been able to hold your ground by now. It was over, you knew that. But the dread in your stomach and the cold at the back of your neck were pushing and pulling and shoving and tugging and screaming at you to get out of there. Your heart wouldn’t rest and it drove your breath into hyperdrive. You had to shove your hands into your coat pockets so you wouldn’t see them shaking. Your steps were jerky, throwing your usual walk into disarray and your hips into confusion. You stayed on course toward the door. And God, you had almost made it.

“Y/N?” A gentle hand caught your arm. When you jumped in surprise, your feet actually left the ground. There was no time for you to try keeping your arm loose, and you jerked it away from him. “Whoa, sorry.” Dewey held up his hands and your eyes pinged between them before settling on his face. His scruff was shorter than you remembered, but the bags under his eyes were deeper, his skin a touch grayer. “What are you–?”

“You look terrible,” you deadpanned, not letting him finish his question. Dewey tried to chuckle, but a look of frustration pinched his face and turned the sound into a huff.

“So do you. Where have you been?”

You shook your head. “Nowhere, I…” He raised his eyebrows expectantly. “…I’ve just been busy.”

“Right.”

And the sixth is when you admit you may have fucked up a little.

“Really, Y/N, what’s going on? You said you’d text me, what–?” Dewey cut himself off then, realization touching his eyes. “You lied,” he murmured. You shook your head, fully aware that you looked like a butterfly who’s strayed too close to a Venus fly trap to argue its case. Dewey was prepared to catch you out, whether you were the fly he was looking for or not. Maybe you were. “You lied, you said we weren’t done.”

“I didn’t realize we would be.”

“Bullshit.” The cashier glanced at you both sharply, and you shot him a quick apologetic look before returning your eyes to Dewey.

“Can we go outside?” Though you asked, your hand was already on the door. Ten seconds later, you were standing just to the right of the door and Dewey was staring at you just as hard as he had been inside. “When I first decided to talk to you, I thought we would be fine eventually.” You paused, waiting for him to say something. He didn’t. “But yeah, once we started actually talking, I kinda knew that was it.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was using you or–”

“Why? You were.”

This would have been so much easier if Dewey were yelling at you. If he had been visibly angry in any way. But for the first time since you met him, his expression was closed for business. His forehead and his lip corners and the bridge his nose were all troublingly smooth. He was giving you nothing. You were afraid you were giving him much of the same. As much as you had prepared for that last talk you had with him, this felt infinitely more rehearsed. Canned. Yet you meant every word.

“No. I had feelings for you that I didn’t know what to do with, and I let them get the best of me for a while. That was unfair. But I never meant to use you or hurt you or…or anything. I just…” Now you had to look away, unable to face his unchanging expression. You shook your head again. “I fell in love with you,” you said to the brick exterior of the building beside you. “I fell in love with you, and I couldn’t stay friends with you when a part of me would be feeling that for fuck knows how long.”

Silence.

Finally, you had to risk a glance back at Dewey. Once your eyes landed on his face, you couldn’t look away again. His mouth was hanging open, just a little, just enough that you were convinced his shock was genuine. His disbelief.

“I…” It was his turn to shake his head. “I didn’t know, Y/N, I just figured–”

“Yeah, well, now you do.” Wearily, you rubbed the back of your neck, trying to shrug everything off. You couldn’t, you knew you couldn’t, but you had to try.

“You should have said so.”

“What would that have changed.”

“What–everything. It would have changed everything.”

You grimaced. “That’s not true.”

“Wha–?”

“You didn’t feel the same, Dewey, you never have. What difference would baring my soul have made when you couldn’t give me what I wanted anyway?” Dewey stared at you. He blinked once, twice. You were right, but he couldn’t say it. You gave him a short nod, feeling the tension that had filled the air between you just moments earlier suddenly disappear, shoved away by a gust of winter wind, knocking its obtrusive way down the street, around the corner, and out of sight.

This wasn’t closure, exactly. If Dewey said or did the wrong thing, you would take him back in a heartbeat. His friendship, his love – such as it could ever be – you would take it.

Oh no there ain’t no help, it’s every man for himself.

You couldn’t give him the chance.

You’re going through six degrees of separation.

“I have to go.”

“Wait.” He reached out for you, lamely pawing at the air and letting his hand drop when you stepped back.

Oh no there ain’t no help, it’s every man for himself.

“You should get back inside, it’s cold out.”

“Please don’t, I miss you.” Your brow flickered with doubt at his words. It was doubt in your own decision, you knew, but you didn’t let it take residence in your face.

You’re going through six degrees of separation.

“I miss you too,” you all but whispered. For a split second, Dewey seemed relieved. But then you took another step back, and the relief left him. “Bye.”

Oh no there ain’t no help, it’s every man for himself.

You didn’t look at him again. Hands back in your pockets, you ducked your head against the wind and scurried away, setting him down the same road you had been on for the last two and-a-half months.

Oh no there ain’t no help, it’s every man for himself.

Dewey stood alone, confused, feeling his heart slowly compressing inside his chest. He stared forward at the middle near-distance, at the spot where you had stood, at cold winter air. The air was pressing against his sternum, crushing it. His breath sped up, his heart ricocheted through his chest, pushing him in all different directions. He shouldn’t just be standing here. Yet here he was, staring at nothing and thinking about it way too hard. How could his heart be breaking like this, now, after all the time that had passed? How had he fucked up like this?

How could you just be out of his life like this?

.

.

Buy Me a Coffee

[imagining-supernatural]

Chapter 3: The Study Date

Cracks In The Dam Series – Bucky’s POV

She’s a quiet engineering and physics major trying to forget the demons of her past, and he’s the campus playboy trying to turn over a new leaf. Their friendship is unlikely, but just might be forged to withstand the cracks in the dams they’ve built to protect themselves. (BuckyxReader college au)

Word Count: 2303

Damn, I hoped Y/N wasn’t a stickler for people being on time. Class got out late, then the pizza place I liked was packed and it took half an hour to get the pizza I ordered. As if I wasn’t late enough, there was an accident on the road that led straight to her place, so I had to take a detour. By the time I finally parked my bike in front of her house and cut the engine, it was nearly one-thirty.

I took the steps two at a time and pulled back just in time to stop from running into Wanda as she came out.

“Oh! Hi Bucky.”

“Hey, Wan.”

She looked back into the house, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Steve isn’t here…”

“Nah, I know. I’m here for Y/N.”

A careful smile tugged at the corner of her lips and she jerked her head towards the door. “Well, go ahead. She’s just—”

“Stupid, goddamn piece of shit!” Y/N’s yell interrupted her roommate and Wanda laughed.

“She’s in her room. Just follow the profanity.”

I thanked her and headed inside. As I walked down the hallway, I heard her muffled voice as she spoke at a normal volume. Another voice, one that sounded robotic answered her. I pushed her door open silently just in time to see Y/N sink her face into her hands. “Sorry for snapping, Jarvis. I guess this stupid thing isn’t the only thing that has a few screws loose.”

There wasn’t anyone else in the room besides her. Who was the man I heard?

“This looks like a fun time.” Maybe I should have made more noise coming down the hallway because I swear Y/N was startled enough to nearly throw whatever was in her hands at me. Thankfully she refrained, and when she recognized me, her eyebrows shot up.

“Is it one already? Geez. Time really does fly. Jarvis, file everything away for later, please.”

The voice came again, but it seemed like it was coming from one of the many tablets she had surrounding her. “Will do, Miss Y/L/N.”

I caught sight of a few familiar designs before they were swiped away into folders. They were the same ones that Y/N had been drawing in her notebook earlier in class. She seemed more tense than usual. Since history obviously wasn’t her favorite subject, it probably was a good idea to get some food in her and get a few laughs out of her before diving into it.

“I didn’t know what kind of pizza you liked, but I remember hearing Nat say one time that you’ll eat anything. So I got a mayo and pea pizza.”

“The fuck? That’s a thing?” The look on her face was absolutely priceless. Disgust and curiosity in nearly equal parts. Though, from the way she slightly leaned away from the box I set down between us like it was some contagious disease, I figured she was much more disgusted.

Still, her reaction made me laugh harder than I had since Aunt Jeanie called on Friday night. “I saw it online. How messed up is that? Don’t worry, it’s actually just mean lovers.”

“Oh, thank God,” she breathed reverently, pouncing on the box like a lioness. The moan she made at her first bite prompted my mind to take a quick detour into the gutter, but I quickly pulled it back. Friends. Only friends, Bucky. “This is so good. I had no idea how hungry I was.”

“Yeah,” Nat’s voice pulled my attention from Y/N’s look of pure pizza worship. “You haven’t eaten anything since we had breakfast this morning. Oh, hi Bucky!”

To say Nat was excited to see me in her friend’s bedroom was an understatement. I chose to ignore it though, in favor of ribbing Y/N. “Not true. You had a granola bar in class today.”

“That sounds fake,” Y/N said slowly, taking stock of everything.

“Oh, right!” It was almost too easy. Y/N had been so distracted today that I almost felt bad for setting her up for this teasing joke. Almost. But not quite. “You were going to eat one, but the granola bar sat on your desk all through class while you doodled, so I ate it for you.”

“You stole my granola bar?” A piece of meat came hurtling towards me and I easily dodged it, laughing. “Rude.”

“You didn’t even notice. How offended can you really be?”

“So…” Nat started, that matchmaker twinkle back in her eyes. “Are you two, like, friends now?”

“Yes.” She threw food at me. We were definitely friends now.

Y/N, however, didn’t agree. “TBD. It depends on how good of a history tutor he is.”

“C’mon, Y/N!” Nat whined. “He brought you pizza. Food. Sustenance. You know, calories? The thing that is essential to life that you constantly forget about?”

Grateful that Nat was on my side, I smile at Y/N, even as my mind is filing away her words for later. Y/N forgot to eat sometimes? The way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Maybe it was the same way with Y/N and friendship.

“Yeah, Y/N. Pizza. The food of friendship. Just give in. Admit it. Repeat after me, doll: Bucky Barnes is my amazingly sexy and hilarious friend.”

Her delicate eyeroll makes me smile bigger. She’s not making this easy on me.

“I can literally build a robot to get me pizza.”

Robots, huh? Nat just laughed and walked away. “Good luck, Buck!”

I’d gotten her to laugh, and I’d gotten some food in her. Now it was time to prove my worth. Prove that I was here for her and not just as a ploy to get into her pants. And, for most people, what was less sexy than fifteenth century history? So I reached for my backpack and pulled out my notebook. “But can you build a robot to teach you history?”

“Can you teach me history? That’s the real challenge.”

“I’m up for it.” Not only would I be earning friend-points, but I would be able to get to know how Y/N thought. I’d get to know more about how she worked.

As long as I could hold her attention for longer than one minute, I would be a better teacher than our professor. For someone who could stare at the same equation for an entire class period, Y/N did not have any sort of attention span when it came to history.

I was about to change that.

*****

I had yet to change that.

We were an hour into the study date and she just couldn’t seem to wrap her brain around anything I’d been trying to teach her. I was starting to get frustrated. Not with Y/N. With myself. We were both smart people. I should be able to figure out the best way to get her to pick up on this shit. But her brain didn’t work in any of the ways that mine did.

“Why are there so many people?” She suddenly yelled, slamming her textbook closed. “Why do they do so many things? Why does this even matter?”

Watching her lose her cool had to be the funniest damn thing I’d seen in days. After an hour, though, I figured we deserved a break. And what better way to take a break than to get Y/N riled up some more?

“Maybe if you’d stop being so stubborn, then we could—"

“I’m not stubborn!”

Yup. That had been the right button to push. She was just so damn cute when she was arguing with me. “Really? Not stubborn. You’ve been working on the same doodles since class on Monday. Whatever you’re trying to figure out, you’re stubborn enough to not give up on that. You’ve only been trying at this for an hour.”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugged, looking over at the pile of tablets beside her. “Those designs are literally the key to my future. This is… literally history. It doesn’t matter at all.”

The key to her future… Those designs were the way that she thought. If I knew what they were, I could maybe get more insight into how her brain worked and then we could actually get somewhere on this studying.

“What are you working on? Those doodles, the stuff that was spread out when I got here. What’s that?”

“It’s for work.” She seemed hesitant to say anything more, so I just waited patiently, hoping I earned enough of her trust for her to give in. I saw the moment she did. Her shoulders relaxed and her fingers started tapping on her leg as she began her explanation.

And damn I knew Y/N was smart. But hearing her talk about building something for soldiers to take into warzones? Her words were a confusing jumble of thoughts, but I could follow enough to be in definitely awe by the time she wound down.

Weapons… robots… Tony… Shit, I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.

“Okay, okay. So, I might be really dumb here… but I just put together that you work for Tony as in Tony Stark. Stark Industries.”

“Not dumb. I don’t really advertise it,” she confirmed.

“Holy shit Y/N. I knew you were smart, but Tony Stark smart? Shit, I am so out of my league in this friendship.”

A proud smile flashed across her face before she deflated. “Not when it comes to history.”

“Nah, that’s not it.” I wanted to dispel any of those negative thoughts as quickly as I could. “I think we’ve just been approaching this wrong. I’ve been trying to get you to focus on the people. The story behind everything. Your brain doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m not good with people,” she easily agreed, surprising laughter from me. Where did that stubborn girl go from a few minutes ago?

“You can say that again.” She shoved my shoulder in retaliation for my little jab and I added another mental friend-point. “You don’t focus on people. That’s not going to work for you. But the weapons, the technological advances. If you can get the progression of those things down, then you’ll be able to branch out and remember the events that led up to all of those.”

Her eyes were glazing over. Man, she really hated history.

“Or, counter idea, I just drop out of college entirely and live in a cave on a mountain. Much more preferable to learning about history.”

“Doesn’t help the soldier though.”

“Shit, you’re right.” Her dramatically crest-fallen expression made me laugh. I liked joking around with Y/N so much more than I expected. “I’m gonna give you another half hour to work your history magic. Then I need to get back to work.”

Even though I needed to get on the road and head up to see Aunt Jeanie and Rebecca as soon as possible, I wasn’t quite ready to call this quits. “We have a test next week.”

“I know.”

“And a paper due in a few weeks.”

“That’s a problem for another day.”

Was she even passing this class? Sure, it was a general credit, but it was a hard credit. This professor graded tough. And she was procrastinating when she was already so lost?

“Next week, next few weeks… I have a big presentation on Friday that I can’t fuck up for work. Stark board of directors, some government officials… I’ll worry about the test next week.”

As if I’d forgotten about how smart she was, there she goes reminding me again. How many juniors in college could say that they were going to present a design they worked on with the great Tony Stark to the board of directors of the biggest weapons manufacturer in the world? “Why are you even going to college, Y/N? It seems like you’ve got a good thing going with Stark.”

“Gotta get that piece of paper that says I have a degree. It sucks.”

She had a point. “I hear ya there. Alright.” I pretended to crack my knuckles and stretch my neck like preparing for a fight. “Half an hour. Here we go.”

And half an hour later, we actually made some progress. I packed up my stuff with a satisfied grin on my face. To think that she doubted me. It just took a bit to get everything going, but we finally pushed down some walls.

Speaking of pushing down walls… I grabbed the last slice of pizza and chewed on that while Y/N walked me to her front door. “So, Y/N. You ready to admit it yet?”

“Admit it…” She looked like she had no idea what I was talking about.

“That we’re friends? First study session is over.”

She closed her eyes and put on a long-suffering expression. “Fine. Yes, Bucky. We’re friends.”

I pumped my fist into the air. “Yes!” She laughed at my theatrics and I couldn’t help but grab her cheeks in my hands and press a quick farewell kiss to her forehead in my good mood. “Good luck on your presentation on Friday. You’re gonna kill it.”

“I’m going to see you in class on Friday, right?”

Halfway out the door, I shook my head. And was that disappointment on her face? Maybe it was just my own wishful thinking. “I have some family shit to take care of. I’d tell you to take good notes for me but…”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

I walked to my motorcycle with a huge grin on my face. Why did it feel like I just won the lottery? All I did was get a girl to admit she didn’t hate me or just tolerate me.

Whatever the reason, this victory gave me the push I needed to pack up and drive home to see my little sister in jail.

[serendipitous-magic]

I didn't think ST Season 3 was that bad until I read The Real Season 3 and now it's absolutely replacing the Netflix version in my head. People actually LEARNING from the shit they went through the past two times and WORKING TOGETHER? That's a concept clearly lost on Netflix

There was... a lot wrong with what they did to S3, in my humble opinion. Not even necessarily from a fan POV, but from a storytelling POV. The characterization was flat, overblown, over the top, and abominable. The characters were not only completely unrecognizable, but paper-thin caricatures, all of them reduced down to a handful of exaggerated traits (Joyce basically became “yelling lady,” Hop became “bumbling barbaric DadBod Cop who says things like “i’m the chief of police, I can do whatever I want,” which like??? Those aren’t even original traits of his character??? They didn’t even reduce him down to a handful of his original traits, they literally just changed his entire??? Character???? What the fuck?? What the fuck????)

Not to mention the plot. Structurally, it was awful. It was action-driven, with too many villains (that didn’t make sense or have any thematic weight), it didn’t carry on the same themes, tones, or even many of the same plot points from previous seasons. An 18 year old in a Screenwriting For TV 101 class could have put together a better season. It’s like the writers were like “you know what we’ll do? We’ll just crowdsource. We’ll just give the loudest fans everything they want.” And they did. The majority of the ST fanbase FUCKING LOVED mileven in S2? They made S3 all about mileven, to the point that the relationship devolved into toxicity and became flat, forced, and really uncomfortable. People wanted to see more Erica?? Well, good, because she’s a main character now for some reason!! People liked Dustin and Steve working together?? Cool, because now that’s ALL YOU’RE GONNA GET!!! 

They literally just forgot a lot of the thematic through-lines of the first two seasons. Like. Theme? I don’t know her.

Also the loose ends. Where’d they go? No one knows! Remember how Brenner might not be dead? Nope! Remember Khali and the others? Nope! Remember how the Mind Flayer was actually a sinister and complex villain, with logic and goals and a solid rule structure for how it can operate and what it can and cannot do? Nope! Now it’s a goo-monster that possesses literally just anyone and everyone and turns things into slime. ..... fucking what.

Not to mention how goddamn problematic a lot of it was, coming from a social angle. Like, first of all, let’s not even get into how they were going to make Robin straight with a crush on Steve until Maya Hawke suggested they make her a lesbian - AND that, coincidentally, Will stops being a character right around the time that Robin comes out in the show. HMMMMM, THAT’S FUCKING WEIRD, IT’S ALMOST LIKE THEY DECIDED “EH, ONE QUEER IS ENOUGH, AMIRIGHT”???? Hate that. Haaaaaaate that. 

And how Jopper became so cartoonish and toxic and unhealthy, it was just... sad. It was just really uncomfortable and sad. This is the relationship we want to be modeling? Really? It wasn’t even “realistic relationship struggles” or “a realistic example of how a strong relationship can go south because human relationships are extremely complex,” nope. It was just. They just yelled at each other and put each other down and were mean to each other, and it was just... really disheartening to see their relationship reduced to fucking that.

AND the cartoonish, over-the-top portrayal of Nancy’s sexist coworkers. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a conversation that needs to be brought up in media, but this shit was just bloated and cheesy and honestly probably did more harm than good. Again: caricatures. Caricatures everywhere.

And Mileven being so uncomfortable and toxic? Making out 24/7, not acutally, yanno, talking or having a relationship outside of making out, and then Mike being like “I know, I’ll buy back the emotional girl’s affections!” EW EW EW EW EW. And making it all about high-school drama in the most gross and shallow way... “I dump your ass...” .... I.... Look, I don’t ship mileven romantically (here’s why) but I ship their friendship so fucking hard from S1 and S2. And S3 really, really dealt mileven a hard blow. Like everything else, it became so flat and uncomfortable. 

ANYWAY, that became much more than I intended (it’s been almost a year and clearly I am still incensed about what they did to this story), so I’ll just say:

After I saw S3, I was like “... I have to fix this somehow. I have to give these characters and this story that I love so much a wrap-up that does it a little bit more justice than... whatever the fuck just happened.” So I made this plan to re-write it as a fix-it-fic, and here we are.

Also, I know it’s slow. I know, and I am so very sorry. I get myself into way too may projects and then none of them get any progress. 

I’M SORRY ascfcszgcdsgvxc

Anyway yeah there’s yet another rant about S3 that I didn’t plan on making but here we are, lmaooo

[wilmakins]

Fanniversary Thank You Fics

Tony Stark Needs a Hug, for @my-soul-and-perfume

Tony is too stubborn to ask for a hug. Steve gives him one anyway.

Not all of the side effects of the serum are obvious.

 Yeah, everyone knew that Steve was bigger and stronger now. Faster. There was always someone on hand to point out that he was smarter now, always with a patronising smile, see, I remembered. Like Steve should be pleasantly surprised to find someone deep enough to see that he wasn’t an idiot…

 But there were other things; things that no one would have thought of. More subtle things, maybe. Or more important things…

 Steve noticed things, now.

 He supposed the point was that he would notice an enemy reaching for a gun, or be able to spot a double agent acting strangely, or recognise when someone had been rifling in his things. He assumed all of his enhanced qualities were ultimately there for the purpose of combat and service.

 The trouble was, he couldn’t leave it on the battlefield.

 He’d realised it back in the forties. He found himself picking up on Bucky’s tone of voice more often, just knowing the difference between sad and tired and concerned from the pitch alone. He saw that Gabe would bite his lip when he was embarrassed, that Junior tapped his foot if he was thinking more than he was saying, that Dino looked at the sky if he was thinking of home.

 This was all fine in the forties.

 The trouble was, in the 21st Century, Steve still noticed when people were uncomfortable, or unhappy, or scared – he just didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t know anyone here. He didn’t know what their histories or their triggers or their vulnerabilities were. He didn’t even understand the world they existed in. He didn’t understand what anyone was anxious about, these days – literally. He didn’t know if his comforts would be old fashioned, laughable, offensive even. He was just a stranger, forever picking up on his teammate’s discomfort, with no way to ask if he could help…

 Tony was the worst.

 The trouble with Tony, Steve had decided, was that other people really didn’t know. And he knew that sounded arrogant, or worse, like he was one of those dreadful, patronising people – I’m deep enough to get you… It wasn’t that. It was just that Tony was really good at hiding his emotions. His tells were far more subtle, far better controlled that anyone else’s. Steve knew why other people didn’t spot it – he was sure he wouldn’t have seen it, if it weren’t for the serum…

 Okay, he paid more attention to Tony, maybe…

 But that wasn’t the point.

 The point was… Steve knew that Tony was struggling tonight.

 Tony had joined the team for dinner, and he’d smiled and joked and stayed to chat after he finished his meal… but still, Steve could tell. The fact that Tony had finished off so many jokes that Steve knew he could have run with. The way he kept asking other people, well, what about you? The way he answered questions with anecdotes and quips rather than opinions. All ways of handing the conversation over; making it look as though he was talking, talking, talking while he was saying as little as he could. Steve could see him hiding –

 So, what do you do about that?

 If it had been Bucky, back in the forties, Steve could’ve just asked. He would’ve known how Bucky would react; he’d have been able to guess what it was about. He’d have just been able to say some words, without having to think if Bucky was going to mock them for being quaint, or pull a face like a bad taste and tell him, yeah, we don’t call it that any more…

 He’d watched Tony from across the table, grabbing egg-rolls and asking Clint if he thought he’d be as good a shot in a different atmosphere, and he’d tried to picture asking him, are you okay? Tony would just tell him, always, like he always did – Steve knew him that well, at least. What’s wrong? Was that too aggressive? Would Tony just tell him to mind his own business? The phrase respecting boundaries floated through Steve’s head… And this was how it always went. Steve having a little debate on his own, while Tony did his performance, and tidied a few cartons away, and made to leave…

 A chorus of cheerful, bye, Tony’s and g’night’s – even though he was clearly headed back up to the workshop, rather than down to his bedroom. Back up to work, even though it was end of the evening and there wasn’t a mission in progress and he was clearly bone tired… Maybe no one else saw that. They’d barely glanced up when Tony stood to leave – why would they? He’d not done anything remotely off.

 But Steve knew; everything was off.

 He had no idea what it could be, or what could possibly help – but he knew what was going to happen. At least, he knew that he’d see Tony sometime tomorrow afternoon, still in the same clothes, either hungover or just exhausted. That empty, lost look in his eyes, until he saw someone looking and blinked it away…Steve knew it would happen, because it happened every time. Steve had noticed.

 He wished he would notice the fucking answer lying around here somewhere…

 But, as it wasn’t likely to occur to him, Steve told himself there was nothing he could do. That it probably wasn’t his place anyway – that Tony had plenty of people he did care about, in the non-workplace-boundaries-respecting way, people like Rhodey and Pepper who really knew him. Who might understand what Tony was talking about if he did tell them what was wrong… Steve told himself he was standing up to go to bed. He said good night to everyone, thinking he was going to take the stairs down to his bedroom. Because there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, no way he could help – no reason to head up to Tony’s workshop and try anyway.

 And yet.

 Steve felt his ribs tightening as he started up the staircase, a strange feeling of panic that he hadn’t thought to expect… but, really, what the hell was he doing? He really didn’t have the first clue what he was going to say when he got there – thinking logically, this could only go badly. His heart was beating in anticipation of this awful, awkward event he was about to go through; and still, he was heading up. Doing it to himself.

 Because he just couldn’t not.

 Same as he could never run away from a gang of bullies who were quite obviously going to beat the crap out of him. Because fighting was the only alternative to just letting them win – even if it was an alternative that didn’t actually do any good, in the short term.

 Steve didn’t know if he could do any good by going to Tony now. But he couldn’t just walk away and leave him to struggle on his own. He might not be able to stop Tony suffering, but he couldn’t just let it happen. There was a difference.

 Of course, his absolute confidence in his convictions wavered slightly when he actually got to the workshop. When he saw the wall alive with layers of holograms; impossible numbers and incomparable symbols and information moving too quickly for him to see, serum or not. An immediate, visible reminder that Steve was so out of his depth, a warning that he couldn’t possibly understand whatever was worrying Tony. An internal alarm, not for you, not for you, not for you.

 And then Tony glanced up. There was a flicker of surprise, enough that he forgot to cover himself for a second. A whole second in which Steve could just openly see how exhausted and… lonely, Tony was.

 Sad. Not angry, or frustrated, or anxious. That sweet, soft sadness that you see in the eyes of little children, before they learn not to show it to the world.

 And then Tony blinked, and his features hardened just a little. A slight frown, enquiring, on the edge of defensive, …yes?

 Steve let go of a little breath, defeated almost as soon as he began. But still, he began.

 “…Are you okay?”

“Always” Tony smiled, immediately. Obviously. Same little quirk of the eyebrow as always, as though he were faintly amused Steve should ask.

 But he didn’t turn away.

 That wasn’t the same as always.

 Steve had noticed the way Tony would find an excuse to look elsewhere, when he wanted to close things down. Whatever it was that made him want to run – Steve could never make sense of the pattern – but he knew Tony responded the same way every time. Look at a monitor. Become immediately engrossed in his work desk. Turn to search for something, anything, on the shelf directly behind him. Steve had just expected Tony to look away, even as he spoke. He’d been so sure he’d have to say his next lines to the side of Tony’s head, while he squinted thoughtfully at one of his holograms.

 And he didn’t.

 Tony just carried on looking right at Steve. And Steve noticed the way he flexed his hands, like he was thinking about reaching for something. The way he kept his arms at his sides, even as his shoulders tensed. Steve didn’t understand it, but still, he knew-

 He’d just like a hug, right now.

 Steve saw it, in all the little details that he couldn’t help but notice. A physical loneliness, a dark mood that went beyond problems or worries, an ache that words wouldn’t soothe. Steve knew that feeling. The strange feeling that just being able to hold someone, just having something real under your hands, just knowing someone was there, wouldn’t change anything – but still, it would help.

 Oh, God, how the fuck do I do that?

 The exact same panic that he’d felt as he’d made his way up the stairs. The same dip in his gut as he tried to think of how very badly this could go. Steeling himself for a beating, emotionally speaking-

 Not thinking for a second that he just wasn’t going to do it.

 He’d seen it now. He knew that a hug was the only thing that could even potentially help – whether it would help or not. It was a rare thing these days, for Steve to completely sure that he knew the right answer to something. And, okay, he didn’t understand why Tony needed a hug and he wasn’t sure how to offer Tony a hug and he hadn’t the first clue what would happen after he’d tried to hug Tony… but he knew that was what Tony needed. He knew that. And he couldn’t just leave Tony, lost and sad and lonely, with no chance of getting what he needed from anyone.

 He wasn’t sure if Tony pushing him away, or asking him what the hell he was doing, or throwing him out of the lab, was going to help – any more than being knocked out in a parking lot had ‘helped’. But, heaven help him, he was going to do it anyway.

 Steve took a tentative step forward, and he caught the way Tony flinched. By now, Steve was judging this situation the same way he might a combat mission, looking out for every reaction with as much focus as he ever had in battle. Tony had flinched, but he’d tried not to. Tony hadn’t stepped in with a deflection or a joke, even to fill the silence. Tony wouldn’t ask, Steve knew that… but maybe this was as close as he could manage. Not saying no. Not moving away. Not putting up any of his usual defences, just waiting to see.

 Steve took the final few steps up to Tony, and he felt Tony freeze as he closed the gap. The way he tensed every muscle as Steve breached the limit of conversational personal space, and it became clear, no, we’re going there, this is a hug-

 Trying not to run.

 There was a little kick of anxiety in Steve then, a sudden confusion as he tried to process Tony’s reactions in real time. The first stirring of doubt, even as he folded his arms around Tony’s shoulders, just because Tony was so stiff, because this body language usually translated as uncomfortable – maybe it just meant no-

 That same alarm – not for you, not for you, not for you

 And then he felt Tony soften. His shoulders dropped, and he leant in just so, and there was a surge of relief as Steve realised,

 Right answer.

 It was only then that Steve realised how rigid his own body had been – as he relaxed his arms and held Tony properly, pulling him against his chest and taking the weight of him. Finally, Tony let his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder, like he was claiming a victory and surrendering completely, all at the same time. Steve felt him exhale very slowly against his neck, and a warm, liquid feeling swelled up in his chest…

 For a moment, he only cared that it had been the right answer. That it hadn’t been the wrong answer, for a start – that he hadn’t caused a fight or humiliated himself or made Tony feel even worse. That, maybe, this time, he might actually have helped, that Tony might actually feel better…

 And then, the thought whispered to him…

 You are hugging Tony Stark.

 His fingers flexed involuntarily against Tony’s back, his next breath coming just a little higher.

 …So, this is what the shape of his body felt like, pressed against Steve.

This was the smell of his hair, the sound of him breathing, the warmth of his mouth, so close to Steve’s skin…

 And then he felt Tony tense again, inhaling sharply as he leant away. Steve loosened his grip, somewhat reluctantly, and then dropped his arms to let Tony step back. Tony looked at the floor, and then at his work desk, a blush colouring his cheeks.  

 “I’m sorry, I’m just really tired” He mumbled, crossing his arms. And then he made himself look at Steve. Steve went to smile, and realised he already was.

“So why are you still working?” He asked, kindly. And Tony parted his lips, like he was about to answer him… and then his mouth softened into a smile. A little smile – but a real one.

“I have absolutely no idea.” He sighed, looking away from Steve and back to his holograms-

 He closed them all down with a wave of his hands.

 “I’m not still working” Tony decided, “I’m going to bed” And Steve just grinned, and nodded. Good.

 Everything was good.  

[sincewereahoe]

YES I want the story!

Okay SO buckle up. I have a lot to say. Just know that as this was unfolding I was just going along with things, so I passed off stuff and continued to fool around with him because I just really wanted sex. It wasn’t until the next morning when he was gone I realized I should have kicked him out. ANYWAYS 

He looked nothing like his profile picture. Like I thought he was a redhead and he showed up and was not.  He was 3 years younger than me so that was 20, as I was 23, and I noticed the difference in age so fucking hard. We chatted, had wine and thank god he never shut up. He talked about how he had this car and he wanted to have that car now because when he was older and had kids it wouldn’t be practical yahda yahda yahda, kill me. He also was mind blown that I wasn’t looking for a relationship and just wanted casual sex. Okay weird. He also clearly was a little spoiled and his dad had money. He was taking finance at the other school nearby (which is a fun fact because a burning question of mine is if he knows the guy I started sleeping with after him because they were both in the same year and in the same program and it’s a smaller school SOO. anyways)

We talked for a bit and the began to watch Netflix he picked out the movie called A Silent Place, the one with Emily Blunt, and it was an intense movie. HALF way through he decides to start feeling up my tit oh god even thinking about this I’m cringing I’ve suppressed these memories. He had his arm over my shoulders and then was like brushing my tit and it was weird because I’m watching this seriously intense movie that’s kinda sad and this dude is trying to make a move but won’t actually do it. My laptop died so I took that as a good opportunity to move to my bedroom as my charger was in there. We got onto my bed and watched the rest. After it was done I was thinking ‘okay go time’ but this idiot KEPT TALKING. I was done with the bullshit, so I took off his hat , which yes he hat a hockey hat on that literally is the typical hockey boy look that makes me want to gag and then he STILL didn’t do much. Took off his glasses and FINALLY, he kisses me. Things start progressing and it’s fine. 

I don’t remember exactly what happened first but I remember taking off my top and then lost it because of how big my boobs are, which for me is really annoying now. It’s not a big deal when they are like “woah” but he full-on stopped and made a big deal of it. And not in a good way. I don’t know how to explain it, because sometimes it’s not a big deal if a guy is in awe or whatever, like i get it they are big but the way he was acting just made me feel as if I was this weird anomaly. 

When finally we were getting into things, he said “well I guess we should start on you because that take longer.” I wish I hadn’t bit my tongue from saying “no it doesn’t I can make myself cum in the next three minutes, you just don’t know what to do”. 

Things progress and then he started fingering me, and it was.... bad. Oh my god so bad. He just sticks in one finger like that’s gonna do anything, so I told him to put in more, but he’s just fingering me like a 16-year-old boy, in and out. I tried to tell him like 4 times to curve his fingers, wouldn’t listen. Then I tried to get him to just stick out his thumb onto my clit because I need that, he did it for about 5 seconds. I really gave up trying to help. This went on for soooooo long, and no matter how much I tried to help him, he just. didn’t. listen. So I was just thinking in my head “fine if he wants to cramp his hand for the next 30 mins I’ll let him” and that’s exactly how it happened. Somehow I finally managed to get myself to come, but it took about 20 mins at minimum. 

This is the part that I think ruined the sex so entirely. He kept playing this whole “i’m a giver” thing. Which if yall know me ain’t my jam. I like giving head during sex, and he - would - not - let -me. I literally was trying this whole begging in a seductive way at one point and HE STILL DIDN”T and was like “no I’m a pleaser. Well okay dude, you haven’t been pleasing me very well so far, but whatever. It just ruined things because I couldn’t engage, I couldn’t get on top, I wasn’t allowed to please him etc. It wasn’t an exchange between two people,  which made it weird and made me annoyed because it wasn’t fun. 

He also kept stopping anytime something remotely awkward happened, like if the position was bad or I was trying to direct him. I think I queefed at one point and I can’t help but laugh when it does happen, but just in a cute funny way for a few seconds. If I did he would completely stop and get all serious like “what? what?” Like dude just chuckle with me.

The actual sex was boring af. I kept on my back for the whole night because it was just pointless to try and do anything different with him. 

Finally, at one point he gave me the go-to give him head, so I went to try and THEN he pushed my head down. I immediately told him not to do that, which he was surprised by (as if yeah having guy force something into the back of your mouth might give you issues.) In fairness, he listened and did seem surprised, but that just shows you how much porn he watches. At that point I was frustrated so I just stopped giving head altogether. 

Now, this is when it really started to go off the rails for me. The condom broke. He hadn’t come yet, so in reality, everything was okay, but he freaked out a little. I get it’s kinda worrisome, but I had heavily implied before sex while talking that I was not having a child anytime soon. But he kept going on about it, so I just heavily implied again that he didn’t have to worry about pregnancy because if anything happened I’d get an abortion. I was just trying to get him to understand that he could trust out of the things we needed to worry about STI was the only thing. But he still kept going on about it, and instead, he goes “yeah you 100% need to get on the pill”. Under normal circumstances, I would totally get this situation and be super understanding about how he’s worried, but I wasn’t and he was an ass, so I didn’t give a fuck anymore. 

I think he came at some point and we fell asleep but he woke me up by feeling up my ass mid-way through the night. We started a second round and it was just as bad. He again pretty much mauled my pussy with his fingers,  not listening to any direction I gave. This time though, as per usual he wanted to titty fuck me. He did and it was fine and then I started to give head as well, it progressed and then he was like “do you swallow?” I never had yet, but I was down. However in retrospect BAD idea. He was on my chest I couldn’t use my hands and I really had no control. He gave me no fucking warning of when it was actually happening and the angle I was at it hit my gag reflex, instantly I almost threw up on him and then the taste. I had to literally hold myself from throwing upon him. I swallowed as fast as I could but the taste kept making me want to throw up so I quickly went to the kitchen and grabbed something for the taste, which was orange juice. He grabbed some too and THEN fucking starts going off on how sweet the orange juice was and how I didn’t dilute it enough. ( I did for the record, I’m not an idiot, but thank god I hadn’t diluted it more because I needed it for his stank) 

At that point I was over and done with everything, and should have kicked him out. But we went back to bed. He tries to wake me up again by rubbing my pussy again at 4am, and this time ignored him but he didn’t stop so finally I just turned and said that I couldn’t go anymore as I was sore ( and I was, his fingers literally made me raw) TO WHICH HE SAID “OH WELL I MUST HAVE DONE A GOOD JOB” ALKDJFKLAJSDLFKJSDLKFJDSLFKJ

THINK AGAIN . 

I regret not saying more but fuck he was insufferable. 

He continues to sit there and then HE STARTS PLAYING MUSIC, AT FOUR IN THE MORNINg. I turn over and ask what he’s doing and I shit you not he said: 

“i’m vibing” 

He then starts going on about Mac Miller and how influential his death was to him and blah blah blah blah. I turn over and try and ignore him. Finally, at 5am he’s like “okay I’m gonna go” and good riddance. I don’t get up or anything I just said bye from the bed and he left. 

I took a shower because his smell was all over me and it smelt so gross. It was this really really bad smell and then it was still all over my sheets to I had to change them too. 

He messaged me a day later again to see me again, so I blocked his number. Occasionally I see him on Bumble and laugh for he poor bitch who goes to meet up with him and catfished by the same pictures I was. asfakjsdflkjdsl

Oof that’s it. I’m sure there was more I forgot but I’ve blocked most of it out. 

OH I FORGOT. HIS FINGERS GAVE ME A NASTY YEAST INFECTION AND HIS CUM MADE ME ILL. LIKE LITERALLY I HAD THE SHITS FROM HIM

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Finished s2 ep2 again.

Some random thoughts as the episode progressed:

Pete: I’ve been thinking, and I don’t wanna die.*chokes*

Well. I’m upset again, but what else is new?

Promising to take care of Nick is so sad because we all know how he ends up and it’s completely out of our control. I’m going to fail you, Pete, and I hate it. 

“Clementine, can you please watch Sarah?”

Okay, Carlos, but only if you promise to lock that door behind you.

ALSO didn’t you literally tell me NOT to talk to her last episode?? 

Oh boy, I get to show Sarah how to use a gun! Can’t wait to see what comes of this choice, right? ...Oh wait. Nothing comes of it. It’s pointless. Sarah doesn’t hold another gun ever again. 

“Hey! Luke’s back!” 

S’NOT HIM!

CARLOS I ASKED YOU TO LOCK THE DOOR-

Oh hai Carver, ya raspy prick

Rebecca does this total 180 overnight and now she’s trying to be my best friend, which is fine. I probably should get along with AJ’s mom, but still. Pregnancy hormones, I guess?

And, to be fair, I like Rebecca as a character after you get through episode one where she’s all snarky and trying to kick Clem out.

The scene where they find Pete’s body and you can see Luke pulling Nick into a hug is so touching, and Luke pulling Nick away because they have to move and there’s nothing else they can do for Pete except move on just shows that these two really cared about each other and it only adds to the fuels of annoyance I get knowing that Luke barely reacts to Nick’s death in the future.

Nick... 😟😟😟

“I don’t like this.”

“Yeah, well, when’s the last time you liked anything, Carlos?”

Pfffft... the way Luke says it is just  😆

Big Brother Luke is my favorite thing in this game and it kills me

Nick... I know you’re still grieving and all but can you not-

Aaaaaand Matthew’s dead. I’m sure that won’t come up anytime soon...

Seriously, though, this scene is so conflicting for me because I like Nick but this was so stupid and could’ve easily been avoided. I probably would’ve been more forgiving of it if Nick survived longer to atone for this mistake rather than dying the way he did. 

My dumb thievery has paid off! 

“It’ll be like climbin’ a treehouse.”

“I had a treehouse once.”

“Well, there ya go.

“I hated it.”

“Oh.”

Clem, tone down the prepubescent angst, would’ja?

Oh hai Kenny

Look at that glorious beard

So, I’m curious about Kenny this season. As I mentioned in my previous posts replaying s1, I always had a tough time with Kenny every time I’ve played because I helped Lilly in the meat locker, but this time around I helped kill Larry. I’m still dumbfounded at how chill Kenny was after that, so I’m interested to see if it has a small effect on him throughout this season. I mean, I doubt it’ll be anything too big because I’m playing as Clementine rather than Lee. Still, I usually dislike Kenny more in this season rather than s1 so... we’ll see. 

Oh, huh. Kenny’s response about Lee when talking to Clem is different.

“For some reason, I tried to save that fuckin’ shitbird, Ben...”

HEY I think we’ve all shit on Ben enough thank you Kenny...

Oh hai Katjaa-Replacement

Beans and peaches... together? But- but-

“I love you, silly-bear.”

“I hate when you call me that.”

“I know.”

Aw...

I know I should probably sit with Kenny... but Big Brother Luke is giving me those puppy eyes...

I sat with Luke and now Kenny and his beard are sad. 

“Luke and Nick. You two sure look like a match.” What’cha implying there, Kenny? Nick and his hat don’t like that. 

Vanilla Ice 😂😂😂

Kenny be nice to Luke, I’ve adopted him as my big brother. Can’t you be chill like you were previously, or do I gotta help you kill someone first?

“They say the world is over, but I’ll tell you a secret: It’s not.” 

In a lotta ways, he’s right, y’know. 

Bonnie ya fuckin’ liar piss off-

Y’know, I play through these games with a very “honesty is key” attitude, but I don’t know if it ever really does anything big in the end. I showed Lee’s bite and everyone came with me to look for Clem, and in the end it didn’t matter. I was honest with Nick and Walter but they’re both gonna end up dead anyway. I’m trying to think back and remember if there’s ever a time throughout the whole series where telling the truth either really benefits you or really fucks you over and I can’t think of one...

Kenny’s voice acting has really improved this season compared to s1. Not that it was bad in s1, it’s just better here I think. 

I’m sorry, I had to pause the game because I’m cackling too hard. We’re turning the windmill off and Carlos is like “I don’t know how to turn this off!” and Clem’s all “I can do it!” AND THERE’S LITERALLY A KEY RIGHT THERE TO TURN THE DAMN THING OFF Y’ALL COULDN’T FIGURE THAT OUT???

Uuuuuuuugh

Carver

Walter is a great example to show the difference between being kind and being stupidly generous and naive. If he hadn’t been so quick to believe Bonnie and send her off with food, this maybe could’ve been avoided. If they had taken Bonnie inside so that the others would see and know who she was, we could’ve escaped and no one else would’ve had to die. 

Oh shit, I totally forgot about the whole thing about Alvin and George. Can’t remember if we learn anything more about that, like if Alvin really did murder him or not. 

Again, another solid episode that I always enjoy. 

I believe it’s next episode that it starts to fall downhill a little if memory serves right. BUT, it’s also the episode where Carver dies, which is both a good and bad thing

Wow, only 35% of people sat with Luke? But those puppy eyes tho...

[daddyztwink]

first daddy experience

Before I start let me tell you a tiny bit about my life and everything up until this point. Okay first off, I moved from a very conservative state where there were no gays to living in San Diego where there were a lot more of us. Then I met a guy within the first week and we started dating soon after and whatever. A couple weeks later after my birthday some stuff went down with my family and that was just a mess. I didn’t have money or a job and I wasn’t getting money from them anymore. Anyways, I really like to spend money and he also really liked to spend money so we talked about how we could possibly make some extra cash. We first talked about making porn or selling videos and shit, but then his roommate told us about his sugar daddy and how much money he was making so we decided to give it. We used a site called Seeking Arrangement's (I wouldn’t recommend, but if you’re reading this and you’re curious just go for it lmao). Starting off it took us like a week to actually find someone that legit and that wanted to meet because there’s hella fake daddy’s that try to get your money. Some of the daddies would ask for our account numbers and passwords, like tf, do I come off as stupid? I mean even if I gave them my shit they would’ve gotten like $10 from me because I was poor poor. We ended up finding someone that wanted to meet up with both of us and pay $300 EACH. I told him we would do a lot more than what we did haha, but I’ll get to that soon. The daddy invited us to his really nice hotel, The US Grant Luxury Hotel if you’ve ever heard of it, if not you should look it up because holy fuck. I was so fucking nervous to meet with this man because I had no fucking clue what was going to happen and I didn’t remember what he looked like so I was like what if this man is ugly af. Along with that I kept having these bad thoughts and different ideas of what could happen when we went to his room because if he’s rich enough to pay for sex he could easily have us killed and taken care of, right? Oh I also forgot to mention that we were an hour late because I had to get ready haha so he wasn’t really happy with me because I kept telling him we would be there soon, oops. Alright, so I texted him that we were there and he said he was on the phone and he would come down soon. He comes down in the elevator and walks over to us and asks if we’re so and so and I say yea, nice to meet you blank. He like leads us over to the elevator and asks us questions about where we’re from, what school we go to, all these different things as we head up to his room. We get up to his floor and continue talking to him and walking down this huge ass hotel hallway. We walk all the way down to the end and he’s like this is us and he let us into the room. I think for 10-20 minutes we just sat there and talked about random things, it was so awkward and stupid and he kept saying it was very awkward with 3 people and kept like glaring at my boyfriend trying to get him to leave or something, so it was just wack. He mentioned he was trying to break the ice so none of us felt very tense, but as far as I knew my boyfriend and I were uncomfortable as hell and I was shaking in fear hahaha. After awhile he goes alright well you guys take off your clothes and get started and I’ll join in after. So we start to get undressed and then get into the bed and start making out. The daddy takes off all of his clothes and then gets in bed with us and starts grabbing me because I’m in the fucking middle. He started making out with me, but it was just him sticking his tongue in my mouth and I just held his tongue in my mouth for minutes at a time, I literally wanted to vomit on him. He also would stick his tongue in my ear and lick around and suck on my nipples and progressively made his way down to my flaccid penis. Yes, it was flaccid.  He sucked on my soft dick for so long and he just kept going at it thinking I was going to get hard, but 1. I was not enjoying any of it and 2. I was so uncomfortable and scared I don’t think I would have been able to do anything to get hard. THEN he started BITING my fucking ball sack, he didn’t just suck on my balls he literally bit the sack. WHO TF. So then he started making out with me again and he wanted me to suck him and I was like uh no (he was soft too), then he asked if we could fuck, and again I was like uhh definetly not. He also was like it’s only okay if you and your boyfriend are okay with it too. Neither of us wanted him to fuck me so it was a hell no. We ended up taking like 2 water breaks because he said that me and my boyfriend were making out too much. The first water break my boyfriend said that he had to go to the bathroom and took his phone and was there for a good 5 minutes and just left me alone and I wanted to die. On the second water break I stood up just so I wasn’t in the middle getting everything anymore and wouldn’t have to be near the daddy. All of us talked for awhile again and then he told me to get back in the bed and we could just lay there and talk so I crawled back into bed butt ass naked. The whole sexual “experience” only lasted 20, maybe 30 minutes so thank god for that. Us 3 laying were just laying in the bed naked talking about different aspects of our lives, sex, relationships, etc. We asked him some questions and he told us about him and then he would give us advice and ask us questions about us individually or as a couple. The whole time we were talking to him he was rubbing up and down my leg and it was so uncomfortable because I didn’t want him to touch me anymore and it fucking hurt because I have hairy legs and his hands were clamy and pulling my leg hair. I told him a couple minutes later that we had to get going because I had plans later that I had to get to and he was just like okay yea you guys have better things to be doing than staying here all night. We got out of bed and started getting our clothes and he walks over to his pants and whips out his wallet. He counts out $600, in 20′s and hands them to me. Like wtf, I really just made that. I was like thank you and put it in my pocket before he would say anything else. We said goodbye real quick and walked out of the room and got to the elevator and started freaking tf out. We literally made $300 each from making out and him sucking on me and talking. We barely did anything and he definitely wanted to do more, but we told him we could meet another time and do more. He wanted us to fuck in front of him, but I told him a couple weeks later that we probably weren’t interested in another meet-up. He was super butt hurt and really wanted to see us, mostly me again and then my boyfriend and I broke up shortly after so I ended up talking to him about that and he gave me a lot of good advice. This was an awful experience for me, but he was really nice and I mean it could have been worse, maybe lmao.   

[finderskeepersff]

42.

Looking over at Amira, she is being such a boss and I love it. This new found thing of being a boss is getting to her head but in a good way, I always come with her to the club to watch over her. Since being open this place has been working out like Cassius said and I am proud of Cassius, his mind works in ways I couldn’t. I am only his hype man or tell him no, he is the brains but things have died down, the club is cleaning the money so quick that I have lost count on money but it’s doing so well. We have famous people coming here but we know why, they want the drugs but all is well. Police are at arms length, nobody is fucking with us. We don’t have nobody trying to shoot at the place because we dealt with that and that is all because of Cassius, I wish he was around to see but he isn’t “I am done now, we can go” Amira said “you stand there like bodyguard all of the time, it turns me on” she walked by me “I am your bodyguard that is why, you know that. But I have always said this, me or Myles will always be with you to come here. I can’t lose you” Amira looked behind her and at me “you’re so close” she said laughing “I ain’t close to anything” she has been hinting about marriage, I see it and hear it and I will do it, soon. I just need to sort some details out “guess what?” walking behind my girl “this is where you say what?” She said as I chuckled “what?” I assumed she would just say it “Mia messaged me on Facebook, she said that today is Sofia’ birthday and I feel bad because I haven’t even noticed or was aware of it” letting out on oh “it is, I remember that. It is her birthday, Cassius went Miami with her that time, oh shit. What was she saying anyways?” holding the door open to let Amira out first “she is going to surprise her and a little get together, she said Sofia is unaware because she hasn’t really stayed in contact as much” turning around to look the door “ok cool, what time?” I should be here, actually I won’t “forget that, I need to go somewhere” I forgot actually.

Packing the bag with some clothes for Cassius “where are you going? You have been very coy with me and you go somewhere so where do you go? It’s been a couple of months now and you go there every week” zipping the bag up “I thought we don’t keep secrets, I have been quiet about it because I know it is something to do with Cassius, and I know if it is something top secret you won’t say anything but I want to know, please” turning to Amira “I am going to Texas, Cassius is there” Amira frowned at me in confusion “why?” it’s not something I want to speak on but I am “so when I went to Brooklyn, I was so angry at Cassius. I love him, not in a gay way but I love him as a brother. He is my brother and I see this addict, I have known him for years Amira and he wasn’t that, he was never that but he was pushed to be that. I didn’t turn to drugs, I don’t get the shit like he does and he was so bad Amira. He was destroying his mom’ home, he near killed Celine I knocked his ass out. Sofia has left him and it added to it, it was a mess. He was starting trouble where it was not needed, it was just a mess. Things are quiet, you see how it is. I had to sit there with my brother and see him snort a line, I sat there with him Amira, and I watched him do it. But his downfall, when he doesn’t have it he is worse. Myles and I got him at the home and I don’t know what flipped in his mind but he called me and he said get me out of here. So we did, he is in Texas and he’s getting help. It’s in the middle of nowhere where he can rest” Amira looked at me in sadness “you never said, I didn’t even know she left him” nodding my head “that is awful Kyle, that is so sad I didn’t know and is she ok?” placing my hands on my hips “she is ok, I check up on her now and then, I was worried that Cassius would do something stupid, he was determined to get to Sofia and I was like no. This has happened before but he was at Celine’ place, probably kicking off there too but yeah, I am going to see him and I will be back tonight” Amira smiled at me faintly “such a clever, kind hearted guy and he’s there” putting my head down.

“I wonder when my nigga will come out of this” Myles said staring at the place “he’s being hard headed Myles, when they called me saying Cassius found a way of getting drugs in the facility, I didn’t know if to laugh or cry. I mean funny because that is my nigga, he knows people but cry part makes me feel he doesn’t want to leave. I am not sure but we shall see what he is doing” getting out of the car “I keep telling you to bring Sofia here, she will get him to wake up. Come on Kyle, he said she had another man looking after her brother. So she was cheating or what? He has told us a few times now” locking the car door with the bag in hand “but that is untrue, I think it is. I haven’t said it to Sofia, she has asked and I haven’t said where he is. I have had people ask but nobody knows, I just think he needs to do it on his own because he wants to do it. You get what I mean?” Myles needs to understand this with me that he has to want it, pressing the buzzer “what good will it be? She is pregnant and I am not bringing Sofia here” I refuse to do that “Woodlands rehab centre?” the guy said in the intercom “we come to see Cassius Warren” rolling my eyes at this place, it’s nice though but still “come in” the buzzer went off.

The guy took the bag from me “there is just clothes in there, that is it” I had to make sure they knew that “we still need to check and Cassius, oh here he is” Cassius came from around the corner “you have gone bald?” I said staring at this bald man, he has just clean shaven everything “damn, your head is huge!” Myles spat, Cassius chuckled “nice to see you still smiling bro” walking over to him hugging him “I missed you guys” my nigga has gone skinny too “they don’t feed you here?” looking at Cassius up and down “you’re the main person we contact correct? I was Henry, the guy that called you just a few days again” letting out an oh shaking his hand “this white guy is a liar” Cassius said “you say that Cassius but we found the drugs, you cannot deny it. Why do you think you are still here and not progressing. We spoke on this, how many shots do you want?” Cassius walked off “we will speak to him” I said to the guy before walking off.

“It’s nice out here, so much peace and quiet” it seems boring as fuck “no trouble, nobody here to kill me. I am not even in danger, I have no responsibility” walking around Cassius “Cassius, why? And I don’t mean why you are bald but why? I thought you was good?” Cassius laughed, he laughed because he doesn’t care “I want to feel that rewarding feeling, I just want to be high” he is looking at me like he don’t care “I don’t want to leave this place” looking at Myles and he just looked at me “you can get a a house here but Cassius I am going to need you to not take again” Cassius looked away from me and at the sky “you know how it feels to be free? I have not had a single phone call, a single worry of people. If my empire goes down I wouldn’t care. Nobody will care so I am ok to be here��� I want to punch him “ok fine, what about Sofia. I am going to say it Kyle, I don’t care. She is about to pop out that baby without a father then? You have no worries but you fucking do you dickhead. You are being a dickhead! It’s ok, it’s fine. You be here and continue to be you, I wouldn’t want a father like you either” Cassius gripped Myles neck out of nowhere “hey! Cassius. Come on now!” Cassius pushed him back, I told Myles to shut his mouth.

“You wait here, I told you to be quiet” Myles rubbed his neck, jogging over to Cassius “least we know Cassius is still in there, so can we discuss in real terms. When are you coming back out of here? If you purposely keeping yourself here then that is selfish” Cassius doesn’t care and I can tell he doesn’t “It’s Sofia’ birthday today, which means my son will be here soon and I will be thirty. Did she get the flowers?” Cassius looked at me “I don’t know, I have not seen her. I am glad you know” Cassius laughed “you think I am stupid, I am not stupid. I know everything still, the shit they feed me here, I don’t eat it. The tablets, the only thing they caught me on was when I got here and they sedated me but I was not ready for that. I am all knowing Kyle, I have not lost my mind. I choose to do it, I don’t want to be in this place but it also gives me peace” sighing out “Cassius you have been gone for so long, people think your dead. Your mom is in a state and I have to not tell her, Sofia asks about you and I won’t keep that way away from you but she does. I need to know that when you come back you won’t take again, you don’t need it and you know that” Cassius shrugged “I didn’t want this, why don’t anyone see it. I didn’t want it, they trying to mark me off as crazy here but I am not. I didn’t want to kill, I didn’t want it. I wanted to prove his smug face wrong though so I did and now I am so high that the only way is death or being locked away, how you think that makes me feel” Cassius said through gritted teeth “and you did Cassius, you have proved him wrong but if you go down then we do too. We ride together Cassius I need you to gather yourself, please” he still got that issue with him.

I be thinking I am doing too much for my baby, I mean this bedroom is fit for a prince but why not. I am so excited for my baby to come, I have got everything, I am ready. I am literally just waiting for him to arrive but the bedroom is how I wanted, from every detail. I wanted it so it didn’t need to be always changed, it will be ok for him until he is about eight, then maybe change it but it’s perfect. I have to thank Gio, he still wants to hire me but I said he can wait on that till after Cartier is here and he is settled. I paid for this room with the left over money I had, it paid for it all and it wasn’t cheap either. I have diapers for days, I am so excited. The buzzer went off downstairs, folding up my tee and placing it at the side of me. I have nothing better to do with myself then just clean, even on my birthday I don’t have much to celebrate about, I am ok. Checking the camera and seeing it’s a delivery person, buzzing them in. At times this whole buzzing people in drives me crazy, I get why but still. Dragging my feet towards the door, unlocking the door and pulling open the door “Good morning, for you” the lady said smiling, looking at the bouquet of red flowers. She held it out to me and I just stared at them “uh yeah, thank you” taking the flowers from her, closing the door behind her.

Opening the card and it is just a small card, it just stated Happy Birthday but there is no name on it. There is a small box within the flowers, it does look like a box with a ring inside it. Opening the box, I inhaled sharply seeing my engagement ring which confirms it’s Cassius. Placing the box on the kitchen counter top biting on my top lip looking ahead of me, he remembered my birthday. Placing my hand over my mouth as a sob left my lips, closing the box and then hearing a knock at the door. Wiping my tears, a knock at the door and not the gate. Frowning as I made my way to the cameras, my frown soon disappeared seeing my friends “oh god” I said to myself, walking over to the door quickly. Dragging open the door “Happy Birthday bitch!!” Olivia spat, hugging Olivia as soon as she finished screaming “happy birthday girl, we came here to see you” I am so happy to see them.

My friends didn’t need to come out here, like I am so happy to get some company “you ready to pop ain’t you?” I smiled at Mia “I am, my face has come out. I see it but oh well. I can’t believe you came, why?” I didn’t think they would “well you have been very quiet on that end, you know. We just wanted to see you” I smiled at them both “where is Cassius? And your ring?” Olivia pointed out “oh he is in Brooklyn, and I kind of broke it” I laughed “so erm, I just got it back now. It’s on the kitchen counter top” I hope they buy it and thank god the ring is back so it seems like a legit reason “you’re such a mess, how you going to break it bitch” ok they have it bought it “you know me” I got out of that one “but I mean you both supposed to get married, you text me cancelling things. Baby shower too so what is happening?” Mia just knows me “I just didn’t want it, you know the things with my family” Mia is not buying it “I wish I could believe you Sofia, you’re being a recluse. We know you too well but it’s your birthday so who cares” that means in Mia’ terms, we got you tomorrow.

Maybe Mia is right and I am becoming a recluse, I don’t think I am to be fair. I am just trying to keep my private life just private and I don’t want them to know, if they do really push me then I will say we are taking a break from each other and that is it “I want you to be turning up and the buzzer went off” Olivia pointed out for me, turn up. I be in bed by ten, this baby is tiring for me. I get very tired, I just get no help with anything and it’s me doing everything. Seeing it is Amira, Isabella, Myles and Kyle “who told them?” I can see the balloons, buzzing them in “me, I just wanted you to have a little party. Come on” my friends are something else “you two” walking over to the door, I am very exhausted. I was setting out Cartier’ clothing and I was up and down with things, I had to fix the baby bed in the bedroom myself because I forgot to tell Gio about it. Opening the door “Happy Birthday Sofia!” Amira spat “awww thank you” hugging her “what is this?” looking at the balloons “well, you didn’t want a baby shower so we thought we would do birthday and baby shower together” Isabella said, hugging her as I cooed out “y’all about to make me cry” honestly, I am getting choked up now “sorry for being so late, these boys went out and came back just now. They was out from early morning too” Amira explained “come on in, it’s fine” stepping back “nice seeing you, Happy Birthday” Myles hugged me and then so did Kyle.

I am about ready to cry “these balloons spelling Cartier is so adorable” that is cute, I can’t stop looking “well we know you didn’t want anything but we wanted to do both, so we just did this small thing for you” Amira placed a bag at the side of me “you didn’t have too, honestly. All of you didn’t need to do this. Just coming to see me was nice” Amira sat back down “oh stop it, Kyle and I both picked these. As Kyle will be an uncle and we chose this” now I want to see, reaching into the bag “also your birthday gift is in there as well” grabbing the long box “is this mine?” I grinned “you will have to see” turning the box to me so I can open it, opening the box “oh, awwww no” moving the box down placing my hand over my mouth, I was ready to cry anyways “what is it?” Mia asked “Kyle wanted to get that for him” Amira said and I turned the box around “awww a name bracelet, that is so sweet! Aww guys” wiping the tears that left my eyes, this is not right. I know that this is not right because I know how much he wanted this, I know this and I know him. Even if we don’t get on I know he would want to see this but he isn’t, why.

The reason I didn’t want a baby shower is because I wanted that with him, I don’t want to be a single mother like my own mother was. This is what hurts me, I am going to be a single mother but I will make sure I am not my mother, my baby will be so loved “you look tired” Kyle said behind me, moving my cup back from the ice dispenser “I am very tired, I had to put the baby bed together in the bedroom. I did it though” Kyle let out an oh “why didn’t you tell us?” shaking my head “I am ok” I mumbled “you all can stay but I need to go and rest, I don’t feel good at all” Kyle stared at me like he wanted to say something “why is he not caring? Why hasn’t he seen me Kyle? You know something and nobody is telling me, I am left in the dark with no information. I deserve to know what he is doing, he is the the father of my child and I am doing this on my own, I got his flowers but where is he?” Kyle looked at me in sadness not saying a word “you shouldn’t be straining yourself” he changed the subject “but I am and nobody will tell me anything” I am so fed up with everyone telling me nothing, Kyle is holding back on me.

[stinkgh]

al-anon is the only social activity i have at the moment, aside from work & a volunteer project but theyre not all that “social” compared to al-anon. i listen to them talk & it makes me realize how much of a wet mop I am. i dont do shit except lay in bed all day. no fucking hobbies, no interests, cant do anything that holds my attention for more than a few seconds before ive lost interest & ready to quit. id much rather be in beeeeeedddddd like holy fuck who am i though?? im so withdrawn i dont even remember who i am and its been a legit thing lately. i cant do anything without wanting to run back home & get in bed. god it sucks so fucking much. i feel like such a blank slate. I feel like this is because of how i was raised, because my mother squashed all my hobbies anyfuckingway so why even bother. and when i say squashed, i mean she fucking killed them dead murdered in cold fucking blood. she took every bit of individuality I had and crushed it with her evil fucking rat claws. i liked anime and cartoons, she forbade them. i liked to read harry potter, she called it devil worship and then burned my books. i liked video games, she smashed my gamecube with a hammer and burned my gameboy & all my games. burned my yugioh cards. insulted my taste in music by calling it devils music bc she couldnt understand the lyrics. i couldnt wear the things i liked, i couldnt even TALK WITHOUT HER RIDICULING MY FUCKING ACCENT. HOW FUCKING CONTROLLING DO YOU HAVE TO BE. she fucking squashed ANY AND EVERY BIT OF INDIVIDUALITY I FUCKING HAD. IS IT ANY WONDER IM A WET FUCKING MOP?!?! they all talk about activities like apple picking and shit and im just like… cant relate. thats too scary for me i cant handle it. i wouldnt enjoy it & probably couldnt wait for it to end so I could go home. in fact why even bother, just save the trouble and stay home. i literally have no interest if no one else is there. why do anything alone. god who am I?? have i always been like this?? i dont think i have. at one point i had lots of hobbies. i liked to read. and draw. i really loved to draw. i liked to do jigsaw puzzles. and music. but then i liked to do schoolwork. and i liked school. and i liked all these things because they were distractions from an alcoholic abusive mother. sometimes i feel like thats the only reason i ever did those things, and did so well in school, because my motivation was to escape home & i found solace in these things. now that i dont have such an evil presence looming over me 24/7, i have no need to “escape” (lets not mention the 4 years of literal daydreaming, no no thats a different kind of escape) and it takes a lot of effort to do these things for enjoyment rather than escapism. i have nothing to escape here.

something for me to research i think. how to trick yourself to enjoy healthy coping mechanisms lmao. honestly this is one of the reasons i think i need to be medicated. depression, but i cant not mention the impending doom known as abandonment fears haha bitch you thought! i dont want to meet new people and get attached! not now not ever again! so i say. i know this is a hinderance to the progress im seeking, but honestly it just makes me mad. i hate this. i hate that im so fucking broken. i literally dont know what to do when it comes to this shit. i dont know how to properly express myself face to face without panicking. its like that option doesnt even exist! IT NEVER HAS. Ive never been able to do that without getting beat or told i was being disrespectful. its better to shut the fuck up than to speak up because when i speak she fucking hits me. i grew up with that!! and now i dont know how to speak up to strangers who arent my mom and probably wont beat me for speaking my mind, but I dont know that lol my body certainly doesnt. i dont know how to feel comfortable with strangers without feeling ridiculed or shamed its just how im fucking programmed. i literally do not. know. how. to. do. this. please fucking help me. then why i TRY to communicate it comes out angry, agressive, and triggering bc i literally have NEVER had success with this on a 1-to-1 setting. it has ALWAYS ended with me getting squashed or me doing the squashing. jesus fucking christ what the fuuuuck this shit is so fucking frustrating and definitely one of those things i wish i could just *poof* make it better. writing this out makes me realize, its one of those things im gonna have to work really hard to improve. this sucks. this sucks so much.

gonna mention this next session, god i wish i didnt have realizations directly AFTER therapy bc now i gotta wait 2 whole weeks to see what he thinks & im probably gonna find some info on it before then bc thats what i do. there’s a book i saw floating around here on body triggers, im thinking of getting it. also im kinda disappointed, i thought he was gonna teach me things today but it was just like a normal session where i talked the entire time and he barely said much at all. when are you gonna teach me things pls im running on empty fumes here ;-;

adding in post: so in the tags I talk about nurturing my relationship with god and I mentioned that I don’t like saying “you’re suffering for a reason” because thats an awful thing to say to someone who has been abused and epsecially when the abuse is still fresh, its like youre fucking justifying the pain and suffering inflicted on you and that shit is fucking triggering as fuck. but then i forgot tumblr algorithms push quotated tags to the front of the list so when I posted this and had “you’re suffering for a reason” in quotation marks, it was the first tag to show up.

I see you bitch.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

2018 post because I still want to and it’s on my to-do list

I'm sure at this point no one but me cares considering we're fully two months into 2019 but whatever, I want to record it for posterity, because there were a lot of things in 2018 that I did for the first time and that's kind of important. (”this will be brief!” I said, you know, like a liar.)

I finally got a tattoo. I've been talking about it for years but never figured out exactly what I wanted or where, and even once I figured out what I wanted ("all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us," which has been important to me in different ways for years) I didn't know exactly how I wanted it to look, because it can be tough to make text tattoos look good and I’m not an artist or a graphic designer. and then Scully was diagnosed with kidney disease and I realized, oh yeah, his paw print, there's an obvious one. my tiny little semi-colon (of which I apparently never took a decent picture) was also pretty obvious once I started looking for something small I could do as a test tattoo, although the way things worked out I got them both at the same time. the whole process was...kind of odd? but instead of just talking about it I finally actually made it happen, and it hurt but not, like, unbearably, and now I have a piece of my furry little boy that goes everywhere with me, which was especially important after he died.  

I did way more political volunteering than I ever have before. I always feel like I'm not doing enough and compared to people who volunteered with campaigns every single day, I guess I'm not, but I still did a lot in 2018 compared to any previous year: lots of donations to multiple Democrat candidates and progressive organizations, textbanking for several candidates across the US, sign-waving and even phonebanking for the Alaska Democrats, poll watching on election night for the Alaska Democrats, at least a few hundred handwritten postcards to voters for a few more candidates, data entry for the campaign against a local bathroom bill last spring (I keep forgetting that happened in 2018 too because, you know, 2018 was about a decade long), going to several local anti-Kavanaugh demonstrations and the like, leaving lots of voicemails for my legislators and bugging other people to do the same (with varying levels of success), and maybe other stuff I'm forgetting. which is all good, because actually doing shit is vastly preferable to just going "wow everything is terrible and we're all gonna die" both in terms of actual impact and my mental health. the unfortunate part is that after doing as much as I did for the 2018 midterms--whether or not I really actually did enough, whatever "enough" might be--I got pretty well burned out, especially because...all the candidates I did the most work for DID NOT WIN so that made it feel kinda pointless (even though we took back the House and I was so relieved about that I could’ve cried). especially locally where Alaskans did the stupid thing and 1) kept Don Young and 2) elected a Trump wannabe with almost no experience as our governor because he made promises that any idiot should've been able to see he wouldn't be able to keep. but...I still worked hard for causes and people I care about, and I devoted a pretty significant amount of time and money, and I got out of my comfort zone with last-weekend phonebanking, and none of that is nothing.

I joined a gym and started going there fairly regularly. as usual I want to qualify this, because "30 minutes on the elliptical once or twice a week" is not exactly an amazing workout, and I haven't been as good at going regularly since I finished TAZ: Balance, but like...it's still a new thing that I went out of my way to do, and it was a positive change toward taking care of myself physically.

related: I...finished a podcast? I'm bad at podcasts (see also: I'm two or three years behind on Welcome to Night Vale, the only other podcast where I've listened to more than one or two episodes), but the Balance arc of The Adventure Zone is amazing and it basically let me trick myself into wanting to work out so I could listen to more. (unfortunately, Amnesty and MBMBAM haven't been as effective this way, I think because MBMBAM is hilarious but there's no narrative and therefore no "oh shit what's gonna happen next" suspense, and Amnesty is great but it's just...less zany, I guess. constant zany goofs are great for distracting me from the fact that I'm doing generally unpleasant physical activity.) now maybe if I could find a site like GoodReads for podcasts, which apparently doesn’t exist yet, maybe I’d do better at remembering and then listening to all the podcasts I’ve heard of that interest me...although I still don’t know what would be useful for workouts to give me that all-important combo of zany goofs (made by people who are not horrible) and suspenseful narrative. 

I got back into conventions and cosplay for the first time in six years, which is kind of dumb because I was never that deep into cosplay in the first place and I'm still not, and the vast majority of cons I've attended have been tiny local ones...but I did do several attempts at varying levels of quality starting back in college, and I put together some complicated-by-my-standards outfits for SDCC 2012, and then I didn't do any cosplay at all until last year when I semi-spontaneously decided to go to ECCC. I only did two for that one (AoU Wanda, and Avengers Academy Loki) but they involved more actual work than any previous cosplays and I was pretty proud of how they turned out. and then I kind of went "oh hey, cons and cosplay are fun, I forgot", so I did a very simple cosplay for one tiny local con and two that were much more complicated (Stuttgart Loki and The Final Pam) for our larger local con, and it was a lot of work and I'm not 100% happy with how I looked as Pam but the handful of people thrilled to recognize me made it worthwhile. also my Loki staff is damned cool and I look great in suits.

I got contacts! for the very first time! LITERALLY JUST FOR COSPLAY! I've worn glasses since I was about two so I don't remember my adjustment period and I've never had much desire to try contacts, and with past cosplays I just kind of shrugged and wore my glasses anyway, but after ECCC I wanted to Do It Right so...I got contacts. it kind of sucked actually! after the week or so where I was supposed to wear them to get used to them, I literally have not worn them except for the local convention! it turns out contacts will never be a great idea for me because astigmatism is wacky! but now I have contacts I can use for future cosplays, and it's another new thing outside my comfort zone where I went "you know, actually, I could do this thing" and then I made it happen, which is...sort of a big deal for me.

I played Silent Hill 3 and 2, in that order, which is not that big of a deal but still feels like something of a milestone for me, because a) actually finishing a game is embarrassingly rare for me and b) I feel like...they're so well known and such a part of gaming canon, so to speak, that finally playing a couple classic games I previously only knew by osmosis is sort of significant actually. also I love them both in different ways, and discovering a new favorite game series is always fun.

I said goodbye to Scully. this was...not a fun one, obviously, and in fact those last few days were completely fucking awful. but, well, it was a big thing that happened, and it was new in my experience. like I said (a lot) at the time, I realize it's a sign of how lucky I've been that Scully was my hardest personal loss so far, but that doesn't change the fact that it was, and...of course it was hard and horrible. he was my furry little boy, he was unquestionably family, he was a huge part of my life every day for 9 years.  I took care of him as well as I could for as long as I could, and then I made the most compassionate decision I could, and for the most part I was able to focus on remembering the joy he brought me instead of just how much it hurt to lose him. (I've also said this before but I think dealing with Loki in Infinity War helped with Scully, because I'd already done some work on my unhealthy tendencies toward hopelessness in the face of, you know, things ending.) and then I found Hazy, and that's been hard in different ways but she's also worth it, and I think I can train her enough that other people will actually get to see how silly and adorable and sweet she is instead of just BARK BARK BARK.

I more or less kept up with my writing goals of posting at least one new thing a month? I guess this is an accomplishment rather than a first, since it's something I've been mostly successful in doing for the last few years, but it's still notable. also it does involve a first, because until I will kiss you till your breath is found I'd never written anything even semi-explicit (well, I very vaguely described a couple sex scenes in my Crimson Peak fic a few years ago but that was...VERY vague) and then I wrote several thousand words of fucked-up dubcon sort-of-p0rn and fairly shortly followed it up with another one. so that's a thing I've done now I guess. (is it actually explicit if you never really, directly reference anyone's genitals but it's still obvious what's happening and also it's fucked-up sex stuff? I don't know but at this point I'm definitely still too squeamish to use certain words in my fics. is that because I'm hella ace or because I grew up hella repressed in purity culture? BOTH PROBABLY)

and then there are my goals for 2019! or rather the rest of 2019 but it's cool because I got started on a couple of these pretty much right away!

cut my hair real short. already done! in fact this was basically the first thing I did in 2019, because I made the appointment Jan. 1 and got my hair cut Jan. 2! kind of like the tattoo, this is something I've been wanting to do, and talking about wanting to do, for ages and I've never actually gone for it; the shortest I've gotten my hair cut was basically chin-length, more than once, because I'd go in like "I kind of really want a pixie cut or something similar but idk if that would work on me without adding a bunch of time and Product to my morning routine so maybe I shouldn't?" and the stylists were always like "yeah you shouldn't, a good pixie for your face shape is not wash-and-wear hair" so I never did it even though I kept wanting to just...cut all my fucking hair off. and then this December I kind of went, wait, I got a TATTOO with less angst than this and that's permanent. I CAN CUT MY HAIR. IT GROWS BACK. so I got all my fucking hair cut off. it's not perfect because a short cut really does take more maintenance, from what I'm told (I got it cut the first week of January, so...probably I should have scheduled a trim by now), and I really would prefer to continue paying almost no attention to my hair while still looking generally okay, and the bits in front fall in my eyes and piss me off if I don't pin them back (I did buy the hair wax stuff the stylist suggested that was supposed to sort of lightly anchor it in place but it just never worked for very long, so...pins), BUT it is very nice not constantly catching my hair in my purse strap and stuff like that, and also I'm more visibly queer with short hair and that's definitely a plus.

train Hazy. this is a work in progress. it took a while to get signed up for an actual class and then I had to go with one for reactive dogs specifically, and so far I've only been to two sessions, just one of which involved Hazy, and then I've been trying to do other stuff at home, and...well, it's a work in progress. but she's a good dog who just needs to learn to chill a little bit, and I should've trained Scully and didn't so I'm trying to do things right this time.

specifically, I would like to get her trained enough that she can accompany me to Pride in June, wearing her adorable Wonder Woman harness and cape. given that she is not great with individual strange humans and strange dogs, taking her into a big crowd of both would definitely result in a screaming meltdown if I did it now and it may or may not be realistic to hope I'll be able to get enough improvement on that in time. but that's the goal. if it doesn't work, there's always next year, I guess.

also, I want to make myself a flying ace costume for Pride. this may or may not be much more complicated than I anticipate.

speaking of costumes, I'm planning to go back to both local conventions this year, and I imagine I'll reuse my Stuttgart Loki outfit at least once but it would be nice to do at least one other new cosplay. Heather/Cheryl from Silent Hill 3 seems like it should be straightforward but Value Village hasn't provided me with any of the pieces yet so who knows.

post more to @alaska-gothic​ because I have a bunch of cool photos I'd like to have a place to show off (and I've taken a lot of new pictures, some in VERY cold weather, for this exact purpose)

finish more games. in practice this might turn into "play more short games while continuing to neglect long games" but I want to make my list of completed games longer and I also want to PLAY MORE GAMES in general because it's a thing I really like, and it's possibly the only thing I do that's purely for my own enjoyment, and I want to make more time for that. also I want to finish SWTOR’s existing singleplayer content because, I mean, it’s an eight-year-old(!!!) MMO so its remaining time is probably limited by default and it’s fucking ridiculous I’ve been a subscriber for at least seven years without even finishing all the class storylines, what the actual fuck Past Me. (I also want to make more time for console games specifically, because those are almost definitely easier on my body and I can do them while cuddling with Hazy on the couch. unfortunately this also generally requires me having the place to myself, which is kind of a rare thing that is also necessary for comfortably working on customs or writing, so...opportunities are limited.)

speaking of games: finish buying the parts to upgrade my computer and then upgrade my fucking computer, and also back up my fucking files

finish a long fic? or honestly if I can even finish more short fics that would be great. really just...make progress on the WIP list. especially if I can finish some IW-specific fics before Endgame comes out. that would be super cool of me.

get another tattoo. I still want that LotR quote but I don't know how I want it to look so who knows when that might happen. HOWEVER, I've been wanting something queer, and I very much loved Foxflight Studios’ "we fight as one" design, and when I asked the designer if she was okay with me getting it as a tattoo she said yes. so at least with that I wouldn't have to figure out a design. I do of course have to figure out a) where I want it (ideally, somewhere normally covered by clothes but where I can see it if I want to, and where a person might conceivably keep a real dagger) and b) how much more it's going to hurt/cost than the paw print considering it would have to be bigger and it has a lot more colors and linework.

do some travel around Alaska. I've lived here for nearly my entire life and I really haven't seen that much of my own state. more importantly there are a few extremely cool places within theoretical driving distance, like Kennicott, Igloo City, and abandoned military installations near Seward, and I want to visit them. @erlkonigstochter and I had vague plans to do this last year and it never materialized (although I did visit Nike Site Summit on my own), so...this year I intend to try harder to make that happen, especially since I have no current plans of traveling out of state.

put more stuff on Etsy (and figure out how to advertise them?). in particular there are a bunch more things I want to repaint in various Pride colors, in part because those are way easier than custom Funko figures. of course, a lot of these things are kinda technically copyright infringement which means somehow I have to figure out how to make more sales of the easier things without drawing the attention of any corporations (and/or shift my focus to things that aren't under copyright of some kind but that's probably more complicated).

but also do more personal projects. I have so many partially finished custom figures, and so many other figures I bought specifically to customize but haven't touched since, and it would be cool to actually...do something with some of those. especially because several of my WIPs/plans are more Lokis, and I need all the Lokis, and there are not many more left that I can buy.

figure out how to motivate myself to work out more and keep up with PT exercises, see above re: needing a  better replacement for the magic of TAZ Balance whoops

get a therapist and work on ADHD issues, because I'm increasingly convinced that ADHD issues are at the root of the vast majority of my other issues (depression, anxiety, etc.), and that I would be immeasurably improving every aspect of my life if I could make some progress on that aspect. the difficulty, of course, is that finding a therapist is kind of complicated and difficult, and also I don't really want to add yet another regular appointment to my schedule when I already don't have enough time after work to do all the things I want and/or need to do, but...this one thing could go a long way toward helping me actually do all those other things, so obviously this is a time investment I really need to make. although probably not until I've made serious progress with Hazy's separation anxiety because that also makes it hard to go places after work. so uh, I guess we'll see. in the meantime it might be smart if I tried to figure out some kind of self-guided therapy thing I could do. I'm sure there's...something.

just, like, be more intentional about...things. in general. this is a bad goal because it's very nonspecific but it is slightly more specific than "generally do better FFS" so at least there's that.

[maedhros-nelyafinwe]

This turned out longer than I intended. I’m in a rambling mood and my sleep has been especially shitty for the past month. I don’t sleep the best to begin with, but every so often it just hits the fan and this has been for an extended period and I’m just exhausted.

I finally think I made headway in my sleep research. I keep forgetting to call the psych, who my gp said I should talk to him about it last month lol. Anyways, after doing some research into if it’s just adhd (which can cause insomnia) and doing my own sleep hygiene changes and hitting everything on the checklist for that, I’ve figured out that caffiene did affect me a little (my insomnia isn’t as extreme before, but I’ll test that out tomorrow for sure), it’s not fully the cause. I’m sleeping more so I’ll continue to watch when I have caffiene, but I still have problems falling asleep and staying asleep.

But instead of 3-5 hours of sleep (and a few days, 0 hours), since I cut caffiene I’m back to hitting 5-7 on average. Sooo much better, but still doesn’t address my difficulty falling asleep and general all day tiredness.

Sleep problems have plagued for as long as I can remember. I didn’t realize I had insomnia as a kid until my mom, one night somewhere around 5th or 6th grade, walked in on me reading a book around midnight, despite my bedtime around 8. Even at sleepovers, I was always the last one asleep, if I slept at all. Anyways, Mom came in and asked why I was still up and I was just like “????? reading of course????” 

Then I learned about insomnia. I was also the only middle schooler that (at least admitted to it or said anything about it) who loved taking naps. Naps were wonderful. Still are. I’ve been napping for such a long time.

Anyways. Issues sleeping. Forever. So in middle school, again, I learned meditation before I knew what it was. The ‘super guaranteed trick to make you sleep in 20 mins!’ where you start at your feet, relax the muscles, then move up your body, mentally making your muscles to relax and learning to still my ever racing thoughts in it. It helped for sure. Suddenly I could sleep for more than a few hours (that was adhd helping keep me awake, the racing thoughts and mind). But I was still always tired.

Mornings were (and are) the absolute worst. I never woke up on time, my mom had to come in and force me up. Until I realized that I had to literally throw myself out of bed the second I heard my alarm. Like, I hear it, and chuck the covers off, throw my legs over and stand up, all before I can fully open my eyes or think a single thought. It’s still a struggle to get my thoughts to work. People call my morning self ‘zombie’ me, because its legit like a zombie. My eyes are barely open, i can’t think, it’s all just muscle memory of my morning routine.

I had to learn ways to keep awake during classes, during general school and university (though the latter was easier because i planned classes accordingly. that is, not early at all lol and then I chugged coffee in the afternoon). I started drinking coffee at 12 years old and it helped a little bit for a little while, but then it stopped working and now I’m just left with a caffiene addiction lol

So that’s kind of a history. Minus the common sleep paralysis and constant nightmares (which I’ve learned to fall right back asleep through because they’re common).

I was researching the difference between adhd insomnia and sleep disorder insomnia because I’ve no doubt that was most of my problem growing up and thought maybe its still got me in its clutches despite all my trying.

So, my natural sleep schedule, when there’s no school or work, is fall asleep around 3am and wake up around 10am. When I can stick to that schedule, I actually feel rested afterwards and its easy to fall asleep. I feel the best on that schedule. Because of that, I always worked evening shifts. After high school, I worked took the latest shift, often getting off at midnight. In university, I still managed to get jobs that wouldn’t ask me to do morning shifts, all evening, with the latest letting me off at midnight again. I also tried to plan classes around this, with no classes before 930.

But now, I’m stuck at a normal hours job and it fucking sucks. I wake up at 530 am and go to bed at 830 and its so fucking rough and I’m always tired, stealing naps in my few breaks and a nap at home after school (but it’s never restful because the falling asleep issue). After almost 2 years, it’s fucking awful. Everyone around says I should adjust, or I will adjust because that’s natural, but I’ve never been able to adjust. Never.

Anyways, in my research, something just dropped and I was like ‘fuck, that sounds spot on like me’ and it’s called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder/Syndrome/Whatever. People who have this fall asleep between 1-3am and wake up somewhere around 10-Noon. They cannot adjust to another sleep pattern. So they have trouble falling asleep before that. It’s also like getting woken up in the normal feeling sleep schedule (so like being woken up to the equivalent of midnight or 1am) So they’re tired throughout the day.

This is opposed to people who like the nighttime more than daytime. Those people can switch their sleep schedule after a week or two and feel rested and sleep through the night. But with dspd, it’s fighting a losing battle and that’s cause its a problem with your internal alarm clock completely. It’s just got shifted hours. and it doesn’t want to shift to a normal time.

Anyways, if my continuing with sleep hygiene keeps going with no development on my overall tiredness, I’m likely to go in and talk to psych about that possibility.

for those who are curious, here is a list for sleep hygiene:

7-9 hours of sleep (different sources say different things): Sometimes check.

Go to bed at the same time every night, even weekends (This is also same for when you wake up): check (cause i’m already so tired on the weekends anyways).

Quiet place to sleep: Absolutely check. With Adhd, if there’s any noise, I will not sleep.

Keep bedroom dark and cool: check and check. Again, if there’s light, I will not sleep. I do keep it cool because it helps according to science, tho it doesn’t feel like it.

Your bed is only used for sleep or sex: check and check. I spend no extra in the bedroom except to sleep.

No screens (phones, tvs, etc): check-ish. I have an e-reader but it’s on night mode. so no blue light, very dim lighting, and black background.

Follow a bedtime routine: check. I don’t play video game an hour before, I stay off the computer, and I mindlessly zone out in front of the tv or do mindless apps on my phone, then at 830, i brush my teeth, take some heartburn medicine, go upstairs, and read until i can fall asleep.

Limit daytime naps: check. I ain’t got time to nap.

No caffiene after the afternoon: recently check. I’ll keep this test going to see if its an effect for me.

Exercise: lol no

That’s about what’s the same for every place that mentions sleep hygiene. I do almost every single one of these and still just ugh. Hence why I think it’s more.

I also forgot to mention that with dspd, when given the chance, its a very quick reversion back to the natural sleep wake times, which is also true. I have to be careful not to mess up what progress i have made, though i sincerely want to