#i meant to finish editing it today but i kind of. didn't.

[mydetheturk]

while it is still sunday, instead of six sentences, have a couple of scrapped paragraphs from a fic that might tentatively go up tomorrow

~~

The waitress brings Vash his coffee and says something about family.

Domina looks at her and smiles, and she knows how unsettling she must look with her too-pale eyes and thin smile when she says, “Oh, this is my brother in law.”

Stampede’s eyes go wide in shock and Knives goes speechless with how hard he’s laughing up against Domina’s spinal column. The waitress congratulates them – for what, Domina’s not a hundred percent sure, but it was fine.

“What the hell was that?” Vash hisses as soon as she’s out of earshot.

Domina’s smile drops. “Oh please. What your brother and I did is far more intimate than human marriage.”

[violetszone]

Headphone Game

Charles x fem!reader

Summary: You and Charles wanted a baby for a while, when you went to the doctor's checkup, you found out that you are pregnant and you decided to tell him with a game.

WARNINGS: Bad English (a little google translate,not edited writing),fluff

It had been almost a week since  you found out you are pregnant, which meant that the baby was now 6 weeks

You still didn't tell anything to Charles you were trying to act as normal as possible but it was very difficult since you have a partner who knows you very well.

For example, when he realized that you didn't drink wine for dinner for the first few days, he understood that there was something wrong with you, and you even developed it by saying "I'm doing an alcohol detox for a while," and Charles didn't believe it, but just approved.

it was a bit difficult but you somehow managed to hide it, today you were going to explain it to him with the help of Ferrari yes it's crazy and it's unclear how he will react but you would rather do it with the whole Ferrari than do it alone.

In short, one of the managers will call you and Charles on the pretext of a video and play a headset game and you will tell him that you are pregnant sometime during the game. At first, it seemed like an easy and quick solution, well at least it made sense until you got in the car with Charles started to go to the place where the video was shot.

When you arrived, Charles went ahead and talked to everyone and learned about the video, and you were fighting a panic attack at the time.Everything was ready, you took your places in front of the camera and Charles opened the video, yes the fake video.

When you started the game, he told you first and you tried to know, 6 out of 10 was a good number, and you felt more comfortable now. It was his turn and you could see the expectation on everyone's face after 3 normal word  you decided to say it

You said "I'm pregnant" and you repeated it because he didn't understand "He doesn't understand, I'll tell you another way, you're going to be a dad Charles"

He frowned and looked "YN I don't understand why I'm death what?" You shook your head and made a gesture as if to say no.

You pointed your lips and said read it,first you spelled the word then you said you're going to be a dad then repeated then he looked at you for a second and then turned to look at the camera took off his earphones "if this is some kind of joke i'll get hurt"

"No honey I'm pregnant 6 weeks" you took the ultrasound out of your back pocket and gave it you couldn't decipher his facial expression he stood up looking at the ultrasound and you stood up with him

"Charles I-" before you could finish  your sentence, he hugged you and shouted "I'm going to be a father, do you hear I'm going to be a father, we're going to have a baby ah YN this is so special, god thank you"

You hugged tight and everyone there was applauding and congratulating you. when you got home he asked why you didn't tell him sooner and you explained everything one by one You were both happy and now that Charles knows, you didn't have to worry about the video you took, it was up to you, you would probably publish it in a few months, of course, it was your decision.

TAG LIST

@octaviareina

[sea-saur]

Out Of The Way (Omorashi Story)

Ok so I've had this story in my head ever since I saw this post and cranked it out last night/today. I didn't edit it very much, so this is basically a "typed it out, gave it some tweaks and a read over, bing bang boom" kind of deal. Just needed to get it out. Disclaimer: the events in the story are consensual, the couple has done things like this before and any distress mentioned is agreed upon in the context of the story. Also, it's kind of long. Here ya go:

It was a bright Sunday afternoon, and Cyan and Indy were on a date at the mall. They’ve been there for the past three hours, Cyan mostly interested in the bookstore (Cyan finding a graphic novel they’d been looking for, Indy excited about a new horror novel that had just come out), candy shop, and various cute knick knack stores, one of them in which Cyan and Indy both found Pochacco blind bags and, to their delight, pulled their favorites from the set. Cyan was on cloud nine, hazy with love for the day and for Indy.

Except.

Except for the fact that it had been about four hours since they’d last used the bathroom, one hour since they finished a large lemonade from the food court, and half an hour since they started feeling the first inkling that their bladder was starting to fill. They’d decided to ignore it at the time, and maybe see about finding a restroom once they were closer to leaving the mall.

“Oh perfect, here’s the botanical shop, let’s head inside!” Indy said, spotting one of their favorite stores. Indy had a modest yet thriving collection of houseplants and took pride in keeping them healthy. This independent plant store was their favorite spot to pick up soil and other odds and ends, frequenting there so often that they’d become friends with the owners. Cyan loved how well Indy took care of their plants – Cyan wouldn’t touch them, as they were known as a harbinger of death for the poor things. Cyan was better suited for furry creatures to care for than leafy.

“Oh sure!” Cyan agreed, happy to walk through the fresh smelling plants while Indy got more soil for their apartment. They were greeted at the entrance by a waterfall feature – one of those small garden decorations, where the water continually flowed from the top of the stone structure down to the small pool basin. Cyan eyed it nervously, the trickling water reminding them of their own bladder, which tingled uncomfortably at the sound. They quickly followed Indy further into the shop and blessedly, away from the waterfall.

“Violet! Lil!” Indy cheered as they caught sight of the two owners of the shop, a married couple who happened to live just down the street from Cyan and Indy. “Hey you two!” Violet said. “Didn’t tell us you were coming by today.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to be here,” Indy replied. “It’s a Sunday, after all. Don’t you usually have other staff here on Sundays?”

“Yeah, well, two of ours called out sick, what can you do.” Lil shrugged. “How’s it, Cyan?”

Cyan smiled a hello. “S’all good,” they said, shifting their weight and shoving their hands into the pockets of their denim jacket. Their need to pee was more noticeable now, and they hoped that adjusting their stance would help quell the urge while they chatted. It did for a minute, but Cyan soon realized that they couldn’t keep standing still, so they excused themself to go look around the shop while Indy continued to chat.  Unfortunately, that meant getting closer to the waterfall again. Cyan’s hands balled into fists in their pockets, mentally urging Indy to hurry up. The insistent splashing of the water into the basin was a tease to Cyan’s bladder, filling up more quickly now that the lemonade had made its way through their system. They were going to need to say something to Indy, and soon.

Thankfully, Indy finished up their purchase and said their goodbyes to Violet and Lil. “Hey, ready to go?” Indy asked Cyan.

“Yes,” Cyan breathed, relieved to finally be away from that waterfall.

“Where would you like to go next?” Indy said.

“Well, actually,” Cyan started, “could we stop at the ah, the bathroom before we keep going?”

“The bathroom?” Indy asked. They cocked their head slightly, feigning confusion, but Cyan immediately saw the knowing glint in their eye. Cyan knew what that look meant and could only hope Indy would take it easy on them.

“Yeah...” Cyan said, somewhat sheepishly. “The bathroom.”

“What do you need the bathroom for?” Indy asked, still playing innocent. Cyan groaned internally.

“I just, well...the lemonade from lunch...”

“Yes?” Indy prompted, smirking.

Cyan felt a blush start to creep on their cheeks. “Well, I finished it about an hour ago and now I just...have to pee.” They finished their sentence in a rush, their bladder panging as a reminder of that fact.

Indy gave an exaggerated nod, as if they were only now connecting the dots. “Oooh, I see. Well, I don’t think it’s time for us to take a bathroom break yet. It’s only been an hour, like you said, since you had anything to drink. Surely you can wait a bit longer.”

“Ah, but,” Cyan huffed, “I need to – “

“In fact,” Indy continued, “it’s probably a good idea if we got you another drink, don’t you think? You’re supposed to drink so much every hour, whatever that recommendation is, I forget exactly. Either way, it’s definitely time for another drink for you.” Indy took Cyan by the hand and began to drag them back to the food court. Cyan gave a small whine in protest.

“Indy, really, I need to pee – “

“No, you don’t.” Indy replied, their tone seeping with excited yet controlled dominance, “You don’t need to go yet, and any of that lemonade that’s filtering through you, well you’ll just have to hold it like a big boy. One lemonade is not enough to need to go.”

Cyan shushed at Indy’s command, letting themself be pulled back to the food court without further arguing. They’ve played this game before, and Cyan accepted that they were playing again now, although how long Cyan could hold off the inevitable...they were unsure. They were even more unsure when they landed at the soda dispenser at the center of the food court – the kind that’s self-serve for over a dozen brand and flavor options – and Indy pulled a large cup from the stack. Cyan squeezed their thighs together at the sight, forcing themself to take a deep breath and try to steady the splashing feeling in their bladder.

“Hmmm, what drink would you like?” Indy asked, looking over the options on the screen. “Oh! They have Cherry Sprite, how about that?” They turned to Cyan, gesturing with the cup.

Cyan wavered. They did like Cherry Sprite, but the large cup...

“Yeah, Cherry Sprite sounds good,” Cyan replied. “But...how about a medium?” they ventured, hoping Indy would take the bait. They didn’t.

“No, a large. We wouldn’t want you to get thirsty and have to come all the way back here, would we?” Indy added some ice, then selected the Cherry Sprite and pushed the pour button. Bright, bubbly soda started gushing out. Cyan groaned, their need to pee escalating with the sound of the drink rushing into the cup. They shifted from one foot to the other, longing for relief that was a far way off.

“Here you go!” Indy chirped, handing Cyan the now full cup. “Drink up.”

Cyan, knowing there was no way out of this, immediately obeyed, their teeth chewing at the straw while they took a large gulp. The citrusy sweet drink fizzled down their throat, and while admittedly it was delicious, it was also a stark reminder of what was already trickling into Cyan’s bladder. Cyan took a few more sips, which pleased Indy. “There,” Indy said, “doesn’t that feel good?”

“Yes,” Cyan gasped, fingers gripping the cup a bit too tight, “feels...feels good.” It did not feel good. It felt like Cyan was a water balloon quickly overfilling itself to pop, the soda and lemonade sloshing together in Cyan’s tummy down to their bladder. They bit their lip nervously, shimmying their hips from side to side.

“Good!” Indy said. “Now let’s go check out some other stores.”

Indy led Cyan throughout the mall over the next half hour, reveling in every squirm, pant, and whimper Cyan made as they went. Indy loved seeing Cyan grow desperate, their little bladder throbbing until Cyan couldn’t take it anymore and begged Indy to let them pee. And this time, Indy had something a little special planned for when that moment finally happened.

Cyan could barely concentrate while Indy dragged them from spot to spot, their need to pee growing rapidly with each sip of their soda. They fidgeted restlessly as Indy presented candles to sniff, game boxes to read, stuffed animals to feel, their bladder quivering below their belly and sending increasingly urgent signals to Cyan that they needed to go! They needed to go now!

“Indy...” Cyan said quietly, swaying from foot to foot as subtly as they could manage, their free hand hovering over their belly while the other held a now half empty soda cup, “please, I have to pee. Please can I go now?”

“Hmm?” Indy looked up nonchalantly from the price tag they were checking. They eyed Cyan’s potty dance and chuckled. “Aww, does my pup have to go so soon?” they mocked. “You haven’t even finished your soda.”

“Hnngg,” Cyan groaned, glancing at the remaining soda in the cup, condensation dripping onto their fingers and sending tingling chills up their spine. “I c-can’t finish this, Indy. I can’t take it anymore!”

“You poor thing. You’re just going to have to hold it, we aren’t going to the bathroom right now.”

“But,” Cyan protested, “but I have to go!”

“You sure sound restless,” Indy replied, ignoring Cyan’s plea, “let’s go take a seat for a minute by the fountain.”

“The fountain?” Cyan said, incredulous, as Indy took them by the hand and walked them to the main water feature of the mall – a giant white stone pool with water shoots spraying sparkling water in a circular pattern. Merry go round animals were hung form the ceiling above, making it all look rather whimsical.

“Yeah, there are benches here,” Indy said, sitting them down. Cyan immediately began to grind down on the bench, fanning their thighs in and out. The rushing water of the fountain was torture to their sensitive bladder, their own pee splashing menacingly against its walls and threatening to make its way down their urethra. “Isn’t this nice?” Indy asked. “I just love watching all this water flowing around us, so free and easy. And the sounds it makes, aren’t they relaxing?”

“Ooooh,” Cyan moaned a reply, writhing in a desperate attempt to find any sort of relief from the tingling all along their lower belly. Indy’s teasing was making the situation exponentially worse, and Cyan wasn’t sure how much longer they could hold back the flood. “Fuck, I gotta go to the bathroom. Indy, please!”

 “Big boys don’t need to go without permission. You’re just gonna have to handle it.” Indy made no move to leave the bench. “Now let’s rest here for a bit, enjoy the fountain.” They eyed Cyan. “Drink more of your soda.”

Cyan was decidedly not enjoying the fountain. They took a few quick sips from their soda to appease Indy, but their need to pee was all encompassing. They rocked back and forth on the bench, their legs quivering as their bladder sloshed inside them. The sips of that soda felt like electric bursts sliding through them, making their bladder buzz with fullness. It was torture to sit here and do nothing. Cyan longed to be sitting on a toilet instead, where they could finally relax and release all the liquid pent up about to burst –

With that train of thought, Cyan suddenly felt the first drop of pee tingling at their entrance. They panicked, jumping up from the bench and squeezing their thighs together, frozen. Fuck, no, please not a leak! Not yet! They thought frantically.

“Is something wrong?” Indy asked innocently. “Don’t you want to finish your soda before we go?”

“N-no more soda, please!” Cyan begged, crossing one leg over the other and bending at the waist. Their bladder threatened that drop closer and closer to their tip, and Cyan was desperate to gain any amount of control. “Indy, I need a bathroom, now! I have to pee so bad, please.”

Indy shook their head. “Not until you’ve finished that soda,” they replied. “Until then, you keep holding it in.”

Cyan shook their head, unable to fathom putting any more liquid into their already thrashing bladder. Pee rippled along their lower half and they wrapped their arms around themself in need. “B-but I’m going to leak!” they whispered loudly. It was thankfully pretty deserted at this area of the mall, but Cyan was still embarrassed to be seen standing like this in public.

“Not my problem,” Indy replied, although their piercing eyes and upturned smirk indicated that they were certainly enjoying the show. “You’ll hold it until you’ve finished your drink. Big boys should be able to hold two drinks without needing to pee.”

Cyan shivered, deciding quickly to obey Indy rather than waste more time arguing, and guzzled down the rest of the drink. They sucked at the straw until the cup was empty, sugary cherry flavor coating their tongue and sloshing into their belly. They gasped when they were done, “There! It’s gone. Can I please go to the bathroom now?”

Indy mock sighed, but nodded. “Well, really you shouldn’t need to go yet, since you only just finished your drink, but since you did listen very well, I suppose I could let you pee now.” Indy stood up and began moving towards the restrooms located on the other side of the fountain.

I’m going to make it, Cyan thought triumphantly, scurrying along with Indy, thighs rubbing together as they walked. I’m so close to peeing oooh god, oh god please let me make it to the door –

“Closed for Cleaning”

Immediately Cyan’s stomach dropped, and their bladder threatened to burst right there in their pants. The sight of the closed sign outside the bathroom was unbelievable, after their body was so ready to release. Cyan tensed their muscles and moaned, leaning against the side wall. “Indy, Indy it’s closed!” they whined. “A-another bathroom, please, now!”

“Oh dear,” Indy said, sounding much less surprised than Cyan. “It looks like they are closed. Too bad. Can’t you just wait until we get home?”

Home? Home was 45 minutes away, plus the bumpy roads and seatbelts, Cyan couldn’t stomach the thought. They hissed as a sharp throb of their bladder caused them to sway their hips and throw their head back in desperation. “I won’t make it home!” they cried. “I need to pee right now!”

“Well, if you really don’t think you can hold it...I do know where another bathroom is around here.” Indy eyed Cyan hungrily, flashing a shark like grin at the state of them. “It’s a bit out of the way, Violet told me about it earlier at the shop. It’s one that employees will sometimes use if they want to cheat into having a longer bathroom break by walking the distance. It’s always open, unlike the other bathrooms here on a Sunday cleaning schedule.”

“Yes!” Cyan panted. “Anything, Indy, just take me now! Please!”

“If you insist,” Indy replied. They took Cyan by the hand and guided them back across the mall.

Cyan wriggled and danced next to Indy, fighting off urge after bubbling urge to release their pent up piss right there in their pants, all onto the mall floor. After a minute of walking, Indy took Cyan through a side door, one that usually looks like an employee entrance to the back doors of the stores. On the wall inside there was a painted bathroom sign, and an arrow pointing to the right. Indy led a trembling Cyan in that direction, and through a set of double doors leading to –

Another long hallway. Cyan turned to Indy, panicked and confused and drowning in their own piss. “Indy, where’s the bathroom? The sign, it said it was this way!”

“It is,” Indy replied, continuing to walk. “I told you, it’s a bit further away. We have to keep walking. Just hold it, pup.”

Cyan was holding it, they were trying so hard to hold it, but the pressure was too much. They were bursting, their need so bad that they felt like their entire insides were just lemonade and cherry soda, sloshing around inside them like a bottle ready to pop. They whimpered, hurrying along the hallway.

It soon became apparent that Indy was telling the truth about how far away this bathroom was. They passed through three more doorways with signs indicating to go left or right to find the bathroom, but all they kept finding was more hallway, and no relief in sight. Cyan felt wild, animal like in their primal need to release. When they came to a short three step decline in their path, Cyan stumbled their way down, and in their hard landing felt their bladder shudder and a small spurt of pee escaped, wetness blooming on their underwear.

“Ahhh-“ Cyan hissed, freezing in place and shoving a hand into their crotch. Pee tickled their entrance, and Cyan moaned as they fought back another wave that threatened to come out. Their entire lower body trembled to hold back the ocean that was roaring inside them from exploding out. Ooooooh, I have to pee! Cyan moaned internally. I’m going to piss myself! Please, where is the bathroom, I need a bathroom!

“What’s the matter?” Indy asked, looking to Cyan. “Did puppy spring a leak?” Their tone was casual, teasing. Cyan whined.

“Ooooh, y-yes, yes I leaked,” they confessed, bending their knees and twisting their legs together as they bounced in place. “Indy, where is this bathroom? I c-can’t hold it anymore!”

“It’s a bit further this way,” Indy said, gesturing to yet another door that surely led to another corridor and likely not to the immediate relief of a glistening, porcelain toilet that Cyan had been longing for well over two hours now.

“I n-need a toilet now, Indy! Now!” Cyan tried to straighten up, teetering as their piss sloshed back and forth in their bladder, warning of another leak. Their pee hole tingled menacingly, the sensation utterly unbearable.

“We’re going, we’re going,” Indy replied, continuing to walk forward. “Well, you’re not going yet, but we’ll get there. Until then, I expect you to be a good pup and hold it.”

“Ooooh, hurry, please hurry Indy,” Cyan pleaded, picking up the pace with them and squeezing their thighs as they walked. Pee crashed against their bladder walls as they moved.  “I can’t hold it!”

“You’ll just have to find some way to handle it,” Indy replied, not walking nearly fast enough for Cyan’s liking. “There’s nowhere for you go to yet.”

Cyan felt their bladder surge downwards at Indy’s comment, rejecting that fact with the more pressing fact that Cyan couldn’t not piss. They were full to the brim and already starting to runneth over. After passing yet another set of useless double doors and banking another right following another useless bathroom sign, they felt another splash of urine flow down their urethra. Cyan doubled over, bouncing and moaning, practically on their knees with how scrunched up they were, dying to hold it, just hold it a few more minutes, surely the bathroom has to be close by now?

Indy looked down at Cyan’s frantic grinding and moaning and gave them a gentle touch on the shoulder. They were unbelievably turned on, and also impressed of how far Cyan was making it. It’s maybe the longest they’ve held during this game. “C’mon pup,” Indy said. “Get up. Hold it, we’re almost there.”

With a groan, Cyan stood up, and felt a sudden electric current of pure desperate need run up their spine. Their whole body was tingling, their lower belly shaking with the effort of holding back more piss than Cyan had ever held in their life. “Ooooh, I can’t take it anymore!” they cried, making a mad dash forward down the hallway and through the next set of doors, hand shoved haphazardly into their crotch. They could hear Indy’s feet hitting the floor behind them, keeping up. “I’m going to have an accident! I need to gooooo!”

Cyan burst through the next set of double doors, and to their surprise, found themself in an underground parking lot. They had just enough time to register the thought this must be extra parking for employees before their bladder shuddered and a spray of pee escaped past their shaking hand, trickling down Cyan’s thigh inside their cargo pants.

I’m peeing! I’m peeing! They thought frantically. They looked around but didn’t see a bathroom. “Where is it? Oooooh where’s the bathroom?” Cyan pleaded, kneading and twisting and grinding down in a desperate attempt to prevent another leak.

Indy appeared next to Cyan, also looking around for the bathroom. They knew it was in this garage, and after a moment, saw the sign on the door for it on the other end of the parking lot. But before they could say anything-

“I’m going to have an accident! I’m going! I can’t hold it!” Cyan wailed, unable to think straight anymore. They were losing it, fully and quickly, and couldn’t bear to take another step forward without voiding the endless amount of piss that was fighting its way out of them. Cyan grabbed themself and looked around like a deer in headlights. “Indy, hurry, is anyone watching? Is anyone else here?”

Indy knew immediately what Cyan meant, and felt their face flush with arousal. Cyan wasn’t going to make it, they were going to lose it right here in the parking lot. And Indy, excited at this turn of events, was about to let them.

Indy took an exaggerated look around the clearly empty parking lot, hearing Cyan heave a long groan as they twisted like a pretzel, bending practically to their knees before bouncing back up. Finally, Indy said “Yes, pup. You’re all clear. Go on.”

The moment Cyan heard their permission, they whipped themselves out and a spray of pee burst out of them and against the concrete pillar by their side. Pee gushed out forcefully and audibly, the stream pattering down the wall and onto the ground in a puddle. Indy watched, impressed, as their partner emptied hours worth of pent up piss. Cyan moaned loudly, their voice echoing around them, as relief washed through them. It felt orgasmic, to finally let out every drop that had been torturing them all afternoon.

When the stream finally stopped, Cyan tucked themself away and turned bashfully to Indy. “I uh...I couldn’t hold it anymore.”

Indy nodded, a laugh escaping them. “No, it looks like you couldn’t. Poor puppy had to loose it in the parking lot, huh?”

“Heh, yeah..” Cyan said, chuckling a little. “Umm, I feel much better now though, so.”

Indy nodded. “I bet you do. You pissed for so long I thought you might have drank a whole ocean.”

“It sure felt like it,” Cyan said. “I really had to go.”

“Well, maybe next time you’ll make it to the bathroom,” Indy said, pointing to the bathroom across the lot. Cyan followed Indy’s gesture and finally saw the bathroom themselves. They sighed. “Oh, so close. Yeah, maybe next time.”

“Maybe next time,” Indy repeated, giving Cyan a gentle kiss and rubbing a hand across their back. “Ready to go home?”

“Yeah,” Cyan said, relieved. “Let’s head home.”

[griffin-girl-r]

Monster (Part 1)

Created: 07.11.2023

Finished: 03.01.2023

Edited: 09.02.2024

Age: 10

Word count: 4,667

Warnings: Cussing, Guns, Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Violence, Lies

Anymore let me know

Request: Yes (Wattpad user + Tumblr user)

Sequel to: The legacy

AU: Mafia

—

The sunlight filtered through the lavish villa with its floor-to-ceiling windows and plush purple curtains, that were a constant reminder of Natasha's mysterious personality.

Natasha had started her day normally, with her morning workout and signing a few pepers that would set in motion a string of actions meant to grow her empire.

Nothing was predicting what was about to happen that very same day.

—

The invincible head of one of the most powerful mobs to have ever existed slowly, deliberately made her way up the stairs as sunlight filtered through the curtains and a gentle breeze rustled them.

Natasha's destination?

Her 10-year-old daughter's room.

She was about to wake her precious Y/N from her peaceful slumber so they could have breakfast together.

Y/N, who Natasha had protected from the darkness of her mother's world, knew that her mama was the leader of a group as everyone always looked at Natasha for orders, but she had no idea what exactly was Natasha doing for a living.

You thought she just ran many businesses, as Natasha took care to preserve your inocence and leave aside that running those businesses meant hurting people.

As she reached your bed, Natasha took a moment to admire your inocent and beautiful face, a smile only reserved for you appearing on her face.

She had honestly no idea what she had done to deserve such a beautiful and pure soul she could call her own.

Sometimes she wonders from where you inhired so much kindness.

Maybe from your father?

'Could be.' The older readhead thought

Natasha, dressed elegantly in a tailored black suit that she loved, bended down to shake her sleeping daughter awake, whispering softly, "Y/N, it's time to wake up, my darling."

Natasha didn't want to rush you.

She wanted to allow you to wake up to the world in your own time so you could be in a good mood to greet the day.

You started rubbing your eyes, letting out a yawn in the process, "Morning, Mama." You sweetly greeted your mother, only making her smile grow wider "What time is it?"

"It's ten o'clock, sweetheart. Time for us to start the day." Natasha replied, brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear as you stretched your arms

You glanced at the clock on your nightstand and, to your surprise, you notoced that Natasha had let you slept in late this morning.

"Wow, I slept in!" You looked from the clock to Natasha, shocked

"It's Sunday today, my princess." Natasha smiled, gently tracing your nose with her finger

"What's for breakfast?" You questioned as your stomach let out a loud growl

Natasha chuckled as she gathered you in her arms, tightly hugging you as she burried her nose in your hair.

Natasha didn't answer before taking your hand in hers and leading you to the dining area.

There, a table was spread with an impressive display of freshly baked croissants, blueberry pancakes, and tropical fruits.

"You're in luck, my love. Today, we have your favorite breakfast." Natasha said when she heard you gasp, smiling warmly as she helped you seat at the table

You both sat down to enjoy the delicious feast, engaging in lighthearted conversation, Natasha making sure to give you her full and undevided attention.

But there was one question that has been on your mind, that, in between bites, you found the courage to finally voice out.

"Mama, I've been wondering..." You hesitated, avoiding Natasha's gaze, unsure of her reaction "What exactly do you do for work?"

Natasha's smiling expression faltered slightly, but she quickly regained composure, not wanting to betray her façade.

"As you know, sweetheart," Natasha began, trying to keep a smile on her face for you "I manage a lot of things. But mainly, I help people. I ensure that they stay safe and secure."

That piqued your curiosity, making you want to know even more detailes about your mother's secret profession.

"But do they know about what you do?" You eagerly questioned, the breakfast long forgotten "How do you keep them safe?"

Natasha's eyes meet yours, a mixture of love and concealed secrets shimmering within them, struggling to find the right words to explain.

"Some people may not fully understand the lengths I go to protect them, Y/N." Natasha carefully chose her words "That's why I keep my work separate from our personal lives."

For a moment, Y/N pondered her mother's words. Then, her young innocence surfaced.

"Mama, can I come to work with you sometime?" You asked hopefully "I promise I'll be good."

Natasha's expression softened, and she chuckled lightly, suppressing a faint sadness.

"Maybe, when you're a little older, my darling." She softly said "For now, your place is here, being a child."

You nodded, a tinge of disappointment flickering across your face as you took a last sip of your orange juice, your eyes lingering on Natasha's figure as she got up, preparing to leave for work.

"Okay, Mama. I'll be waiting for you here when you get back." You said sadly "Then we can build the new Harry Potter Lego set uncle Bucky got me yesterday because I won't start it without you."

Natasha leaned down, planting a tender kiss on her baby's forehead. Her voice is filled with a mother's love.

"I'll be back before you know it." She smiled "I love you, Y/N/N."

As Y/N watched her mother walk towards the grand entrance, her heart felt heavy with a mixture of pride and longing.

"I love you too, Mom. Stay safe." You whispered to yourself when Natasha was out of hearing's reach

As the heavy door closed behind Natasha, Y/N was left alone in their opulent villa, a silent witness to a secret world she still yearned to explore.

She knew that someday, she would uncover the truth and join her mother in the world she had only glimpsed from a distance.

But for now, she must wait patiently, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation for the day she too would step into the shadows and play her part in keeping the world safe.

But who said that day couldn't be today?

—

Natasha stood in the dimly lit room of an abandoned building, fear and tension hanging heavily in the air caused by her sharp and deadly presence as she stood over a HYDRA member.

The man, who was a member of Natasha's biggest rival mob, looked to be in his midforties, as he stood desperate and defiant, trembling while tied by Natasha's men to a chair.

Although bloodied and bruised by Natasha's torture, he kept refusing to reveal the informations she was was seeking.

Through gritted teeth, the HYDRA member, fueled by his determination, challenged Natasha's ability to extract their secrets.

"You think I'll give up our secrets that easily?" He chuckled mockingly "You're gravely mistaken, Natasha!" The man declared

Natasha smirked, a hint of amusement mingling with the darkness in her intentions.

She took a step closer, circling him like a predator stalking its prey. Her piercing gaze bores into him, determination etched on her face.

"Oh, sweetie, I never expected it to be easy," She replied confidently "But trust me, people like you always break. It's just a matter of time."

The woman's attention drifted to the HYDRA member's clenched fists, trembling with both pain and defiance. Impatience flickering within her as she narrowed her eyes.

"You see, I've got a timeline to keep. And I won't waste it dancing around your games." Natasha says, her back turned to him

"Why?" The man laughed "You have a child waiting for you at home?"

Natasha tried to stay calm.

She couldn't allow the member to manipulate her judgment by using her sweet daughter against her.

Casually, the red-headed woman pulled out a sleek, silver pistol from her belt.

The cold metal gleaming in the dimness of the building's lights.

"One last chance, my friend," Natasha warned, her voice laced with an eerie calmness but her friendly demeanor was gone "Tell me what I need to know, or I'll have to find another way to encourage your cooperation."

Smirking defiantly, the HYDRA member responded "You think a bullet from that gun is going to make me betray my comrades? You're delusional, Natalia."

Natasha's calmness faded, replaced by a cold determination that instilled fear even in the bravest souls.

Without a moment's hesitation, she swiftly turned around, raising her pistol, and aiming it at the HYDRA member's forehead.

"I was hoping you'd choose the easy way out..." The boss murmurs, slightly disappointed

A single gunshot reverberates through the room, the sound of finality.

The HYDRA member's lifeless body slumped forward, blood pooling onto the cold concrete floor.

"Was it really necessary to kill him, Natasha?" Clint, Natasha's best friend who was present in the room, questioned

"I agree with birdhead." Maria said

"I wouldn't question Natasha's decisions if I were you." Steve turned to his two friends

"I agree." Bucky, the last person present in the room, nodded while checking the sharpness of his knife's blade

Natasha remained silent, her eyes glued to the blood that was expanding at her feet.

And just as the silence threatened to envelop the room again, a soft whimper broke through.

Natasha's eyes widened with surprise "We're not alone." She warned

The lifeless body of the HYDRA member lay forgotten, a casualty of Natasha's relentless pursuit of power, as the group quickly took a fighting stance, weapons being pulled out, ready to protect their leader and friend.

Natasha turned towards the spot from where the sound was heard and saw a slightly ajar locker.

She slowly started walking towards it, ready to face whatever was hiding inside.

—

Natasha tightened her grip on the gun in her hand, her hands steady and ready to shoot at any moment if needed.

Her steps echoed throughout the empty room as her heels made contact with the cold floor.

Trailing behind her were Bucky, Steve, Clint, and Maria, all prepared to fight at a moment's notice.

The boss' steps where mesured, each one meticulously calculated, as the air around them grew heavy with anxiety.

Slowly, Natasha reached out towards the locker door, and with one swift move, she slammed it open, pointing her gun at whatever lay behind it.

Silence enveloped the room once more before a loud gasp escaped the read headed woman's lips.

"Y/N?!" Natasha shouted, her voice unintentionally coming out too high-pitched

You flinched at the sound as your trembling body began to shake even more violently.

Natasha was shocked. Of all things, she never expected to find her precious daughter hidden in that damned locker.

"Baby?" Natasha breathed out, quickly putting away the gun she had aimed at your head "How did you get here?"

Natasha tried to place her hand on your shoulder.

"Get away from me!" You cried out, quickly moving away from Natasha

You crawled out of the locker in a second as you took a few steps backwards, trying to get as far away as possible from your mother and the rest of your family.

"Sweetheart?" Natasha called out "How did you get here?"

Natasha was confused, to say the least.

She couldn't understand how the fuck were you able to get all the way here.

How did no one see that you had followed them?

"Don't touch me!" You yelled when Natasha tried to touch you again

Tears were already streaming down your face and, as you looked at your mother with your teary eyes, you couldn't recognize the woman who stood before you anymore.

"You're a monster!" You cried out in pain "Monster!"

Taking a big step forward, you tried to push Natasha backwards with all your might, but compared to the strenght of your mother, your effort was almost non existent.

Natasha took half a step back to give you the impression that you had managed to push her, but otherwise, she didn't budge.

"Baby, Y/N, how are you here?" The older redhead asked again, confusion evident in her voice as she tried to maintain her calm "What have you seen?"

"You killed him!" You pointed to the corpse of the enemy, now laying in a pool of blood

You were now old enough to know what a criminal is, and you are now more than certain that your mama was one as well.

"How could you do this?!" You shouted

"Honey, this is not what it seems." The boss tried to save what was left of your innocence "We were just playing." She explained "You know that Mama's job is to protect people."

"Y/N/N!" Your godmother, Maria, called "Let's go home, kid. Your Mama will explain everything when we've all calmed down a little."

"I don't want to go home!" You shouted in Maria's direction, though your tear-blurred vision made it difficult to see her clearly

Bucky, thinking it would be a good moment to step in, kneeled beside you.

"Princess, I think you should let us explain ourselves first." He began "And we can have ice cream while we all talk."

"No, James!" You shouted, moving away from Bucky's touch as he placed his hand on your shoulder

Everyone froze.

You had never called Bucky by his real name.

He was mostly 'Uncle Bucky' , 'Bucks' , or just 'Bucky'.

Only Natasha called the man by his birth name.

"Oh, come on, doll," Bucky said, overcoming his shock and masking it with a cheerful tone. "Don't be so serious. Only your mother can scare me like you did. When she's angry, she shouts my name like that."

You looked again to the dead body, only to find it already gone and your Uncle Steve nowhere in sight.

You knew he was the only one fast enough to get rid of it.

"Listen to us, Y/N." Clint also spoke for the first time "You know you're my favorite niece."

"I'm your only niece." You sniffed, seemingly more calm, and everyone tought that maybe they had the situation under control

But their hopes were soon dashed as you bolted past everyone and ran towards the first door you saw.

"Y/N!" Natasha's eyes went wide, and she quickly darted after you

Bucky and Steve, who had just returned to the room, followed closely behind the two redheaded Romanoff girls.

They should have known that you were tricking them.

After all, you are your mother's daughter.

Just as Natasha was about to catch up with you, you proved yourself sneakier than they had anticipated, taking a right turn and disappearing from their sight.

The adults followed, finding themselves on a back street behind the building they had been in.

"Where is she?" Steve asked, confused, looking around for any sign of you

"Y/N!" Natasha breathlessly shouted "Baby, where are you?!"

"Y/N!" Steve shouted

"Y/N!" Bucky yelled, starting to look around for any trace of you "Doll, stop playing and come out from wherever you're hiding. This isn't funny!"

"Sweetie!" Natasha called out, sniffing, as realization of what happened settled in "Mama's sorry, honey. Please come here."

"Natasha..." Bucky turned around to look at his boss before he was interrupted

"Nat!" Steve shouted, chatching Natasha and Bucky's attention as they snapped their heads in the direction of his voice

Steve bent down and picked up something from the ground.

"I think I know where Y/N is." The blond man said, looking in disbelief at his friends

Natasha felt as if her heart was about to jump out of her chest as Bucky raised his metal arm and placed it on her back, bracing himself for whatever was about to come.

Steve held up the object in his hand and showed it to them.

Natasha's breath caught in her throat as she took in the sight before her.

HYDRA's symbol proudly shone in the sunlight, confirming her worst fear.

The boss was smart enough to understand what the presence of that badge with the symbol of her greatest enemy meant.

HYDRA had kidnaped her precious baby girl.

She didn't know how it could be possible, given the fact that they were only two seconds behind you but no matter how this happened, the mother was determinated to get her baby back.

"What are we going to do now?" Bucky breathed out

—

Natasha was tirelessly pacing back and forth on the long red carpet in her office; her angered voice was the only sound that broke the otherwise silent room.

"How could this happen?!" Natasha shouted as she stopped in front of Bucky Barnes and Maria Hill. "How could a little girl get past my supposed impenetrable security?! How did none of you notice Y/N sneak inside the car?!"

Maria and Bucky exchanged a quick, side-eyed look before both of their heads hung low.

It was as if the wooden floor of Natasha's office had become interesting all of a sudden.

"Talk!" Natasha shouted when the people in front of her hesitated to answer.

"We..." Maria, the person who was in charge of Natasha's security and the training of her men, began. "We have no idea how the men failed to notice-"

"I haven't asked about the men!" Natasha cut Maria's sentence off. "I asked how you haven't noticed Y/N getting inside the car. You and Bucky, Maria," Natasha clarified.

"It was a terrible error, Nat." Bucky was the one to speak now. "I guarantee you that, from now on, we will be more vigilant and we'll double the security guards to prevent this from happening again. We can-"

Bucky's sentence, as well as Maria's, was cut short when Natasha forcefully grabbed Bucky by his shirt and pulled him closer to her, despite the obvious height difference between them.

"You had one job, James." Natasha breathed out through gritted teeth, her eyes burning with a mix of anger and disappointment. "You had to make sure that, no matter what happens, Y/N will not leave this house without my knowledge and consent, and only after that, follow me."

Bucky's shoulders fell as he once again lowered his head, guilt seeping inside his heart.

"I'm sorry..." The man with a metal arm whispered guiltily.

"I want to hear none of this." Natasha shook her head, her tone seemingly calmer. "Yes, Maria had to transform this house into a fortress impossible to penetrate, but you, James, you had the greatest responsibility of them all." The redhead tried to look into the man's eyes. "You had to be the personal bodyguard of our daughter, James, ensure her safety above anything else, and you failed. You promised to keep her safe, and look where we are now. HYDRA has our precious little girl, and we have no information about her state or about, who knows what, they might have done to her. You failed Y/N." Tears glistened in the mother's eyes. "You failed me."

Bucky dryly swallowed the lump in his throat; the burden on his shoulders never felt heavier than now.

He failed.

And he knows it.

He knows that if something were to happen to the impossible product of the passionate love he and Natasha once shared, the consequences will be catastrophic. Natasha's wrath knows no bounds when it comes to her one and only offspring.

If something were to happen to their beloved daughter, Bucky would be the only one to blame.

"I swear that I'm going to bring our little girl back here safe and sound." Bucky met Natasha's tearful gaze, determination shining in his eyes. "It's my duty as a father, Natalia."

Natasha took a deep breath; her facade momentarily dropped in front of the man she once laid bare her soul and body.

In front of the man who knew all her scars, seen and unseen.

"You better, or I won't be Natalia for you anymore. You'll have to meet Natasha if you don't fulfill your duty as her Papa." Natasha quietly sniffed before taking a step backwards, her back straightening as she regained her composure. "You have 24 hours to bring my daughter back home, or else I am going to tie you both to my car, drag you through the entire New York before slowly boiling you to your death and cut you up in pieces and feed you to Reaper, who would be more than delighted to eat you."

Natasha pointed to Reaper, your dog, a towering Doberman who could devour a person in seconds if commanded, but otherwise a gentle and loving companion.

Reaper slowly walked to Natasha and nudged her hand with his nose, looking up at her as if he knew that something was terribly wrong.

Despite having a scary appearance, Reaper was a loyal companion and fiercely protective of you and Natasha.

But more specifically, of you.

Natasha had bought Reaper three years ago for you, hoping that you would find a friend in that puppy and learn to be responsible at the same time.

But you and Reaper had become so much more than just friends.

It was as if you and he were connected by an invisible bond that transcended any logical explanation.

"What is it, boy?" Natasha asked, concerned, her voice soft, as she crouched down next to the dog, petting his head. "What happened?"

Reaper looked at Natasha, and in that moment, the three people in the room could see tears forming in the animal's eyes.

It was as if a lightbulb lit up above Natasha's head when she saw it, her heart dropping to her stomach.

"Is Y/N, isn't she, Reaper?" Natasha hesitated to ask as if the dog could answer her with words. "What happened to Y/N, boy? What happened to her?"

All adults watched intently every move the Doberman made, holding their breath in anticipation.

Reaper let out a whimper before his muscular body collapsed to the floor with a long sigh at Natasha's feet, his fall cushioned by the soft carpet beneath their feet.

Natasha's eyes widened with dread; Bucky's brows furrowed in confusion, and Maria's steady hands unexpectedly started trembling.

They knew it was physically impossible, but they couldn't deny that this sign scared them.

Natasha slowly stood back up from her crouched position and took a deep breath before she directed her attention back to her two trusted friends.

"Go!" Natasha ordered angrily. "Leave and find Y/N as soon as possible. I swear that you will not live to see tomorrow's sunrise if my baby isn't back in my arms by then."

Bucky and Maria nodded and hurriedly rushed out of the room, both desperate to achieve one goal.

Bring Y/N safely back home.

—

"I don't give a fuck that your men are out undercover on the streets of Asgard, Thorvald," Natasha shouted into the phone's speaker. "You're going to gather them all from that city's streets and send them to find any trace of my daughter. End of discussion!"

Natasha ended the call before she threw her phone on her desk with a long sigh.

"Remind me again why I have made an ally out of Thorvald Odinson?" Natasha placed her head into her hands.

Clint, Natasha's best friend and most trusted person, looked up at her and shrugged.

"Maybe because Thor saved your life during an attack where he could have easily let you die?" The man raised his eyebrow. "Or maybe because he genuinely cares about you, and I bet that right in this moment, he already has all his men retreated from the streets and sent out to scout the area around HYDRA's territory?"

"That's because he has the personality of a Golden Retriever." Natasha pointed out with a scoff. "His hair included."

"That's true." Clint nodded. "But you must admit he has been a loyal friend and a great hide and seek partner for Y/N."

A faint smile made its way onto Natasha's lips before it was quickly replaced by a frown.

"I am so worried, Clint." Natasha's voice shook as she looked up with tearful eyes at her friend. "I'm scared that something bad happened to Y/N. It's all my fault that she had to see me as what I truly am." She took a deep breath before continuing. "A monster."

Clint took a few steps forward and placed a comforting hand on Natasha's shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze.

"It's not your fault, Nat." Clint said in a sympathetic voice. "You only tried to protect her. You tried to hide her from the horrors of the world you had been forced to live in because you didn't want her to have the same childhood as you did."

"And at what cost?!" Natasha threw her hands into the air. "Look where it had brought me."

"We're going to find her, Tasha." The man reassured his friend.

All of a sudden, the door of Natasha's office burst open, and Bucky, Steve, and Maria ran inside, pure terror written on their faces as Bucky clung to something in his right hand.

Natasha shot to her feet as her eyes searched the faces before her for reassurance, but the only thing she found was her own panic mirrored on her friends' faces.

Clint followed suit and straightened his back as he understood that something was terribly wrong.

"Nat..." Bucky breathed out, his eyes swimming in unshed tears.

Natasha took a few tentative steps towards Bucky, a deafening silence enveloping the room as the powerful boss stopped in front of the man who once was hers.

No words were spoken, but Natasha understood.

Bucky lifted his arm and showed the redheaded woman the object he was tightly holding.

Natasha's breath caught in her throat, and the world around her started spinning.

The people around her instinctively took a step forward, but Bucky was quicker in reacting as he managed to catch the woman just in time.

"Natalia!" Bucky shouted as he supported Natasha's weight with one arm while shaking her head with the other.

"Natasha, are you okay?" Steve asked, concerned.

But Natasha didn't respond. She remained limp in Bucky's arms, her face pale, and her eyes wide with shock. The room fell into a heavy silence as everyone watched helplessly.

Finally, Natasha took a shuddering breath, and her eyes refocused. She looked up at Bucky, her voice barely a whisper. "Is... is that... Y/N's shirt?"

Bucky nodded, his own voice filled with pain. "I'm so sorry, Talia. They sent it to us... drenched in her blood."

Tears welled up in Natasha's eyes as she clutched onto Bucky tightly, the weight of the situation finally hitting her.

They had confirmed her worst fear: Y/N had been taken by HYDRA, and there was no doubting the severity of the situation.

Natasha pulled away from Bucky and steadied herself, her eyes darting around the room. "We need to find her. We need to bring her home."

Steve stepped forward, determination etched on his face. "We'll do everything we can, Nat. We'll find her."

Natasha nodded, her resolve hardening. "I don't care what it takes. I don't care who gets in our way. We are going to bring our daughter back."

Clint stepped forward, his voice steady. "We have contacts, Nat. We have resources. We'll use everything at our disposal to track down HYDRA and get her back."

Maria, who had been silently observing, finally spoke up. "I'll coordinate with our intelligence network. We'll gather all the information we can and find any possible leads."

Natasha looked at each person in the room, gratitude and determination in her eyes. "Thank you, all of you. We're a family, and we're going to fight for our little heir."

But as she tightly clung to the small, bloodied shirt of her baby girl, Natasha couldn't escape the panic and worry that had engulfed her brain and heart, one question lingering.

Was Y/N still alive?

—

Permanent taglist: @observeowl , @circe143 , @mmmmokdok , @justarandomreaderxoxo , @theunchosenonee , @lovelyy-moonlight , @natsxwife , @lizlil , @darkstar225 , @dannipotatoo , @ravensinthedaylight , @halstead-severide-fan , @daggersquadphantom , @froufrousnowman , @youralphawolf72 , @cherlenovix

[shion-yu]

Day 10: The Sniffles

991 words, no TWs. @sicktember 2024 drabble ft. the whole cast: Ryo, Alex, Cliff and Elliot, ft Elliot being the grump for once.

Four people sharing several hours in a sound proof, poorly ventilated garage was a recipe for contagion. For this exact reason, Elliot, Alex and their associated boyfriends tried to be good about letting the others know as soon as they came down with something. But the thing about a cold was sometimes it came on suddenly, or it just felt like allergies or a tickle from dry autumn air until suddenly it wasn’t. This was the case today, as Elliot sneezed for the fifth time while they attempted to finish rehearsal. 

It was a bit under a month before he and Alex went on their first big tour together, and so their respective partners were unsurprisingly a little clingy at the moment. Cliff came to most of the rehearsals if he was feeling up to it and would help out working on any PR or editing stuff they needed done; Ryo came to hang out when he wasn’t in class. Their practice space was Shu’s garage turned studio, expertly sound proofed by Elliot’s father. For now, practice still felt like a family affair. But they all knew things were changing quickly, and excitement throbbed in the air.

Practice was running long today. It was cold, their space still just a garage in the end. Elliot sneezed a sixth time that afternoon, ducking away from the microphone to avoid causing a very loud noise. 

“Bless you,” Cliff said.

“Thanks,” Elliot sniffled. He cleared his throat. “Alex, let’s-“

“-Go home,” Alex interrupted. 

Elliot blinked in confusion. “What?” 

“You’re sick,” Alex said, looking uncomfortable. “And you’re gonna get everyone else sick. Go home.”

“I’mb not sick,” Elliot said, the stuffy voice and loud sniffle he did to clear it not helping his case any. “It’s just the weather, Alex, I feel fine.”

“You don't look that fine,” Ryo piped in from his usual spot, a bean bag on the floor.

Elliot rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Ryo,” he said. “Like I said. I feel fine.”

So they finished practice, because what Elliot said pretty much always went. The next day, though? The next day was worse to the point that denying it would be stupid. 

Elliot truly had felt fine. He still felt fine. But he couldn’t deny he had some kind of head cold that was making his nose run like crazy by the next day’s practice. And unfortunately, so did Alex and Ryo. Cliff had it too, but because he was Cliff, it meant he was also coughing and sleeping it off. 

“No Cliff?” Ryo asked when he showed up that afternoon, his nose pink and his eyes rheumy. He sniffled loudly. “We figured he’d get hit if we did.”

“Yes, thank you for pointing out that I gave my immune suppressed boyfriend a cold,” Elliot said irritably. He already felt guilty enough about it. Apparently the only symptoms Alex, Ryo and Elliot had were the congestion of a minor cold and increased bitchiness though. All three of them sniffled and sneezed through practice, and Elliot and Alex were soon at each other's throats. The two almost never fought, which was part of the reason their partnership did so well, but Elliot was snippy and Alex was making stupid mistakes.

“I told you, if you don't play this part by itself really well there's no point in it being different from the rest of the beat,” Elliot said in frustration.

Alex scowled at him. “Maybe if you didn't make it so unnecessarily complex,” he muttered. “It sounds fine either way.”

“I don't want it to sound fine, I want it to sound unique,” Elliot snapped back. “Try again.”

“I don't want to,” Alex grumped. “I don't feel good. Can't we do this tomorrow?”

Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, the headache that had been only worsening for the past hour not improving his patience. “We already said that yesterday,” he said. He didn't feel good either, and he was very aware that none of them did because of him. 

Ryo could clearly sense the rising tension and stood up, holding his hands up as a sign of peace. “Okay, guys, c'mon. Elliot, it's only half an hour earlier than we planned to end anyways and neither of you are doing your best work. Sometimes you just have to stop today so you can do better tomorrow, that’s what my coach used to tell me. I don't think any of us really feel good, so let's just call it a day.”

Elliot was still annoyed, but he knew Ryo was right. He took a deep breath, which turned into a cough, and then conceded. “Okay, fine. But let's meet early tomorrow.” Alex nodded, and Elliot felt a little worse knowing he wanted this to be perfect as much as Elliot did. Today just wasn't the right day for it.

Ryo drove himself and Alex to their apartment, and Elliot trudged inside of Shu’s house where it was much warmer than the garage. Cliff was waiting for him in bed, pale but not feverish. “You’re done early,” he said sleepily, coughing and holding his arms out to Elliot. Elliot quickly got in bed with him and hid his face in Cliff's chest.

“Yeah, we all felt like crap and I was being a jerk,” he mumbled. “Alex probably hates me.”

“Alex loves you,” Cliff said. “And it's just an off day. It's just an annoying head cold.”

“For us,” Elliot said. “What about you?”

“It’s just a cold for me too,” Cliff reassured him, rubbing Elliot’s back. “Your skin is so cold, that garage wasn't doing you any good. Take a nap and you’ll feel better.”

Elliot laughed tiredly. Cliff's solution was usually a nap, and it also usually worked. “Just a little while,” he said, sniffling pathetically. “I don't want to ruin my sleep tonight.”

Cliff just rubbed his back until he fell asleep, and Elliot slept until the next morning.

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of lawn care

10:30pm, sunday, may 26, 2024

cut the grass today, and then went and spent two hours lolling around outside, sitting on a blanket that even now smells perfectly of summer

reading just finished kj charles' the henchmen of zenda (thank you @yogurtforever for mentioning it to me! please overlook the fact that i'm about to go off) and i have to say, surprisingly, this was a rare kj charles miss, for me! i still finished it, i still think i'm glad i read it, but from an author who i've adored all of her other work, it's odd to realize i didn't have as much fun here as i would have liked. two reasons for this, possibly, one that i think it was an early work for her [edit: nope came out in 2018] and two that i actually had read the source material of which this is an au, and i found it continually grating that this book's whole tone and style is set up to be cynical about the original prisoner of zenda novel. if you want the critique to really, actually matter, don't change so much! don't make your case by actually rewriting the entire personalities of the king and player-king, who in this turn into strawmen because they've literally been restructured to prove monarchy is awful. the other option, b), would be to step further away from the source material, in which case you need to stop quoting the original book and integrating so much of the original language. bah. this leaves us open for one of my most irritating little meaningless quibbles, which is that a character gets very self-righteous about what the original novel's narrator meant by using the term 'well-bred', to the point that i think ends up actually being ahistorical and weakening the overall critique we're trying to produce here.

charles is also trying to introduce more time and personality for the female characters (moderate success) and insert some revolutionary, 'hey wait a minute the best answer here is not a continuation of the monarchical system where everyone sucks' sentiment (middling to poor success). i just...found i really hated the idea that every character was Worse, Actually than in the original novel, although in fairness it is believable that the pov character here would think that, i guess. you chose a narrator who's going to take a cynical view of everything, and are trying to show how he allows himself to trust and/or like certain very few people, and it didn't make for a great reading experience.

the same, however, can't be said for the other two books here, although arguably they are also dealing with a narrator who is a) damaged and grieving b) gay. katherine addison's the goblin emperor was a christmas/birthday gift for me in...2022 and was such a gem, a gift in multiple senses, and this spring i have finally indulged in the two companion (?) novels, which i read voraciously on Eclipse Day and the weeks following, and then have turned around and listened to in audiobook almost immediately. the world of amalo is no less full of horror, death and injustice and corrupt or infuriating structures of power are a big part of the inciting action, but the time we spend seeing the people who are kind makes these so much more. pleasurable to read. plus the details of the city, the public transit, the tea houses, the opera, the belle epoque prague vibes. there's comparatively more death, more 'true crime' style mystery solving, more small vignettes of crime (reminding me that she does like writing cases like this, and making her her sherlock holmes au angel of the crows, pictured in ilcb 05/12/24 but not discussed, fit into place in a new way), but the lack of cynicism matters.

listening a lot of podcasts lately. had reason to try and sum up my podcast habit recently, and realized that i am really almost constantly listening to one, of some variety. i go through different moods and will switch between shows to find the right vibe rather than try to finish one all the way through. that being said, the list i tell people when asked 'oh what do you listen to?' is, like, 99% invisible (genuinely really enjoying the robert caro the power broker read-along, despite not reading the book-- it's fascinating) and articles of interest and ologies, whereas this week i think it was primarily no such thing as a fish, followed by normal gossip, followed by i hate it but i love it followed by some npr and crooked media pods (god help me, i do still check in on their election takes and will probably continue to do so out of morbid curiosity). the maxfun shows i listen to? are like family to me, and may be just as overlooked-- but you can bet that's where i'm turning first when stuck on a long subway ride.

watching had reason, last week, to sit down and watch the entire new season of gamechanger start to finish. y'all heard about this shit? gamechanger? anyone? yes? i bought dropout for myself and a few friends last year, and it has been the best possible investment. i love feeling the, like, increase in energy and stakes and creative chaotic potential in each new episode, each new show that gets added to the roster, but i love gamechanger til death do us part. hard to pick a favorite bit for cast psychic damage and resulting peak performances (second place?? bingo?? the timeloop??? sam says????) so let me here give a shout-out to the lesser memed episodes this season, the drawfee collab and the newlyweb game (scream) and beat the buzzer, all of which were so fun while featuring people i knew less or not at all. the little sam reich matryoshkas absolutely killed me. can we hear it for the motherfucking ART DEPARTMENT.

playing having beaten one of the colosseum of fools tournaments in hollow knight, i've gone back for round two and am now emotionally trapped until i can win this second one. since i need the pale ore from it in order to upgrade and do anything more challenging. so it goes. this has also meant that i turned back to other games, after not wanting to continue to die so very much. chants of sennaar was there waiting for me so politely, and i got through the third language and felt pretty accomplished after puzzling slash brute-forcing it i had to do to make things work. was not expecting the uh. the jumpscare, as it were, at the end of the bards' level. but look how gorgeous.

making made a pretty passable banana bread today. the ratio of banana to other ingredients was a little off, so it's largely just 'bread' and isn't too sweet, but it's more than edible.

working on ignoring my email inbox, ignoring my article revisions, ignoring my chapter edits--forgot to send out the email with discussion questions for our panel discussion which we meant to send out this friday, fuck! trying to make progress on paid tasks and stay on top of those hours before i leave, trying to also organize my trip which has meant, like it or not, getting back to some of those emails. also i found an article in welsh which i had been unaware of which will be Extremely Good to have read, even if it doesn't tell me anything too new, just so that i can prove i did. my footnotes always feel so anemic. hopefully this helps, and hopefully i speed up--currently reading about two pages an hour if i'm lucky.

[h0ney-mochi]

Scaramouche x reader (readers pronouns not mentioned)

SFW (a mention of readers' assistant making out with someone ;; readers pronouns are not mentioned, but written with fem in mind)

Summary: you work at the pharmacy in the Fatui. frequent visits of injured people and agents, workers, sometimes the harbingers' themselves. since you have so much work, you get assistant requests. but turns out ur assistant was a lil stupid so you threw them out and scara saw it!

A/n: I got inspired by this one comment on a scara playlist and decides to write a lil something. This is meant to be as scara never thinking of you being mean or hurting anyone, so when he sees you like this, he can't help, but imagine.... aka when he thinks of u being mean he can't stop thinking of you dominating him COUGHOUGHCOUGH

A/n 2: I accidentally posted it while I was editing it GAHHHH tumblr so stupid, just stay on "save draft" not "post" mf!!!!

You were sweet, kind and soft — that's how the people saw you. That's how the fatui saw you. Everyone knew that, especially because you were working in the pharmacy room — you weren't the one with needles, some others were dealing with that. You were like quick care. You get it.

The other harbingers found you reliable, since you would always help and look out for everyone and everything. Scaramouche on the other hand just scoffed every time when you noticed he has some bruises or cuts, whatever.

..That was of course, when he was sitting on the chair in front of you while you inspected them. "Can you not? I've got business to do," he speaks, before hissing when you put a bit of liquid on a cut. "Yeah, let me finish up and you'll be good to go, Scara," you pay no mind, bringing a cotton ball to clean away some blood and the liquid. He would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy this. Your care. Something he ran away from. After a moment, you applied a small bandaid on his cut and threw out the paper and ruined cotton. You smiled at him, "You're good to go!" He rolled his eyes at you, "yeah, right."

Scaramouche got up, fixing his clothes. Then he simply walked away from you, out of the room. He muttered a silent thank you and you caught that, not saying anything. You went to make yourself a tea and look at what else you could do today. There were a few papers on people that wanted to be your assistant in the pharmacy, so you sat down with your tea and started looking through them. That will take a while, so might as well inspect them thoroughly.

.. A few days had passed since you looked through the submissions. You spoke with one of the people, accepting them as your assistant at the pharmacy. You made sure to always remind them where they work and what they need to do. Soon you didn't need to do that at all because they were a good assistant, helping you get the needed medicine or materials, even helping you out by stitching up the Fatui people when you were busy with another or gone on a task. They were reliable and that's what you liked, what you needed for an assistant. You thanked the Archons for finally giving you a good assistant.

Until one day.

You had went out to get a package you had requested, since you were starting to run out of something specific. You let your assistant know and left to get your stuff. It didn't take that much time, so you were soon going back to the place. You open the door, greeting your assistant, saying you're back and that you got what you.. needed...

You stop in your tracks when you notice your assistant making out with a fatui agent. They immediately stopped, your assistant turning to you in shock. You stared. Your assistant quickly got off the agent and smiled at you nervously. "Ah, he came for a check up, had to help him with a few cuts from a fight!" They spoke, while the agent just sat at the bed, not knowing what to do in this situation. Your smile was already gone, "And that check up includes making out on a hospital bed? What, is he your boyfriend?" They went quiet. "Um.. no, he's not-" you watched as they got more nervous. The agent got up, "I have a girlfriend, please don't tell anyone about this." Your eyes widened. Oh my god.

The door wasn't closed because your hands were full, so your yelling echoed through the hallway, gaining attention of the agents and other people that were doing their job or just walking somewhere else. "When I was looking through the applications, I didn't read that you'll be making out with strangers!" You spoke, pointing at the agent and then at the door. He scurried away and you quickly made note of some if his features. Then you turned to your assistant, who was trying to smile at you, explain themselves. "It was just an accident, I was trying to get closer so I could see the bruises on his face-!" They quickly tried to lie their way out.

"You were good for the first.. what? Six days? Oh wow. Impressive," you got more mad, "If I knew you would be a slut, I would have denied you!" There was a crowd forming at the pharmacy entrance, a bunch of whispering, trying to figure out the situation. They were also surprised to see you yelling.

You couldn't believe that you made such a mistake. It made you wonder, the times when you were gone.. were they doing more inappropriate behavior in your pharmacy? Hell no. You brought out a dagger from your desk, immediately walking over to your assistant. They jumped for a moment, about to flee from you, but you caught them by their collar. "I'm really sorry, it won't happen again-!" They quickly said as you were pulling them away. The crowd moved a bit away from the door once they saw you approach. "Of course it won't happen again, because you'll be gone!" You spat, throwing them out the door, onto the floor with a loud thud.

It seems that the commotion had caught the attention of Scaramouche. He was about to yell at the people, but once he saw that they were at the pharmacy, he quickly ran to them. Squeezing through the people, others quickly getting out the way. He spoke loudly, "What the hell is going on?!" He immediately shut up once he noticed your assistant on the ground. His eyes shot up, realizing you're also there. You were glaring down at them.

You stepped closer, your assistant turning on their back and trying to get away, keeping themselves up with their elbows. You pushed your foot on their chest, making them collapse again. Slightly leaning down, pointing the dagger at them, you glared in their eyes.

"If I see your slutty ass in my pharmacy again, I'll dispose of you myself." You warned. They nodded quickly and you took your foot away, telling them to leave. They clumsily got up from the floor, fleeing from the place. You straightened your back, sighing. You looked at the crowd and noticed Scaramouche with his mouth agape, eyes wide. You dropped your dagger in surprise, "Oh, Scara! Did something happen again, you're hurt?" He didn't respond, continuing to stare. "I'm sorry for all the noise, I found out that there were bugs living in the pharmacy, so I had to disinfect the place," you quickly explained, also looking at the crowd with a small smile. You took your dagger off the ground and quickly went to Scara. "Sorry again, the place is safe now, let me give you a check up!" You said, pulling the man in the room by his wrist.

His words caught in his throat as he looked down where you held him, firm grip on him. Scara gazed up at you quickly and then back, warmth filling his face. You sat him down on a chair and went to the door again, telling the people if they don't have any injuries, they should go back to work. You close the door and go back to Scaramouche, putting your dagger away. "Looked like you came in a hurry, are you okay? Some business again?" You asked, leaning down, gazing at his features. He just stared at you, silent. You put a hand to his cheek and then to his forehead.

"Oh? Do you have a fever?" You mumble, "You're really warming up." He finally got back to reality and leaned away from you, shaking his head. "What- no, I'm not sick, idiot, I'm feeling good," he speaks, furrowing his brows at you. You put your hand away and chuckled, "Alright, but I still need to check you on that." "As if I can get sick," he groans and you straighten your back, crossing your arms. "Explain the heat then, huh," you say, going to a cabinet. Scara opens his mouth to explain, but he stops. Oh right. He can't just say it's you, can he? So he gets up and walks to the door immediately. You turn around, "Hey, where are you going!" "Don't forget I have other things to do other than sit and wait!" He says with a hint of annoyance and leaves. You ran to the door, but he was already gone. What..?

He left fast. He couldn't just tell you that you threatening your assistant was kinda.....

[exonerin]

✾ WIP WEDNESDAY [Obikin | AO3] ✾

Today, I present chapter 3 of Not Made To Last and I offer a snippet of chapter 4! And yes, this time I didn't forget the link to the fic on AO3. (Yes, I edited this post because I forgot the link again)

Please read chapter 3 first before you enjoy the extra snippet. Also, music:

Without further ado, here's more drama:

So, he shuffled back to the room he shared with Obi-Wan, filled with more questions than answers. Also, his chest still itched. Thus, it wasn't surprising Anakin couldn't sleep. Something felt off. Suddenly, his bed was too large, leaving him exposed and vulnerable to the womp rats camping under his bed, and the smells were wrong. Uneasily, he shifted, which made the springs in his thin mattress creak loudly. Immediately, Anakin froze, holding his breath. The urge to burrow deeper under the thin blanket grew overwhelming, driving him insane until Anakin rolled on his side. His tossing and turning was communicated by a symphony of creaking springs.

"Is something wrong, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked, which was a kind way to tell Anakin to be quiet.

"I'm cold," Anakin said, which wasn't a lie. However, it didn't describe the vulnerability that made him feel overly exposed in his bed, nor did it touch on the sense of insecurity that had flayed his heart wide open, allowing anyone to pick through the unprotected emotions hidden behind these walls.

Obi-Wan sighed. Anakin froze in his bed, waiting with bated breath. Obi-Wan left his bed, the springs in his mattress creaking loudly in the silence, only disturbed by the thick sheet of rain hitting the inn's rooftop and windows. Anakin watched Obi-Wan approach him, understanding what Obi-Wan aimed to do when Obi-Wan shucked off his cloak.

"This mission may appear low stakes because no Separatist forces have crashed through the window yet, but we cannot afford to let our guards down, Anakin," Obi-Wan lectured while placing his cloak over Anakin as an extra blanket. "Senators don't disappear without good reason."

Obi-Wan acted like Anakin was an insomniac on purpose. So, Anakin shouldn't delight in Obi-Wan's reprimands, but he had missed Obi-Wan so much that he would soak up the negative attention as readily as anything else.

Once Obi-Wan had deposited his cloak over Anakin, he turned to his own bed. "Sleep well, Anakin."

Anakin pressed his lips together tightly to stop smiling.

"Sleep well, Master."

Obi-Wan didn't correct him, but Anakin didn't know whether this was a victory. Obi-Wan's silence wasn't a tacit approval or permission to call him 'Master' again. Obi-Wan had given up, assuming Anakin didn't care about Obi-Wan's feelings regarding the title. Persisting would make Anakin a selfish monster who refused to ask for what he wanted. Yet, asking meant leaving himself open to the same rejection he had given Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. A rejection that Anakin's heart, battered and fractured as it was, couldn't handle. "Obi-Wan," Anakin whispered so softly he hoped Obi-Wan didn't overhear. He rubbed the fabric of Obi-Wan's well-worn cloak between a thumb and index finger, wondering why his elation had disappeared. Sighing quietly, he pulled the cloak around him tighter, turning it into a cocoon he could burrow into. When he finished nestling in Obi-Wan's cloak, the fabric surrounded him, and on each inhale, he could smell Obi-Wan's pheromones, which clung to the material.

The whiskey and amber dominated, but with his nose pressed to the cloak -- definitely not sniffing the material -- Anakin could also pick up on cardamom. Sweet, spicy, warm, and slightly floral, the hint of cardamom turned a familiar scent into something even better.

[rae-pottah]

Morpheus x Reader

*=point of view change

Warnings: she/her pronouns, references to sex, shitty writing., pictures of how I imagine things (feel free to imagine your own), severely edited

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why do you come without notice? " Morpheus asked aloud with no emotion in his voice.

"We aren't supposed to have humans in our realms permanently, I thought you out of all of us wouldn't break that rule" Death said boldly

"I actually didn't want to be here your kind of mean" Desire joked with a straight face

"I just wanted to stay in bed today" Despair whispered

"Yes well, as I have learned 'rules are meant to be broken' " He quoted you

"They could go insa-" she gets cut off by a woman appearing in front of her brother

*

"Darling the next time you feel like railing me into the mattress would you please leave me the ability to walk? " you ask. Morpheus quite confused about how you managed to appear in front of him, Death suprised and not wanting to know about her brother's sex life, Desire ready to bust up laughing, and Despair traumatized.

Dream slowly with a smile "Darling, we have company" face now red you turned around and and greeted his siblings with a

"I-um-h-mm" Morpheus then pulled you onto his lap.

"You know just as well as I do humans can go insane in our realms!" Death tries to reason ignoring her brothers actions

"But I am perfectly well here" you state simply

"And as that may be-" Death gets cut off

"Then can we agree on, if anyone starts to notice any sign of insanity she goes back to the waking world." Morpheus compromises with slight discomfort with even the thought of sending you back

"But I'm fine here!" Your rage starting to burn

"Then it shouldn't be a problem dear" he reasons

"We'll accept"

"Fine." As thoughts rush over you, there was something you wanted from the waking...

S'mores!

"Do you guys want S'mores?" You blurted out

"What's a S'more?" Death asked you head snapped toward her

"You poor, poor child" genuinely sorry for anyone who hasn't had one

"You must try one! Come out to the front of the palace!" you disappear again which confuses Morpheus even more

As they all walk out of the castle and down a small hill to you, they see you waving your hands about, and in front of them was building out of nothing a fire pit with seating and a curtain box ring with all the items to make S'mores and to simply be.

"How did you do this my love?" Morpheus asks eye wide in surprise, Death just as much so, Desire and Despair in shock.

"I honestly don't know it just kinda happens, I want something it makes it or helps, really started when I wanted lemonade and it just kinda appeared" you smiled happily

Death looks at Morpheus with a knowing smirk

"You wanna see what else I can do?! " you ask excitedly

"Absolutely we do! " Dream retorts with the same amount of excitement

"I can fly a little" you say as you pick yourself up off the ground while you think about it, "AND AND WATCH THIS WATCH THIS!!" you raised you voice

As you spin around your sweat pants and tank top turn into a beautiful black gown that was near fit for a queen

"I LOOK LIKE A PRINCESS" you squealed

"Oh wow" the three of your boyfriends siblings sighed

"you know what's even better?!" You poke Morpheus's chest and his outfit starts to change into a Kingly sight.

"Oh and of course the crown!" You pointed your right index finger up and made a circle motion as a crown appeared on his head.

"And of course the Queens and Kings of their own realms!" You point to the three siblings that are now smirking at Dream

Death:

Desire:

Despair:

"Where is your crown? " Morpheus asks confused

"I'm no queen" you chuckled nervously.

"Darling, the dreaming bends to your will and bows to your wants"

"The dreaming is him-" Despair starts to explain

"And he is the dreaming-" Desire continues

"And if he is yours-" Death helps

"Then the dreaming belongs to you." Morpheus finishes

He said as if it was the most simple thing as he bowed down to you and it felt as though time stopped, the endless don't bow. As he settled on his knee and put his head down you felt something on top your head... A crown.

And when Morpheus bowed, the castle help, as shocked as they were, around stopped and bowed, and with one deadly look from Dream to his siblings, you had 4 endless bowing before you.

Thanks lol

[i-write-some-stuff]

Roommate - csc

Pairing: Seungcheol x reader

Warnings: Swearing, weed use, slight mention of emotional abuse from an ex? Kinda angsty too?

Word count: 1k

A/N: I wrote this short drabble yesterday at work then typed it directly on here, so it hasn't really been edited, I apologize for any typos or mistakes. Also this is very self indulgent I'm having major Cheol feels these days please bear with me lmao

*This is purely a work of fiction. It is in no way meant to represent any idol in any way, shape or form.

✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

Seungcheol knew exactly where to find you.

You had been living together for over two years now, so when he walked in to see the playlist on the TV, the window to the balcony slightly opened, and the light smoke coming from outside, he knew what was going on. He kept his shoes and jacket on, crossing the living room to reach you.

It was crazy how quickly you guys went from complete strangers to the best of friends. You were a friend of a friend; his roommate had left, and you had fought with yours, which led to them kicking you out. You needed a place to stay, he needed a roommate, and so your common friend introduced the two of you, and you moved in with him within the week. You got along well, having similar habits and routines. If something bothered him, he would tell you, and so did you - most of the time anyway. So you had both agreed that you'd remain roommates for as long as this was working.

In those two years, Seungcheol had also gotten used to your coping mechanisms. He could always tell when something was wrong, because you would gradually close yourself up, and started smoking a little more often, until you broke down completely, and then you'd slowly get back up. He had tried to help you countless times before, but quickly realized that you didn't need him to save you. You just needed him to be there, to listen to you vent until you were ready to move on.

And so that's what he was prepared to do when he stepped outside. He sat down next to you in silence, doing his absolute best to not stare at you, since you knew you didn't like it in those moments. Instead, he focused on the peaceful evening, the sun slowly setting, the noisy city street below, the music softly coming from the opened window. Without a word, you handed him your lit joint, and he took it. When he exhaled the smoke, he felt you take a deep breath.

"[Your ex's name] broke up with me today," you said, and this time he looked at you. Even if you weren't facing him, he could see how puffy and red your eyes were, the somewhat fresh tears on your cheeks, your wet sweater sleeves where your arms rested on your knees. You had been crying for a while, he could tell. "Over text," you added, and all the restraint Seungcheol was trying to show was gone in an instant.

He had never like the guy. He always had a weird energy to him, always giving Seungcheol the impression that he couldn't care less about you or your friends, or about anything regarding your life. You had fought with him more than once, and Seungcheol had tried to keep you away from him, but you'd always go back. Now that the ties were broken, Seungcheol would finally be able to speak his mind to the asshole.

"What kind of fucking baby breaks up over text? I'll have a little chat with him later, believe me," he said, and you let out the tiniest chuckle. Seungcheol glanced at you, confused.

"I knew you'd choose violence."

"He deserves it, after everything he put you through," Seungcheol said, but you didn't reply, instead reaching for the joint. He gave it back to you, leaning his head on the wall behind him as you took a drag, trying to calm his anger.

"Do you wanna know why I was crying?" you asked, and he frowned.

"Because he broke your heart?"

"Maybe a bit. But I also realized that I'm an absolute idiot-"

"You're not an idiot," Seungcheol immediately argued, but you stopped him before he could add anything.

"Let me finish. I'm an absolute idiot, because I kept going back to the one who hurt me when when the one who loved me was right in front of me."

Seungcheol stopped breathing for a second. He never admitted it to himself, but he did love you. And not just as a good friend. He had feelings for you, but he'd never admit it, because that way, it hurt less to see you go out with other people. He had pushed his feelings away, especially in the last few months, convinced that he wasn't the only one in your friend group to like you. He wasn't one for drama, usually putting other people's feelings before his own. And now he feared he was right, and you would tell him you liked someone else. He wasn't sure his heart would take it.

"I guess they're right when they say love makes you blind," is what he replied to your statement, taking a longer drag of the blunt that had found its way between his fingers again.

"Seungcheol," you said, and he turned to you. You never used his full name. "I mean you. You've been there all along and I've been too stupid to see how good we are together."

Seungcheol's brain stopped working. He stared at you with wide eyes, his lips parted in a shocked expression. The feelings were scrambling in his heart, words tumbling as he struggled to find his voice.

"How'd you know?" he asked quietly.

"I didn't. Everyone kept telling me you liked me, and I kept saying you didn't, probably because I didn't want to admit that I liked you too. So I guess now we both know," you explained.

Seungcheol blinked, staring at you in disbelief. Your words suddenly clicked in his brain, and he leaned towards you. His hand found the back of your head, his lips gently finding yours. They were puffy and salty from all the tears you had shed, and Seungcheol promised himself he would never let anyone hurt you again.

[mannatea]

2023 was a great year for me in terms of writing productivity. Writing 285,000 words in one year was not only incredible—it's also the most I've written in a single year in the 20+ years I've been writing fanfiction. And that number doesn't even include the RP I've done (which is at least another 115,000 words as of today).

I love writing fanfiction. I love my blorbos. I love character writing. In fact, I love it so much, I spent the last 20 years convinced that I would never give original fiction a real try.

But 2024 will be different.

Tales of Symphonia has been an interesting fandom to write for. It's very quiet and secluded (as far as fandoms go). There isn't much overlap when it comes to ships/shipping, either, resulting in a very limited audience.

I've written for quiet/small fandoms before, but this is the first time I've written a multi-chapter story for a fandom like this, and in the interest of being completely honest I have to admit: I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I kneecapped myself by choosing to write stories about children/babies/pregnancy (which I'm certain cut my potential readership in half) and it felt pretty bad to commit myself to stories that didn't garner much interest. On the other hand, I completed two 100,000-word long stories this year—something I've never managed to do before in my entire life.

And I think there's something to be said for the fact that I did complete those stories...and quickly. I blasted through Break Open the Sky in three weeks, and finished The World Could Be Beautiful in something like six weeks. That's fast, and it gave me time to recharge while I edited and posted the work (which meant I wasn't relying on feedback/comments to keep going). That's incredible for me; I've never done that before.

It helps that I'm very passionate about my blorobs, and that I chose stories that play to my literary strengths (character writing + Identity), but that I managed to, for the first time in 20+ years of writing, write for the passion of it—without relying on comments/reviews—is a game-changer.

TO BE CLEAR: I'm very grateful for the feedback I received this year. @likes-words-and-shrimp was the MVP in welcoming me back to the ToS fandom, and honestly...without her influence (and @trash-god's unwavering support despite not even being in the ToS fandom) I don't think I would have done much writing this year. <3

But I did write—a lot—and it had me considering my newfound capabilities and my future.

This is where my feelings get very conflicted. I love fanfiction specifically because it's fanfiction; I love the characters, and I love exploring worlds and universes whose rules are not entirely up to me. I never wanted to write original fiction because I didn't want to have to try to create these things myself...mostly because I wholeheartedly believed for 20 years that I was the kind of writer who wasn't good at (or capable of) writing endearing or interesting OCs.

Do I still believe that? I'm honestly not sure, but I do know it was an easy excuse. You can't fail if you don't try, you know.

Moving on.

Here are three deeply, brutally honest confessions:

First, my spouse (the very one I met through my fanfiction way back in 2003) thinks I'm wasting talent and skill writing fanfiction that "maybe 3 people will read." He knows I do it for fun (the way other people watch TV, for example) but I think he's incapable of understanding why I'd work so hard on something I know won't get much attention. (I don't know how to feel about the "talent and skill" part of this. He hasn't read my creative writing in almost a decade.)

Confession the Second: while I'm not opposed to writing for a small (old, quiet) fandom with a 3-person audience for the fun and passion of writing my beloved blorbos, it is disheartening to spend literally hundreds of hours writing with very little engagement. (It's the nature of the beast of small/old/quiet fandoms, yes, but it still feelsbadman.)

My third and final confession is to say that I am confident I could get just as much attention with original fiction as I do fanfiction these days. (The bar is low, but that's the point.)

Look, I'm not delusional. I know my writing is heavily character-focused and, to that end, sometimes boring and/or ploddingly slow. I'm also very aware of the fact that original fiction requires a different skillset than fanfic—especially in some genres. I'm not doing this to please my husband (I don't think he actually cares that much) and I'm not doing this to quit my day job (I write too much niche bullshit to ever make a living writing), but damn, I'm at a point in my life where I think I'd be remiss not to give original fiction writing a fair and reasonable chance.

Will it feel bad to bust ass and get like three readers? Yes. But that feels bad regardless of the project in question. At least if I write a book and it flops horribly I can say I tried. At this point, it's more of a question of, "Why not?" than anything.

What's the worst that happens? I fail? At that point I'll just turn my original fiction into a goddamn fanfic. Reverse Uno.

TL;DR: I love writing fanfiction but it's hard to write for a small fandom, and now that I know I can write complete long stories, I've decided that for 2024, I will be setting fanfiction down to see what I can manage with original fiction.

Wish me luck, y'all. ✌

[engagedtobefree]

I’ve been struggling the past few weeks a bit with my mood. I feel kind of apathetic, I guess you could say. My usual optimism has been a struggle to tap into, but I think it’s finally coming around. To be fair to me, this new year has been a bit rough, and I don’t think I’ve actually had time to stop and process everything. I rang in the new year in bed, sick from a virus, then 3 weeks later just as I was starting to feel better, my friend Craig died. Then two days after his viewing, I was sick with covid for the first time ever. After I got over that, I developed a UTI, which luckily wasn’t as bad as it usually is. I tend to get them fairly easily because of my bladder disorder, but of course after I was getting back into the swing of things after covid, I fell asleep super early one night with a completely full bladder, and that was that 🙃 Then a few weeks later my mom and I had to put her dog to sleep. And really, the rest of it has been me trying to catch up while also focusing on trying to improve my mental health, which is a plate full all on its own. 

Oh, and Idk if I mentioned I’m writing a poem a day this year. Me, who is not consistent with anything, struggles with routines, and has never kept a streak of anything beyond maybe 2 or 3 weeks, has written 100 fucking poems this year!! Today will be day 101 once I write it. I’m actually so glad I started this, because I have needed it to process so many things and also it’s been one of the few saving graces of this year so far. It was a last-minute decision too. I didn't really plan for it, write it down as a goal, or think too much about it; I asked for a notebook for Christmas and my mom ended up getting me 3, one of which has 366 pages, which is perfect since it’s a leap year. That meant I could use a page a day. I wanted to increase my vocabulary, relearn and learn anew about poetry itself, get creative every day, and also write more often so I have the chance to not stay stuck writing about one thing for months and months and months. I take forever to finish a poem because 1. I write inconsistently and 2. I overanalyze every single word because I want it to reflect as accurately as possible what I’m writing about and I also want it to be “good”. My poems have always been deeply personal, so the truth of how I speak through them has always been very important to me. Since I’ve started doing this though, I noticed that I can still do that without spending forever on something, and that the more I write, the more inspiration blesses me. I still have my separate book for my other stuff, but I’ve almost exclusively been focusing on my daily poems since this year started, mostly because that’s all I have time for. No doubt once I get back to my other book, I will still take my time lol, which is fine, cuz now I still have my dailies. Also I realized that it’s okay that my “good” looks different every day, and not everything I write has to be a masterpiece. I’ve always been very self-critical, and this has helped me realize that expecting only “good” material is treating myself as a machine rather than a human being. If I don’t like what I write that day, at least I wrote something, and there will be another opportunity to write again tomorrow. I will probably still be really anal about editing stuff later, but right now, writing every day has been a lot of fun. 

Okay, so now it's time to dive into my personal problems! Wooo! I’m going to start with the one issue I have been hoping for a very long time now would be irrelevant, and that’s Scott. I don’t even tag his name anymore in any personal posts I’ve vented about him in because I just want this to go away, but he has been incessantly trying to get my attention. Literally. Things ended between us a good year and a half ago, but he tried to come back last summer and I was very, very, VERY clear about not wanting to try again and just being friends. He would occasionally reach out to me but it was just niceties and nothing to really worry about, though it did annoy me when he would contact me. But ever since the new year began, he was pestering me almost weekly, asking if I wanted to hang out, commenting on literally every single Snapchat story I post, and asking how I’ve been and saying he misses me. I had legit excuses for the first month and half with getting sick 3 separate times and then my friend Craig dying, but since then it’s mostly been me going to bed before he messages me, ignoring his messages till the morning, him skipping a week in not contacting me, or me just saying I’m too tired for company, which wasn’t actually a lie tbh. I ignored the situation as long as I could before I finally succumbed to the reality that I couldn’t ignore it forever. 

Not this past Friday but the one before was the day I finally decided to deal with it. He was messaging me much earlier in the day than usual, like literally I wasn’t even done work yet, but that also gave me time to feel out what I wanted to do. He asked if he could come over and I told him yes, but then added something pretty close to “I don’t know what your expectations are, but I want you to know that everything I said last summer still stands. I haven’t changed my mind about anything. I am only interested in friendship and nothing more.” I didn’t want him here without me first saying anything to him because I knew he wasn’t going to say anything to me beforehand and I didn’t want to feel like I was caught in some sort of trap in my own home, aka my safe space. He opened my message then didn’t respond for maybe half an hour or so. When he did respond, he said he wanted to hook up with me but he respected if I didn’t want to. Then he said he did really want to be friends at least because he likes me as a person. I told him I know it’s not what he wanted to hear, but I didn’t want him coming here with some idea that something could happen, and that a friendship is really all I want. He responded back that he thought he should tell me before coming over. Okay, so I have a lot to say (vent) about all of that. First off, he wasn’t planning on telling me shit until I said something. He was going to come here and then ask if I wanted to hook up, putting me in an awkward situation when I previously established very clearly I only wanted a friendship and have not even once since then indicated that I have any interest in anything more. This leads me into the second thing which is that he wasn’t even considering what I wanted, just what he wanted. I am very intentional with showing interest. I do not flirt or lead people on. If I flirt, it means I am interested. I have not flirted with Scott since before we even ended things. I send a lot of emojis to anyone and everyone when I message, but I have not sent him any since we broke things off. I also only say someone’s name when messaging if they say mine first or if I am interested. There are some more exceptions to that rule, but if I am consistently saying your name when reaching out, I’m interested. I have not said Scott’s name in messages since before we broke things off. I know that it might not seem like much, but all of that paired with me literally saying I don’t want to try again and only want to be friends should be more than enough to indicate I’m not interested. Thirdly, of course you are going to respect my decision because you’re not going to force me to change my mind. (When he did come over that night, I had a knife and my Simplisafe alert button near me just in case. I don’t think I will ever need them with Scott but you never know.)

I wasn’t sure if he would actually still want to come over after I turned him down, but he was not deterred. Everything went smoothly and it wasn’t awkward, thankfully. He was, however, acting very differently than usual. He was friendly, engaging, talkative, and gave me a bunch of compliments. If he had done this switcheroo like 2 years ago, I might have fallen for it, might have second guessed the fact that I wasn’t being treated right and that I wasn’t happy and ignored that deep down I didn't actually want to be with him, but I’m way past that now. The way he was acting was how he always acted with everyone else except me, which in the past, hurt me a lot. When it came to me, he was often cold, distant, non-communicative, inconsiderate. So for me, him doing this now only really solidifies him in the friendship role. It’s weird in a way because I previously wanted him to act this way with me, like how he did with friends and acquaintances, because it was the nicer Scott, not realizing that if he treated me like other people, it would put me in the same role as them. But now, me actually fulfilling my wish from years ago puts me in the friend/acquaintance role by him being nicer to me. I got my wish, but it happened much later than past me wanted and in a way I hadn’t intended, and it does me more service now than it would have then. I mean, I know there’s the extra caveat of him hoping it will get him laid, but in reality, it pushes him even further away from that than he was to begin with, which was already pretty dang far. I guess in his mind, he thinks there’s a chance I could eventually want him again, or at least enough to sleep with him, but that chance is zero. If I decided I’m done with someone, that means I spent a long time thinking over the situation, how I’m being treated, how I feel about them, who they really are as a person, our relationship and dynamic, if it’s actually really love or something else, what a future with them would look like, etc etc etc. I don’t make decisions like this lightly; I look from every angle and leave no stone unturned, so when I decide I’m done, that means I’m done. For good. Forever. Scott does not know this, but as I’ve said, I haven’t given him a single reason to hope. He’s decided on his own that something could still possibly happen in the future. When he left, he told me to not be a stranger and that we should catch up again soon. I don’t plan on that, but I was happy with how things went, oddly enough. I didn’t really want to see him, but the fact that I did and that I was able to set a clear boundary made me happy, and I felt a sort of completion around the situation. No doubt he’s still going to contact me (he already has lol), but I don’t feel worried or annoyed by it anymore. I’m happy with my decision, restated my boundary with a lot more confidence than last time (not that I should have had to repeat it though), and I feel like I can look forward now without having to worry too much about this. I didn’t feel unsafe, though I figured I wouldn’t, but I wanted to take some extra precautions just in case since I do live alone.

It’s funny because a few years ago when Scott and I still worked together, I had reached a place of complete acceptance with the situation and was able to be completely content with what it was without needing any answers. It was actually during that time that I think we formed a pretty decent friendship, and that’s when I felt we did best. At the time, I thought that what I was feeling was only because of how I was able to find my peace with everything, but looking back now, I think it’s also because that was just where we thrived best together: in a friendship. I’m not going to actively work at being his friend now, especially because I know he still has hopes that I’ll change my mind (I won’t) and something will happen (it won’t), but at least right now, I don’t need to block him or cut him off, which means I don’t feel in danger or like I’m being harassed. However, I don’t like that he still treats me like I’m stupid. I know why he is suddenly making such an effort and doing a total 180 in how he’s treating me. I saw it immediately and haven’t fallen for it for a second, so the fact that he thinks I might actually fall for this is a bit insulting to my intelligence. I’m sure some of it is actually genuine, like him saying he’d like to be friends regardless, which is fine, but just don’t insult me in the process, dude. Also, if he continues to not respect my decision and tries to pressure me, I will block him and cut him off. He can be my friend, he just needs to accept that nothing more will come of it.

Anyway, I feel like I was able to work through that finally. I’ve also been working on some of the past trauma from him, though I had to put a lot of that on hold because of everything that went on this year. I know I can’t move forward until it no longer has such a strong effect on me. I think how I handled the situation now says a lot. When he tried to come back last year, I was anxious, emotional, and very uncomfortable with having to handle the situation and tell Scott I didn’t want to try again. I was still processing a lot of past trauma and while I was positive about not wanting to be with him, I was afraid of hurting him. This time was so different!! I 100% put myself first, and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for stating what I wanted and not compromising where I shouldn’t. Growing up in an abusive household where there was a lack of boundaries and respect instilled a false belief in me that caring about how I’m treated is wrong and that attempting to do so is insulting and harmful to the other person. I do still have to deal with this from time to time, but I handle it much better now, and I hope I only continue to grow in that regard. I am 32 years old and still learning to untangle the web of lies that abuse taught me, but here I am, fucking doing it and making so much progress with it. I’m so proud of myself.

So now I’m going to unsmoothly segway into talking about Chris now. This poor guy lol. Anytime I write a personal post on here he ends up in it, and he doesn’t even talk to me. Sorry, Chris, but you’re still on my mind. Some of this is also actually relevant to what I was just talking about though so I’m going to start with that. So back in November when I had my last appointment with him, I struggled a lot. I felt I did some things fairly well, but when it came to flirting and asking if he was single, I failed. If I had to choose a physical representation of it, it would be someone falling flat on their face, trying to get up, then falling again and conceding to lay there till it was over. Chris has no way of knowing why I couldn’t. I mean, if he happened to guess, I’d be very impressed. Back when I worked with Scott, it was difficult. I was unknowingly flirting with a married man for months, who flirted back with me, and then after I found out he was married I was mortified. We ended up on friendly terms and then I developed feelings for him. We stayed friendly and I would talk to him all the time at work. He would start flirting with me again and then I’d naively think maybe something was going on, maybe he separated from his wife or was going through a divorce, so I’d flirt back. Then after several weeks of that, nothing would happen, he’d never bring anything up, so I’d ask him what was going on and he’d tell me nothing, he was married, it is what it is, this can never go anywhere. Then I’d get upset and mad that I fell for it, stop talking to him for a while, and then the cycle would repeat. There was one period where I accepted I wasn’t going to get answers (I mentioned it above) and so we were just friends and nothing more, and that was really the only good, healthy period we had. That was like the second half of 2019 up until he left in October 2020, of course with most of 2020 being working from home. Other than that, it was mostly turmoil, and mostly for me. I was 26 when everything started, and Scott was 44. I kept placing my trust in an older man to do the right thing and to not come into work and flirt with me unless he was available, but I was really naive. I talked to him because I wanted to, not because I expected anything to happen, which I didn’t want anyway unless his marriage broke off, but when he would flirt with me again, it would give me false hope that something could actually happen. I always felt such extreme guilt every time too, knowing that once more I was pursuing a married man who was leading me on while his wife had no idea about any of it. I still carry guilt from my actions during that time, because had I known from the beginning that he was married, I would’ve never looked again in his direction. I was so ashamed of myself for so long because I had a choice to say, “No, this cannot continue, I cannot trust this man unless he gives me an explicit reason that I can”, but instead, I chose to keep trusting. I chose to keep flirting. I have worked through some of that shame and guilt, but not all of it. I recognize that I did try over and over again to not interact with him and to avoid him, but his office door was literally 5 feet from my cubicle, which made it hard. To be clear, I never would have had an affair or taken it outside the office at all. He did bring that up fairly early on during a period when I wasn’t pissed off about things, and I told him I did not want to have an affair with him and he agreed. Now that I think about it, I wonder if his answer was dependent on mine though. This scenario kind of happened again after we reconnected back in May/June of 2021. Since he and his wife had separated recently, he made it clear he didn’t want to enter anything new, no dating or romantic partnership until later down the line, but he wasn’t sure about sexual, so he left that up to me to think about. When I told him no, he agreed, but I was never sure if his response would’ve been different if I had said yes.

Anyway, continuing…I felt very stuck, and it was something I brought up all the time in therapy. I didn’t know how to get unstuck. I was only a temp at my job at the time, and I didn’t have health insurance or any time off. NJ didn’t enact the statewide mandate that all employees must be given at least 2 sick days a year until the same month I was finally hired permanently, so if I took any time off, I didn’t get paid for it. (I just looked it up to confirm the date it was enacted to make sure I had it right, and apparently it’s 40 hours now that are mandatory, which is cool they improved the policy!!) I worked a second job and still lived paycheck-to-paycheck. I couldn’t afford to spend more than $20-$30 a week on groceries, which included toiletries and cleaning supplies. I had to stop paying my electric bill because I couldn’t afford it and I needed the shut-off notice to get assistance to help pay for the bill, which thankfully covered several months and also covered my past-due amounts. My apartment was old and shitty, but it was the only place that was affordable for me at the time. My first year there was $715 a month then the 2nd year was $740. It was definitely a health hazard though: the carpets were musty despite several cleanings; there was water damage in the wall and on the ceiling; the water damage on the ceiling was above my bed, which I couldn’t move anywhere else, and kept forming mold that my complex just kept painting over; the front door wasn’t fit right so there were huge gaps between the door and the frame; the water heater would switch to cold after only 5 or 10 minutes in the shower; and the heating system was so old that in the winter it cost me $200+ just to heat my tiny little 400 square foot studio apartment (it was all electric). I couldn’t interview for other jobs because that meant I wouldn’t get paid if I took time off and then that meant I’d have to stress even more over what bill wouldn’t get paid or if I’d have to eat even less than my 2 meals a day. I had to make sure my cat and guinea pig were fed before I fed myself. At my other job, I worked Sunday brunches, which were the most stressful and busiest shifts, so no other hostess wanted to partner with working on them let alone working it by themselves, which often led to me working the whole shift by myself, and I took up other shifts if I had the time or energy to. My mental health was not great and was only made worse by my life circumstances, and I had to go on a second anxiety medication for a while to stop my anxiety attacks.

I wanted to be out of the situation with Scott, even if that meant leaving to go work someplace else, but I was already doing everything I could and I still couldn’t find a way out without jeopardizing my well-being even further. Moving back in with my mom, which was something I eventually did and regretted, was not an option for me because I worked really hard to get out of the abusive household I grew up in. I say all of this not as an excuse but for context. And for forgiveness. I look back at my younger self and she was dealing with so much stress. My basic needs were not even being fully met, but I continued to show up and to handle things in the best ways I could, and sometimes the decisions I made weren’t actually good ones at all. Still though, I kept believing in people, I kept hoping for the best and trusting, and I was actually really grateful for my life at the time, probably even more so than I am now. I didn’t have much, but I had my own place, my own life, freedom, and that was always something I held onto, even during the worst of things. I tried desperately to find a way to let go of my feelings for Scott, but I couldn’t help how I felt because I kept choosing to see the best while ignoring the rest. It took me a very long time to realize Scott was not the one for me and that he wasn’t the type of person I wanted as my romantic partner. I didn’t accept him fully, flaws and all, and we were not compatible in the ways we needed to be. I wouldn’t have been happy if we did get together, but unfortunately I didn’t see all of that until after he left my work, separated from his wife, and reached out to me on Instagram to connect again and start what would eventually become a “situationship” between us. Still, I’m glad I saw it sooner rather than later and before it devolved into an actual romantic relationship. 

So when I could feel myself hesitation the first time and then shaking the second time when I went to ask Chris if he was single, it was from that past period of my life. I saw it all flash in my mind immediately: all the times I confronted Scott and the answers I got back, and all of the sureness and trust I felt about Chris was immediately squashed by those images. I wrote about a bunch of parallels in my post after my appointment with him, but I wanted to dive a bit deeper into that here in a broader sense. Man at his work flirting with me. Check. Man makes it known he’s interested, then doesn’t take it anywhere. Check. Man offers no explanation whatsoever for that. Check. Man does not willingly mention his relationship status. Check. Man is cautious about what information he gives about himself and words things so that while he can respond, he never actually reveals anything about himself or his life. Check. In someone else’s mind, those might just be indicators of someone who is reserved, guarded, private, whatever. In my mind, those checks are potential red flags. Those checked boxes come with the thoughts, “Oh no, am I going to flirt with an unavailable man again? Am I going to get caught in a similar situation that causes me a lot of duress and emotional pain? Am I going to unwillingly be complicit in some man’s selfish attempts at getting attention from me?” Chris doesn’t know any of that. I felt disappointed in myself after my appointment, and I felt like I had probably disappointed him too, though I don’t know for sure. If I had the chance to tell him why, I would, even if I had to sum it up briefly. I mean, I guess I could just say how I was in a situation with someone before where they weren’t trustworthy and it affected me more than I realized. Turns out traumatic things actually traumatize you. Who knew? 🙃 That’s assuming it’s even necessary for me to explain, since I have no idea at this point if Chris is still interested. He hasn’t brought up the date, and I have tried to initiate meeting up twice with no luck. I’m willing to be patient and wait, but I don’t know exactly what it is I’m waiting for. Is there really a possibility this can go somewhere, or am I being duped again? I didn’t reach out for 2 ½ months, but then last weekend I texted him, and it took several days for us to send only a few messages. He only responded once or twice a day, and then he did that thing again where he told me to have a wonderful day at the end of his message, then when I responded back with a bit more, he never responded back. I still don’t know how to take that. He did say he’s been getting sick like every other week, which is weird cuz that’s exactly what happened to me in the beginning of the year, so I can understand he may not be up for talking to anyone or even checking his phone at all, but I don’t know if that’s what it was or not. I don’t mind slow responses, but it would help to know what was going on and where I stand. Otherwise, it confuses me and I don’t know what to make of it.

I also don’t know if I’m being too impatient? He gave me his number last May and didn’t mention going on a date until December. Obviously, with how this year has gone just for me alone, not including him being sick and whatever else he has going on, nothing could have really happened since he mentioned the date. Maybe I’m being too hopeful? I don’t know 😕 I also don’t know if I have worked through what I needed to regarding Scott, because I have nothing to trigger it. That time of my life when we worked together was triggered only when an outside catalyst brought it up, one that placed me back in a moment that was similar and reminded me of it. The only way I’ll really know for sure that I’ve overcome all of this and am ready to step forward without the past holding me back is when I’m with Chris. There’s no one else I’m interested in, I’m rarely ever into anyone anyway, I don’t like random dating, and I have no interest in hooking up with random people, so there is literally not a single other person who can do this. I can’t know on my own; I can only do the work and hope that I’ve made progress with it and healed from it. At this point, I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I can pursue Chris without old baggage weighing me down since my appointment is coming up. I know I will still probably have some trepidations and fears that pop up, but as long as the most traumatic things are taken care of, I can push through all the other stuff.

I had my yearly appointment with the oral surgeon scheduled for the 15th of this month to make sure the dense spot in my jaw bone hasn’t grown, but he won’t be in that day so it got pushed back to the 29th. My next cleaning with Chris is scheduled for 2 ½ weeks later on May 16th. I feel nervous even thinking about it. At my last appointment I wasn’t sure what to expect since over the course of 6 months he only reached out to me 2 or 3 times, and after a while I gave up on reaching out to him because I was confused. I was determined to see him during this current time frame before my next appointment, but it looks like that isn’t going to happen. I feel like I’m going to really put myself out there and take some risks when my appointment does come around. Nothing is moving along, which I know we’re both contributing to, so I want to at least feel good knowing that I did my part, and I don’t feel that way yet. So far, I’ve relied on past trauma and doubt to take the lead more than I’ve allowed the present and trust to do so, and I want to flip that now. I have been trying not to think about everything with Chris that has been shouting “GREEN FLAG!!” at me because a lot of it isn’t logical but rather intuitive and spiritual, but I think that those places are where the answer actually lies. Overthinking gets me nowhere, so I have to stop letting it be an option. I can still be cautious, but not to a degree where it is detrimental to anything happening at all.

Aside from past trauma interfering there’s definitely been a few other things that have contributed to my lack of pursuit here. In general, I never know how people perceive me. I have always felt like I come off as unlikable, so even when people tell me good things about myself, I struggle to hold onto those things and believe in them. I’ve been trying to shift that because I know that is a belief I hold and not necessarily one that is true. I’m sure there have been people who genuinely have not liked me as a person, but with 8 billion people in the world, odds are at least some of them do or will like me. I mean, I do have friends and the one and only yoga class I teach at the moment continues to get a lot of students, so that all has to say something. I think a big part of that belief I hold also stems from childhood trauma, but I can’t remember when it started. For as long as I can remember, it feels like I’ve always felt that way about myself. So when Chris literally doesn’t talk to me, takes a whole day to respond when I reach out, and then hasn’t actually planned the date that he brought up months ago, I just assume the worst. Logically, I know there could be a whole host of other reasons that might not have anything to do with me, or maybe even something else that does, but it’s hard for me to shake off how I’ve thought about myself for pretty much my entire life. So in my mind, a quick assumption that pops up is that I’m bothering Chris when he wants nothing to do with me. I don’t want to place any assumptions or expectations on him, but untangling those is difficult and is taking longer than I would like them to. This is something that I actually personally started working on years ago, and while it might not be apparent, I’ve made a TON of progress with it. I used to be a lot worse with it, but I still have some ways to go. I know that it’s my responsibility to find peace within myself no matter what external circumstances look like. Anway, back to the other stuff. There’s also been the other things that have been taking forever, like feeling at peace with the Scott situation, which I feel like has finally freaking happened, and then personal accountability I have with other things, like my ADD, which I’m still working on finding the right medication for. I have to remind myself though that it’s okay to be a work-in-progress. I tend to be in this “Everything needs to be perfect before anything can happen” mindset (with everything, not just romance), but in reality, things will never be perfect. If anything is ever 100% perfect and nothing is going wrong, it won’t last forever. Even the bad stuff doesn’t. The person meant for me won’t care and will want to handle all our messes together. But first I have to show up and be willing to tackle all those things on my own to the best of my abilities. I think I have been doing that, but I need to expand it a bit more to everything, and not just the more immediate things. My mental health struggles don’t make it any easier, but that only means I have to be more gentle and understanding with myself while continuing to work towards finding solutions, that’s all.

I’ve also struggled with that aspect of forgiving myself for past mistakes, not just the ones I made regarding Scott but with other things as well. I wonder why I deserve the relationship and connection I desire, what makes me so great and special as to receive it, and whether I’m even worthy of someone looking at me and knowing that I’m it for them. I wrote about this in my daily poem the other night. It was about a bunch of stuff but Chris was included in it. I’m not going to post the actual wording of what I wrote because I’m not ready to share that poem yet, even though that particular section is my favorite within the whole piece, but essentially what I said was how being with Chris would be like accepting forgiveness for myself. I want that, I just haven’t fully gotten there yet, and I’m not sure whether it needs to be mostly complete before anything can happen or if it’s okay that it remains a bit of a work-in-progress if and after things do get rolling. I’m hoping for the latter. I know it might sound kind of crazy that I fear forgiveness, but that is really what it is at its core: fear. I am tired of fear. I know that it’s a survival mechanism that kicks in and so I will never be able to be completely rid of certain ones, but I can at least shift my relationship with it. Taking a page out of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic here in saying that fear will always be in the car, but I do not need to let it steer the wheel or even sit in the passenger seat. It can stay in the backseat where it holds no control. I’m afraid of making the wrong choices again with someone and of getting myself in a similar situation as before, but that fear isn’t going to get me closer to anyone; it’s only going to keep me alone and afraid. I asked myself what is the worst that could happen if I do end up in the same situation, and the outcome was honestly not that bad. At the worst, I’d block Chris, find a new dentist office, and work on healing again. I could be grateful that it isn’t exactly the same as before, that I have more agency and options now and am not stuck like how I was in my situation with Scott, and that me being deceived would only say something bad about Chris and not me. Of course I'll be really disappointed, and I might also struggle with trusting myself and relying on my gut to tell me if someone is trustworthy, but I can work through all of that with time. When I take a look at all of that, it’s really not that bad. Yes, it would suck, but I’d get through it. Even as I write this though, I don’t think any of that will come to fruition. When I question and second-guess everything, asking the “what ifs” and doing the whole comparison thing, that fear builds in my chest and I think about how I can’t do this, I must be crazy to think that I can trust that trusting feeling that I feel with Chris. But when I close my eyes and take a moment to think clearly about Chris, letting myself remember his energy - the curiosity, comfort, warmth, gentleness, brightness, and pureness of it - that is when I know. That is when the truth of who he is makes itself known. I will never find the truth of him by looking at someone else’s actions, words, and energy. I will never find Chris by looking back at my relationship with someone else. I can only find Chris in Chris. I can only find any truth about what is going on by looking at my experiences with him and him alone. That is a very difficult and enormous shift I have been trying to make, but despite the doubts that creep into my mind, I believe that I can do it and that it is possible. Yes, I have to keep in mind that I could be wrong about him, but right now I am not giving enough energy to the thought that I could be right. 

When I had last year’s appointment with the oral surgeon, I was also kind of in the same space, but it was only about whether or not Chris was interested in me. I didn’t really have much to go off of except 3 things: he did a double-take when he saw me, he was asking me questions that I was sure he was not asking everyone else (or at least with the same intention), and I just had an overall feeling. Well, okay, there was a bunch of other stuff, but I meant things that are a bit more tangible, I guess you could say. I’ve never been wrong in my life about someone being interested in me, I always just know, but I was accepting of the possibility that I could be wrong this time. I had told both of my best friends about everything, and it was kind of similar to what was going on in my head: Stacy was really supportive, said he was definitely into me, and that I should go for it, while Amanda said I could be reading things wrong, that intuition can’t always be trusted, and that it wasn’t enough to go off of. It’s funny cuz Amanda and I tend to have more views in common than Stacy and I do, but I ended up taking the more positive route, the one that Stacy supported. Amanda also is not very optimistic on the romantic front whereas I am, so this is something that we differ a lot on. I also don’t believe that intuition ever lies. For me, there’s always been a very strong distinction between emotions, thoughts, and intuition, so while I was still open to being wrong, I decided to trust my intuition more than my mind. Then when I was at my appointment with the oral surgeon, as soon as I crossed paths with Chris and our eyes met, I knew instantly that he was going to give me his number, and at my next appointment, he did. I have not been wrong about anything so far, and I’ve been trying to trust myself more, open my intuitive capabilities even wider, and I can’t do that if I’m always in my head about things. This one poem by Erin Hanson popped into my head and it feels relevant here: “There is freedom waiting for you, On the breezes of the sky, And you ask "What if I fall?" Oh but my darling, What if you fly?” I keep asking myself over and over, “What if I’m wrong?” but then there’s also a voice that follows it and asks, “But what if I’m right?” I won’t know unless I take a chance. I have always taken chances on the wrong people, and I don’t want that to deter me from trying again, because then I could miss out on the right person. I have to try. If I’m wrong, then I’ll deal with that when the time comes, and at least I can say that I tried and took a chance. If I’m right, then my life could possibly be changed forever.

I have tried so hard not to have hopes, because hope always brought me disappointment, but before, I only thought I knew, when in reality I was ignoring the actual knowing voice. This is different. I don't think I know, I do know. I've always known, and I've tried not to know. It's the opposite of how it's always been. If I trust this, it could potentially have a different outcome than all those other times too. I’ve been questioning and second-guessing and doubting, when deep down inside I’m being told to trust. I can’t predict the outcome of this situation, but I know I can trust whatever this is, and I need to lean into that without any more hesitation. I know. I know it’s safe to trust this. I read a lot of comics/manhwas in the Webtoon app, and right now I’ve been trying to read completed ones so I can focus more on current ones, and one I’m reading right now is called Aerial Magic. It’s about a young witch who can’t read spells, and she had trouble finding an apprenticeship that would take her. She applied to over 400 different places, and only 1 responded, which is the place she’s apprenticing at. While on the phone with her dad, she said she got lucky, and her dad responded that she was dismissing her hard work and that “It isn’t luck that you found the right person. It’s because you kept on reaching out and you refused to stop until you found someone who reached back.” How many people give up? How many people settle? How many people stop trying to grow and do better, or think there’s a limit to how much they’re able to improve, or believe it’s only the other person who needs to be improving and doing the work? I have never given up on myself and what I know I can have and is possible for me. Despite any doubts or perceived limitations, whether from myself or others, I’ve always pushed through. I may move slowly, but I never stop moving. All of my previous failed attempts at finding my person were stepping stones. I let those people and situations rip me apart, and then I put myself back together again, even when I didn’t want to do it. The thought that I have to has always driven me. I’ve never seen any other choice. When I looked at myself and adjusted to the newness of who I was with those pieces put back together, I realized that I somehow was more beautiful and more resilient. I grew, and while those growing pains hurt, they never stopped me. Growth is never easy, and more often than not the most growth comes from the hardest circumstances, but it’s necessary if we want to become our best selves. The growth we are looking for doesn’t come without the sacrifice of our own ease and comfort. We must go through it and heal it, and then we come out better for it. 

Also, things I’ve felt and experienced with Chris have never happened before. There’s been a lot, and I wrote about some of them in past posts, although now that I’m thinking about it, some of it I might not have actually posted. I never made my one private post public, made a second private post I also never made public and then forgot about, and I started a Google docs draft writing about a ton of stuff last year that I never finished or posted, so some things I think I posted might not be on here. Oops lol I like to have all my stuff in one place, but whatever. I know certain things I definitely didn’t write about, but there’s less of those than ones I did write about. Anyway, my point is, I’m skipping that to write about something else I haven’t yet, or at least haven’t written about in great detail. It’s Chris’s energy, and how I can sense it. I’ve always been able to pick up on other people’s energies, like the essence of who they are, to a certain degree, but mostly I just feel emotions coming off of people, especially strong ones. I’m not sure if everyone is like that? I used to think so, until I was watching some astrology reel on Youtube not too long ago and of course a bunch of grown ass men who think they’re amazing for shitting on people’s interests that have nothing to do with them infiltrated the comment section. One of the comment threads was how people don’t give off “energy” and that there’s no such thing, from a scientific perspective, which didn’t sound right to me cuz I thought science literally explained how everything was energy, but sure go off, dude, whatever. That really confused me cuz I thought I was in my head a lot but maybe there are people so disconnected from themselves that they literally do not pick up on these types of things. Anyway, people I am closer with or was close with at one point have stronger energies to me. But ummm I’ve never felt anyone’s energy as strongly as I feel Chris’s. Especially considering I have only met him a handful of times, so it shouldn’t be that way. It was actually the first thing I noticed about him. I mean, he did have a mask on, but even then, I’ve been to plenty of doctors or other health places where they wear masks the whole time, and this has not happened with any of them. I remember the two times I was there before my first appointment with Chris, he was up at the front desk with his mask on, and both times he said we had similar last names. He didn’t look at me either time when he said it, just kind of tilted his head toward his right shoulder in my direction, and I didn’t think anything in particular about him; I only remember feeling curious, but even that wasn’t something I noticed consciously until later, so I quickly forgot about it each time. At my first appointment, I remember he did a double-take, and I didn’t look at him as a natural self-defense mechanism, but when I got back to the room with him, my defense was gone. That doesn’t happen. I always remember to keep it up, no matter what is going on around me. I didn’t even notice I had dropped it when I was with Chris. When I walked into the room behind him, he asked if I wanted him to hang my bag up for me, which I declined. That’s when my first impression of him hit: he was warm and bright. Not just because of his gesture, but his whole being. I felt the warmth and I saw this glow around him. I was thinking earlier about how I am virtually unphased by a lot of things that should probably phase me. This moment - well, my entire first appointment tbh - should have been one of those moments. Even at all my other appointments, there are things I have no logical explanation for and yet, I have remained nothing but calm and collected during all of it. Honestly, now that I’m thinking about it again, that is so insane haha. 

I wasn’t going to write about this other thing, but since I probably already sound like I’m off my rocker, might as well just keep going a bit longer. Okay so, Chris’s eyes. I don’t know if he believes me cuz I’ve only ever commented on his eyes after he’s said something about mine, but asdfghjkl. I lose my absolute MIND over his eyes. This is going to be so freeing to write about. I can feel it. Okay so yeah, at my first appointment I only looked into his eyes once. It was when he was shocked I said I was 30 and I turned my head to look at him. His brown eyes were wide in disbelief. In that moment, I felt like 100 different things. I didn’t look long, but when I turned my head back, I had this strange sort of feeling. Well, first, I corrected myself by saying I was actually 31, and then I remember feeling some sort of weird intensity I had never felt before. I didn’t know what it was, so I felt embarrassed and didn’t look into his eyes again the rest of my time there. Later though, I figured it out. Chris’s eyes are so deep, yet still so bright. There is a depth there that seems to go on endlessly, like an entire other universe, and I wanted to know what was there. That was what I felt embarrassed about, but I couldn’t figure it out at that moment. I had no idea because I had never felt that before. I felt like I wanted to explore everything behind those eyes. I also felt seen and understood, which made no sense to me because there was nothing to see or understand. Maybe in general, like me as a person overall, but not in that particular moment. I still feel all of this when I look into his eyes, and after my last appointment with him, a few times when I was looking in the mirror, I had to do a double-take because I kept seeing his eyes before I saw my own. I know, I sound so psycho 😭 I wish I didn’t. I wish I had some sort of explanation, but I don’t. All I have is all this stuff that has happened and all the things I have felt, and this isn’t even the craziest of it. I still haven’t written about one thing that happened because it wouldn’t be fair to not tell Chris first, though that may never happen anyway. Maybe this is all nothing. Maybe this is…fake? Not real? A blip in the universe? Well - many blips in the universe? I can’t even take any guesses because what am I supposed to even guess at? He’s still just my dental hygienist and I’m still just his patient. There’s no relationship to comment on, little progress to point to, and barely any further interaction to make this stuff feel more tangible and less like I’m a little psychopath. There’s literally nothing to even guess at because these weird little things are all that exist from this. I can’t even talk to Chris about it because he doesn’t talk to me 😑😑😑 These intangible things are all I have. They’re all that’s really tethering me to trust because in the physical world, everything only points to confusion and doubt. This is all I have. I’m either being spiritually led in the direction of something really great, or I have some sort of serious brain injury that only makes itself known in Chris’s presence. I don’t think there’s anything in-between that would rationalize all of this stuff that I’ve seen and experienced.

That brings me around to what I’m going to do. First, I have to decide what I’m willing to live with: the pain of being used again or the pain of missing out. I already know which option I’m going to choose though, and I know what I’m going to do about it. Just like this time last year, I’m going to take the approach of seeing how Chris responds to me at my appointment with the oral surgeon. I assume we’ll cross paths like we have at all my other appointments. If it’s negative, sucks for me, and the result will probably be me crying when I get home because it does not take much to make me cry lol. If it’s positive, great, I plan to make some moves during my next appointment with him. I may have lost my chance at this point, but I’m hoping I haven’t. If I haven’t, awesome, I plan to treat my next appointment with him as a pivotal point in regards to whether things progress or not. So far, Chris has really put himself out there. He’s taken chances on me and I really haven’t responded positively back to him. I mean, I guess you could say the same for me taking chances on him in regards to trying to meet up and him not really responding great, but I’m not going to count that. I’m going to count in-person stuff only. I have roughly 5 weeks to: make sure I work through any lingering potential past romantic trauma that could interfere (this is also for myself too), come up with a coping plan in case something does come up, brush up on my flirting skills so I don’t freeze in the moment (tbh idk how I’m going to do this, maybe in the meantime just keep taking mental notes of all the stuff I like about Chris and hope it helps me seize an opportune moment to be flirty when the time comes), and continue to prioritize my mental health so I don’t get overwhelmed and overstimulated by all the excitement, which will also help with the flirting aspect. That….is a small list but actually a huge load of stuff to take care of in a month’s time. Anyway!! I’m still going to hope for the best. The other stuff doesn’t have to be 100% dealt with, but my #1 priority is making sure Chris feels good and that I make it apparent that “Yes I am into you and I’m sorry I’ve been struggling so much to show you that!!”. Well, I can leave out the apology bit, but yeah, the first part gets a thumbs up. Maybe that’s why Chris hasn’t initiated anything. Maybe he thinks I’m not that interested or only in it for self-gain, neither of which are true at all. I struggle a lot. I struggle with so many things and then I suck at articulating and explaining myself. In fact, when I do try to articulate or explain, I somehow always end up making things worse. It’s better for me to just wipe the slate clean, start fresh, and then hope that if he asks about something I can explain without embarrassing myself further. Maybe he wants me to ask about our date, but since he’s the one that brought it up in the first place, I feel kinda weird asking “So uhhh our date?” Maybe I’m overthinking all of this and it really is as simple as: if he’s not reaching out, then he’s not interested or is just fucking with me for whatever reason. 

I’m tired, man. I’m tired of always being in a place of always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the pain. Waiting to be treated poorly. Waiting for the betrayal. Waiting for the anger. Waiting to be told or shown how I’m not enough. I think to myself, Who will not make me flinch? This all goes way beyond Scott; a large part of my experiences with men, for a majority of my life, have not been positive. Some have even been dangerously negative. I think a part of me is always going to have some fear about being hurt until I’m with someone who doesn’t hurt me in big ways, and the little ones they work with me on and try to make up for. I will gladly give them the same in return. I’m never going to find that person unless I take a chance on them. I want to take the chance on someone who is worth it, and I feel that Chris is. I want my choices in life to reflect that I didn’t give up, that I kept believing in something higher and took the steps I needed in order to actualize that higher life for myself, even if I did so imperfectly with mistakes along the way.

I had a bunch of other stuff I was going to write about but I’ve already been coming back to this over the course of two weeks and it’s getting too long, so I’ll end here for now.

Umm Chris if somehow you’ve found my anonymous blog, which I’m hoping you haven’t, I apologize if any of this sounded weird or made you uncomfortable 😭 Feel free to never talk to me again if that’s the case. If not, see you in a few weeks 🥰

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

So Bethy is back with us again now that school is over, and she's going crazy with nothing to do, so she keeps leaving to go on walks or whatever, and she wanted to go to Dollar Tree to get stuff for food for the next few days. We have a whole $30 left in the PayPal and mom gave her a small list that would get us enough food for 3 days if we're careful, and just as she was about to checkout(she had mom on-call) Dave demands ice cream.

And now he's being passive-aggressive acting like he's oppressed or something cuz I called out the fact that we have no money just to waste on ice cream. Cuz 1.) he won't be sharing that with the rest of us, and 2.) he's been lying to the food bank for weeks to get extra snacks that he hoards for himself.

Dave has dozens of bags of chips, choco chip granola bars, mini rice krispy treats, and chocolate donuts he stole from all our food bank bags. He rifles through the bags in the van before he distributes them to everyone. He has several Walmart bags beside the chair he sits in, that are just filled with junk that he then hides under a blanket.

He does not need more junk, nor does he need ice cream. Chips, donuts, and rice krispies ain't enough?

1.) the majority of the PayPal money comes from my Ko-Fi. I have a say in what it is spent on as a result. 2.) he was the one who claimed, "I need $20 for gas to keep it above half!" and then went behind our backs and used $70 instead. The reason we have so little left rn is because of him specifically, especially when he admits that he was going to put in $90 but decided to stick to $70. So, since he decided that he had to fill the tank all the way, he doesn't get ice cream. Too bad. Regular food is more important.

But he's acting like some oppressed maiden now.

EDIT: I made this post on June 11th but left it in my drafts because I wasn't going to post it, however it is now June 12th and I have more to add.

So, Bethy's school has driving instructors and the teens have to take and pass the class or they can't go and get their permits. Her teacher, a dumbass who can't do basic math apparently, mis-scheduled several kids so they all have to come to school, despite school being over now, to take the rest of their classes. And these are one-on-one courses that take hours of driving to locations hours away from the school. The kids aren't getting fed despite how they had to arrive at school time and won't leave until after noon.

Bethy has to do this June 12-14 and then has nowhere to go as she waits around because there is no arranged transportation either.

This morning, Dave was complaining about having to drive her to school personally, which pissed her off since he acts like being a parent is unfair.

Remember I said he was lying to the food bank to get more food? He was saying Bethy was with us this entire time and that's why he needed more, for a growing teen girl. So, she's back with us now... and his ass didn't give her the share meant for her. He didn't just steal all the snacks added to the baggies, he literally kept the extra dinner that was meant for Bethy, for himself. And yeah, it was a small turkey sandwich but it's more than nothing!

So today, as he has to get up early and go to work, he gets up at 5 AM and is gone by 6 AM. He put together a large bag for himself full of leftovers from yesterday(pasta and a sandwich), 3 bags of chips, several granola bars, rice krispy treats, water, slim jims, and some kind of cake thing.

And he couldn't spare one damn thing for his child. To make it worse... he has cash on hand and didn't think to give her any despite knowing she wouldn't be having breakfast or lunch. He woke her up a few minutes before they had to leave, so she did not get to eat or even prepare leftover pasta for herself.

She arrived at school at 6:30 AM and they wouldn't let her in, so she had to sit there until 8 AM. THEN, she had to do the whole driving course thing, which last 3 hours for her, and then wait for her partner who finished. Dave picked her up around 1 PM, and then forced her to sit in his boss' truck for 5 hours and didn't think to get her any food or give her his own food.

So they go to the food bank before coming back, and Bethy is exhausted and hungry and hot, but she wants to go and see if she can apply for a job at a nearby pizza place since she worked at their other location last year. Dave hands her $20 and tells her to go to Dollar Tree and get him Pepsi and ice cream while giving me a nasty look.

...I'm such an unfair person, huh? How dare I think to preserve what little money we have?

Anyway, I've gone around pulling everything we have together and it mostly is canned mixed veggies, off-brand unsweetened apple sauce, and what I have left in terms of granola bars.

But you know, we should be spending money on ice cream and soda instead of meals.

[gender-trash]

last november/decemberish i made the egregious mistake of asking my dad if there were any out-of-print technical books he wanted me to print and bind as a christmas gift, especially given that i now have a wide-format printer; turns out the answer was "yes, many," and he sent me three crusty-ass pdfs of which i selected the least crusty.

however

it pains me, deep in my soul, to turn out a work product with my name on it that's That crusty, and some of the photos etc. (originally meant to be full-color) weren't parseable anymore. so i got my grubby hands on a copy of the original via interlibrary loan (there were EXACTLY three copies in the link+ system which covers a bunch of public and university libraries in the bay area, and i ended up with santa clara university's, which was kind of neat because Back In The Day i took a bunch of physics and math classes at SCU) and manually photographed every image in it on my phone (best camera i have). then i spent approximately the week prior to christmas in a deathmarch slog 1. de-skewing, color correcting, and pasting in all the photos in god's worst pdf editing software (xournal++), 2. retyping all the image captions (originally printed in this lovely dark red that got viciously mangled by b&w scanning) and screenshotting them + pasting them in, and 3. for those photos that are sufficiently clean or unimportant that i don't need to edit + paste in replacements, but that have large black areas in them, covering them in semitransparent white rectangles so i don't wind up printing big black areas on my poor inkjet.

needless to say, this is the worst, most tedious process i can think of except for actually re-typing and re-typesetting the entire book in latex, a process which tempts me every time i work on this albatross around my neck. i only got through part 1 of 5 before christmas so i gave my dad a different book (bought from the bookstore, like a loser) and the promise that i would Definitely have it done by his birthday.

and then i stopped working on it for several months because IT SUCKED AND I HATED IT SO MUCH

and then partway through april i was like "oh shit, his birthday is in two weeks". so now every evening is this cold war with myself where sometimes the project wins and i piddle through another section of part 2 and sometimes procrastination wins and i do a medieval twin-cord binding of my immortal. anyway his birthday was technically today but we are celebrating it next week so i have a LITTLE more time to get the bitch done

whenever i complain about it to my dad he's like "just give up!! just print it as-is!" (accompanied by profuse apologies because he didn't mean for me to go to anything like this much effort) and on the one hand it would feel like giving up but on the other hand i would be FREE OF THE ENDLESS TORMENT but on the third hand there would be a VERY visible delineation halfway through the book where you can tell i Just Didn't Care Anymore

[triforce-of-mischief]

o/

helloooo how was your day?

also, for the ask game: 1, 4, 8, and maybe 18 if ya want?

hi!

today was fine, i still have some chores to do (it's past 10pm lol) but i got to talk to my friend earlier and there's hockey on the tv now :)

1 (What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?): looks like it's calibri right now! i went through a comic sans phase for a while, it did really help but i changed it back when i started getting overstimulation headaches sooner

4 (What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?): hmm like in a good way or a bad way? i really like whine or whimper, little sounds that characters only make when they're really scared/hurt/vulnerable

8 (If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?): oh dialogue, easy. recently i've been writing almost more dialogue than action, mostly as a kind of personal challenge, but i can definitely make things work without it. the closest i've gotten in a posted fic is my special horse, which i bet would be really easy to edit to be completely dialogue-less

18 (Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end):

*tw needle*

“Alright then,” Warriors said easily. “Do you trust me?”

“’Course I do, what-”

“Lege.” His tone was still gentle, but serious now. “Do you trust me.” It was more of a demand than a question, a plea to discover what he was really asking.

Legend knew what Warriors meant. He hadn’t expected it, but as he considered the captain’s unspoken plan, he decided that he trusted Warriors fully. “Y-yeah. I do.”

...

“I’ll be fast. Just a few moments, then you can rest.” The cadence of Warriors’ voice was steady, almost unnaturally so.

“Wars-” He struggled to speak, his protest strained and weak.

Legend still wasn’t ready.

Warriors had pushed back the sleeve of Legend’s tunic, and he paused to smooth his thumb over his skin. A final attempt at comfort, one that Legend registered but didn’t receive.

“You still trust me, right?”

Despite everything, he still did. Legend swallowed back the whine building in his throat. Warriors needed him to be strong, for both of them.

“Deep breath, bud.”

It was more of a shallow gasp, but Legend managed it.

“And let it out.”

A sharp prick of pain sent a numbing chill down his arm. Warriors was fast despite his lack of experience, and Legend felt the needle slide out before he lost feeling altogether. Warriors was comforting him again in an instant, pulling the scarf tight around Legend and whispering praises in his ear. “Great job, bud, you did so well. You can relax now, I’ve got you.”

gosh that was long

there's a book i started once, don't remember what it was called. i didn't like it so i didn't even finish it but one scene stuck with me: the main character is afraid of needles but trusts her friend with one. like w o w. it's an action that's so incredibly intimate (platonically. that can be a platonic word right), something that i don't even dare to hope for for myself.

anyway i wanted to do that too, so here we are! *jazz hands*

[nettlestingsoup]

Enjoy your day off!!! <3

Thank you for the tip! I think I actually needed to hear that! I'm just writing everything that comes naturally for now and I'll try to link it together once I get there. I think I just wish I could post a chapter so I can get some feedback and maybe become more confident but I also know I'd rather have my whole fic mostly written out before I actually start posting parts of it.

I reread "Dorian" yesterday and I wrote some things down I wanted to comment on so I hope I can post it after work today or tomorrow. So look forward to that hehe.

I'm definitely going to reread "all that makes me holy, I found in you" next then! I do recall liking it a lot, maybe even my favorite after Dorian.

I kind of promised myself to stop apologizing everytime I send stuff like this so I won't this time but let me know if there's a different way for me to comment that's better? I don't want to flood your asks but also dm feels too personal, I don't want to get up in your space like that. I saw that there's also a comment option next to the reblog button on every post so idk if that's better?

thanks! i'm taking three days actually because my friend and i are seeing dreamcatcher in london tomorrow!!!!!

i used to write like that but as i went on i found it easier to write chronologically! it meant i had to wait a bit to get to the scenes i really wanted to write, but i found i didn't have so many gaps to fill at the end. both methods are valid though, i got a good few fics done without writing chronologically start to finish.

and yeah, i absolutely cannot post anything until i've finished it, mostly because i know a lot will change as i edit and i may have to backtrack on a lot of things i wrote earlier in the fic. i don't like continuity errors in my published work yknow.

i really don't mind getting asks! i find comments are only easy to reply to if they're short due to the way they come up on my phone screen; so a general rule for me personally is that if it's short, just comment under the post, if it's long send an ask! i see plenty of people having full conversations over asks and reblogs haha, i don't think anyone minds it.

i hope all of that is helpful! <3