#i was super happy with the other shop but they literally only sell hand dyed hanks now and i just cant spend 100€ per sweater

[rivaiin]

got some yarn for a couple winter projects im super excited about

[ara-macao-cyanopterus]

Fucking nobody cares about Planet Zoo, but I want notes for myself for how I beat the last two Career levels (in case I want to go back and beat them on Hard Mode for the achievement trophy or something).

The Last Leg.

This one wasn’t particularly difficult, it just took forever and I kind of screwed it up. Some things I wish I had known from the beginning:

1. Space isn’t that much of an issue, don’t freak out too much.

2. That African habitat is going to be fucking awful. Dedicated keeper, dedicated keeper hut, make it as big as possible from the get-go.

3. Grassland species stress effing sucks. Don’t do an overhead walkway (bonus for Africa: eventually, giraffe), put in limited ground-level viewpoints, research one-way glass.

4. Vet research vet research vet research. As soon as you can financially, stick in an army of research centres and high-level vets.

5. Crowd control was a real issue. Plan ahead. Wide paths, put the guests above (for everything except the two grassland habitats) and staff below.

6. That 5-star animal thing effing sucked. Check periodically before gold level just in case (and then send to the trade centre immediately so they don’t die!), then just be prepared to wait it out. I have no insight into what makes a 5-star animal, other than that they tended to be elderly ones that I got earlier in the game (except for that gemsbok, wth). I got some 4-star exhibit species, but no 5, but then again I only had a fully-researched exhibit species for like 6 months out of 12 years, so.

7. Invest in good quality animals early on. Yes, yes, I know, things are expensive blah blah. My springboks kept dying on me (and the market in finicky, you can go years without seeing certain animals for sale), and you really do have to plan ahead for that 5-star thing, given that it seems to be tied at least in part to the length of time the animal’s spent in the zoo.

Bailing Out.

Uggggggggggggh. This level is lucky that it’s so pretty, because otherwise it sucked. IT SUCKED SO MUCH.

1. SELL EVERYTHING. The time I finally won, I sold all exhibits, all sellable shops except for the western cluster, all ATMs, all education facilities, all bits of track, and most of the staff facilities (except the staff rooms). I sold most of the power facilities, though it turns out that untreated water and broken-down toilets make guests sad, so sadly you’re going to need to replace most of them essentially immediately, though do move them around, because their starting placement is very weird.

2. Guests don’t buy hats until the very end. I don’t know why. I should have just shut that shop.

3. Optimise your keepers’ experience. Start with one corner of the zoo and slowly work your way out, putting keeper huts everywhere as needed.

4. Fucking check fence height, self, wth.

5. START SLOW. Start so slow. I literally just had peacocks (with hopes of the vet researching quickly, snicker) until the timber wolves appeared, and then I just had timber wolves and peacocks, for I think the first 5 years. Yes, you’ll have a lot of money. Don’t spend it. You’ll need it. Because of this horrendous layout, it will be a very long time before you make profit, and you want to avoid taking that loan.

6. The order I did things was peacocks, then wolves, then the giant herbivore habitat, and then I used conservation credits to buy the things that I eventually knew would be coming into the SE corner (red panda, Chinese pangolin, Himalayan bear). I know everyone says not to do this, but I needed the income and zoo reputation while still keeping my guests contained, and I knew that if I bought them with CC I could always just swap them out when the time came. The Siberian tiger and Nile monitor came WAY later, because nobody wants to deal with that NE corner.

7. Don’t be afraid to build new habitats. Yes, yes, I know, I know, everyone says not to, but too bad. The terrain here SUCKS, but I put a walk-in tortoise habitat way to the south (putting them with the pangolins probably technically works, but keeping them separate seemed better), the panda where the guide says to put the bear (below the Bengal tiger), and the bear where the guide says to put a second red panda (which I don’t get -- the red panda habitat is plenty big enough for a breeding pair plus a baby?). There’s a bunch of park space to the north where new habitats could totally go, but I used those for creative placement of utilities (floating in the air and elaborately decorated), and I was too lazy to move things around.

8. If you move too many things around, your keepers will do that instead of feeding your animals. Whoops. Sorry, Nile monitors.

9. Nobody used my transit ride until I figured out that it needs to be efficient (delete all pieces of track, then do your best slash use autocomplete). Also, one of my stations kept breaking down no matter how many mechanics I sent, so I eventually deleted it, and that seemed to work.

10. I had to spend a lot of time zooming my caretakers around to clean up litter. This zoo is just too big. Probably work zones would have helped, but eh.

11. Schedule mechanic visits to habitats and utilities as often as you can (once every 1-3 months if the game will let you). Everything breaking down was so super annoying!

12. On one of my failed attempts I tried making liberal use of exhibits, which was a wonderful CC generator, but didn’t bring in the cash I needed. And on the run that finally got me gold, I forgot to add them until a point where I was rolling in CC and money and literally my only problem was managing staff, and exhibits wouldn’t have helped with that. I now have gold in the entirety of career mode (although only on Medium thus far), and I still don’t know how to use exhibits effectively. Other than Titan Beetle mild amusement.

13. Security cameras everywhere. My guest happiness was always so low compared with other zoos, and I have no idea why, but pickpockets seemed to be part of it? (On the other hand, besides a handful of vandalised signs over a decade, I had very little problem with crime in the Goodwin Memorial Park zoo. I don’t get it.)

14. People say not to promote your staff. I don’t get that one. Promote your staff? Maybe not too much at the beginning, other than the vets and maybe your mechanics, but occasionally I would go through and promote everyone with a ‘high’ workload.

[master-sass-blast]

Tricks, Tricks, Tricks!

I hate doing intros when I’m tired bc it feels like it takes forever.

Summary: You and Wade set up a haunted house for the kids at Xavier’s --and prank Scott Summers, of course.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Rating: G. Just ignore the swear words. Pls.

Set before “Questions and Answers” but after “THIS IS HALLOWEEN.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

It’s not every day that you and Wade stumble onto a legitimately, objectively good idea.

Granted, you guys have tons of great ideas. The fallback of nearly all of them, however, is that they usually involve some sort of destruction and-slash-or generally deviant behavior.

Which, in yours and Wade’s opinions, makes the entire shebang that much more fun, but dealing with the “post brilliant idea clean-up” and the temporary social fallout among your peers –depending on who you target and piss off—isn’t quite as fun.

However.

It’s Halloween season. And the teachers at Xavier’s tend to do some sort of Halloween-y thing for the students there because a lot of places that host seasonal events –surprise, surprise—won’t admit mutants.

Plus, Piotr loves Halloween, which means the two of you have a “non-deviant” spokesperson to advocate for your plan.

And, the cherry on top of it all, is that Scott has been an absolute asshat as of late, meaning that he needs to get the shit pranked out of him to whack his massive ego back down to a more manageable size.

You and Wade grin at each other as you look up various “how to make a haunted house” tutorials. This is gonna be awesome.

 ***

 Convincing Piotr to back your idea is easy.

First, you convince him without Wade around. You’ve learned that Piotr doesn’t necessarily mind if you and Wade come up with ideas, but that Wade’s manner of “selling them” completely frustrates your darling boyfriend and puts him off even the most benign suggestions.

Second, you present the idea as something fun and seasonal for the students at Xavier’s; Piotr, essentially, is a massive mother hen that loves nothing more than making his “kids” happy, which means that he’s on board for just about anything that involves doing special stuff for the students.

Third, you’re his girlfriend and he thinks you’re cute, which means all you have to really do is bat your eyelashes at him and say please.

(And, granted, you’d had other tricks up your sleeve if he’d hesitated, but sometimes life just lets you knock one out of the park. It’s a great feeling.)

***

 With Piotr’s seal of approval, you wind up selling the idea to the rest of the X-Men with no problem –and, since Jean’s out of town visiting family, she’s not here to rat you out to Scott, either.

Granted, Xavier still could, but you’re starting to think he’s less of a “lawful good” and more of a “neutral” or “chaotic good” type than he lets on. There’s been plenty of times he could’ve sold you or Wade out on any of your pranks, but he usually keeps his mouth shut.

Ah, well. Best not to question the freebies life sends your way.

Better yet, you and Wade already have a list of ideas and necessary supplies, thanks to your “haunted house research binge” that you two did earlier. Granted, Piotr outright naysays half of the suggestions due to them being too expensive, too destructive to the building, or too gross –Wade—but all in all it’s a success.

Hell yeah.

 ***

 The official set up goes as such: on the designated “haunted house day,” you, Wade, and a few volunteers get to spend the morning and part of the afternoon setting up the haunted house in a sectioned off part of the mansion –except it’s for the elementary aged students, so it’s technically “Haunted House Lite,” but that’s fine. Then, at four in the afternoon, the elementary aged students will get to walk through, enjoy some G-rated spooks, and get little bags of candy at the end to enjoy.

Lovely. Wonderful. Wholesome.

And then the fun comes in.

Because, beknownst to Piotr only because he caught you and Wade conspiring with everyone else, you and Wade managed to get all the middle school and high school students in the room and fill them in on your idea to scare the everliving shit out of one Scott Summers.

And, because teenagers are basically little shits that run on caffeine and entropy, they’re all super down to watch Scott get pranked.

So, once the little students have had their seasonal fun and have been ushered off for dinner with everyone else, you and Wade and your volunteers have five paltry hours to beef up your haunted house with some higher grade spooks and also set up your prank for Scott.

Granted, it’s not a lot of time to work with, but the two of you have worked with less before.

 ***

 The prank itself, compared to yours and Wade’s usual fare, is… unremarkable, actually.

“Go figure,” Wade grumbles under his breath while he wrestles with one of the several smoke machines he’d purchased for the prank. “Captain Vanilla-Save-For-the-Pole-Up-His-Ass doesn’t watch horror movies. Leave it to a fucking jumpscare. Fucking stupid. He’s literally the single most boring person to exist!”

“Hey, at least it makes it easy for us,” you reason as you work on dying a bunch of cheesecloth with a massive mixing bowl of tea. “Why go through the extra effort for a dill-hole like him?”

“Fair enough. Hey, I think I got this working!” Wade tries turning on the smoke machine, then pulls a scowl when it makes an alarming grinding noise, turns it back off with a disgusted huff, and turns in his chair to shout down the hall. “Nathan! Get your ass in here and talk to your cousin! This fucking thing won’t work!”

You snort and shake your head.

(Nathan does, in fact, get the smoke machine to work, but only because he bothers to read the instructions first.

Wade calls bullshit anyway.)

 ***

 The day of is nothing short of busy.

The two of you –and your volunteers—set up shop in one of the unfinished wings meant to be proper classrooms. You’ve got the entryway, the flight of stairs going up to the second floor, the hallway, and a few of the rooms of the rooms to set up your little “house of horrors” in (along with the back stair case that leads back down to the main hallway on the first floor, but that’s only for an easy exit for everyone).

The main order of business is such: put up the most labor intensive props –curtains to black out the windows, a curtain to block off the first floor hallway from view, spiderwebs, anything hanging from the ceiling or the walls that isn’t going to be switched out—first so that the bulk of the work is done for the day, since you won’t have much time between the littler students and the older students (and, most importantly, Scott).

The smoke machines get put in next, along with any special lights –including some cool black lights you and Wade had gotten their hands on, which go next to a mirror at the end of the walkthrough so the students can see what their costumes look like under the effects of the lights.

After that is the rest of the props, which are all switch out stuff. The younger students get some relatively innocuous skeletons, some cartoonish looking zombies, a couple mummies, and a bunch of pumpkins, black cats, and otherwise tame Halloween fare. The older students get much gnarlier, gorier stuff, including a demonic clown statue that actually gives you the creeps.

You grin as Wade sings “Spooky Scary Skeletons” –the dubstep remix, no less—while the two of you fill up goody bags for the students. This is going to be great.

***

 Piotr stops by after lunch with a bag of costumes –yours and his—and some extra supplies Wade had asked for.

You kiss his cheek as he hands off the bag of decorations to Wade. “Hey, babe. Had a good day?”

He nods. “Students are very excited to go through haunted house. Especially younger ones.”

“Well, here’s hoping we can give them some good, old-fashioned, spooky fun,” you say with a grin. “Ready to get changed and transform into creatures of the night?”

He does a scarily perfect Dracula laugh and winks at you. “But of course, moya lyubov’.”

Your costumes –for today and also for this year’s Halloween—are Dracula and the bride of Dracula. Piotr made nearly all of it, save for his shirt and slacks (and your two’s shoes, obviously), and between the costumes, the makeup, and some fake fangs, the two of you actually look the part.

(And Piotr sounds the part, what with his Russian accent and all. It’s almost like he was born for the role of Dracula.)

The two of you get to set up in one of the rooms with two doors, which also boasts a cauldron with a smoke machine in it, a bunch of fake spiderwebs, a couple of fake coffins, and some skeletons hanging on the walls. You get dressed, do each other’s make up, and then Piotr helps you put on your fangs before doing his own.

“So, tell me how to do a good Russian accent,” you say, lisping slightly around your fangs. “I gotta match what you’re selling.”

“I think you do just fine,” Piotr replies as he puts a glob of denture cream into one of his fangs and sticks it to his upper canine tooth. “Just try to avoid cheesy mobster accent, and you will do great.”

“Are we gonna do the whole ‘I want to suck your blood’ thing?” you ask. “I think we probably should.”

“If you want to.”

“Okay. I’m gonna practice, you tell me how I sound.” You clear your throat, get into your mental zone, then let out an accented, ominous, “I want to suck your blood!”

Piotr chuckles as he tests the fang’s hold on his tooth. “Very nice, myshka.”

You preen, then practice a few more times at varying pitches and speeds. Then, once you’re certain Piotr’s adjusted to your fooling around, you lean in and murmur, “I want to suck your dick.”

Piotr sputters, cheeks flushing –even under the pale make up you’d put on him—and looks around for anyone that might’ve overheard you. Once he’s certain that no one heard you –especially Wade—he exhales and shakes his head. “Later.”

You giggle and kiss his cheek.

***

 Right at four, the elementary aged students are ushered into the haunted house.

You can hear them from the room where you and Piotr are set up, giggling and gasping as Ellie and Yukio –who had volunteered to walk the younger students through—escort them along.

“Alright, before we enter this room, we all need to practice our brave faces,” Yukio says outside the door furthest away from you and Piotr. “Because in this room are Dracula and his wife!”

There’s some gasps and “oohs” from the kids, along with a couple expected “Dracula isn’t real”s.

“Don’t get too close,” Ellie says warningly. “Or else they might try to suck your blood!”

You grin at Piotr as the kids gasp again –he grins back and winks at you—then put on your “game face” as Ellie opens the door so the kids can enter the room.

It’s hard to keep a straight face, though, in the presence of the elementary students. It’s easy to tell that they’re really enjoying the mini haunted house, what with how they’re bouncing and grinning, and that combined with their adorable costumes –skeletons, princesses, pirates, pumpkins, there’s even one of the kids dressed as Iron Man—makes the entire thing downright heart-melting.

The kids all gasp, giggle, and whisper amongst themselves as they approach you and Piotr, flocking together like a bunch of baby birds—

And then one of the kids in the back shouts, “That’s not Dracula! That’s Mr. Piotr!”

Ellie, Yukio, and you all snort, while Piotr just winks at the kid in question.

“What do we have here, my love?” you ask, slipping into your “vampire accent” as you make a show of looking over all the kids, which prompts another slew of gasps and giggles from them. “It seems someone has brought us a bunch of tiny treats to eat!”

Piotr “hmms” as he stands, looming over the students in his long, flowing black cloak. “So it does, moya Koroleva. I must say, I am feeling peckish. Perhaps we should have afternoon snack.”

“Oh no!” Yukio exclaims. “Do you guys think they should be able to do that?”

“No!” the group of students all shout at once (which, admittedly, is a little rough on the ears).

“Well, I think we can do whatever we want,” you retort, looking over at Piotr to make sure the two of you time everything properly. “And…”

“We want to suck your blood!” you and Piotr declare while simultaneously fake-lunging at the group of students.

The students shriek, then run out the other door at Ellie and Yukio’s encouragement.

You and Piotr “pursue” the students –which is less of an actual pursuit and more just angling yourselves in their direction—until the last of the kids “escape” into the hall, then stop and grin at each other.

“I think that went well,” you say –quietly, so as not to disrupt the students’ experience.

“I agree.” Piotr holds out his arm to you. “Shall we, moya Koroleva?”

You giggle and place your hand on his arm. “Absolutely, my love.”

The two of you head out the door at the far end of the room –the door the students had originally entered in—and into the hall. Fortunately, there are a couple curtains blocking the rest of the hall from view, meaning that there’s no risk of anyone seeing the two of you sneaking through the hallway and down the stairs to the main floor.

Piotr ducks into one of the storage closets by the staircase and pulls out a box with various goody-bags stashed in it. “These looks very nice, moya lyubov’.”

“Thank you. I tried to make sure everyone got one of everything –oh, wait a second.” You reach into the closet and pull out a bag you’d stashed separately from everyone else’s. “This one’s Timothy’s. I wanted to make sure it didn’t get mixed up and he get peanuts by accident.”

“Good thinking.” Piotr sets the main box of treats on a nearby table, then turns back to you and kisses the top of your head. “How are you feeling, dorogoy?”

“I’m feeling good; I’m really looking forward to the big prank tonight!” The corner of your mouth turns up when he makes a “hmmm” of disapproval. “I take it you’re not a fan?”

“I just… I am concerned about how you and Wade target Scott,” Piotr says diplomatically. “The two of you seem to ignore everyone else.”

“Well, there’s not really a need to prank everyone else,” you reason. “And it’s not like we prank Scott all the time, either.”

“I would just worry about team dynamics.”

“He already fucks that up by being an asshole, honey,” you argue, careful to keep your voice down so the kids don’t hear you swearing. “Scott’s a total dick! He’s objectively horrible to Wade; he’s also a jerk to Russell. Like, massively.”

Piotr sighs. “I… I do not think pranking helps the situation.”

“Look, sometimes when people refuse to listen to polite conversation, you have to smack them around a little to keep them from letting their asshole behavior ooze all over everyone.” You grin. “Wade and I are just the smacking team.”

Piotr glances towards the door where the back staircase opens onto the main floor; there’s sounds of little voices and footsteps, meaning the kids are almost done. “Just… be considerate. That is all I ask.”

“Already done, baby,” you reassure him. “It’s a super basic jumpscare prank. Nothing about him, nothing about being a mutant, all Halloween themed. I made sure Wade didn’t get too crazy or destructive this time around.”

Piotr relaxes a little at that and kisses your temple—

And then the door opens, and the group of students rush into the main hallway.

“I told you it was them!” one of the students shouts, prompting everyone else to laugh.

“It was,” you admit, foregoing the vampire accent. “Did you guys like the haunted house?”

“Yeah!” the group choruses at once.

You and Piotr both grin, then work on handing out bags of candy to the students –and make sure that Timothy gets his special bag, no allergy episodes today, no sir—

And it’s good. Life is good.

 ***

 Once the younger students exit for dinner, everything switches to a mad scramble to flip the space for the second walkthrough.

Granted, it doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that it involves taking down basically all the props and putting new ones in.

It’s sweaty work, and by the time you’re done you have to reapply all your vampire make-up –because you and Piotr are still doing the vampire bit. And then—

And then.

Once the older teams exit the “vampire room,” you’ll sneak out the “entry” door and down the hall, then hover over the door everyone exits out into the main floor hall at the end of the walkthrough, and when they do, you’ll drop down next to Scott and scare the everliving shit out of him.

Simple. Stress-free. Borderline stupid.

It’s gonna be great.

 ***

 The second walkthrough is just as much of a success as the first one. The older students aren’t as giggly or excitable as the younger group, but it’s still easy to tell they’re enjoying the haunted house –at least, if the occasional screams and comments about “how cool” everything looks is anything to go by.

Better yet is that Scott is jumping and gasping at, like, everything. He’s so easily scared that you won’t even have to try when you drop down next to him. He’s so easily scared that the prank almost isn’t fun.

Keyword being: almost.

You and Piotr do your vampire schtick again –which, unlike what you did for the elementary students, this round involves the two of you lunging out of dark corners and acting, objectively, much scarier—and when the older teens and Scott run out, you grin, give Piotr a kiss, then dart out the other door.

It takes basically zero time to get positioned over the door everyone exits out of. You tuck yourself up into the corner where the walls and ceiling meet, then resign yourself to being bored while the older students finish their haunted house walkthrough.

Scott, predictably, is the first one out of the door. He looks annoyed by the entire situation, and is trying to brush fake cobwebs off his shirt.

Perfect.

You wait until there are a couple of students in the hall as well –you can’t have the prank go unwitnessed—then count down from five before dropping down next to Scott while screaming “Trick or treat!” at the top of your lungs.

He jumps five feet into the air and shrieks like a teenage girl in a horror movie, and the students laugh.

Mission: accomplished.

[sharkmobster]

spider verse coffee shop au??

Anon im sorry i wanted to draw the coffeeshop au but ive been so tired lately so imma just overshare about what goes down bc this au is just (thick tombstone voice) : “everybody’s traumatized bitch lets get you a latte”

 • this au is incredibly villain centric bc uhhhhh all i do is think about villains

 • its also very aaron davis centric bc time to project my anxiety onto a grown ass man babey!!

 • anyway this takes place in a normal world where there’s no superheros or avengers or what have you, everyone’s super average 

• like i said this is more or less aaron centric and focuses on him readjusting to society and making connections with other people, and just healing in general. Aaron’s whole deal is that he was wrongfully arrested for defending himself against an off duty cop who was harassing him and ended up with a 10 year sentence  (but was let off a year earlier for good behaviour). He’s got a lot of guilt bc of this if only for the fact that he feels like he let down his brother and Miles (who was a small lad at the time).

 • Fun Fact! Jefferson was the one that picked up Aaron at the jail when he served out his sentence! The ride back to brooklyn was awkward! but also jefferson loves his brother and even tho they’ve had their falling outs he never once stopped believing that his brother was innocent. Jefferson also made sure to pull some strings and ended up getting an apartment set up for Aaron (even though jefferson and rio were 100% down to open their home to him for as long as it took him to get back onto his feet but of course aaron denied them bc he didnt want to be a burden) Aaron’s grateful but he tends to avoid his own family…a lot….

• it’s ridiculously hard to find a job bc nobody wants to hire an ex convict no matter the circumstances and Aaron’s legitimately about to lose hope when he spots an expensive looking shop nestled in between an old arcade and a knick knack shop

 • ‘Vanessa’s Cafe’ is neatly printed above the door in fancy gold lettering. it’s obvious that the owner has serious cash bc the shop looks too damn good and too well maintained to be a regular mom and pop shop. there’s a help wanted sign hastily scribbled on a piece of notebook paper in the middle of the window which is odd since it off sets the professional vibe of the place. But hey it’s worth a shot so Aaron walks in ready to be denied another job only to find the weirdest looking group of people he’s ever seen.

 • The first guy that catches his attention is the very large albino man who looks way too stressed out and manic to be working in a coffeeshop, but the job must pay well because he’s very well dressed.

 • “Liv, for fuck’s sake! Clean your goddamn station!” he’s whisper shouting? Is that even a thing? oh look at that he’s got a full set of razor sharp teeth. huh. that’s a hell of an aesthetic he’s going for.

 • The lady in question isn’t even giving him the time of day, just enthralled by her phone with a smile that looks too peaceful given what’s happening around her. She’s got wild hair tied up messily in a knitted bandana, weird glasses (custom made??) and when she glances up at aaron, her eyes widen in interest like he’s some anomaly to be cracked open. aaron looks anywhere that isnt the wild eyed lady at the counter.

• Theres another big guy that’s hanging around the back, heavily tattooed and lifting stacks of heavy boxes. Aaron takes notice of his prosthetic hand and the tattoo guy takes notice of Aaron. 

• “Lonnie. Customer.” The Tattoo guy seems nonplussed about Aaron and walks into the back. aaron assumes that he’s offended him by staring at his prosthetic for longer than necessary which yeah….yeah he’s probably not happy about the staring. 

 • lonnie’s got a bad case of resting bitch face so he’s glaring at aaron without actually glaring and he’s just rough around ALL the edges so his tones got that nice bite to it as he shouts from across the counter (which is not something you do to a customer but it’s lonnie…..)  "Hey! Ya looking for a job, skinny jeans?!“

 • Aaron blanches at the idea of working with these people but he is absolutely desperate for a job at this point.

 •"Yeah. I just got out of-”

 •"Great, you’re hired! We’re speed running this whole introduction thing, string bean.“

 •and that’s all i got other than like small details like:

 •Peter B Parker owns a ”“’'cafe”“” across from Vanessa’s and its literally just a burger joint that h a p p e n s to sell coffee and Parker will fight you if you call his place a deli ahdhdj

 •Liv and May are dating (big shock) and peter b has to constantly deal with seeing his competition over at his place all the time and it’s yikes

 • Tombstone and Noir will 100% throw hands on contact. They don’t hate each other tho??? Its weird they just like to fight. gives them a chance to work on their banter i guess. Noir works the coffee machine at Peter’s “'cafe”’ so i guess he’s the “”barista”” of the joint but he drinks the coffee more than the customers do

 • Miles and the rest of the spider kids “”“”“"intern”“”“” at the cafe which basically translates to free labor

 •  spider ham works there but he isnt a pig he’s just john mulaney. i know its weird. nobody actually sees him tho so he’s a complete mystery as to what he looks like so he could be john mulaney you never know. the only person who’s seen him is noir and that’s only bc they’re  a thing???

 •oh speaking of everyone being gay:  everyone’s gay

 • Lonnie and Gargan (tombstone and scorpion) are 100% dating but everyone legitimately thinks that the both of them are straight old men despite the fact that they live together, go to work together, hang out afterwards together, and they’re just always together

 • lonnie’s  daughter (janice)  visits every other week (def the product of a divorce he went through years ago) she’s alright with gargan but she’s very distant towards her dad and def has that teen angst phase that she’s going through

 • (lonnie can and will talk to you for hours about how much he loves and supports his daughter despite the fact that their relationship is very estranged)

 • you can find janice hanging out with the cute blond punk girl at that weird burger/coffee place across the street

 • oh gargan’s big and strong despite the fact that he’s missing three limbs, liv works in robotics on the side and constantly tweaks and repairs his prosthetics when they start acting up which leads to them having this weird friendship where they both borrow each other when they need something and dont really expect anything in return (like gargan’s good for getting her supplies and doing heavy lifting when she needs it and liv’s always down to run check ups on gargan)

 • oh yeah liv used to be a scientist but immediately lost her license and phd when she started going above some board members heads to buy less than legal things through super illegal sources

.• that’s another thing, kingpin tends to just hire ex cons and criminals to work in his cafe just bc he believes that a person willing to work hard to better themselves deserves a chance to re enter society again.

 • like they’ve all done bad things but still ended up with a job at the cafe. aaron fought a cop, liv did some shady deals for an illegal experiment, gargan used to run a drug ring years ago due to personal reasons but once he was free from jail he never dealt with the stuff again, and lonnie killed a dude (allegedly. he never went to jail bc they couldn’t prove anything but hey word spread around quick and everyone knew not to go anywhere near this guy)

 • kingpin is in this au btw he’s just……a very depressed man who’s still grieving over his wife and son dying in a car accident

.• he rarely shows up to run the cafe bc its too much for him being in the place that his wife loved and built up from the ground. he used to be the manager after she died but couldn’t handle it and mostly left lonnie to take care of it

• which holy fuck lonnie is trying his best to keep this cafe alive and well and there’s only two other people working there so like its enough to have him scrambling all over the place trying to find more help (thanks aaron)

 •miles doesn’t know aaron’s working at the cafe across the street and aaron def wants it that way bc even tho he’s out of jail he hasn’t actually……visited miles yet….. it’s the shame that’s keeping aaron from reaching out to him which is….sad bc miles doesn’t care what happened he just wants his uncle back.

 • oh oh one more thing RIPeter used to run the deli across the street but had to leave brooklyn to go volunteer at homeless shelters across the states indefinitely so theres no telling when he’ll be back, so he left the cafe under the guidance of pb parker (peter b parker voice: my cafe now)

 •and uhhh thats all i got, like i said this au is just found family trope + the healing we all want + bad people getting redemption which is all the tropes that i love all compacted together in the most cliche au you can imagine!

[hecallsmehischild]

Mental Organization

Less a post to vent poison right now. More a post to untangle the ball of yarn and line the skeins up neatly in their compartments because right now it’s all one huge mishmash and I think it’s keeping me from what they call “executive function.”

Projects that I have a handle on but that I keep having to stop because I can’t make myself create something quality if my feelings are snarled

Illustrating a children’s story my friend wrote, called How To Be Good. I’m so happy with this. I’m no pro illustrator but my skills have grown a lot since I illustrated the other story (Purple is for Playtime). It’s so visually cheerful, it makes me happy to look at finished pages.

Hey Spacejerk. I love it so far but I’m apprehensive now. I’ve taken the device I was using to create this story and smashed it. How fast do I go now? I don’t really want to write a super long fanfiction. I don’t think I want this story to be longer than ten chapters more. But if I go too fast the audience will feel cheated.

Laughter Lines. I’m more sunk into the flow of this one, but constantly worried I’m going to screw up the device I’ve been laying dominoes for. It’s more complicated than my usual and, unlike previous fandoms where I could handwave these details, it will matter that everything is just right.

Elrohee. I just want to process things here. I want to be careful, too, because I don’t want it to get preachy. Ever. This series is not about being preachy and never was.

Wire trees. I created a larger wire tree recently and also a new kind of button tree that got me all excited. Then I started a tree with wire I didn’t like (because I was running out of colors) and I regret that. I don’t like the color combination. I’m staring at the half finished tree. I hate the waste, but I want to get back to being able to make trees. That half finished tree will stare me in the face forever if I don’t. So I’m standing up to throw it away now. No… No I’m not. The color combination isn’t hideous, just… not inspiring. If I add some really nice beads to it, it will perk up. I dont’ want to waste it.

Painting. Currently I have a half finished orange mask and a half finished wooden wiggly snake. Right now I have no inspiration to finish either, though I think maybe the orange mask might be flamey? Or sunny.

Crochet. I have two blankets in the works, one random-yarn blanket and one that has planned colors as a gift. They take up a lot of space.

Recording chapters of The Book of the Dun Cow aloud. This project is fun, though I do have to muster some will to make myself do it. Dramatic reading is kind of a joy, actually, especially with this book where I have all the voices down. I’m thinking of putting up the link to the whole playlist once the book is fully recorded.

Scrapbooking. I’m so happy. I have only a fraction of this project left to do, and then everything is nicely organized into binders.

And I get very angry and frustrated and kind of despair-y when I find I can’t move forward with these. It feels ridiculous because doing creative things HELPS me feel better, but I can’t do them when I feel bad??? What kind of Catch-22 is that???

Projects I am starting to get a handle on

Basic house cleaning. Or at least floors and bathrooms and countertops. Going to try and do a little bit every day that way it doesn’t become some weekly/monthly overwhelming chore I avoid like the plague.

House decorating. I’ve started getting into this and really liking it. I found a Texan-style wreath for the front door, placed 3 different house mats, and started tacking silk ivy around the kitchen windows. I’m actually kind of proud of myself about this.

Projects I am literally flailing through

Planning a wedding. Dear God, what am I doing? In the next two weeks I need to do the final ring purchase so that something has moved forward and finished. I also need to arrange the legal marriage so our paperwork is completed in the state of our residence and there aren’t any snarls with an out-of-state ceremony. That’s the goal for the next two weeks. Also how do you decorate??? (I ask, rhetorically. I’m looking through some stuff but I think I need to simplify my idea. Maybe instead of all four seasons, just winter/spring?)

Finding a therapist. The one I called isn’t responding. Don’t know how much leeway to give. If I haven’t heard back from her by Saturday night I’m going to try calling someone else. I need to move forward with getting approval for the surgery.

Krav Maga. I’m finally back and I’m doing well with jabs and punches, but anything that requires me to squat and rise multiple times is really hard. I’m very weak there, and while squatting my leg muscles just give out. I’ve looked up a beginner’s squatting routine that I’m going to TRY to enact because I really would love to stop humiliating myself in class. Been having panic issues before class (that stop once I’m in it, because there is NO ROOM in my being to have panic when I’m constantly moving) and would like that to stop. Prayed with my fiancée on the drive over and held his hand and that helped some.

Online Writing Course. Already panicked and frozen over a super vague writing prompt that doesn’t feel like enough explanation was provided. Afraid of being judged by peers. Afraid of critiquing peers because who am I to say this is good or bad? They are all in an Official Writing Course so they MUST know better than me, right? Even if it looks like they really don’t? Frozen.

Editing Best Served Cold. Froze again. Freaked out that I wasn’t a good enough writer to edit anything and froze. Freaking…

Patreon. This is a very on and off again thing. I don’t know how to self promote except through repetition which freaks me out. I don’t know how to save good things for “just the patrons” when I want to share it all. Don’t know if I should restructure all my tiers so there’s less tiers and less offerings? Very possible.

Etsy. Nobody really looks at the listings. I don’t blame them. I’m not a self promoter and I’m not a photographer. All my stuff looks better laid out on a table to sell but I don’t know where around here to do that so for now it just decorates the house. Maybe I should give up on Etsy again and just stick with my Facebook shop. People who use Etsy are serious about their business. This is a hobby I hope to sell a bit of and give the rest away.

Socially

Krav Maga class. I connected with at least one person who’s really sweet and nice. She’s more advanced than I am for sure but helps me feel a lot more at ease and I feel the need to apologize to her a lot less.

Small Group. My fiancée and I found a small group that’s an offshoot of the church we were trying. The church is a mega-church and we’re both still very wary of that. I felt very lost in a sea of people. But this group feels like a band of very real people, expressing doubts and pain while searching in the Bible together, eating pizza, and hanging out. Meets twice a month, plus one extra day that’s just girl’s night. I am looking forward to getting to know these people 3 Mondays a month.

D&D Shabbat night. Friday nights now we (light our brand new candles!) say the blessing, and eat a meal (now home cooked because ALL OUR KITCHEN IS FUNCTIONAL, WOOOOO), then retire to the great hall to play D&D. We are currently at 1 GM and 4 players, soon to be 5 players. We’re brand new so this will be glorious.

Health

BPV. Had a round of Benign Positional Vertigo for a few weeks. Finally cleared up. At least next time I’m suddenly dizzy out of nowhere I won’t think I’m dying.

Eating. Eating is weird lately. I’m walking this really fine line between getting obsessed with my weight and not caring. I have veered hard in the direction of aggressively “not caring” most of my life, partly because I was afraid of the eating disorders my friends suffered from. I’m doing pretty well with my eating, choosing my food carefully for one-main-meal-a-day-plus-light-snacks eating and trying to keep it all under 1400 cal. I don’t have a lot of impulse control when it comes to eating so I flat out can’t keep foods in the house “just for that one treat day” because that one treat day is TODAY no matter what I say to myself. Best I can do is limit my access to those foods (including turning down SOME opportunities to go out and eat). Impulse control gets worse with wonky emotions because I will eat ALL THE FEELS. Lately my main meal is (one can) tuna salad sandwich on onion roll, which is filling enough, then I eat plums and flavored rice cakes or salted-but-not-buttered-popcorn or pickles for the rest of the day. I picked up a few small soups which look good. Came to the realization recently that I really do need to stop thinking of this as something I do “Just until I get to goal weight.” In order to maintain the healthy weight I hope to achieve, I will still need to eat well. I don’t get to let loose just because I made it. So I have reluctantly begun adopting the idea that I need to do right by my eating habits as a permanent lifestyle change. I’d like to be around longer and in order to do so I need to take better care of myself than I have been. But I can feel obsession right on the edge of my consciousness and that’s a scary feeling. I’m trying not to fall into obsession or let it drive me off the other edge of extremes to not caring. Walking the tightrope carefully.

Sleep. Sleep is weird too. Some nights I wake up a lot, then I can get up in the morning easier. Some nights I zonk out straight through and then it’s super hard to get up in the morning. Still wish that I could not be so motion sensitive. I used to be Dusty-sleeps-like-a-rock and now I’m a light sleeper. All someone has to do is call my name and I jolt up.

Trich. Been obsessively tweezing a lot more. Gaps in every eyelid. Unhappy about this.

This Blog and Processing

I don’t always know what to do on here anymore. I post fanfiction, but the part of my life that I would normally process out loud... I can’t really do that now. It actually directly impacts someone this time. Feels like words are measured with a lot more care instead of just spilling out willy nilly and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I know that things knot up inside some more, but does that mean I just need to find a different not-so-public outlet for these things? It hasn’t really worked well so far.

Ever since the beginning of the year I have wondered to myself if I am too public with things and I’ve been a step more self conscious about it (yeah, weird to say on this complete textual vomit, right? But it’s been building for a really long time and I need this) since the end of last year. I let some words get under my skin that I shouldn’t have, but they’re hard to shake because I don’t know how much objective truth is in them.

Dealing with unfamiliar feelings that I want no part of. Anger isn’t unfamiliar, but it’s unwelcome. Boundaries book says anger is a good alarm bell, but I just… don’t want to. I don’t know where the line for “good anger” is and I don’t know how to do anger without setting every bridge around me on fire. Hatred is unfamiliar and even more unwelcome. It feels like tasty, warm poison. I want it, badly. I want it as a defense against past, current, and future pain. I want to rear up and yell “Not this time!” when I see patterns from my past repeating and I want icicles dripping from my words. But it’s deeply wrong. This isn’t what the God I serve taught, and I know hatred will poison me to the core of who I am. I get that those ideas have been hackneyed to death with pop catchphrases and whatnot, but I mean… that doesn’t make it any less true. And it’s going to be really ugly and messy and I don’t want to deal with it when being ice queen would be a hell of a lot easier. Still, I don’t know how NOT to hate at this moment, so when I’m aware I give God permission to change this in me because I can’t/don’t know how to change it myself right now.

Sometimes I wish I had more to say on the Dear Someone tag, but I know who Someone is and I tell him in person every day and it’s the most beautiful, wonderful part of my life right now.

 I say a lot of negative stuff. Even if it’s true stuff, I tend to focus on processing negatives a lot. I want to figure out ways to process positive and good things. I think I’m afraid of sounding like I’m gloating or shoving good things in the face of people who are hurting. But. I also want to share the joyful things in my life. And be grateful for them publicly as I am privately. I want to rewire my brain so that the first thing that comes to mind is not what’s wrong, but what’s right. I don’t want to do this in a fakey way, that sort of front really bothers me, but there has to be some genuine way to express gratitude and joy on a more regular basis. Pain isn’t the only genuine thing there is.

I want to process publicly some of my Bible reading and I have done so, but every time I’m afraid I might be stepping on someone’s toes or making someone angry at me. I don’t want to start fights but I also want to share stuff. I don’t want to mislead people, but I want to explore.

I’m trying so hard to accept that I’m happy doing what I like, but when “doing what I like” gives out on me because I’m emotional I get so angry and upset and fearful and I wonder if I’m really okay with that at all. Or is it just my mental illness acting out, then? It’s hard to tell if that’s what’s clouding my thought process and dampening my will to act.

Misc

I feel bad that my To Do Today or Today’s Goals posts are not working for me as well as they were at the start. It feels like failure.

I feel grief and anger and uncertainty about my family situation, both immediate and extended. I still don’t know how to balance the fact that I’ve split off to start a new family (just me and my fiancée, not kids) and that this one is supposed to be my priority, while still loving the family I grew up in. Or what love looks like with distance. What I’ve been engaging in doesn’t look or feel like actual relationship.

I want to bake. I want to bake lots of sweets. Apple pies, I want to make applesauce and jam (not baking, I know), I want to make lembas bread and chocolate chip cookies and ALL OF THE THINGS.

My area is a freaking mess and I need to fix that by tomorrow. And also make Miso soup for 5.

Stressed about trying to keep all aforementioned balls in the air without melting down or losing track of any.

I think there’s more. But. I’m tired. And I need to go to bed. And this… I think this helps. I’ve shelved a lot of brain skeins tonight. Maybe I’ll be a little more productive tomorrow.

[clexaweekofficial]

Some more ideas for Clexaweek2018, feel free to use these! (for credit for some of these prompts, here’s my pinterest where you can find them) 

Day 1: Meet Ugly: "We live in the same apartment complex and I accidentally leave my laundry in the washer for a minute too long and you decide to take out all my wet clothes to put in yours just as I walk in." Imagine grumpy Lexa who is beyond sick of some inconsiderate asshole who always leaves their laundry too long and she has things to do so she takes the wet clothes out to put her own in, and is caught red-handed by a gorgeous blonde who stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips looking equal parts annoyed and amused. Lexa goes on the defensive and snaps at her but the girl seems to grow more amused. After that Clarke starts taking her stuff out on time and Lexa is a bit miserable at the guilt and the fact that she kinda wishes she had an excuse to see the pretty blonde again... and then one day Clarke is late and Lexa’s a little too happy about that, especially when Clarke arrives actually sliding into laundry room before skidding to a halt, panting, and looks very curious indeed at the fact that Lexa only smiles at her apologies. They end up chatting in there for hours. Lexa finally grows some ovaries and asks Clarke out at the end, and Clarke kisses her cheek and tells her she can’t believe their first date was in the laundry room and Lexa blushes. 

"I work in a grocery store and I'm putting new items on the shelf in the refrigerated section and just as I'm putting a new carton of milk on the shelf, you reach in and our hands touch" LOL okay but imagine a fluffy au where Lexa's the one working at a grocery store and Clarke's in one of her classes and she's so pretty but Lexa can never work up the nerve to talk to her and then this happens and Clarke shrieks and flails and falls, bringing milk with her that goes all over the place, so Lexa rushes out to find a shocked Clarke lying in a puddle of milk and Lexa's face gets redder than a tomato (bonus points if she takes Clarke to the back to change since she has an extra shirt she changed out of for her work clothes, and then to make matters worse her boss walks in on her in the locker room with a shirtless, messy blonde)

"Human emotions can be bottled and sold on the black market. You are in desperate need of money and sell yours. It will take months to grow back, leaving you empty inside. The next day you meet her." Lexa doesn’t want to, but she does it, and then she meets Clarke and well...let’s just say Lexa’s so fuckin gay and Clarke’s her fuckin soulmate and she should probably be more freaked out by the fact that she is feeling already when she shouldn’t be

"You're a hitman with a conscience. Before every kill, you help the victim check something off their bucket list." Lexa's the hitman and is assigned Clarke. She watches her for weeks beforehand, learning her schedule, and pretends to be a student, 'meeting' Clarke in one of Clarke's classes and befriending her. Like always, she sets out to help her check something off her bucket list. She doesn't anticipate falling in love with her. I can't help but to picture Clexa on a road trip for this one, going somewhere where they can go on a hot air balloon together...

Day 2: Constantly mistaken for a couple: A twist on a fake dating au: Clarke and Lexa are dating, and then Raven begs Clarke to be her pretend-date because she doesn't want to show up to the company party where Wick, a douche she'd dated on and off, is, so she begs Clarke to pretend date her. Clarke does so and it goes swimmingly-- the bad news is, only two days later she discovers those same people are working on the apartment across from Lexa's, so she and Lexa try to pass themselves off as cousins/sisters/whatever to explain why they live together...but they keep giving each other really filthy pre-sex looks behind everyone's back like a game of chicken and pretty soon somebody is going to have serious concerns about their siblinghood.

“Hi sorry but I'm a youtuber and you wandered into my liveshow by mistake the other day and now half the internet thinks we're dating"

Day 3: At work: 

"Heroine: *on top of the Villain Lady holding her down* You are defeated! Villain Lady: you forgot about my secret weapon. Vilain Lady: It can only be defused by kissing me on the mouth. Heroine: ..... Heroine: you know you could've jut asked me out instead of taking over this city? Villain Lady: I'M AWKWARD OK?”

Lexa as a lawful-good hero, “The Commander,” Clarke as the chaotic neutral sometimes-hero, sometimes-villain who drives Lexa up the wall most times. Or Clarke as the neutral-good hero and Lexa as the neutral sometimes-hero, sometimes-villain who is smooth and cool and just operates to her own rules

Day 4: Accidental Stimulation:

(This could pair with Day 6, Famous)- Lexa is the lead in a play/show/movie and Clarke’s painting the backdrops. No one fucking told her that she’d be working the same time Lexa was rehearsing a sexy scene. Clarke’s gripping the paintbrush so hard it’s about to break because holy shit 

Clarke slept in and missed her final for art but luckily the professor is letting her make it up and the nude model consented to come back... except the nude model is Lexa and so gorgeous Clarke is going to bomb this final (alternatively, you could do it where the reason Clarke slept in and missed her final is because she was up for hours with a girl she’d just met...and that girl turns out to be Lexa, who is filling in for the model)

“I literally hate your guts but I have to get you fitted for this costume so put this on and and wow you’re actually pretty cute”

Day 5: Rivals in a secret relationship:

Clexa are on rival teams and everyone knows they hate each other and their teams play each other for playoffs and everyone’s freaking out because the captains of both teams are missing so there’s a search party and police involved and everything...and then they find them naked and asleep and covered in hickeys in the back of Clarke’s car

Lexa and Clarke are always going toe-to-toe at work and all the employees are kind of scared of them tbh but turns out outside of work they are super Soft girlfriends 

Clexa are on a reality tv program and the audience eats up their relationship and how they fight but they’re actually in love and secretly engaged

“So what are we” “Enemies with benefits”

Day 6: Famous:

Clarke is a famous celebrity who visits her friend Raven/Octavia/Wells whoever and they order a pizza and Clarke forgets she’s famous for a minute and answers the door and the pizza girl (Lexa) about has a heart attack and Clarke’s like omg shit wait please don’t tell anyone I’m here or the paparazzi will swarm, here come inside and share some of this pizza and here’s a huge tip Bonus points if Lexa can barely speak and is just scarlet-faced the entire time with the knowledge that she’s written explicit smut about the tv character Clarke plays

Clarke/Lexa's a famous celebrity and decides to check out one of her fans pages and accidentally likes a picture from like 176 weeks ago

Clarke and Lexa are both chefs on The Great British Baking Show (Live) and the entire world is hardcore shipping them and Mel and Sue (Or Octavia and Raven) keep making food-related dirty puns. Bonus points if the viewership keeps climbing so even Mary starts making little comments that indicate she’s a #Clexa fan. 

Lexa is a famous movie-star who escapes the paparazzi and her stifling body guards by slipping into a local library one rainy day and is immediately besotted with the pretty blonde librarian who doesn’t seem to have a clue who she is because she doesn’t really watch much television. Alternatively, Clarke’s the movie star and Lexa the librarian 

Clarke’s on that Skin Wars tv show and Lexa’s a model and she has to paint her body

Inked au where Lexa’s a tattoo artist and Clarke is her customer and Lexa’s super distracted by blue eyes and a pretty smile

Day 7: Free Day ideas:

Lexa works at a coffee shop and has always had a crush on Clarke, the beautiful blonde who comes in with paint-stained fingers and a distracted smile. Clarke leaves town for two years and returns...and can't believe Lexa still knows her order. (and Lexa can't believe Clarke remembers her!)

Lexa's the manager of the shop and one of the employees keeps drawing amazing art on the chalkboards, but Lexa can't figure out who it is even though she's been keeping a meticulous schedule to figure out whose shift it appears during

Lexa and her frinds always sit at the table a couple down from Clarke's and gossip in Trigedasleng, which happens to be a language Clarke is currently  learning. Clarke has been eavesdropping to try and improve her listening comprehension and oh my God is Lexa actually talking about how hot Clarke is??

There's a chess set at the local coffee shop set up in the corner and every morning Clarke/Lexa moves one piece. Later in the day, someone else always moves a piece too. Clarke/Lexa is dying to know who she's playing against.

"I'm a new hire and you're trying to show me how to use the espresso machine. I actually already know how to use it, but I'm pretending to be incompetent so that you'll keep talking to me. Please don't fire me.”

[darlingpeter]

black butterflies and déjà vu

hi everyone! this wasn’t a request but it’s something that i’ve been working on for quite a while! it’s based on one of my favorite songs of the same title by the maine! this is my attempt to slowly drag myself out of the lonely pit that is writer’s block, and any feedback is super appreciated!

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: none, just some extreme fluff

length: 3517 words

what would you say

If you could say

Everything you needed to

To the one you needed to?

Bucky first met you at a farmers market.

Ever since he moved to the compound after the Winter Soldier stuff died down, Steve had encouraged him to get reacquainted with the city, and more often than not, that meant wandering the streets of Brooklyn with a baseball cap pulled down over his face, his hands stuffed in the pockets of a sweatshirt as he walked.

There was something about open-air markets that always drew him in. Maybe it was because with all of the change that the world had undergone while he was iced, the markets always seemed to stay the same with their cacophony of friendly chatter and loud bargaining, the delicious smells of street food and kettle corn, and the friendly atmosphere that existed in a city that could be so harsh.

He avoided eye contact as much as he could with the people around him, still harboring the fear that someone would recognize him from the months his picture spent flashing across the news and make a scene.

He didn’t want to be feared. He just wanted to be normal. As much as he could be, at least.

He loved the diversity of the booths that were available. There was everything from handmade soaps and candles to hand-dyed shirts and fresh produce. Kids ran by with bright balloons and bags of kettle corn, and he found a small smile spreading across his features before too long.

His gaze was captured by the way that the panes sitting outside a booth selling stained glass caught the sunlight and transformed it into ethereal colors. However, something far more breathtaking caught his eye.

You.

Okay, so maybe Steve’s advice wasn’t the only thing that kept drawing him back to the weekly market. Maybe it was the gorgeous girl that always stopped by the same booth that sold flowers at just about noon every week, the kind varying weekly with what the shop had to offer. That week, it was a bouquet of colorful wildflowers. The week before, it had been zinnias, and dahlias the time before that.  

He knew it sounded creepy. God, it sounded creepy. But seeing you offer a friendly smile to the vendor, slip a generous tip into the jar next to the register, and then walk away with the flowers in one hand and a cup of coffee from a shop a block away in the other just brightened his day in the way that few things could.

So when he woke up at 6 AM like he always did because of his bullshit circadian rhythm, he heaved out a heavy sigh and ran a hand over his face, dread settling into his bones like it always did in the morning. However, when he realized that it was a Thursday, the weight seemed to lift a little bit, because it was the day that he would be able to see you at the market.

He took a quick shower - cold because he didn’t have the patience to wait for the water to heat up - and then pulled on what Tony called his “civilian getup,” which consisted of jeans, a black long sleeved shirt, and a plain grey baseball cap. With little else but a quick look in the mirror, he was out the door and into the dewy morning.

He walked the all-too familiar path through the neighborhood, melting into the small amount of traffic of people to walking to work or any of the various coffee shops that litter the storefronts in order to get their morning fix. Before he was iced, he would’ve likely been part of that crowd, but he had a strong belief that people nowadays liked their coffee too sweet, and if he were to just get it black, why not make it at home and spare himself the few bucks?

He fiddled with a loose thread in his pocket as he took the turn toward the market, smiling as the bustling street came into view. He was happy to recognize a lot of the regular booths, and even offered a small nod to the woman at the beeswax stall who gave him a smile and a kind good morning.

However, when he reached the other side of the market, near the all-too-familiar flower booth, his ray of sunshine was nowhere to be found. He was distracted for a moment, wondering why she broke her normal routine and where she could be, when the answer literally walked into him.

You had just hung up from a phone call and hadn’t been paying attention, causing you to run into the brick wall of a man, dropping your cup of coffee and small bouquet of orange tulips onto the pavement. Bucky cringed, hearing the crunch of paper and the splash of liquid on the pavement and immediately crouched down in order to help pick them up. He gently scooped up the blooms and stood, but he went rigid when he lifted his eyes to meet yours.

It was you.

You were frozen in shock, your eyes wide, and Bucky’s heart sank, scared that you were frightened of him. That fear dissipated only a moment later when you let out a soft gasp and a squeak of “oh my God, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

It was only then that he noticed that quite a bit of coffee had spilled on his jacket, and that its scalding heat was just beginning to seep through the fabric. He wanted to assure you that he was fine, but under your concerned gaze his cheeks turned pink and his words got caught in his throat.

“I-I’m alright, sorry about your coffee, miss.” He managed to stutter out, holding out the flowers.

“It was completely my fault, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” You apologized as you took the flowers from his hands. Your fingers brushed gently over those on his metal hand, and even though his hands were gloved, it still made him tense. Luckily, you either didn’t notice or didn’t care enough to call him out on it because your expression never faltered. “God, I’m such an idiot, I’m sorry.”

“I could buy you another cup of coffee, if you want?” He blurted, his mouth moving much faster than his mind was.

He was afraid that he was being too forward and that you would think he was some kind of creep, but he was relieved when you smiled at him. “I actually have to go to work right now, but I’d love to take you up on that offer later, um…”

“Bucky.” He quickly supplied, and your face lit up with a kind smile.

“I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.”

For some reason, being around you and being able to talk to you just made him feel warm in a way that he hadn’t felt since before he had been iced. After you quickly exchanged numbers and said your goodbyes, you flashed him a genuine grin and called, “I’ll see you later, Bucky!”

Hearing you say his name gave him butterflies in his stomach, and as he watched you walk away, he was half-convinced that the interaction was all a dream.

~

It took three dates for Bucky to open up to you about who he really was.

The two of you had gone back to your place after grabbing dinner at a diner that claimed to have the greatest pie in all of New York (and it had been pretty damn good, he wasn’t going to lie). You cracked open a bottle of rosé and poured it into two coffee mugs. “I once had two wine glasses but then a friend had her bachelorette party here and I bet you can guess how that turned out.” You said in explanation, and Bucky let out a small laugh.

He had learned a lot about you in the past few weeks. He knew how you liked your coffee, what emojis you used the most while you texted, and what your favorite kind of chocolate was. Topics ranged a little deeper on your dates as well, as you told him about how you grew up, why you came to New York in the first place, and revealed your favorite spots in the city to find some quiet amidst the constant buzz of chaos.

He felt as though he was finally starting to get to know you, but also felt guilty because in listening to everything you had to say, he didn’t interject much about himself into the conversation. It’s not that he didn’t have the opportunity to; there were plenty of times where you asked about him and he would hesitate and say something vague or change the subject. He hated it - he felt like he was lying to you in a way, and he just couldn’t bear it anymore.

So he told you on the couch that night, with his heart pounding in his ears and his hands shaking slightly as he held onto his mug. The moment that “the winter soldier” passed his lips, your expression fell, and his face grew hot with shame. He avoided eye contact with you as he stared into his cup.

“I thought you looked familiar.You were on the news.” You spoke softly after a moment, and Bucky’s heart sank. He could only imagine the horrendous and vile thoughts you now associated him with, and he was unable to deal with the fact that your gaze, which had been so kind and warm in the past, would now be clouded with judgement or maybe even fear when it fell upon him.

He cleared his throat, set his mug down on the coffee table, and stood, wiping his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans. “I-I’m sorry, I should probably go. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He murmured hurriedly, cursing himself for thinking that he had any chance with you. He

“Bucky, I’m not scared.” You spoke softly, and when Bucky turned back to look at you, he saw nothing but concern in your eyes. You wordlessly reached out for him, and he took it your hand with his gloved right. He sat back down as you gingerly placed your mug on the coffee table beside his and sat cross-legged facing him on the couch. You pulled his hands into your lap, his palms facing upward. Wordlessly, you pulled off the glove of his right hand, revealing the calloused skin of a man who worked with his hands.

The left one got pulled off as well, and Bucky tensed as the plated metal of his prosthetic came into view.

You gently ran your fingers over the cool cybernetic surface and he watched uneasily.

“I did some of my own research about the Winter Soldier too because I felt like there was something missing from the normal spiel that they gave on him on T.V. and I know that they had you all wrong. I read about what happened during the war and with Hydra, and I know that you didn’t do all those things that they said you did. That was the Winter Soldier, not Bucky Barnes.” You raised your eyes to meet his after the last bit to find his, starting to brim with tears.

You lifted his metal hand so that he could cup your cheek, but when the cool metal touched your flushed cheek, he flinched, pulling his hand away and to his chest. “You’re not going to hurt me, Buck.” You said gently.

He shook his head. “You don’t know that.” Not everything in his head was back to where it was before,  and while The Winter Soldier hadn’t surfaced in quite a while, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something happened to you because someone managed to get their hands on the damn sequence of words that would throw everything back to shit.

You decided not to push him - his expression was too dark and held too much for you to deconstruct in an instant. Instead, you just scooted closer to him, nuzzling into his side and under his metal arm. The two of you sat in silence for a good while, the air of the room still heavy from the exchange.

“I trust you, Bucky. I know you don’t, but I do.” Your small whisper broke the silence, and the confession made his heart pound in his throat.

~

The two of you went on one more date before you made it official - which entailed meeting the rest of the Avengers. Much to Bucky’s relief, they accepted you immediately. Steve took the longest to come around, concerned about about his best friend, but even he was able to see how happy you made Bucky, and you became great friends with him as well.

After a year and a half together, the Avengers decided to move upstate, and that brought its own set of challenges. You stayed in your little apartment in the city, but after about a month of late night phone calls and making the trek to the compound on the weekends, Bucky told you about a traditional style house not far from the compound. It wasn’t two weeks later before the house was purchased and you were making arrangements to rent a U-Haul truck.

“Is that the last one?” You asked as Bucky walked through the front door of the house carrying a cardboard box. When he nodded and set the box down with the several others in the otherwise empty living room, you threw your arms up excitedly. “James Buchanan Barnes, we’re officially homeowners!”

He took the few steps over to you and picked you up, spinning you around in circles while you wrapped your legs around his waist. He came to a stop and you cupped his face in your hands, staring into his eyes with a giddy grin and flushed cheeks. He pressed forward the short distance to kiss you deeply, feeling lightheaded with happiness.

When he set you down, you gave him one more peck on the cheek before walking the short distance to the well-worn sofa and collapsing onto it. It was the only piece of furniture that had been moved into the living room, the rest would be delivered within the week “You okay, sweetheart?” He asked with a laugh after watching you fall seemingly bonelessly into the soft cushions, and you let out a groan.

“My body hurts and there’s still so much to do.” You whine.

Looking at you with a fond smile, he shook his head. “I have a plan.” He pulled you to your feet and wrapped you in his arms. “How about we start officially unpacking tomorrow, but for now you take a long, hot shower upstairs? By the time you come back down, i’ll have ordered takeout.”

“If I find where I put my laptop, can we watch Friends too?”

“Whatever you want, doll.” He said with a smile, and you let out a happy hum against his chest.

As you made your way upstairs to the master bathroom, Bucky made the call to your favorite takeout place for delivery and sat down on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees. He let out a long exhale as he heard the shower turn on from upstairs, and reached into the pocket of his jeans to retrieve a small weight that was resting there.

His fingers wrapped around the small black box and pulled it out of his pocket, holding it between his digits absentmindedly. With one more sigh, he leaned back and popped it open, revealing the simple diamond ring that was nestled inside. He had bought it weeks ago, before he had to leave New York City, thinking that he would find the perfect moment and be able to drop to a knee and ask you to be his forever.

But the moment never came.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to ask you, because he did more than anything. It’s just that he could never find the time that felt perfectly right. You deserved the biggest, most romantic moment that the universe had to offer, and anything else felt inadequate.

He wanted to just get down on a knee and go for it, but whole universal timing aside, what would he even say? If he couldn’t have the right moment thanks to karma or whatever, he could possibly make a big romantic speech to make up for it, but that’s a lot of pressure for a moment in time unless he were to write it down, but a notecard would definitely kill the mood.

Bucky was jolted out of his reverie by the knock on the door, and he pocketed the ring once more so that he could pay the delivery man at the door.

He quickly set the paper food containers out on the kitchen counter before returning to the living room and pacing back and forth across the carpet. He ran his hands through his hair as he thought hard, brow furrowed in concentration as the box sat suddenly heavy in his pocket.

“Babe, is everything ok?” Bucky heard you say, and he turned to see you, standing at the foot of the stairs. You were wearing what you referred to as your “comfies,” which consisted of an old shirt and sleeping shorts, and your still-damp hair was mussed playfully. Your face was cleansed of all makeup and you looked refreshed and absolutely radiant. “You look like you’re going to wear through the carpet.” You told him with a fond sparkle in your eyes.

Fuck it, Bucky thought.

He dropped to a knee right there in the middle of the living room, taking the ring box out of his pocket and opening it. He held his breath and locked his gaze onto yours, waiting for a response.

“Bucky…” You said slowly, frozen to the spot and seemingly lost for words. He could tell that by the way you blushed pink and your lips turned up into the faintest smile that your shock was positive.

“C’mere, doll. I’ve got something I wanna say to you.” He beckoned softly, and you nodded, stepping forward so that he was on his knee directly in front of you. He reached up to take your hand in the one that wasn’t holding the ring.

“I’m not good with words. Or emotions, really. But I’m good with you, Y/N. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, and from the moment I met you at that market, I’ve been able to feel things and see a future for myself that I haven’t been able to feel or see since before I was iced. You’re everything that I’ve ever wanted.”

Tears were welling up in your eyes as you grinned, and you squeezed his hand. He took it as a sign to continue.

“I’ve had this ring for weeks, but I’ve been waiting for the universe to grant me some kind of perfect moment, and it’s taken me this long to realize that any moment with you is a perfect one. And I know that we’re surrounded by boxes right now, and that this might not be the romantic proposal that you dreamed of as a little girl, but I’m planning on spending the rest of my life making it up to you. Y/N, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”

Tears were freely falling down your cheeks as you breathed a “yes, oh my God,” and Bucky slid the ring onto your finger. You immediately fell to your knees on the ground so that you could embrace him, making him lose his balance and topple onto the ground underneath you with a laugh. He kissed you deeply, cupping your face in his hands and wiping the tears from your cheeks with his thumbs.

Before too long, the two of you were sitting against the couch, watching Netflix on your laptop and eating takeout with plastic forks and drinking champagne that Steve bought Bucky from the bottle (”For whenever you get around to it, Pal.” He had said).

Tomorrow, the two of you would break the news to the rest of the team and officially start unpacking things into your new place, but at that moment, there was a still feeling of relaxation that he savored. He hadn’t felt so happy with things to come in a long time.

Bucky couldn’t wait to start the rest of his life with you. 

tags:  @howlingbarnes  @rotisserierogers @maybe-mikala @savage-stilinski

[a/n: i’ve literally been working on this for months and it’s cathartic to finally post it!! I feel like I may have been in too much of a rush to get this finished up, but I have been staring at this for a long time so I honestly don’t even know. 

any feedback would be super super appreciated as always!! let me know what you think!! i’ll be checking my inbox, my messages, and reblogs, so let me know!! :-) ]

[dontfindyourcenter]

Chapter seven:  New island

Rules: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177027661290/rules

Previous Chapter: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177339049670/chapter-six-its-a-cold-and-its-a-broken-hala

Alola, Akala! What a wonderful phrase Alola, Akala! Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my center-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

Why, when Nina was a young rock doooog

Rockruff, ruff ruff ruff rockruuuuuuuuuuuuuuff!

Very nice!

Rockruff.

We came to Heahea city and I couldn’t help feel I was enjoying this challenge!  I could let out a squeal! I’ve an optimist’s soul, though I couldn’t begin To really truly believe, that I could ever win...

And I’m not ashamed!

(No, there’s no shame!)

It’s a difficult game!

(Why am I doing this game?)

I feel like I’ve lucked up

(How do I feel?)

Whenever I haven’t -

(Tori! Not in front of the kids!)

Sorry.

Alola, Akala!

What a wonderful phrase

Alola, Akala!

Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my healing-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

...Uhhhh… Sorry about that.

But seriously, I’m actually feeling pretty good about myself, docking into Heahea City!  Even though I can remember the second island of Alola is a lot harder than the first, I’m pretty happy with the team I cobbled together back there, and I’ve got a pretty respectable stash of revives if the worst happens.  Even if I’m still not convinced I’ll make it to the Elite Four, I can still be pretty confident that I’ll make it to the other side of this island.  Bring it on, I say!

Another city, another chance to buy everything blue and purple from the clothes shop.  (Did I even mention that I went back and got everything purple from the Hau’oli clothes shop before I came here?  Because I did!)  Shockingly though, even without having spent any money on items for the entire game, I still can’t afford the slightly-purple trainers they’re selling here.  I blame the recession.  I vow to come back here after the first trial and see if I have more luck then.

Before I can even get onto route 4 and savage the local wildlife, I’m accosted by Sina and Dexio, a pair of scientists on their holidays all the way from Kalos!  I kinda miss Kalos.  Since my copy of pokemon Y got lost a long while ago, it’s the only region I haven’t been playing games in non-stop in the last three years.  If I have any secret millionaires hidden among the five people who follow this blog, hit me up if you want to send me a copy of pokemon X.  

Anyway, Sina invites me to a pokemon battle, but that doesn’t last long.  Her delibird provides me with one of those rare battles where my pokemon end up with more health at the end of the match than they had at the start, and her glaceon gets dispatched by a couple of Magnet Bombs from Digit Al the magnemite.  As a reward, she heals my pokemon and gives me a Zygarde Cube.  I have no intention of adding a Zygarde to my party, but I’ll take the cube anyway - I can’t say no to a good treasure hunt.  Also, I literally can’t say no.

I charge through route four pretty quickly on tauros’s back, with Nina throwing rocks at trainers as we go.  We soon reach Paniola Town, where Hau catches up to me.  Hi Hau!  He challenges me to a battle, and - oh, Hau, sweetie, you still only have two pokemon?  I have a feeling that nepotism played a part in Hau winning his first grand trial, bless him.  In any case, Jabba the grimer beats his pikachu, Digit Al beats his popplio, and I find out that sweet, innocent Hau heals all his opponents’ pokemon both before and after every battle he gets into.  No wonder the boy’s not doing so well - the potions alone must be costing him a fortune, and god knows how he manages to restore the moves of everyone’s PP on top of that.

I wander around the only open non-pokemon-center building in the Town and a magmar gives me a quick ball which is heavily implied to have been hidden up its read end.  I think that’s my cue to leave.

Onwards to Paniola Ranch, where I get a Stoutland registered on my ride pager who can sniff out items for me, and the useful lad even finds me some useful healing items.  Hey, if it finds super potions on the ground, does that make it a drug-sniffing dog? ...That was really clever in my head, but on reflection, that’s probably where the entire concept of the Stoutland Search function came from.  Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything.  

While I’m here, I say hi to a tauros in the corner, and a pokemon breeder wanders up to me and asks me if I want to battle him to calm him down.  Makes sense - when I’m feeling riled up, nothing calms me down more than having a cartoon woodpecker break a brick on my head.  Anyway, the breeder gives me a Scope Lense when I’m done.

Just before I head up to route 5, where my next trial is waiting, I see a miltank standing next to the pokemon nursery.   Normally, I’d go up to it and investigate; I love the little touches the developers of the game add when you interact with pokemon like that, even when they turn out to be a quick ball hidden in a magmar’s arse.  I don’t do it here, though, because I remember that I used to get healed by that miltank when I was playing Pokemon Sun, and getting deliberately healed by an NPC is Against The Rules.  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been tempted to feign ignorance, though.  The trainers around the ranch are a great source of experience, but they do take a toll on the HP.

And now I’m on route 5, and I can finally meet everyone’s favourite edgelord, Gladion!  I love the weird thing he does where he sort of clutches his hand in from of him and it sort of vibrates.  I’m sure it’s meant to make him look more mysterious and unpredictable or whatever, but it just makes him look like he’s doing that thing you do when you’re trying to spook kids at halloween.  “And the scariest part is, nobody knows where the disembodied hand is now - wait - noooo!  It’s here!  Run, save yourselves!”

Gladion’s first pokemon is a zubat, which goes up against Celine McQueen the slowpoke.  I win that match, but in hindsight, I wish I’d switched pokemon early on in the battle.  I should know by now that zubats always seem to know Bite, and Celine took more damage than was really necessary.  Regardless, I switch over to Jabba when he sends out his Type:Null.  Jabba poisons Nully with his Poison Fang attack, but man, I forgot how much of a punch that guy packs, even with a relatively weak attack like tackle.  Jabba immediately has to switch places with Digit Al to avoid death.  

...Hey, speaking of Jabba dying, a thought has just occurred to me.  How did Jabba the Hutt die of being strangled in Star Wars?  He doesn’t have a neck!  What’s that about?

Sorry, I guess that’s not that important.  Digit Al has higher defence than Jabba, so he manages to take a couple of hits and send a couple of thundershocks until Type:Null gets knocked out.  That’s that done and dusted and he… doesn’t heal my pokemon.

Huh.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, that marks the first time in the game where I battle a major recurring character and don’t have my pokemon automatically healed before or after the encounter.

I guess this is where things really get interesting.

End of chapter seven.

[mr-kamiyama]

So I went to a store called Dollar Store today. Next to the name, it said "1.25$ and up." Most items had no price, and were actually 1.75$ Even the saleslady seemed to realise how disingenuous it was, and I bought nothing.

See my last post--the dollar has been in freefall for decades.

It's not just that store. 99Cents Only stores have also not only shrunk the size of their 99 cent goods (e.g., cream cheese went from a normal 12 oz. pack to somewhere between five and eight ounces. I haven't been in one in a while), but now sell many goods at the 1.99$ (aka 2$) and 2.99$ (3$) price points, and even higher.

At this point, I think calling them "dollar stores" is just false advertising. Call them Value Shops or Bargain Shops (which the reason all supermarkets can claim to have the best value, an advertising trend that began in the '60s, is because things like "best value" are vague and completely subjective) But calling them dollar stores, even if they can legally get away with it, much the same way F*X News can legally get away with that just being a name even if it's just a mix of handwringing about how dare poor people have refridgerators and blatant white supremacists, and say "oh, that's just a name," it is just *false.*

I get where companies like BP are going with different brands of gas station marketed as different lifestyle brands ( e.g. Amoco appeals to the muscle car crowd, AM/PM is relaxed West Coast and always there with coffee, day or night, etc) Lifestyle branding isn't something that can be true or false, just like you can have a depressive disco dancer or a ridiculously optimistic and bubbly punk rocker.

But when you're blatantly misrepresenting the type of product you sell, like "dollar stores" have become or F*X News may have always been ( they definitely are now, but I don't know if they were always like this or not), there really needs to be a line drawn that prevents this.

The Better Business Bureau used to, and had its teeth taken out to save abusive and tyrannical megacorps like Wal-Mart, Papa John's, or McDonald's (McDonald's in America is *evil* to its employees, explanation because they're global, and in some countries, their behaviour would be instant corporate suicide)

I dunno if they'd have domain over media. I mean, you can easily find the racism and lies that newspapers spread about internment camps for Japanese Americans, but it also remained uncontested. Even today, racism against Asians is totally cool with the rest of y'all. And y'all smother our voices and gang up to gaslight us when we do speak out. So I can't really look at that and ascertain anything from it.

But my main point is that while yes, advertising in its particular modern shape of things like lifestyle branding was actually literally Freud's nephew experimenting with peacetime uses for propoganda, it's not like Pepsi associating itself with hip youthfulness makes it any less of a cola. It's the advertisers trying to get you to associate a certain feeling with their product. But it doesn't make their product any less what it is or alter the actual product in any way. It's deceptive in a way, if you lack any sort of critical thinking, I guess, because I can drink Pepsi until I'm passed out from sugar spike, but I'll never bring my hairline back to where it was ten years ago or not have arthritis again?

But they're also not actually claiming a youth serum or anything, so I guess it's more like going to a roller rink looking for what you felt in your local one in '82.

But all these so-called "dollar stores," which mostly used to actually be "everything is a dollar," since the branding is considered to mean that, even though it's arguably legacy naming, it's not that anymore, and so, I find it deceptive enough to cross a line. Just like F*x News, which is entirely bigoted hot-takes and not actual news.

(Note that I'm not saying that decieving about what you sell and Nazism are equated, but that both have names that lure people in by easily disproven falsehoods. That's why I'm comparing. Not a whole lot does that. I'm really just putting this here because most of the English internet is made of bad faith actors who will deliberately twist others' words)

There really needs to be something done about outright easily proven deception to lure people in. Even if we consider the legacy branding aspect of the stores at hand, it's just no longer true, and they really need to rename to "Bargain Shops" or something.

But even if it's somehow just too gosh darn hard for people to, yanno, not hate everyone who's not exactly like them to care about the people making your McDonald's orders or people dying of blood poisoning like it's 1803 because of lack of insurance, people generally want stuff that's not made to break and be irreparable after two years. When I tell young people about the shrine to 1987 I live in and all of this stuff being made to be maintenanced and repaired, it always sounds so wonderful to them. And every repairman left is super depressed because buying a new unit is cheaper than bare cost of parts, and they can't complete. I don't think anyone's happy about modern technology being intentionally flimsy. Americans are also beginning to realise American food makers take more chance on variety in overseas markets. There are things the average American consumer is upset about, even if the treatment of the people who serve them isn't one of them.

But the US is just such an oligarchy. A few big companies rule everything and pay off the government like a mob.

So these companies can get away with luring us in with lies. And we're more split up, isolated than ever. I'm Gen X. We were eraced into the shadows. And I'm also Asian American and trans male, two other demographs that's happened to. Mixed is a fourth one I am. As I am pointing out,erasure of a demograph makes its members become very isolated. But I do see Millennials talking about being lonely and having trouble socialising a lot. So I think the movement of socialising to the internet did *something,* and it's actually a lot of people that are having trouble reaching out.

Never mind that 21st Century society's rule is "it's wrong to hate me but fun to hate my neighbour." Divides have gotten worse/become the rule rather than just oppressor Vs. all oppressed, and that *is* fed by social media. We should also be taking action against this! Even *I* get far-right v-logger recommendations on YouTube, and the only thing I use YouTube for is music that came out before any v-loggers were born! I watch zero v-logs. It tries to shove v-logs so massively known for being hate screeds that even *I* know those names are bad news, at me. We should be protesting Tumbler... doing a lot of things, and all sites letting Nazists flourish net-wide while I've literally seen some cartoon fish meme-style joke about white cops get people banned on Twitter.

But every so often, people do band together and still get something done. Remember the internet blackout? The "pipes" are still "dumb"!

Just like that post I have about the ways voting does still matter even though gerrymandering, rigged voter machines, etc., are all true, consumer action still matters.

But no one's ever listened to me, because I'm a mixed, Asian, immigrant, disabled, trans, ace Xer. No one wants to be forced to admit I exist. So you probably won't either. You would rather contend with a lousy hand than admit I'm right.

(I literally called the US The Ring when it came out, and subsequent similar movies "unnecessary blond hair versions" over a decade before people really started saying these things were "whitewashed." Just one example)

[sarcasmfics]

Stuck In The Middle: Chapter 9

Summary: Sarah is a scholarship recipient working at Stark Industries. Her job? To break the super-serum! But when she falls, literally, into the arms of those super soldiers, will she lose their trust when her work is stolen? At this point, it’s PG (some swearing), smut to follow, but mostly fluff and some anxiety(AO3 link here) BuckyxOFCxSteve, BuckyxSteve, OFC, OFC!scientist, poly relationship

CW: Nothing really, just a lot of fluff and some good ol’ 1940s dancing!

Chapter 9:

The boutique was a pleasant reprieve from the busy Manhattan streets that Wanda had led me through earlier. I’d received my first paycheck from Stark and wanted to find something cute to wear for mine and Steve’s date.

“Dinner and maybe dancing?” He’d asked and I paused. Steve didn’t seem like the club type of guy, but I agreed. When I went to Wanda for help, she smiled and laughed a bit.

“Trust me, Sarah,” she said, smoothing out her red dress, “he’s not taking you to a modern club. You’ll be dancing, but not at a bar.”

“So where are we going?” I replied.

“I’m not going to tell you that!” Then, she paused. “Do you have any dresses?”

We wandered through the boutique, the third one so far, picking out a few dresses and found the dressing rooms. The first two didn’t fit- apparently the store didn’t sell clothing over a certain size, but that was fine; the dresses weren’t my favorite. The third, however, fit perfectly. Wanda zipped me up and I stepped out to look in the full length mirror.

“I like this one,” I smiled, smoothing out the A-line skirt. It reached down to just above my knees, the skirt hugging the curves of my waist. The top was accentuated by a sweetheart neckline, cinched in the middle, and short sleeves. “You don’t think the color is too boring?” The solid dark blue was accentuated with white finishes across the bodice, waistline, and hems.

“Not at all.” She shook her head and the store clerk agreed. “Do you have shoes?”

“Flats,” I replied.

“Then you’re set?” I nodded, smiling at my reflection. How long had it been since I’d dressed up?

Later that afternoon, I sat with my mirror at my desk, carefully applying a thin line of eyeliner across the tops of my eyes. Thankfully, I’d brought a bit of makeup with me. Pinning my hair half back, I slid my flats on just as there was a knock at my door. I opened it, stepping back to let Steve in, who held a bouquet of colorful daisies in his hand.

“Hey,” I smiled, feeling a blush spread up my cheeks as he took in my appearance.

“Hey,” he replied, finally leaning in for a kiss. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks!”

“These are for you,” he held the flowers out, watching with a smile as I smelled them.

“They’re so pretty! Thank you, Steve!” I grabbed the now empty vase and filled it with water, depositing my new flowers back into the windowsill. “So dinner and dancing?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I uh… thought you’d like that?”

“I didn’t peg you as the club type of guy.” I said, collecting my phone and purse.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to a club. It’s… well it’s nice. How’s that?”

“It sounds nice,” I smiled. “Ready?”

“Yes ma’am.” I couldn’t help but giggle at his response. I locked up and followed him to the elevator.

As we approached the doors, he offered his arm and I accepted. It was so much different than holding hands; it felt so much more intimate, but gave me enough room to walk comfortably beside him. The city streets were busy as usual, but he steered us through the crowds easily.

After a little while we arrived at a small restaurant. The host immediately recognized Steve, shaking his hand with a big smile. Something told me, however, that he wasn’t recognized for his superhero status, but as a regular. As we followed him into the restaurant, I immediately understood- tables surrounded an open dance floor in a horseshoe shape with a small stage completing the circle. On the stage, a band played an old swing song. A few couples populated the dance floor, moving perfectly in sync with each other.

Ever the gentleman, Steve pulled out my chair and tucked me in, taking a seat opposite me. “What do you think?”

“Wow!” I turned toward him, feeling my cheeks strain with a huge smile. “I’m glad Wanda took me shopping.”

“You look beautiful,” Steve replied. “And I’m glad you like it.”

“How did you find this place?”

“Actually,” he smiled, rubbing the back of his neck, “I knew his father when he owned it. Back before the war.”

“Seriously?” He nodded.

“His dad helped me out a few times,” he began, but paused when the waiter came by to take our drink orders. When he left, we glanced down at the menu.

“What do you recommend?” I asked, eyeing the lemon chicken.

“I usually go for the pasta with meat sauce,” he replied, “but their food is great. What are you thinking?”

“That lemon chicken looks good,” I smiled. “I’ve been dying for some lately.” When the waiter returned, we placed our food orders.

On the stage, the band switched to a slower song, and Steve looked up at me, smiling bashfully. Slowly, he came to my side of the table and held out his hand. “Would you like to dance?”

I could feel the blush spreading up my neck as I nodded and took his hand following him to the dance floor where he took my hand in his, the other resting just above my waist. We were an awkward distance away from each other, and I stepped toward him, hoping I wasn’t invading him too much, but he only smiled down at me to pull me almost flush against him. “I don’t dance much,” I began, chuckling. “I’ve actually never danced like this before.”

“I’ve got you,” he replied, a warm smile tugging at his lips. “Just let me take the lead and you’ll be fine.”

“I think I can do that.” We danced in content quiet, enjoying the music as he swayed us gently side to side. After a little while, he shifted his weight, guiding me around, but not without my feet getting tangled a few times.

“Here, step like this.” Slowly, at first, he guided my steps until I got the simple ones down, and he pulled me back against him, guiding me a bit more smoothly this time. This was dancing. This was intimate, romantic, but not too pushy. Sure, we were nearly pressed against each other, but our movements were in sync, and being so close to him allowed a whole new version of intimacy I’d never experienced before. The music was loud enough to carry through the restaurant, but not so loud that we had to shout. Instead, the closeness was good, as he could tilt his head just a bit and speak to me with ease. When the song ended, we separated just a bit to applaud the band. “What do you say, want to try another?”

“Sure,” I replied, and he brought me back to him as the band began a more upbeat song.

“Follow my lead and step like this,” he said, demonstrating. After a few tries, I got the basic steps down and he guided me across the floor, pushing me out to spin, then pulling me back against him. I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me; this was definitely a new experience. The song finished with minimal foot injury, and he lead me back to the table where our food was waiting.

“Steve, thank you so much! I’ve never done anything like this before!” Across the table, a light blush spread across his cheeks.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” he replied. “I was worried you wouldn’t at first.”

“Why? Steve if this is something that you love to do, then I want to learn as much as I can about it. Besides, why did people stop dancing like this?”

“Thanks. That really means a lot,” he replied. “And I agree. I’m still trying to figure out why people don’t like this!”

Like Steve promised, the food was amazing. I made sure to get a box to take the rest back, especially since I knew I wanted to dance some more. When we’d finished, Steve asked for another dance and I was happy oblige. It was another upbeat one, but he kept his movements simple, spinning me every so often and laughing as as I laughed.

When another slow song began, we moved closer, and I laid my head on his chest, smiling contently. We swayed side to side, his cheek resting gently on my head. We were wrapped up in each other, the restaurant just background noise. When he pressed a kiss to my head, I looked up and he pressed his lips against mine. In that moment, I realized two things: one, I was definitely falling hard for Steve, and two, modern dating had officially been ruined for me.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, searching my face.

“You never finished your story,” I replied. “You were telling me how you knew the owner?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, glancing behind me for a moment to take in the room. “Yeah, I knew his dad. He gave me a job a few times to help with the rent. My ma and I weren’t very well off and I was working some odd jobs to help out. I used to bus, or sweep up at night. I’d check in with him a few times a week and he’d always find something for me to do.” He chuckled to himself, remembering something. “Buck and I used to come here all the time. He used to tear this place up; there was always a line of girls waiting to dance with him. Sarah, if you want to really learn how to dance, you’ll ask Buck.”

“Really?” I asked and he nodded. “He never seemed like the dancing type to me.” Steve shook his head.

“He wasn’t for a while, especially after… everything. But one night, I was cleaning up at home and playing some music when he grabbed me and we just danced. Even after the music was over, we stayed together. It wasn’t like the old days when he’d taught me a few steps in my apartment. It was different, like Bucky had really come back to me.”

“You love him so much.” Steve nodded, trying to hide the bashful smile on his face. “Why are you embarrassed?”

“We’re on a date and I’m talking about Buck,” he shrugged. “Feels wrong.”

“I like hearing the stories you guys have,” I replied. “And you… I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“You just get this look on your face when you talk about him,” I shrugged, staring at his chest. “I don’t know. It’s just… I can tell how much you love him, and how much he means to you. And I think it’s really amazing to love someone as much as you love him. So I don’t mind you talking about him; he’s part of this whole ‘us’ thing.”

He tipped my chin up, bringing my gaze to him and kissed me, longer this time, his lips moving against mine in a way that he hadn’t before. When he finally pulled away, he looked down at me and sighed. “You’re really special, Sarah.” After a pause, he added: “Did I tell you how beautiful you look?”

“Only about a dozen times,” I chuckled. “But I’m not complaining.”

We finished two more upbeat dances before heading out, Steve shaking the owner’s hand again. On the street, he took my arm once more and guided me through the city. Even though we weren’t in one of the busier areas, as Steve assured me, I was still amazed at the sheer volume of people and the noise and lights of the city. I’d seen it on TV, but experiencing it was completely different.

“What kind of ice cream do you like?” He asked, glancing down at me.

“Cookies and cream. All the way.” I replied. “You?”

“Swirl,” he replied. “Want to get some?” We crossed the street and made our way up to the window, Steve placing the order as I turned around, looking up at the ridiculously tall buildings. After a bit of walking, we found a place to sit and eat our dessert.

It was late by the time we made it back to the tower, and my feet were aching from all the walking and dancing, but I didn’t mind. As we made our way up the elevator, Steve glanced down at his phone and sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Briefing tomorrow morning,” he replied, sliding the phone back into his pocket. “I’ve got a recon mission. I’ll probably be gone for a few days.” The elevator doors opened and we made our way toward my door.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked and he shook his head.

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I’m just going to check some things out, look around, see what I can see. Routine kind of thing. I’m just going to miss you, that’s all.”

“I’ll be here when you get back,” I replied. “Just promise me something?”

“Of course.”

“Be safe.”

“I always am,” he replied, but I laughed. “What?”

“From what Bucky tells me, you’re not.” Steve rolled his eyes and I playfully smacked his arm. “Come on, promise me you’ll be safe.”

“I will, I promise,” he finally nodded. “I had a really nice time tonight.”

“Me too,” I replied. “I’ve never been on a date like that before. Thank you for taking me.”

“Thank you for coming out.” Gently, he pulled me toward him and pressed his lips against mine once more, one hand holding my arm, the other coming up to cup my face, his fingers running through my hair. I did the same, feeling the light stubble on his jaw against my palms. After a bit, he pulled away, but not before giving me one last kiss. “Good night, Sarah.”

“Good night,” I replied. “Be safe.”

“I will.”

---

OK, if there’s a way to my  heart, it’s through dancing. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Steve’s on a mission and things are going to get a bit more serious!!

[sh-lan]

i’m always late for these now but oh well

i can’t believe i’m making an ebay account happy new year LOL

Third day of the new year!

Went to hangout with ryan and leighton. They wanted to try marugame udon so!!! Also i saw adam but didnt say hi, oops. In any case. We were like hey let’s do something like walk around! But it rained a little so we bought some cuties from trader joe’s and ended up at ryan’s house and basically sat in his kotatsu for 4 hours then i came home. I also finally know how it feels like when the manga says that your legs get tangled inside the kotatsu. And when you literally cannot get out of it. Plus the feeling of losing the ability to walk because ya gurl tried to stand up after crawling out of the kotatsu and just fell back down What a day LOL

my brain in general has forgotten how it feels like to study …oh dear

Mommy helped me dye my hair yesterday! It’s lighter than i thought but it was the gray ochre color from palty! And it smells like grape hichews Facetimed vania & yuri today and they noticed the color! And then facetiming with dad and he also noticed LIKE WOW I DIDNT REALIZE PEOPLE COULD TELL? <3

I want a lot of cute phone case but idk what and where to get EDIT: i am still having this problem

I just saw the golden year of the dog items from starbucks korea AND I WANT EDIT: also want the starbucks x pantone planner fml EDIT EDIT: did not end up buying anything good job deborah lan

i was right muster merch colors ARE BEAUTIFUL

The muster merch fmu EDIT: clearly i was overwhelmed with the colors because there were two separate drafts in a row lol

The company insists on having two references….

And now they said they chillin with a peer reference SO I PHONED A FRIEND (aka vania) bless her soul

jan 10th l i f e u p d a t e got the first job offer of my life!! (well official full time offer lol) and so it looks like i’m going to portland? :O

Wow i joined a GO for muster merch New year new me and goodbye money 탕진잼 탕진잼 탕진잼

Wow im glad i submitted the form to get muster merch because THEY ARE SO CUTE AND PRETTY. Okay but i really want PCs so i sincerely hope bighit has some sense and ship PC sets abroad when you order multiple other items Also didnt realize the lenticular key rings would be a hot item but seriously they are so much more adorable than i thought?? Jk’s key ring is so cute i cri EDIT: just found out about no acrylic stand )))): EDIT EDIT: didn’t get squat because ARMYs jump all over everything any time anything is released...

finding housing is hard and i can’t believe that i actually see an appeal to living in downtown…

fmu because bt21 getting released online BUT I REALLY SHOULDN’T BUY but also i finally got my package from jen! ugh omg the bag charms are so cute i don’t know whether to actually use them or keep them in their boxes ;__; and she included some mediheal masks! finally also sent vania her tata as a thank you gift~

deokrim stickers are too cute ima buy two sets

And ugh wow i cant believe i chanced upon cornpeu shop reopening im ded Vania and i didnt catch the timing for bt21 and now i’m still dumping money on bts things HAHA EDIT: not even 15 min after writing this, i bought the stuff from cornpeu lel (which couldve been used to buy the cushion so idk man) time to go preorder for deokrim maybe?

Wow my left hand hurts like shit did i really break it playing superstar bts like mom said? No way right

Ahhhh got my muster merch in the mail today and it’s so niceeee *^* Ima stick that washi tape like everywhere LOL

I hurt myself four different times today smh

In portland for the weekend! I deadass ate two packets of honey roasted peanuts on the plane ride over because i didnt realize i was so hungry and now i’m just waiting for the pimples to cOME ;__;

I walked into a stationery store in portland and just. FOUND MY PEACE. jk but i bought some stickers i been looking at online blesssss

No. Tax. Anywhere. (So far)

I had coke last night after my flight and i legit didnt feel tired until 3:30am oops

Omfg i cant believe someone was selling the trust issues photobook by snowpeach in the luce in altis project for $15 last night WOW LIKE THE FEW DAYS I DONT CHECK SHIT, THERE’S ALL KINDS OF SHIT I WANT. $15 is so cheap ;___;

went to portland with alice to check out apartments!!! woot. lots of fun going around/looking at the city. landed on thursday night and waited at the airport for alice and ate mcdonalds/watched the office haha friday: alice had work all day ): so i went out to meet up with yuri and leslie who happened to be out in portland too! walked to the alberta arts district to eat with them at pok pok noi. just walked around afterwards exploring in the rain before getting back home to eat dinner with alice at like 8…lol we went to bamboo sushi in sw and alice treated me to omakase as a congrats on getting my new yob!! woot also did some walking around in the neighborhood - will likely spend quite a bit of time in the powell city of books! saturday: the day we actually went out to see properties! grabbed some blue star donuts and headed into nw district - looked at some apartments and then grabbed lunch at this cute italian place that i will most likely frequent. started talking to alice about stuff and being weak, i cried and then we got free hazelnut ice cream…LOL. it was really good sunday: since we toured places that i actually liked yesterday, we basically just decided to walk around different areas. waterfront park, pioneer square…we spent a while in nordstrom rack and sephora looking for stuff for alice! lol. then dinner again at bamboo sushi and dessert at salt & straw :> monday morning: waking up early to get to the airport for alice’s flight. bought more donuts at the airport for mom! then i sat at the airport watching the office and eating until the airplane ride where i got a whole row to myself~

and that was my portland trip shortened LOL. but~ excited about the new city, definitely excited about the donuts!

Furniture shopping is hard Moving is hard Everythinf comes down to money S M H

Got approved for my apartment today!! #excited

legit on phone calls for an hour getting stuff down and ready. now to wait on emails so i can get to the next step to sign my lease!

It’s been hot in sf like ??? In other news, i put coconut oil in ma hair - let’s see how it feels tomorrow! :O EDIT: idk, it didn’t feel different?

Omg feb 5th: suddenly a day where i can play hard mode on ssbts wow what a day

I just saw the new bts game where you get to “live chat” the boys as the user becomes the manager and takes care of the bois I am literally gonna die All armys gonna die Why do they do this to us …BECAUSE THEY KNOW WE’LL NEVER BE THEIR MANAGERS

Today i threw away my first lip tint because it looked funky funks and was like dying Good bye you were good to me - onto more an new lip tints! On another note. The balenciaga cap is $350??!?!

Being fat today and ordered three desserts with han at creations. And then went to the beach because pokemon but ended up star-gazing and it was niceee

Just came across its it ice creams on IG and since it’s been so hot (cause like spring came early or something??) i want it!! Also, it’s like the only time i ever consume oatmeal raisin cookies (unless they just oatmeal - in which case, delicious) But omg i didnt know strawberry is an OG flavor? Althought mint reigns supreme. But. GREEN TEA??

A BUMBLEBEE FLEW INTO MY HOUSE THE OTHER DAY AND I WAS ALONE AND COULDNT HELP also raided mewtwo yesterday!! Woot. Surprisingly got the gym bonus after much hardwork but dayum caught with only one ball LOL

Ever since that one time on the airplane with the weird ass headache/tension above my left eyebrow….i got like two headaches in a week that were like that. Also in between those, my right ear hurts and honestly…am i broken somewhere cause lel Body please get better

Lmao so last time i put on a screen protector, i cracked it in two days cause i dropped it. And i just put on a new one last week and lo and behold, it hath cracked again but this time, in my purse. I’m so ????? Smh

Landed in portland once again with han for move in!! Woke up super early…. Just went to target/tj maxx to buy stuff. Smh should’ve bought a swiffer and gotten it sent here ): Got a shower rug! THE SOFT SQUISHY ONE. But failed in the shower curtain department cause it’s too short… Makeshift bed with blankets and bed sheets lol…we shall await the mattress coming in tomorrow~ Do have quite a bit of stuff to buy in general…): Anyways. Had a burrito for dinner and like ?!! Aluminum foil gave me an aluminum cut so…ow No internets yet - good thing han downloaded some movies!

My cuticles are dying because my hands are dry and wow this is terribad

Went and bought a shitton of strawberry chocolates for 50% off at cvs MUAHAHA

Went to macy’s (or we’ve been going often since it’s going out of business so things are going on sale) and got the seiko watch i was kinda eyeing last time. ONLY TO FIND OUT (forgot to check on amazon) that it was 38 dollahs cheaper ;__; but. EHHH it’s all good. Seems like the one on amazon has strap problems being too smol so…like, it’s totally chill

February 19th

My first day of work!! Went in earlies and had onboarding for about two hours with amother new hire. Then i returned to my room where i met my coworker and my manager! Both of whom are in the same room and we each have a desk. (Ima have to request a standing desk :O) anywayss. Got a company laptop - thank god it’s not bulky. And then i’ve got two monitors on my desk too! #bless

Then jlw went through more ux stuff with me and i also went to a stand up meeting. Like. Those are real man. Then went to company lunch! Where new hires introduce themselves and i realize that i have never used a dishwasher before and everyone was shookt lol.

Afterwards, i went to a sprint meeting AND BOIIIII PLANNING POKER DOE??? Lololol. I have to say i did not understand a single thing that was going on. Took about an hour and a half…

Anyways. went back in where jlw continued where she left off and then finally let me read some onboarding stuff on my own before she headed out at 4 and then me, leaving swiftly at 4 as well LOL

SO that was my first day! Trying to get everything in order - i hope that everything goes great and that i learn lots and lots! :> although…windows computer already killing me, no wonder people use mouses instead of the trackpad. Also…gotta learn Axure + in depth photoshop so…WOOT WOOT

Oh and we also have a huge snack cabinet i might just become a potato

Light snowfall is so pleasant :>

Bucketlist checklist:

Eat alone - check! First lunch break :> (exciting!)

Watch a movie by myself - check! Love, Simon

Second day - drank too much coffee while i’m still weak against caffeine. It’s 1:26am. HNNNGH

i got really bored at work today because even though it’s week 2 now, i was done with my shit at like 2pm so i just started looking at axure tutorials for another however long until 4:30 LOL side note: might actually do my post-its idea thing then i realize that i didn’t bring any post-its over to portland… also i cracked my screen again today because i slammed it on the counter while trying to save it from falling so did i really save it….

bought rice and shin ramen on amazon lel

Gonna try out my post it idea in the office tomorrow. Hope it goes well 🤞

2/28/17 First ever happy hour but also goodbye party for kyle - also like the first time i talked to him since the one and a half week i been there (minus when we introduced ourselves) but sads cause he was kinda a squish and everyone seemed to have a chill time working with him :/ oh well

ALSO THE FIRST DAY THAT YA GURL GOT PAID $$$ (which is just directly going to rent - oh the woe of getting paid bi-monthly LOL)

Wow i did a great job sticking on my phone screen protector! #yes EDIT: no i didnt. It’s blocking the camera slightly on top smh

Ya gurl cut her finger on a tape measure lmfaooo

Alice came two weekends in a row to help me buy and build stuff and daymn. That was some hard work and tbh i only built a shelf and a bed LOOOOL I think ima go for the sofa + table rather than the desk. I think it might work! Also went to ashun market. Good weekend :>

I went bowling today!! It was an engineering celebration so i thought - why not, let’s be social for a little bit. And it turned out to be fun~ we had some fuds and i played two rounds. And I got a strike in one of the rounds! Woot woot. Anyways. It was enjoyable, not as awkward as i had envisioned. Also i was able to successfully catch the bus home so that was great :>

I think i’m reverting back to my eating habits because there are ENDLESS SNACKS IN THE OFFICE. Oh dear

Really actually thinking about that dicon photobook because the pictures are so nice :<

ALSO FINALLY FCKIN DISCOVERED ELECTRICITY CHARGE ON KWH DIFFERS ON A MONTH TO MONTH BASIS in addition to usage. Wow the things you discover and uncover as you adult

Also city of portland why do you have a base charge of $11???????

Ahhh xfinity wifi was too good to be true Apparently only 5 devices could connect to it at one time. So i guess i gotta shop for internets now…LOL EDIT: NAWP. ALL GOOD. THAT WAS FOR HOME HOTSPOT. WOOT

Lmao my manager went to ucsd when marshall was still called third im

In other news. It looks like my one on one anxiety wont dissipate soon. Esp since last week, the vp of engineering just sent me a calendar invite for a one on one and i literally got stressed out for a straight 30 min before i said yes to the invite and could slowly go back to focusing on work lol…. EDIT: it ended up being around 15 minutes and i did not really enjoy it at all

We are bulletproof pt 2 came on today while i was walking and i still cannot believe that the first lines still got me smiling like a fckin idiot

Ok so i finally talked to this girl at work (who i think is really pretty omfg) the other day and she’d been curling her hair recently and as we were walking out of the bathroom i was like I REALLY LIKE YOUR HAIR And then she said my hair is so straight and healthy - “do you straighten it? It’s really pretty” and i’m just over here crying on the inside because it looks like hay and only happened to be really straight that day for god knows what reason. SO BASICALLY THE STARS ALIGNED JUST SO WE COULD HAVE THIS CONVERSATION Also she said she recently bought a curler that just “does it for you” and gurl i need that because idk how to DO ANYTHING TO MY HAIR UGH

I woke up with the blankets already nicely proportioned off the sides of my bed - so i just crawled out without making my bed today lool

Thought i could handle watching burn the stage but i saw the screenshot of jungkook lying down and it already broke my heart Need to be secluded with some tissues ;__;

A two day trip to see The Rose in seattle or a five day trip in san diego… 🤔🤔🤔

last day of march went to lunch with my coworkers for the first time and i actually enjoyed it! it was fun :> glad that my coworker actually dropped by the office to invite us to lunch~

good friday today because:

lunch was good

really honestly did nothing because we were troubleshooting visual studio

also basically did nothing because double sprint planning and retro LOL

HEADING HOME FOR THE WEEKEND UNTIL WEDNESDAY

#gotpaid

but no joke, on the ride to the airport, i got carsick and i honestly didn’t even know that was possible but if you think about it, i basically haven’t been on any kind of transportation for at least a month… also my uber driver is like some viet gangsta or something that gets pulled into the room every time he tries to go to canada O_O LOL

Deadass trying to save money but The rose concert in seattle, want to make an sd trip, want the 2k18 asia trip But also bts comeback sometime during the first half of the year and SUDDENLY WANNA ONE IS GOING TO HAVE A WORLD TOUR??? Dammit dude DAMMIT

My heart dies a little every time my coworker comes by and invites me to lunch with everyone *ugly sobs* Dies a little in a good way - just for clarification LOL

Mom dyed my hair for me! And it was darker than i thought BUT GREAT. Curiously enough, after two washes…it’s already lightening?? NO PLEASE STAY DARK. PLEASE. EDIT: lol i realized there was another “mother dyed my hair” somewhere on top lel. just for clarification - nobody else dyes my hair including myself cause i am incapable lOL

omfg i just saw the we bare bears x spao collab AND THEN FOUND THE ADVENTURE TIME X SPAO CLOTHES, SO CUTE!!! the jake and bmo hoodie )):

didn’t realize that i missed them so much ;__; we thought we would all die with the black hair but actually they just killed us with softness good thing they didn’t come out with foreheads lOL

okay lol basically that’s it because nothing happens in my life although i realze that i video recorded a lot of experiences and they’re all just video files sitting on my phone and that’s why maybe i haven’t been writing any everyday things down :O will i ever edit them? unclear

in any case - planning lots of fun things for the months to come hopefully!