#happy administrative day

[recursive360]

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[nelkcats]

Danny's "boo-tiful" parlor

After college Danny decided to open his own business, but he couldn't do it in Amity Park with so many people doubting his parents businesses or methods.

So he went to Gotham and set up a nice ice cream parlor downtown. Technically he wasn't invading any territory because he was in all of them at once. Both the Bats and the Rogues wondered if that made it a neutral area.

Everything was going well, Red Hood stopped by for pistachio ice cream every Wednesday, Harley came for bubble gum ice cream on Monday nights, ¡even a giant Crocodile came to buy him! (Croc was very surprised to be treated like another customer and it became his favorite establishment)

Until Batman decided to ruin it and investigate the harmless ice cream parlor; which unfortunately for Danny worked with his own ghost ice and sometimes could look a little too green.

He thought it wasn't fair for them to judge his ice, he had been very careful not to mix ectoplasm with his food, he didn't want alive cookies and cream or liminals running all over the city; except Hood, his pistachio ice cream might have a little ecto-dejecto, but it was to heal him ¡healing ice cream!

That's how Monday morning, the owner put up a "No Batman's allowed" sign in front of the establishment, his business was good without disrespectful furrys.

If the bat wanted to investigate, it should do so away from his respectable business and his new Boo-berry flavor. Maybe he needed to rename the place, but Sam and Tucker banned calling it "I-scream" and "Phantom's haunt" was not that obvious ¿right?

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! You said that you need another vacation after this vacation, so I am not sure, how puppy situation, even if it partual custudy, affecting you ( may be you in panic when he is there and then recovering when he is not, and then round and round? ), but really, If you need another vacation, I hope you know we will be here to support you for it!

It's been nearly 4 weeks now since we got Toby so I feel like I can talk about this with a bit of a clear head.

(Talk of like an actual PTSD meltdown beneath the read-more, including self-harm mention - nothing graphic. There's zero obligation for anyone to read this, especially for folks who don't think authors should ever be honest about being people with issues):

So, I've been kind of quiet about aspects of this, but I have like severe treatment-resistant PTSD and C-PTSD, and puppies specifically are one of my triggers (especially if I'm responsible for them). The reason for that is kind of awful, and I don't really want to talk about some of the things I've experienced/been through that led to that, so let's just move onto the next part. You're kind of right anon, there has been panic while he is here lol.

As a result, I had a severe meltdown the first time I tried to adopt a dog many years ago now. Could not last 24 hours, needed weeks/months to recover.

But I've always wanted to share my life with a dog and I've been in a somewhat better space over the past year or so, and I thought I could maybe handle it better. I told myself 'if I can just get through that 24 hours I'll realise it's okay and it will all work out.' Anon I cannot tell you where this thinking came from, but it was wrong. Idk why past me was kind of naive enough to think this way but here we are.

No, after that 24 hours, it got temporarily better, and then I slammed into consecutive meltdowns, each one worse than the next, until the people around me were afraid for my life. I am still recovering from some of the harm I inflicted on myself during the last three weeks and likely will be for some time to come. The combination of a really intense PTSD relapse, as well as not being able to handle (as an AuDHD person) intense changes to my schedule basically compounded and I broke.

I made the decision to rehome Toby, and first contacted the people around me. Glen's mum said she wanted a dog, and had been specifically looking into dogs like Toby anyway, and so we decided this would be best because then I could still be involved (I love Toby to pieces).

After getting some space, I finally started to adjust, and have gone back to having Toby about 4~ days a week, with a view to going to about 6 days, with one day spent with my mum, or Glen's mum.

Today is the first day I was able to handle having him on my own for around 9.5 hours. And I'm here and able to write about it, so that's progress. He'll be here all day Sunday, and then Tues-Weds-Thurs-Friday. And from there a decision will be made as to where I'm at with my mental health etc.

I'm a bit more hopeful now that I might be able to keep him, but my PTSD is still very very bad. I'm having some nights where I'm simply not sleeping until 7.30am (even if he's not here), and my hypervigilance is crazy. Like, I am having so many auditory flashbacks it's stupid. So this is why I've been saying this break hasn't been very restful or productive. Because my mental health tanked like I detonated a landmine inside myself.

I didn't actually plan the two week break for Toby! That was just a coincidence honestly.

Unfortunately I have a lot of health conditions that respond very poorly to stress, so I'm dealing with those now too. And then additionally, in all of this, I had a breast scan / mammogram / ultrasound that has confirmed a suspicious lump I found a couple of months ago (breast cancer runs in the family), and I suspect I'm going to need a biopsy. I'll find out on Monday if that's the case. That's been in the background and hasn't been helping.

There's some other stuff going on that's not really worth talking about because these are the main things, but that's a good picture I think. It turns out 'just getting through the first 24 hours' doesn't magically make a severe PTSD trigger go away. And that forced exposure is not 'exposure therapy' - that's just reinforcing a trigger.

Anyway! I feel like I'm through the worst of it, and I am seeing glimpses of how my life could be richer if I keep getting through this. But...that's why I think another break. *smiles tiredly.* I have to wait a bit now for the PTSD / C-PTSD symptoms to settle down, and I also need to see what's kind of worsened after this. Realistically, with a relapse to this degree, it could take between 3-6 months to really start recovering, or to at least get back to where I was before December.

I hope with all my heart I can get there with Toby by my side. I love him so much.

(I want to add that Toby has never ever been in a position of harm at any point, and in fact I probably put myself in harm's way for his sake, because I wanted to provide solid continuity of care - in case anyone was worried about that).

Er so yeah! But I've picked up my writing again this week and have been able to do some like...things I'd been neglecting, and I feel more human again, I just hope I get some sleep tonight

[non-un-topo]

Daily November crying sessions start today

[bulundu]

Two of my coworkers from another department got me a 10 dollar gift card for a coffee place. They said it was just to thank me for always helping them with their packages and man one of them gave me the best hug I've ever gotten and I'm just I'm like I'm just 🥺🥺

[the-cobblepot-colony]

I am... finally getting to redoing backstories and getting those character bios set up. Most won't have character bios as their past is a mystery even to me. But they'll all get a general description and what to expect personality wise at the very least.

but i am a rambling man so i only started on Gertrude's and ended up writing all three Cobblepot members.

basically, instead of Oswald having a fucked up childhood he had two loving parents. but still some fucked up stuff. just not child abuse.

[formerchaoslord]

"You know, this little booping game was a nice birthday gift! I had loads of fun! I guess that's the perk of having my birthday be April 1st."

This truly was fun. Thank you for boops, everyone. Unfortunately, I have to go now. I'll try to show up again on April 7th, which is my birthday. I hope I can do something special... Until next time, keep up the good work, and God bless.

(Feel free to keep booping, though.)

[shrews-studies]

Fuck yeah free Friday

[millarlawfirm]

Happy Administrative Professionals Day! Today and always, we celebrate the backbone of our firm - our amazing receptionist, intake team, client relations manager, office manager, legal assistants, and paralegals. Thanks for all you do to keep The Millar Law Firm running smoothly! https://atlantaadvocate.com/about-us/

[learnandturn]

I was punched and pepper sprayed by cops that my university administration set on student protesters yesterday. Including once where a cop ripped my mask off my face, grabbed my jaw, and sprayed pepper sprayed straight into my mouth. The university sent out an alert in the middle of our protest canceling classes for the rest of the day, only citing “adverse conditions”. After protesters dispersed under threat of even more violence and three buses of riot police from all over the state with rubber bullets and bully sticks parked in front of one our school’s famous landmarks. I staggered over to a couple of friends who were watching on the sidelines. They gave me water and an apple and held a bag of ice on my very pepper spray irritated face. As they were walking me back to my dorm we ran into one of their roommates. She had taken cancelled classes as an opportunity to get crumbl cookie with her friends. Standing in front of her, happy in a floral blouse with her box of cookies, in my pepper spray and water soaked tshirt, keffiyeh sadly hanging off my shoulder, holding an ice pack to my mouth, felt like a slap in the face.

After putting my pepper spray soaked clothes, shoes, and keffiyeh in a plastic bag and taking an extraordinarily painful shower, a friend and I went for dinner just off campus. There we had a pot of green tea and ramen to soothe pepper sprayed throats. We got ice cream after (shared a cup with chocolate and raspberry pomegranate with strawberry pieces on top, it was very good). From our spot outside the ice cream place we watched a steady stream of groups of sorority girls in matching jeans shorts and blue bikini tops walking back to their apartments after some apparently raucous parties. The cognitive dissonance was insane. I really felt a little like I was going crazy.

Even this morning, waking up to the smeared sharpie of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s phone number on my arm, a black and blue chest from where a grown man straight up clocked me while I was held up by two other protesters in a wall, and a still sore throat and eyes from the pepper spray, life goes on like normal. I still have final papers to write and a math exam to review for.

I’m not sure I really have a point. But, this feeling only makes me want to fight harder for a free Palestine. So, fuck Israel for being an apartheid state and all of their crimes over the last 76 years. Fuck university administration for not disclosing their level of investment in Israel. Fuck university administration for not divesting from this genocide. Fuck Joe Biden for actively supporting this genocide. And fuck the police.

[hislop3]

Wednesday Feature: CMS Targeting 400 Hospices for Administrative Action

Usually I try to add some “light and levity” to my Wednesday features as the content on this site is pretty heavy health policy and economics, regulatory in nature, etc. In my work, my usual Wednesday messages internally are “fun” – a bit of Hump Day humor or whimsy. By title of this post, readers will see the deviation. In June I wrote a piece on the likelihood of upcoming regulatory actions by…

[vaspider]

Pete Buttigieg is just a faggot.

It's very important to me that younger queers understand this: to the people who you're trying to be more respectable for when you say things like neopronouns set the trans movement back or you're why the cishets don't accept us or including [aces/bi people with the 'wrong kind' of partners/non-binary people/kinksters/non-passing trans ppl/furries/polyam people] just hurts us, can't you wait until we get all our rights before we talk about some of yours? -- to those people? Pete Buttigieg is just a fag.

On Sunday at Pride Northwest, some kids -- late teens, early 20s -- asked what our button I survived Reagan for this? meant. All of the queer adults at the tables making up our ad hoc counter looked at each other and sighed a little. Emet and another adult started to explain the way that the Reagan Administration handled -- or didn't handle -- the beginning of the AIDS crisis. How many people died. How much we were ignored. The Ashes Action. The Time Magazine article which explicitly blamed bisexual men for passing the pandemic to the cishet community, playing on all the worst stereotypical bullshit. The way that even when the CDC started paying attention, they were so focused on gay men that they ignored AIDS in the lesbian community, leading to the "women don't get AIDS, they just die from it" poster. And so on.

I finished counting out change and passed the last Bear Pride raised fist pin over to a bear a little older than me, then turned my head and interjected, "they didn't care until it started infecting more than just the fags." I turned my head back and handed him his change. He laughed bitterly and said, "remember when they called it 'gay cancer?'"

That what I need you to understand. The people for whom you are folding yourself into smaller and smaller boxes will never see you as anything but a freak. A queer. A dyke. A tranny. A fag.

Never.

These are people who will stand by and let you wither away and die alone, gasping for breath in a cinderblock room, and not even claim your ashes, and they will say you deserve it, because of your lifestyle. If they speak of you at all it will be by the wrong name, with the pictures you hate the most. They will curse at your lover, throw him out of the home you shared, and steal the gift you gave last Christmas to throw it in the trash just so he can't have it and they'll say Jesus loves you! while they do it. They'll feel good and righteous and blessed and holy and pure for doing it.

And for them, you spit in the eye of your sister. For them, you disavow your sibling. For their sake, you trim away bits of your heart and lace yourself up tight. Never too loud. Never too queer. Never inconvenient or embarrassing, never asking for too much.

Pete Buttigieg is what happens when your Boomer dad turns out gay. Middle America. Parents still married. Suburban-sprouted. Valedictorian. Harvard-educated. Rhodes Scholarship. Military service. More power to him: I hope he and Chasten are very happy together. Genuinely, I do.

You couldn't create a more respectable gay if you grew one in a lab run by concerned voter focus groups.

But Pete Buttigieg? Is just a fag.

That's the part you don't seem to get: when they abandoned us, they abandoned all of us. Rock Hudson was a beloved movie star and even personally friendly with that horrid pair of ambitious jackals. Nancy Reagan refused to help him get into the only place in the world that could treat him at the time, and he died.

It was 1985, 4 years after the CDC first released papers on what would eventually become known as HIV/AIDS and 7 years after the first known death from an infection from HIV-2. Reagan hadn't even said the word AIDS by the time Hudson died.

Pete Buttigieg is just a fag, and so am I. Unless I'm a dyke, which seems to depend on who's yelling what from which window and what day it is.

Yes, there will be people who genuinely love and accept you. Those people are worth all the frustration of the rest, thankfully, and they're the ones who love you in a pup mask or a leather harness and a neon jock like the ones sold by the men up the row from us last weekend. They're the ones who laugh out loud when you tell them you hid the word "dyke" in your company name, the ones who love you in all your messiness and uncertainty and the way you don't fit into neat boxes all scrubbed up and clean.

Most cishets, though... well, they don't actively mean you specifically any harm, at least not when they have to look at you. Not when you're right there in front of them. Maybe they'll be okay with you, personally, especially if you're the kind of gay who makes a good rhetorical device, and as long as you remain a good rhetorical device.

They need people to know that they don't have a problem with the gays, after all, and there you are, being all convenient. You make a nice token, and as long as you do, well. You're useful.

But they call you by your deadname when you're not around, and they put the wrong pronouns in your medical record even though they met you years after you came out, and they won't put themselves out to save you. Not one little bit.

I didn't want to be here again. The year I graduated from high school was the worst year of the AIDS crisis. The world into which I became an adult was a world in which an advisor and friend to Reagan, William F. Buckley, openly advocated for forcibly tattooing the HIV status of HIV+ gay men on their buttocks (and IV drug users on their forearms), and in which my father not only told me that when I was 14 or so, but when was told me that he'd advocated for that tattoo being "over their assholes."

(Buckley wrote that in '86, but he doubled down on it in 2005.

Fucker.)

But yeah. I didn't want to be here again. I wanted my daughter to inherit a better world. I wanted Obergefell and Lawrence v. Texas and Hope & Change to really mean something. I work for it, today and all days. I haven't given up.

I need you to know that, too. This isn't a white flag. I'm not surrendering. This isn't over. To misquote Henry Rollins, this is what Marsha and Sylvia and Stormé and Leslie and Brenda and Auntie Sugar trained us for. This is punk rock time.

But I need you to understand that if Pete Buttigieg is just a fag, if that human embodiment of a Wonder Bread, mayo and Oscar Meyer bologna sandwich is not respectable enough for them -- and he's not -- then the rest of us have absolutely no hope of measuring up. Not even if we trim away every colorful, beautiful piece of our community, not even if the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence vanish into the ether, not even if we sacrifice the five elements of vogue on the altar of white supremacist cishet middle-class conformity: we can't trim ourselves down to something they'll accept.

The only other option is radical acceptance of our queer selves. The only other option is solidarity. The only other option is for fats and femme queens and drags and kinksters and queers and zine writers and sex workers and furries and addicts and kids and the ones who can look us in the eye and see all of us to say we're here, we're queer, get used to it just the way we did 30 years ago. It's revolutionary, complete and total acceptance of our entire community, not just the ones the cishets can pretend to be comfortable with as long as we don't challenge them too much, or it's conceding the shoreline inch by inch to the rising waters of fascism until we've got nowhere left to stand and some of us start drowning.

That's it. Either it's all of us or it's none of us, because if we leave the answer up to the Reagans of the world and all the people who enabled him in the name of lower taxes and Democrats who wring their hands, weeping oh I don't agree with it but we'll lose the election if we fight it right now, the answer is none of us.

The brunch gays can come, too, I guess.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I just reread The Gentle Wolf and was reminded how much I love that universe and how interesting Hunter's story was to me. I know you were really disappointed with how it performed which means the odds of getting another book in that format are slim to none, but is there a chance we might get it in a patreon serial one day? I would love to see what Hunter's happy ending is like! 🥰

I had a response to this and then deleted it and have to reply again and I'm like SADFACE fdslakjfas

Okay but! I'm so so glad you enjoyed the universe, and tbh, I haven't abandoned Hunter's story, it's more like on very long hiatus. I always wanted to write Hunter's story most of all, so he's definitely not forgotten!

It would definitely be a serial first, I think, and probably break a bit from the previous books tbh which were designed to be more broadly appealing (which I'm very bad at, because it's like a cardinal sin to dare and have ace representation in an MC in a romance, lol).

I have no actual plans in my schedule to write Hunter's story, but I wouldn't consider the story abandoned either. But it also means I can't give you any kind of ETA on when it would start, unfortunately. It doesn't help that I'm writing a more 'ideal' kind of omegaverse for me in the Underline series, which I enjoy more because it's more overtly darker and crunchier in its themes.

If I don't write Hunter in the Perth Shifters verse, I might drag him into the Underline universe one day. We'll see! :D

[identitty-dickruption]

hey, disabled person! do you feel tired all the time? do you feel like you’re working twice as hard as abled people for half the outcome? do you take longer to do every single little thing than an abled person would see as reasonable? well. I would like to introduce you to the concept of crip labour (I first came across this in Smilges, 2023 but I cannot verify whether they came up with the term)

crip labour is a term to describe all the extra work disabled people do on a day-to-day basis. it’s also a form of labour that is invisible to abled people, because they just don’t have to think about most of it. it includes:

the extra labour required to get ready to leave the house in the morning (e.g. the extra steps involved in getting dressed or having a shower)

the social labour required in order to communicate your needs to abled people

the labour involved in having to plan ahead (e.g. knowing where accessible toilets are, knowing where ramp access is, knowing which venues are safe for you to be in)

the administrative labour involved in gaining access to particular institutions (e.g. applying for disability welfare, applying for education access plans, etc)

having a term to describe all the labour involved in keeping yourself alive and happy helps to make that labour more visible. it gives us a way to point out that we are doing more and with less capacity, and it helps to explain why so many of us are so exhausted all the goddamn time

so I hope this is a helpful term for people to bring into their lives!

[gyuswhore]

Fifteen to Forever

"I can’t not be happy when I know I have you."

PAIRING: hockeyplayer!choi seungcheol x f!reader

SYNOPSIS: Fifteen was the age you had met Choi Seungcheol at a school hockey game. Forever was the age you would find yourself spending with him.

CONTAINS: fluff, angst, smut (MINORS DNI), growing up, tears (a lot), distance, this is so emotional you will be in your feels, kissing, p in v sex (unprotected), clit stimulation, handjobs, happy endings bc we love them, i think that's it

WORD COUNT: 6k

masterlist

[AN]: thank you so much @ressonancee for birthing the idea of hockey player cheol in the first place, reading over some of the bits and helping me w some of the plot!!! ty for letting me ramble in your dms lol. hockeyplayer!cheol WILL reappear in other fics bc I'm obsessed with the idea, for now, I hope you enjoy this angsty fluffy creation <33

It wasn’t until the last echo of the slammed car door had faded that you realized, yes, mom, I do actually want you to go in with me. 

But alas, as the last tresses of exhaust from her car fade into nothingness, you accept that you’d have to do this alone. Gripping the straps of your brand new backpack helps you ground yourself as the increasingly erratic breathing takes over you. It sinks in now that you’re alone. 

There’s a honk, and you realize you’re still frozen in the drop-off zone, the mom in the Subaru not appreciating the 7 AM delay to drop off her own high schooler. You wonder if her kid would let her drop them off inside. 

Scurrying into the entrance of the open gates, you find the courtyard full. Huddles of teens laughing and yelling despite the early morning hour, not a spare square foot on the grass. You try to find someone who looks like an adult but fail, hoping you’ll be luckier once you’re inside the building. 

You do find yourself lucky as you find a line of teachers at the entrance, ready to greet the new batch of freshmen on their first day of high school. There are a few other kids who look as tense as you, but you feel better with the way the administrator pats your shoulder as she hands you your schedule, assigning you to a lanky sophomore to show you around the building that’d become your second home for the next four years. 

Jeonghan tells you his name as he leads you into your homeroom, where you deposit your bag before going back out. He’s peculiar, you decide. He tells you to never walk without looking at the floor on Monday mornings to save your shoes from the occasional start-of-the-week breakfast hurl. He tells you in the cafeteria that the lasagna was horrible, but not the sloppy joes; the sloppy joes were good. He tells you in the gym that the coach would let you off if you rubbed a little eyeliner under your eyes, “he’s an empath.” 

By the time he’s listing off clubs and teams, you feel a little less nervous, pushing you back into your fuller homeroom with a sign-up sheet and a goodbye. You don’t get to say thank you. 

Kwon Soonyoung slips into the empty seat next to you, introducing himself a little louder than you’d anticipated, but you suppose you needed the enthusiasm. He innocently slips you his home number and hopes out loud that you’d be the best of friends. 

You get in the car that afternoon, responding with a wider-than-expected smile at your mother inquiring about your day. 

“It was great! I think I’ll like it here.”

You found it strange that the rink was so packed for a high school hockey game, but that was before you saw the ten-foot banner and face paint. Soonyoung sits on your right as Jiwoo places herself on your left, both donned in blue and yellow, sandwiching your uncoordinated outfit. For whatever reason, you’d thought movies exaggerated the hype around high school sports, yet the support for the boys entering the rink roars into your ears to prove you wrong. 

They win, and with the way the rest of the team pats him on the back after sending in the last puck, you assume it’s all thanks to the boy with the Choi on the back of his jersey. 

He removes his helmet, hair flopping into his eyes as you realize you know him. He was always in the cafeteria with Jeonghan, the boy who gave you a tour on your first day, along with many other boys from his year. It was hard not to notice them with the ruckus they were always causing, yet you found them easy to drown out with the rest of the noise. 

“What’s his first name? The guy with the 08 on his back?” you ask Soonyoung. 

“Oh, that’s Seungcheol. Dude’s a fucking progidy or something.”

“Prodigy,” Jiwoo corrects. 

“Yeah, that. Jihoon said the only reason they got to finals last year was ‘cause of this guy.” 

You watch as he drinks from his bottle from the benches, smiling at his coach and teammates as they debriefed. At least you were guessing that was happening; the only thing you were thinking about was how you could hear his laugh from where you sat. And how it was making you smile, too. 

You stare at your worn shoes that glow in multicolors as the beats in the gym warp and stagger through the speaker. You’re on your third punch, finding yourself awkward without something to occupy at least one hand. 

You had danced a little with Jiwoo, watched with bright eyes as Soonyoung dance off-ed yet another senior to his victory, giggled as you let another freshman, Jun, take Jiwoo away for the next dance. You now lace the edges of the party, taking a breather as you down the remnants of your punch, already trailing the memorized path to the snack table. Maybe you’ll try some of the lemonade this time. 

There’s already somebody occupying the lemonade cooler when you get there, back to you as you patiently wait for him to finish up. He moves away, leaning against the table. He takes a sip from his cup, and you move forward to fill your own. 

It’s Seungcheol. You recall his name as you recognize his face. He somehow looks as haphazard as you last saw him from yesterday’s hockey game. 

If he had come in with a tie, it’s long gone as he has his collar popped and shirt unbuttoned the first few steps. It doesn’t end there as you note the hair that dresses his eyes, soaked in what you cannot imagine is water with the way you saw someone with a similar build typhoon across the floor with nearly as much vigor as Soonyoung has had tonight. 

He’s downing the cup in haste, and you take a sip of the slightly tart drink as you debate if you should say something. 

“You did really well yesterday. Congrats,” you decide to say. 

He emerges from his cup to acknowledge you sipping on your own lemonade, “Oh, thanks. Were you there?” 

“Oh, yeah, I was. First hockey game, went with my friends,” you let out a little chuckle, not understanding why you suddenly felt so awkward. 

“Cool,” he answers plainly, mouth glistening and posture stagnant. “You’re friends with Soonyoung, right? Seen him hang around Jihoon a lot.”

“Yeah, he’s — he’s friends with everybody,” you laugh a little, and you hear him laugh with you. 

“How do you handle him? He’s giving a run for everybody’s money out there,” he gestures to the dance floor with a smile. 

“He mellows out after a while; he’s just excited,” you say, understanding his bewilderment.

“How’re you finding high school so far?” he asks when he runs out of things to say, yet forgets that he can easily excuse himself. But he doesn’t.

“Pretty alright. I’m having fun so far.” You don’t need to ask him the same, knowing well that the sophomore was having the time of his life.

“Good to hear, hope it stays that way for you.”

It’s another painful five seconds before you see Jiwoo waving at you from afar, pointing at something Soonyoung is doing. 

“Uh, I’ll see you around, my friend’s waving me over–”

“Oh, sure, uh, I’ll see you around.”

You give him one more tight-lipped smile as you wave from waist length before retreating. 

“Wait!” 

You turn around at his voice. 

“I never got your name.”

Seungcheol took you on your first not-date in the spring.

Not-date because neither of you had labeled it as such, but you were pushed to reconsider when both Jiwoo and Soonyoung insisted.

He had brought his car that you slipped into after school to drive to the movies, where he bought you popcorn and paid for both of your tickets. He held your hand as you walked out of the theatre, wide-eyed and all smiles as you discussed the film you had just sat through for two hours. 

His palm fit in yours like it belonged there, and maybe it was your fifteen-year-old brain talking. Still, you never expected to be this comfortable with him — especially after the possible insinuation your friends had instilled. 

He drove you home that night as you searched for a million excuses to stay a little longer in his car as he parked in front of your door. But alas, you open the car door at the end of the night and are surprised to find him doing the same as he walks around to where you get out. 

“I had a lot of fun today,” you say in your rehearsed line.

“Me too,” he smiles. “The weather’s getting nicer, we should see the cherry blossoms next weekend. If you wanted to. We can take the car again.” 

He didn’t kiss you, at least not on the lips as he hugged you at your front door and pressed his lips to your cheek. 

You were quick to squeak out your goodbyes after that happened, slamming your door shut as you vaguely heard him drive off. 

With a hand to your racing heart, you count to ten. Perhaps you’d reconsider that not-date after all. Besides, you had cherry blossoms to look forward to. 

Choi Seungcheol kissed you, really kissed you, when he brought the team to the cup they missed out on last year, throwing himself at you as soon as you appeared before him. He was sweaty, half-dressed in his gear with his skates still on as he embraced you tighter than anyone ever had before. 

He put his lips on yours the second he saw your face as you pulled away, unable to help himself despite the groans and retches of his teammates, despite the fact that an entire bleacher’s worth of people saw you both. 

Not that either of you cared; you were just happy he didn’t have his mouth guard on (and that he kissed you before you couldn’t help it yourself).

It was in your junior year and Seungcheol’s senior year that you began to hear the absurdities about the strength of your relationship, that you wouldn’t make it, that high school sweethearts never do. 

With shaking hands, you grip your boyfriend’s arm as he has a conflicted look in his eye. 

“No,” you say. You wonder where all of this strength was coming from when you all wanted was to cry. “You’re gonna go. You will go. I won’t let you throw all of this away because of something that’s never gonna waver.” 

He’s silent as he refuses to meet your gaze. The voices were getting to him, his older college friends laughing when he suggested that his relationship would last both college and the distance it would bring. He realizes he’s not so sure anymore. 

He sits cross-legged in front of you on your bedroom floor, mentally prepared to walk out for the last time. 

“You’re supposed to be happiest about this; I don’t understand why you insist I leave. And so far away?” he looks slightly bewildered. 

“Because you’ll regret it if you don’t. This isn’t about me, Cheol, it’s about everything you’ve worked for all these years—”

“Us, what about us? I’ve worked on us, too.”

“Why have you gone years without listening to a word what other people say to only listening to them now?”

“Was it just me, then? Because it feels like I’m the only one worried about our future together—”

“Choi Seungcheol, stop right there.” Your voice is brittle, and you don’t know how long you can keep the tears at bay. 

“I…I don’t know what to think,” his shoulders slump even lower. 

His hockey scholarship would take him so, so far away. He thought you were strong enough for this, but with every anecdote, every comment, every dejected “have it your way” to his resilience, he wonders if the both of you would be forced to fight a losing battle if he left. 

There were sports universities here at home, but there was no you with his scholarship. 

“I’ll tell you what to think. Will you listen to me?” 

Slowly, but surely, he nods. 

“You can get the scholarship you’ve always wanted, and we can stay as we are, although a little farther away.”

He looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t.

“I believe in us. And if you don’t right now, I’m ready to believe for the both of us. We’ll get through this.” 

In the end, Seungcheol believed you over everything the world told him, praying he wouldn’t let you or himself down as he laid with you on the last night he’d call his bedroom home. 

Graduation was a happy endeavor, momentarily forgetting what lay ahead as he enjoyed his last hours with all his friends in one place. The heavy feeling returned as the night progressed, agreeing to spend the night with him, tucked under his covers as you listened to his heartbeat. You wonder how long it will be until you're able to do this again. 

As you lay in his stripped bedroom, there’s little either of you say, an unspoken agreement to not sleep, not tonight. He has an early morning, but he doesn’t really seem to care as he continues to fiddle with your hair, kissing you at intervals like he's trying to bring back the feeling when it begins to fade. 

There’s little you can talk about when you’re trying to memorize each other’s scent. You remind yourself to give him your sweater when morning comes, already noting the hoodie you need to remember to pick up, the lone one he left you in his closet. 

But as the first rays of sun peeked through the blinds, sending stripes of sun into the bedroom, you tried not to feel the hard clench of your heart as the bare room came into sight. Despite the snoozing of alarms, the multiple knocks on his door, and the dawn of a new day, you let yourselves have an extra five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. 

Just you and him before it would be you, and it would be him.

Seungcheol called you more than you called him. It was everywhere, even if it was just to say a quick “I love you” before a game, to hear your voice before he went to class, to listen to you complain about an assignment before he had to do his own. 

As resilient as you showed yourself to be, you’d be lying if you said there was a part of you that was afraid of how much faith Seunghceol held for the both of you, but at ease you were with the constant bugging he’d do and the bugging he seemed to appreciate back. 

By Christmastime, he’d texted you his itinerary for the holidays, explaining how he couldn’t spare a second to things like thinking. Most of his list involved spending all day rotting indoors with you. 

As much as Seungcheol had hoped you’d pick a college nearer to him, he was less scared when you finally announced your college decisions close to graduation. The past year had proved a lot, mostly that you both were stronger than the distance. Which is why he was the first to congratulate you when you got into the college of your choice, despite the fact that you’d be even farther away, leaving home in what felt like the opposite direction to him. 

You were scared too, mostly of how Seungcheol would react, but seeing the smile break out on his face when you told him gave you all the reassurance you needed. That summer brought you the best memories of your teenage years, with Seungcheol, preparing for you both to leave. Except this time, the air was less tense, fewer tears shed, fewer solemn goodbyes at airport gates, and less desperation in both of your hearts. A surety that you’d come back to each other. 

Seungcheol was offered a contract with his dream hockey team when you were on the cusp of your final year. He told you nearly two weeks after he received the first email, not believing it until he was pestered to do so by the representative. 

You cried on the phone that night, the ache in your chest unbelievably present as you wished you could hug him at that moment. He denied his own tears, but you knew his glassier-than-normal eyes weren’t just through the camera lens. You told him you were proud, you told him this was only the beginning, that you needed to sit in the bleachers with his jersey on for every game he’ll ever play, that he was about to have an entire career to be proud of soon. 

He let a couple tears slip. 

And when he showed up to your graduation, sitting next to your family, you gave him the biggest hug you could muster from your bones. That year may have been the last you’d have to endure apart, but it was somehow the hardest. 

It was in that moment, when you pulled away to look at his smiling face, that the years registered in your mind. 

You’re fifteen again, seeing Seungcheol for the first time, donning the features he hadn’t grown into yet, the features you hadn’t grown into yet. You have to tiptoe to meet his lips now, see a man where there was once a boy, the deep set of maturity behind his pretty eyes. 

When he drops the last of your boxes into his — your shared apartment, you’re brought to the stark realization that you're going to stay here.

It’s when you’re unpacking your toothbrush, placing it in the cup right next to his that you realize you could do whatever you wanted with each other without having to work around flight schedules. It’s when he’s hobbling around wooden planks and screws in the bedroom, putting together the brand new queen-sized bed to replace his too-small twin, that you realize that you weren’t here for the week, or for the month or for any set amount of time; you were here forever.

At least that’s what you hope as you watch him collapse the last of the cardboard boxes to recycle, shoving in the corner of the entryway, leaving that job for tomorrow. 

By the time you emerge in the living room after a shower, Seungcheol has already begun to unpack the delivery food on the coffee table. It’s an array of delicious smells, slightly soggy food, and mounds of styrofoam and plastic wrap; a feast for your tired, tired bodies. 

The dumplings are amazing, and the warm feeling in your chest expands as you realize you can now order them whenever you like. 

Seungcheol picks out the chopped chilies from his food, migrating them onto your own plate as he talks about his next practice session without interruption. 

A thought occurs to you in that moment as you watch him down his cola. “Hasn’t coach put you on a diet plan?” 

“Yeah,” he says normally. You merely stare at him, not understanding how any of this junk could be any good for his form, especially when you know he’s good about abstaining when it comes to training. 

He smiles at the questioning look on your face, setting down his utensils, “It’s our first meal, in our first home. I think we deserve to share this with each other.” 

A smile breaks out on your face at the thought of this being your first meal, the first of many meals together in this home. Of all the meals you’ll share in every home after this, every day. 

And while Seungcheol finds himself sacrificing his diet to enjoy all of this greasy grub with you, you will also find yourself occasionally sharing his awfully bland chicken breasts and salads. All to share with each other. 

Walking into the bustling restaurant in your uncomfortable shoes and your arm around Seungcheol’s, you’re quick to find the group you’re looking for. 

The noise is a dead giveaway, and you quickly realize they haven’t changed. 

You hear Soonyoung before you see him, his distinct laugh echoing the loudest across the sea of mingling heads. A loud banner hangs at the end of the room with your high school grad year. 

You detach from Seungcheol as he finds his junior friends, and you find yours, taking both Soonyoung and Jiwoo into a bone-crushing hug. It’s been a while since you last saw them. The crowd of familiar faces greets you, making small talk with everyone as they introduce you to their partners and even their children. You’ve grown; all of you have. 

“Seungcheol’s here too. You guys were together in high school, right?” somebody asks you at some point during the night. “He graduated before us, though; wonder who he’s here with.” 

You don’t blame them for assuming, considering both of you have been in your own circles all night. That, added to the obvious assumptions of high school sweethearts, you only laugh a little as you reply with a wider-than-usual smile. 

“Oh, he’s here with me,” 

You go home with a permanent smile stuck to your face, talking more animatedly than usual in the car ride home. Seuncheol mirrors your smile as he listens. 

Your good mood prevails for the rest of the night, even as you slip under the covers, ready to end the night on a happier-than-usual note. Seungcheol is reading his book when you crawl under his arm, head on his chest, and your arm slung across his torso. You feel his lips on the top of your head, the faint sound of his book being placed on the bedside table.  

“What’s got you so smiley?” he asks with one of his own.

You shake your head as you reply, “Nothing. I’m just happy I saw Soonyoung and Jiwoo.”

“I’m glad you saw them too. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

You hum in response, suddenly remembering a conversation you had. “You know, Jess asked me who you were there with.” 

“Figures,” he shrugs before laughing a little.“How much did she hesitate before asking you?” 

“Looked like she was holding it in for a little bit. Don’t blame her, though. She probably thought we ended it in epic teenage fashion.” 

He snorts at that, “Probably would’ve if you didn’t talk some sense into me.”

“Probably would’ve if you didn’t trust me like you did,” you crane your neck to look at him. 

“Glad I wasn’t that far gone,” he whispers, a faraway look in his eyes despite looking directly at you. “Haven’t doubted us ever since.”

There’s that warm feeling that spreads throughout your body, an overwhelming feeling of contentment coming over you. There was nothing, nothing, that could convince you to be anywhere else, especially anywhere that wasn’t in his arms. 

“Sometimes…well, a lot of the times, I think about us,” you start. “I thought us hitting six months was enough to tell me I’d be with you forever.” 

He smiles at the thought of high school you, starry-eyed, awkward little kids. He remembers the way you blushed when he kissed you for the first time in front of the whole school, the heat that had risen to his own face at the time. 

“And then we hit a year, and then two years,” you remember every surprise for every anniversary, from when you’d collect your allowance for weeks to get him something he’d like. 

“And then college happened. I tried being so positive, but I had never been more scared for us. I hope we never have to go through something that hard ever again.” You almost sound like a child not wanting to go to the doctor’s office, but with the way you feel yourself tighten your grip around him, you don’t think it’s any different. 

You can feel your eyes begin to well, and your voice begins to shake. It was nearly comical how quickly the smiles were turning into sentimental tears. 

Seungcheol places a kiss on your lips, and you know it was meant to be reassuring, but it only wrenches open the floodgates. The tears begin to make their way down your face, sniffles muffled as you go back to burying your face in his chest, his shirt soaking the wetness. You can feel a rumble in his chest as he laughs at your state. He’s also squeezing up your sides and placing kisses in any place he can reach. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you murmur into his shirt. 

“It’s okay. Today was very reflective,” he reassures, letting you stay hidden. 

“I just—” you sniff. “I just wanna stay happy like this all the time.” 

It’s only then that he guides your stained face away from his shirt to bring you to look at him, wiping the remnants of your tears as you try to keep the fresh ones at bay. “We’ll be happy, even when we’re sad. I can’t not be happy when I know I have you. I love you too much for that.”

“I love you,” you whisper into his lips, arms around his neck as you pull yourself to him, chest to chest. You kiss him properly, pecking him a few times to have your fill. 

And then he’s pulling away, ever so slightly to bring a bare millimeter of gap between your lips. His hands burn where they rest, one on your waist, one on your thigh. He’s breathing hard. Both of you are. 

“I’m gonna say something so not fit for right now,” he breathes.

You can’t help but freeze in his hold as you register his words, hesitating before you ask. “What?”

“Marry me.” 

It comes out as the same whisper, directly into your lips as he utters the words. Like he was keeping a secret from the walls and the furniture, like they were only meant for you; because they were only meant for you. Your heart stops, and you vaguely wonder if you’re breathing at all. 

“I—” he takes a long, shaky breath from his nose. “I was supposed to do this a little differently, but…”

You watch him reach over into his bedside drawer, the one you never touch, and bring out the smallest velvet box. Opening it reveals the prettiest, most delicate diamond you’ve ever seen, the jewel glinting and sparkling even in the dim bedroom lights. 

That’s when you let out a tiny gasp, feeling the tears return, dripping down your face one after the other. “Choi Seuncheol, you bitch.”

You’re sobbing at this point, and it has him sitting up straighter, leaving the box to the side as he lurches for you when you pull away. 

“Wait, fuck, sorry, I thought,” he exhales in frustration, hands trying to pull yours away from your face as you cry into your hands. He sounds desperate. “I got carried away, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“No, it’s not that,” you finally manage through hiccups. 

“Yes, of course, I’ll marry you, I’m just fucking emotional.” 

You hear him laugh again, no doubt out of pure relief, as he nearly doubles over at the situation. 

You’re a little calmer as you continue to sniffle, watching him with a half-disgruntled, half-amused expression, “Put it on, stupid, or do I need to cry again for you to do that.”

You don’t need to tell him twice as he slips the ring on your finger, the perfect fit, the perfect jewel, the perfect ring. 

Bringing him closer, you kiss him again, lips pressed hard on his as you try to communicate every last emotion into it. You’re out of words, and you hope he knows what you're feeling. You know he knows; he always knows. 

He’s reciprocating with the same vigor, arms coming up to wrap around you so tight it pushes you flush against his body. He nips at your lip, running his tongue over it for good measure before letting it enter your mouth. You let him take the lead, let him guide you through every motion, every step forward. 

You’re putty when he pulls off your clothes for you, feeling your heart scream in protest whenever he pulls away to get rid of the obstructions. Your emotions were in a delicate place, and you suddenly couldn’t handle not being able to feel him against you consistently. 

He does well to make it quick, moving back on top of you to occupy your mouth once more. He tries to migrate lower, latching onto your neck to continue his ministrations there, but you don’t let him as you pull his face back to yours again.

“I love you,” you whisper against his mouth before latching onto his lips.

He lets out a low grunt, pulling away for breath as he whispers it back, “I love you more.”

If you won’t let his mouth move, you let his hands do whatever they wish, feeling them move lower against your sides to reach your hips. His thumbs draw circles on them as he slowly moves his hands to where you can feel the arousal grow. 

His fingers hit your bare heat as he plunges them into your folds, encasing your clit between his fingers. He drags them up slowly before moving back down, all the way to your now sopping hole to brush against the opening. 

You sigh against his lips as he pushes his finger in slowly, lips releasing yours as you throw your head back to feel his digit around your walls. He pushes a second one in without hesitation, and you know he’s just as desperate as you right now. 

He’s only two fingers deep, and yet you feel yourself beginning to come undone. He always knew what to do when he wanted to stretch you out faster, always knew what to do when he wanted to draw the pleasure out, keep you writhing for hours. 

Right now was different; it felt like he was holding himself back to the point where it was almost painful. If he wasn’t worried about the stretch, he would’ve buried himself inside you already, and yet, when he feels you clench undeniably hard around his fingers as you orgasm, he feels like he might’ve cum himself. 

His low moans echo off the walls with your louder, more desperate ones, riding out your high as you feel him bring his other hand up to rub your clit in fast circles, making the pleasure last. Coming down from your high, you feel him pause for a moment as he peppers kisses on your face, down your jaw and neck, finally coming to press his lips against yours. 

“You okay?” 

You nod in response, already grasping at his boxers to yank them down. Despite having just orgasmed, the satisfaction is yet to come, needing to feel him inside you before you combusted entirely. 

He helps as he discards himself of the final obstruction, letting you stroke his painfully hard member in your hands. The face he makes is heavenly as you watch him feel your hands wrapped around him. The impatience takes over as he finally removes your hands, instead pinning them beside your head as he guides himself to your entrance. 

Seungcheol goes back to planting himself onto you entirely, knowing exactly what you wanted from him, needing to feel him against you so flush and tight. He lets you wrap your hands around his neck as he finally begins to push himself into you, letting his tip graze the beginning of your entrance. 

He breathes into your neck in deep, deep exhales, trying so hard not to cum before he’s even entered you entirely. He takes his time pushing into you, focusing on your fingers as they play with his hair, your palms running down his shoulder blades in a pathway. He closes his eyes as he sheaths himself in you completely, continuing his steady breaths to not come undone before you. 

He begins to move when he feels like he’s gotten a hold of his bearings, feeling you hold onto him as he starts thrusting into your cunt. The sounds you make are bliss; the feeling of every inch of your skin on his is making him lose his already lost mind. 

Your arms drop when they can’t hold onto him any longer, your hands remaining on him regardless, in some way or the other. Seungcheol takes hold of your hand, emerging from the crook of your neck to bring it to his mouth. He kisses it, your palms, the back of your hand, your fingers, directly over the rock he slipped on you himself. 

The tenderness of his actions makes your brain rattle against your skull, the building feeling in your abdomen coming so close to collapsing into release. You find yourself pushing yourself up on your elbows, face finding the crook of his shoulder as you push yourself back into him when pulled back in the slightest. 

You’re so close now, so, so close. “Cheol,”

“I know, darling. Cum for me, baby, I’ve got you, I’ve always got you.”

You release to the sound of his voice, the words that tumble from his desperate mouth, the feeling of his own cum shooting inside your spent walls. He continues to thrust into you as you both let out the loudest moans of the night, letting yourself get wrapped up in the feeling of each other before you lose your peak. 

You register nothing as you feel him drop his weight on top of you, letting the moment pass. 

Despite having had nights rougher, more lengthy than this, you somehow feel more spent than you have at the end of any of those escapades. The answer comes to you in the few minutes it takes for you both to catch your breath, Cheol being just as fatigued as you despite his athlete stamina. 

You feel him continue to press his lips onto your skin, letting you do the same to him in between kisses. Neither of you speak for another few minutes, letting the heaviness of your hearts come forth in the showers of love you seem to want to give each other. 

He’s grasping your left hand, toying with the ring fitted there. “I can’t wait to spend forever with you.” 

A picture of the both of you hangs on the wall in your bedroom, dim yet decipherable in the low lights. There’s a moment where you have a flash of that same photo on multiple different walls. Different shades of neutral, in different rooms in different houses. It’s the same picture. 

You think of what forever might hold for the both of you, separately and together. You let the prospect of every step, every change, and every milestone wash over you in waves that keep coming, crashing back to feed into another. 

Change, you rehearse. There had been lots of it, and yet you had merely scratched the surface of what life was about to throw at you. You knew that, Seungcheol knew that. But you found yourself, in that moment, convinced in entirety that change is good, whether it feels good or bad. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder; you didn't realize the meaning of the phrase until you had to live apart from the love of your life. Painful, difficult, sometimes agonizing, yet also necessary, you conclude. You wonder if your love would ever have grown this deep if you hadn’t felt life without each other. 

You think of how far you’ve come, how you’ve grown with each other. There was an encompassing of gratefulness that came with every step you had taken, and with every step you would take henceforth, you knew that for certain. 

Perhaps you would find yourself voicing these emotional thoughts to him, but not now. The unspoken was louder than anything you could say. 

“I can’t wait to spend forever with you, too.”

taglist (strikthru could not be tagged): @rubyreduji @vampirexlotita @simqly-yunjin @tomodachiii

[formerchaoslord]

Happy Birthday, Welch Vineyard!

(And Happy Belated Easter...)

"Hello, everyone! It's April 1st! And ya know what that means...?"

"April Fool's Day?"

"Well, yes... That, too, but...

"April 1st is also my birthday!"

"Really? Happy Birthday, Welch!"

"Thanks, kiddo! You can all expect a special Birthday Discount at the Item Creation Shop!"

Hey, everyone. Dante the Administrator here. Happy belated Easter, and Happy April Fool's. As Welch said earlier, April Fool's Day is also her birthday. I'm still on semi-hiatus, and couldn't do anything for Easter (Resurrection Sunday) yesterday, but if you send some birthday asks in, I might be able to have Welch answer them later on. Again, my time is limited, so I'm sorry if I don't get to them all today. I'll probably still have her answer some tomorrow if I have time. Anyway, I have to go now, but feel free to wish Welch a happy birthday, and when I try to come back later, Welch will respond to as much as she can. Keep up the good work, everyone, and God bless.