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haloud · 4 years ago

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things we could burn in one go (eminence) - chapter 9

also on ao3

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Isabel Evans & Max Evans & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Forrest Long/Alex Manes Additional Tags: post-s2, Canon Compliant, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Starts Forlex Ends Malex, Other Characters May Appear, Tags Subject to Update, Mutual Pining, Breaking Up, Getting Together

Chapter Summary: Michael and Isobel reckon with the fallout from Michael’s choices; Maria and Max catch up with him post-recovery.

Excerpt:

Maria sat on the steps, an old CD radio of Rosa’s beside her playing a classic Rosa mixtape, a Third Eye Blind track Michael only half-remembered flowing around her, her humming running under it, glittering minerals in a riverbed. She was surrounded by papers, pinned under painted rocks to keep them from being snatched away, her hair tied back by a rainbow scarf, and she bent over to write in a binder propped on her knees.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

She patted the low stair beside her and Michael did as he was told, swiping his hat off his head as he approached her. For her it was wordplay, but Michael cradled to his chest something more true than maybe she’d intended—Maria was a safe harbor, a port in a storm. No matter how bad things got, her warm heart and practical mind were a reminder to never give up. Just sitting beside her was enough to make him smile, even though he sat with a good six inches buffer between them, still unsure what boundaries were appropriate, still navigating the uncertain waters of being friends with an ex who meant something.

(Wednesday, 11:00 am)

Michael flipped Alex’s key over and over in his fingers, running it along his knuckles, pressing his thumb into the teeth until they left a locking-imprint on his skin, then doing it all over again. At some point, maybe it would start to feel real, if he reminded himself of the thing often enough.

The repetition and stimulation of the rough teeth, the cool, smooth metal, soothed him as he waited on Isobel’s porch. She’d called him here in the first place, so eventually she’d open the door. Until then, he waited. And as he waited, he thought of Alex, because what else was there to think about these days?

(A thousand things, like Jones and Project Shepherd, Max and Liz, and all the work piling up at Sanders’s, but Alex had a way of blotting everything else out, and, no matter how much his brain tried to get him to feel stupid or naïve or childish for hoping yet again, he was going to let himself bask in that shade for once in his life.)

He hadn’t left Alex’s house, still, except to go to work and get things from his own place. At Alex’s, he was still sleeping in the guest room, the both of them afraid that they’d fall back into their old patterns too fast if they fell right into bed. But during the day they shared that space, a kitchen, a den, existing alongside each other as they read or cooked or composed, and the routine wasn’t so different from the tense and quiet days right after Michael’s injury, but at the same time they were nothing alike, not when each tiny glance could mean so much, not when fingers on the soft rasp of turning pages were fingers he could touch, that could touch him.

Everything was different. It was terrifying, and exhilarating, brand new and nostalgic. It had only been a day; it had only been half their lifetimes.

“Ew, you’re glowing.”

Isobel’s voice started Michael out of his thoughts, and he jumped, shoving Alex’s key into his pocket. She was glaring at him, but still he relaxed, because Isobel’s snark was a form of love and her turning scorn in his direction was a sign things were getting back to normal between them.

“It’s all natural,” he drawled as she stepped aside to let him inside.

“Right. Did something happen, or is this just some lesser known side effect of being brought back from the brink of death.”

“Uh…”

In a way, sort of, if only because Michael’s own stupidity had driven him and Alex closer together, but that wasn’t exactly a direct correlation or anything admirable.

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p.’ “Just…”

He fell silent. How was he supposed to talk about being in love? He’d never done it before, and this was a first he hadn’t anticipated facing.

“Alex and I…” he tried again, but found himself only able to smile, still without words, and he raised his arms in a helpless shrug.

Isobel’s eyebrows raised. “Oh my god.”

“Yep.”

“I’m still pissed at you, but if Manes is making you his side chick after everything, I’m going to rip his spine out through his—”

“Isobel, no! It’s not like that,” Michael laughed, shaking his head.

“Well what’s it like, then? I cannot handle him breaking your heart again when we’re already dealing with Max.”

He replied, “My heart is fully intact,” as he headed in and dropped down on her couch, throwing a hand over his heart for dramatic effect. “No, uh, Alex and Forrest had a fight, which sucked, but it led to us getting a chance to talk more about, y’know, us, and what we wanted, and each other, so…”

“So this is rebound,” Isobel snipped.

“Can you stop?” Michael said, half-laughing. Even her pessimism on the subject of love couldn’t pop the bubble around his heart right now. He patted the couch beside him, and she hesitated for a few seconds with her arms crossed, before capitulating and joining him.

“Oh, fine,” she groused, leaning against the arm of the couch farthest away from where he was sitting. “Your funeral.”

The words landed like a lead balloon, and Michael winced as her face grew stormier.

“I’m—”

“Don’t,” Isobel held up a hand in his face. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, what do you want to hear?”

“An explanation, Michael! What the hell were you thinking? Why would you do that? What if he’d just straight up killed you, did you want us to find your body in a cave somewhere or, or never, blown to smithereens by a man who literally breathes fire! You’re so stupid, and selfish, and—” She cut herself off, furious tears welling in her eyes even as the rest of her face didn’t change.

“I know! I know, you’re right, it was stupid. I wasn’t thinking, or, well, I was thinking, but my head was all messed up.” He rested his forehead in his hands and running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think any explanation is going to make any sense now, out of the moment, but I just…everything was going to shit, and I couldn’t do anything for Max, and I thought Jones might have answers, or could help me unlock new powers like you’ve done on your own. So I could protect everyone.”

Isobel threw her arms up and got to her feet, pacing around the couch; Michael tracked her, anxiety dipping and spiking every time she circled him. Her anger pulsing when she passed behind him made his skin crawl, and he shifted in his seat.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” she finally spoke, stopping in front of him.

He kept his head bent forward, staring at his knees.

She continued, “I really don’t. I’ve been trying for twenty-one years, but I still don’t know how to get through to you. How to convince you that you’re not alone, that people want to protect you. To help you. But I’m not Max. I’ve never pushed or pried or fought to cling onto you when you shook us off. I just hung around because I knew you’d always come back.” She took a deep breath. Her voice stayed steady and deliberate. “But Michael, this has gone on for too long, and you went too far this time. You have to let us help you. Otherwise—I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

Drops of water speckled the tops of Michael’s knees, and he sniffed, swallowed, mouth dry, throat tight and aching. His sister’s gentle hands threaded through his hair, cradling both temples, right hand over Max’s lingering handprint, but no matter how careful that touch was, he flinched.

Isobel tipped his head up so he had to look her in the eye and said, “You’re my brother, Michael. I love you so much. And I would do anything for you, just like you would—and have—do anything for me. But you need to let me! From here on out, I need you to fucking work with me. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Tears trickling down his face and dripping from his chin, Michael nodded, not trusting his voice, and Isobel fell forward, his arms opening up to catch her, and they stayed like that for a long time, Michael rocking her back and forth, her clinging desperately to his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he finally croaked, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or Max. I just, I can’t stop myself, sometimes, I know it’s not an excuse, I know it was stupid, I know—”

“I know,” she interrupted his stream of self-loathing, sitting back to look him seriously in the face. “I was in your head, remember?”

She’d found him beneath a vaulted ceiling, stained glass in shifting, alive, alien colors, walled in with his demons. Defining himself inside the devouring maelstrom by the battles he understood. His whole life, he’d sewed himself back whole, and his work wasn’t pretty, but the patterns made sense, and they kept him sane even when the odds demanded otherwise. The image flashed behind his eyes, but that’s all it was, an image. He shook his head.

“Not really.”

“Well. I didn’t really go snooping, no matter how tempting it was,” she said with a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. “But let’s just say…you don’t owe me any explanations you aren’t willing or ready to give. Those belong to you. I know I haven’t always understood that in the past. We both have things to work on, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael rasped, squeezing her tight again. “I…want to work on them with you.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to be okay,” she softly replied.

(3:00 pm)

Isobel didn’t let him leave the house until both their eyes stopped being red and puffy from crying; It took multiple episodes of some Food Network show he’d never heard of before she agreed to let him out of her sight, and, in deeply un-Isobel-like fashion, she followed him to the door and pulled him into another hug for the road before she let him leave.

The drive from Isobel’s to the Wild Pony wasn’t really long enough to fully ruminate on how bad he must have scared Isobel to warrant this level of reaction. Logically, he’d known, but emotionally it was just beginning to sink in.

Over the past year, he’d been faced with losing Isobel and with losing Max multiple times—had lost Max, in fact. He knew how it felt. Why should the loss of himself be any different to them? In low moments, sure, thoughts shifted beneath the murk of his mind, lurking demons from childhood, that they didn’t need him, they had each other, a more special bond, he was the odd one out, outside, out in the cold. But on the day to day, he didn’t devalue himself like that, not in so many words, did he? But—

To be surprised? That Isobel was afraid, that Max was afraid, that the both of them stood on the precipice of grieving him and had to process the horror of that fall after snatching themselves back at the last minute? It was a slap in the face, a rude awakening. A lesson that for all these years he’d resisted learning.

The first step to protecting those who loved him was to protect himself. He couldn’t keep shelving it as the lowest priority. They were one and the same.

It sounded fake to his own ears, but he’d just have to say it until the lesson sunk in.

With the windows rolled down, the idle breeze tugged Michael’s hair across his face and cooled the late-summer stickiness from his skin. It was just after lunchtime, a little early for Max to be at work, but since he wasn’t at Isobel’s house, it was faster to check for him here than to drive all the way out to his own place.

If there was one positive to his near-death, it was the way Max was invigorated by a purpose. The healing drained him, of course it did; it could have killed him, and that weighed on Michael’s conscience, but afterward, after it worked and he’d pulled Michael back from death, he smiled. He slept. He bustled around Alex’s house babysitting Michael while Alex was at work, and now, with a little distance from fragile death, that didn’t chafe as badly.

Max deserved a better thanks than Michael had thus far been able to render, and with Isobel’s words still ringing in his ears, there was no better time than now.

He pulled up to the Pony, the fairy lights strung across the patio dancing in the wind, the wood of the old building all pale and real in the sunlight. The old, familiar sign above the door was off as long as the bar was closed, but Michael still took a moment to glance at it nice and long, remembering the feel of fixing it under his hands so the whole place felt less liminal, less like a mirror vision of the beating heart that was the Wild Pony glowing under the night sky, lit from within rather than from the sun.

Faint music played as Michael parked and left his truck, so he rounded the corner of the building to suss it out and smiled at what he saw, leaning against one of the trellis supports.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“Oh, you know me.” She gestured vaguely to the arrangement of papers and tucked her feet up beside her, leaning toward Michael, cutting the space between them in half like it wasn’t worth noticing. Some of the tension in Michael’s chest unwound at her ease around him.

“Hustling?” he prompted.

“Yep. I’m just organizing the events I have planned for the upcoming season and making sure I have space set out for scheduling, details, budgeting, the works. High school me would die with envy; my system was never this good when I was trying to study.”

“I’m definitely impressed. Let me know if there’s anything I can help with, anything you need built, or an extra set of ‘hands’ for decorating.”

“How is that going?” she asked, brows furrowing.

“I’m still getting my strength back. Just gotta keep pushing through and hope whatever Jones did didn’t mess me up for good.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

Her hand extended but stopped before touching him, until he turned his hand palm-up, asking her to take it. She did, squeezing him.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “And the TK aside, have any of the other powers cropped up? The light, the teleporting? Those were the ones Alex told me about.”

“That’s all I remember, really. And no. I haven’t even tried, honestly.” He looked at their joined hands, her wrist bare of the pollen bracelet he’d promised her and wasted, thrown away like trash in a corner of Jones’s cave. This is blasphemy…

“Do you think you will? Try?” Maria asked, head tilted.

“I…hadn’t thought about it. Been focused on getting back to square one with the TK, but…”

Was doing more with his powers still an option? Was he willing to try, and fail, and fail again, without folding and submitting to all the voices in his head that told him every failure was proof positive of the erstwhile adage that he was worthless?

“Well, you have time,” Maria said, squeezing his hand again.

“What about you?” Michael asked. “Any visions?”

Her face shut down. She let go of his hand to smooth both hers down her knees then fold her arms around herself, turning her head away. “No. Still nothing. A few dreams, but it isn’t always easy to tell what’s a normal dream and what’s a vision, and with you out of the woods, the most dire ones are already Jossed.”

“What about Mimi?”

“Huh.” Maria pursed her lips for a second, then said, “I haven’t noticed any change in her? But I’ll have to ask and see what she says. I’m not even completely sure our powers work identically, with the things she’s said about being unstuck in time…I don’t always get that same feeling.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Michael promised her. “Even if it means having to go back to Jones and ask what he knows—”

“No!”

She wheeled on him and smacked his arm lightly.

“Absolutely not! Michael!”

“Not alone, obviously!” He defended.

“Not at all. Jesus Christ. I’ll tell Isobel you said that—I’ll tell Alex—”

“Maria, c’mon,” Michael whined, taking her hand again in an attempt to connect them and calm them both down. “I just don’t want to rule out that he’s meddling in more ways than we know. I still think he’s fucking with Max. You deserve answers, if that’s what’s going on.”

“Not at the cost of your life. Not ever. It could be a hundred other things, too. Stay away from him, Michael, I’m serious.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Good,” she said firmly, wrapping her arm around his again and leaning into him. He let out a long, slow breath as she relaxed.

“You know, in Jones’s cave…”

“Mm?”

Michael carefully encircled her wrist with his fingers. “I lost the bracelet I made for you. The backup one I promised.”

“Are you feeling guilty about that? Because please, don’t,” she replied, covering the hand on her wrist with her other. “That is the last thing on my mind.”

“But I—”

“Hush. I’m glad you had it with you, whatever happened to it. It’s good that you opted to protect yourself, even if it didn’t work.”

“I thought your powers were offline.”

“The visions, maybe. But I don’t need to see the future to read you, Guerin.”

“You are something else, DeLuca.”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

“Hey, Maria—oh! Michael!”

The two of them turned toward the backdoor at the sound of Max’s voice.

“Hey, Max,” Maria said. “Is the inventory finished?”

“Yeah, I was just coming to report back.”

“No need to be so formal,” she teased, standing up and brushing dust from the seat of her pants, looking at the papers around her with her hands on her hips. “I was hoping to get your opinion on some plans, Number One, but someone interrupted, so they’re not quite ready yet.”

“Guilty as charged,” Michael drawled.

Max reached out a hand, and Michael took it to humor him, letting him haul him to his feet.

“I’ll let you off the hook this time,” Maria said as she led the way back into the bar, cool and dim in the daylight. “You can sweep up to say you’re sorry.”

“My pleasure,” Michael said, reaching out a hand, hoping he could summon the broom as nonchalantly as he once could. It sat unresponsive until a spike of formless frustration zipped through him, at which point it flew to his hand fast and hard enough to sting his palm when he caught it. Great. Just what he needed right now—puberty flashbacks.

“I need to run,” Maria said, stowing her binder behind the bar. “Late lunch with Rosa. I’ll see you later, Max—Michael, it was so good to see you. Say hi to Alex for me, okay? I know you’re gonna see him before I do.”

She left with a wink while Michael was still pink and stammering. Maybe Alex had told her already—or maybe that was just Maria, putting him so at ease it was easy to forget how much she saw. His chest glowed so warm he couldn’t stop blushing at that casual acknowledgement, that easy validation, that he and Alex—that Alex and he were what they were to each other, now, again.

“Wait, is she talking about you staying over there, or does she mean—dude!” Max grinned ear to ear and bounded out from behind the bar to pull Michael into a back-slapping hug. “Congratulations!”

Old, brotherly habit had Michael squirming out of Max’s affections, but it didn’t dent his exuberance; he retaliated with a swipe through Michael’s hair, making him duck further out of range, huffing and laughing all at once as he tried to fix it again.

“Yeah, um, Forrest and Alex broke up, and then one thing led to another, so.”

“I’m really happy for you, man.”

“I—thanks. I’m…I’m really happy, too.”

The sudden urge to comfort Max gripped him, a strange survivor’s guilt that things would be working out for him and Alex and Max and Liz would still be so far apart. But it wasn’t his place to throw that in Max’s face now, so he bit his tongue and basked in Max’s honest happiness for him.

“Could you feel, uh, any of my emotions through the handprint?” Michael asked. He ran his hand through his hair over the spot on his temple where Jones had held him, erased by Max’s healing hands, then dropped it back to his side abruptly, flexing away the phantom stiffness that still plagued him, that probably always would. He gave it a shake as if to chase away nervous tingling.

“Nah. But it’s not like I’m looking; I respect your privacy, man.”

“’preciate that,” Michael snarked, and Max just shrugged.

“Any particular reason you ask? I don’t need to know what you and Alex are up to,” Max joked.

Michael considered his answer for a little bit as he made his way between the tables. After all, it wasn’t as if this was the first handprint Max had ever given him. The ones on his neck and hand cut off by his death aside, dozens of times over dozens of years, Max had practiced healing on him and they’d explored that connection. Michael was always the guinea pig; he never wanted for injuries to work on, after all.

But there’d been a lot of handprinting over the past year and change. Max felt something from Liz; Liz felt something from Noah; Rosa and Max had a connection strong enough to tether Max to the world of the living. And then there was Michael, with Jones’s voice in his ear, dripping condescending words about his lack of psychic ability being phenomenal, considering.

At various times in his life, Michael had looked up at the stars and wondered in the silence what it was in him that was irreparably broken.

“Just curious. It’s been a while, and all juiced up like I was, I was wondering if anything felt different.”

“Nothing different. Just you.”

Max smiled like that was a good thing, a comforting thing. And you know what? In between the adrenaline of change, good and bad, in between the rock of Project Shepherd and the hard place of Jones, on an afternoon in a closed bar, a home to both of them, alone with his brother, Michael let it be.

He cleared his throat. “Good. So there’s no…interference or anything? Nothing weird lurking around up there?”

“Not that I can tell; Isobel would probably know better than I would. Whatever he did to you was bizarre, man. It wasn’t like the way, uh, the way I’ve killed people before. Or the way Noah killed.”

“I don’t think he was just trying to kill me.”

Michael made his way over to a booth and beckoned Max over; he lingered over his work for a glance at the clock and then came and joined him.

He continued, “He kept going on about teaching and knowledge and this being the wrong way but the most efficient. He knew it would hurt me, but maybe it would have worked better if he did it to someone more, uh, receptive than me.”

“What are you talking about?” Max leaned over the table, brow furrowed. This close up, the dark circles below his eyes were more noticeable. “Michael, what he did to you wasn’t in any way your fault—”

“I know, I know, that’s not what I mean. Just…look, I saw the security footage from Caulfield, from the day of the Valenti incident. The way that alien approached Jim Valenti and put his hands on him was identical to what Jones did to me, and I think maybe that guy was just trying to communicate but it fucked up a human in a way he either couldn’t expect or was too out of it to realize. And, well,” Michael gestured to his own head. “I’m the most human of the three of us up here.”

“I…huh.” Max sat back and drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he processed that. “Well, whatever the case, it proved you and Isobel were right about him. He can’t be trusted. Nobody should have any more contact with him. We’ll start doing our monthly drop offs contactless until we all figure out what should be done with him.”

His voice was firm, businesslike. Traffic Stop Max was Michael’s least favorite version of his brother and he’d hoped that his turn to the civilian would’ve put that guy to rest, but he had a tendency to rear his head in a crisis.

But in this case, he saw through him, and that façade was hiding something.

“How do you feel about that?” Michael asked, leaning back and slouching, reflecting Max’s rigid body language the way he had for a decade, cops and robbers style.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. He almost killed you; we’ll do what has to be done.”

“Uh, it definitely does matter. You’re the closest thing to a next of kin he’s got, as far as we know. If anyone gets to decide what happens to him, it’s you.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Is it? ‘Cause, look, I know I fucked up a lot of stuff running off to Jones half-cocked like I did. I don’t want to set off a chain reaction of more bad mistakes that rips us apart again when we’re just startin’ to…” Michael trailed off with a self-conscious shrug. It was realer than he’d intended to get, but it was the root of the issue, wasn’t it?

Max’s face softened, and Michael slumped lower in the booth.

“You’re not. You won’t.”

“You’re just saying that—”

“Michael.”

That tone was always a coin flip if it’d get right under Michael’s skin or if it’d shut him up. It landed on the second one this time, to Michael’s relief.

Max said, “No chain reactions. What we were doing before wasn’t working, okay? I knew I wanted something from Jones, but I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and take it. All you did was force us to make a choice when I would’ve dug my heels in and not been able to for a long time otherwise.”

“The answers you’re looking for, though, you deserve to look for them if it’s what you need,” Michael forged on, battling his clumsy tongue. “I should’ve said that before. You deserve to know who you are and to learn who that is in whatever way you can. Everybody deserves that.”

“Thank you. I mean that. But I was getting so desperate—the things I was thinking of doing—I scared myself, okay? I didn’t think—I don’t think I am that person. And being this person I am right now and who I want to be right now is more important than any answers about the past, if that’s what it means to find them.”

Michael sat with that, looking Max up and down, sitting with his own feelings as much as Max’s words. Parsing his own reactions to Max was something he took steadier, more carefully than most other things in his life. It was a set of muscles he needed to practice with as much as he needed to get power back to his telekinesis.

“Okay, man. I respect that,” he said finally, leaning over the table to punch Max in the shoulder. Max made a face and rubbed that spot.

“Ow, man, thanks, I guess.”

“Damn, did I get you in your writing arm?”

“Try my drink-mixing arm. If I’m off tonight, I’m ratting you out to Maria.”

Michael let out a scandalized noise and slipped out of the booth.

“Where are you going?” Max laughed, dark eyes shining with life in a way Jones’s never could. For all they were identical, Michael barely saw the resemblance.

“To lay low, what do you think? You’re makin’ me a fugitive.”

“Uh huh. Good luck; you know she’s just going to ask Alex.”

“Damn it. The things I do for love.”

A smile on his own face as soon as he turned his back, Michael was almost at the door when Max called his name and he turned to face him again.

“Michael? Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Asking. Listening.”

Those two words held a lifetime of desperate loneliness between them, and Michael would be sitting with that, too, as long as he was holding it in his head, making it a conscious decision, to do right by his brother.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.

“I wanted to,” Max replied simply.

“Well in that case…I guess you’re welcome.”

Michael’s phone buzzed in his pocket, not the single pulse of a text but the longer jangling of a phone call. He fished it out, smiling when he saw the name, and he didn’t even wait to get privacy from Max before answering.

“Alex—”

“Thank God. Where are you, Michael? Are you okay?”

“Alex? I’m fine, I’m at the Pony, what’s wrong—”

Max hurried to Michael’s side.

Alex repeated, “Thank god. Don’t come home, do you hear me? Do not come back to the house until I give you the all clear. Stay with Max and Maria.”

“What? No!”

But the line cut off midway through his protest, leaving him with nothing but the dial tone.

#my fic #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #malex

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kimheecheon · 3 years ago

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dont mind the proportions n style n shit these are very rough sketches. but pls look at some outfits i whipped for my beloved oc hehe putting together clothes is so fun

very long oc talk below hoohoo

funfun fact abt me but when i was younger i rly liked fashion n even took sewing classes in case i wanted to seriously pursue it but i think as i grew up i realised that i hate designing clothes if i don't know who it's /for/. ppl make fashion choices n it says so much abt them, yk? thats what makes playing dress up so fun! to me the face/body ur born with is just whatever u happen to be born with; its what you deliberately choose w your conscious brain that is more true and 'natural' to you, ykwim? so my ocs tend to have distinctive (to each other) and ostentatious style. miel is traditional-inspired mix-and-match, rough around the edges; zia is evil-futuristic-government-core, monochromatic and structural; roxy is classic hollywood glamour; anna is cutesy frilly pastels; jade is corporate chic (not ostentatious. blegh); and so on and so on. i don't necessarily like them personally, neither are they objectively good, but that's not the point.

now we get to this specific guy. let's call them ellie. ellie is a bit of a recluse, doesn't go out much if at all, doesn't like to /be seen/ there's a backstory ofc but i'm not going there. this is also why i blanked out their face here, i did draw it tho. anw for this reason they don't really dress up, 99% of the time they're just in some black hoodie n sweatpants combo. i imagine their entire wardrobe is just one drawer. black obscures shapes, it works,

but that's not what they're /like/. their favorite color is the entire rainbow, their room is headache-inducing for literally everyone else, with all the hodge podge of bright colors and patterns and random novelty trinkets meticulously arranged on the floor. and if it was up to them, they'd definitely dress in a style similar to that— colorful, whimsical, and fully covered. but they don't have a reason to, right? at home, they just want to wear something comfortable.

but well, when you've had an oc for like 7 years they grow up with you, kinda. ellie is by no means a socialite, still kinda poorly adjusted, but they're much happier now. they want to b alive. experience things. n maybe look cute doing it. they're just beginning to, they want to, but well, they don't /have/ clothes n they're not exactly accustomed to the shopping and dressing up.

but if anything ellie is deeply loved by their (new) friends and family. on god they're making it happen. i can imagine them banding together (ellie included but they're full of doubts, honestly) going through online shops and their personal wardrobes trying to coming-of-age-movie-makeover ellie.

look 1: i call this the "yeah, i, the artist, am a kpop noise fan". but anw this one is styled by roxy (they live together and is almost the same size, convenient). this is neither of their style, but it suits ellie so well (for reasons i cannot elaborate on) (that blue biohazard sign is plot relevant) n that's more important for her. miel has that exact jacket but they had to buy ellie a new one bc they're very different sizes.

look 2: the styling is a collaborative effort between jade and ellie themself, they're married btw. ellie thinks this is the peak of fashion, for now. everything here is actually theirs. the jacket they knitted themselves. the patches they sewed. date night fit.

look 3: the cropped hoodie is borrowed from anna, who is also the stylist. the shein argyle flare jeans and blue vans are borrowed from roxy. anna's definitely most considerate of comfort and accessibility and wear-at-home-bility for [redacted] reasons. and just most considerate in general.

look 4: styled by zia, the only person practical enough to pick a raincoat tbh. shein top borrowed from roxy, again. rainbow umbrella is just ellie's umbrella they've had for a while now

anw. there's a lot of backstory on them that is going to stay in my docs and nowhere else forever, unfortunate since i don't know how to accurately convey just how big this is, im in my feelings man. for ellie and their personal growth, their first sets of going out clothes; the community effort– them feeling they are so, so loved. every single person on ellie's personal stylist team is happy for them, and they feel this, even if clothes may not be that big a deal for most people, this is an achievement for ellie and they celebrate. now the looks themselves may not be stellar, every one of ellie's friends dresses better, free-er, but before ellie gets there they will work their hardest to pick things that ellie would like (but still through their own aesthetic lenses, as ppl tend to do).

do ellie wear these out a lot, as intended? no, they're still a homebody. but they will wear a yellow sweater with purple sweatpants at home too, and things are a little brighter, literally and figuratively.

i love love love making clothes with ppl in them. nd baby? these ones have multiple people in them!

(n, aesthetically speaking, lets savor this intermediate style before ellie gets really comfortable dressing themselves and start wearing things as hedache-inducing as their interior decor sense lmao. though emotionally i cant wait for ellies circus clown era theyll enjoy it a lot)

#n no covid doesnt exist in my universe the masks are for covering up reasons #maybe we should give them head coverage too. ill think abt it n adjust maybe thats what sketches are for #all tentative names!!#oc

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terminally-karkalicious · 4 years ago

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allow me to rant about the only thing that has been in my brain for the past two months and that is doll customizing babeyyyyy

i know there’s a 90% chance that you wont give a Shit about any of this but here we go anyways

SO first you gotta choose a doll. preferably one with a high range of motion to avoid creating new joints or having annoying limitations like not having elbow joints for some fucking reason. what the fuck mattel. give monster high dolls back their ball jointed shoulders and elbow joints. smh

the most common dolls ive seen used as bases are monster high and ever after high. most customs ive seen are highly stylized so the stylized face molds work well for those types of dolls but dolls like barbies are good for when you want a more realistic face-ups.

once you’ve got your base picked out you gotta wipe that bitch’s face off with like. acetone or nail polish remover or something strong like that. you can also use acetone to shrink doll heads which is cool as hell imo. n e way once the face is wiped you gotta chop off the hair and remove the hair plugs from the inside. ive seen this done several ways but the easiest and most common way ive seen is to dunk the head into boiling water for ~30 seconds until it gets squishy and malleable. once you’ve got the head back, you can use pliers (i think tweezers would work in a pinch) to pull out the hair plugs which are kinda icky because theyre covered in glue and other gross shit. ew

now you must decapitate the doll. dunk em back in the boiling water to soften them back up then just tug the head off. the neck pegs look funky and are usually a different color than the body so thats cool ig

once the head’s off, you can start the face-up which is basically just giving the doll a new face using stuff like watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, gouache, and a whole lot of other stuff. hell ive seen people use person makeup on these dolls.

next,,,,, hair. there’s about twenty million ways to do hair from gluing yarn wefts to sewing to rerooting with purchased nylon doll hair or yarn wefts but i’m gonna talk about the most common one ive seen which is rerooting and gluing.

before you can reroot, you need doll hair. which, as i mentioned, can be bought at stores like the doll planet or made at home with yarn in literally any color. have fun with it! make rainbow hair or something idk

to make homemade wefts, you take some acrylic yarn, cut it twice as long as you want the hair to be (keep in mind you can cut and style the hair once it’s been rerooted), fold them in half, and tie it to something sturdy like a wire coat hanger for the next step.

once you’ve got your yarn tied to your hanger, use a pet brush and brush the yarn until it’s wispy and looks like hair. then take a straightening iron and iron the weft flat. then remove from the hanger and boom. hair wefts. ta-da

to reroot the wefts onto the head, use a rerooting tool (which can be as simple as a needle with the eye cut at angle) (just google it please i’m shit at descriptions)) to poke small sections of the hair into the head. you can use the pre-existing rooting holes for your own reroot as they’re usually pretty reliable. to reroot, take a small length of you doll hair (about 10-15 strands), loop it in half, and put the middle of the loop into the reroot tool. poke the end of the tool with the hair on it into the pre-existing hole and remove the tool. the hair *should* stay in and fill up that plug!! also remember to plug thickly at the hairline and part of the hair where it's most noticeable. it doesnt matter as much in the center of the head as that’s not usually visible on the doll. once you’ve rerooted, squeeze in strong glue through the neck hole and squish around the head to make sure it covers all the plugs and secures them in place. then pour hot water onto the head to make the hair lay flat for styling later.

also, you can reroot yarn directly into the head to make thicker, more textured hairstyles. and since the yarn is thicker, you dont need to glue the inside of the head for the hair to stay in place!!

if youre not doing body modifications (which are also cool as hell) then it’s time for clothes but clothes are boring and i like body mods more so i’m gonna rant about them instead

the material ive seen most doll artists use is apoxie sculpt, which is like play doh on steroids. it comes in two parts which you gotta mix together for some reason. why dont they sell it pre-mixed. what was the reason. also once it’s dry it’s super super strong and you can sand it, drill into it, paint it, and all kinds of stuff. very nice and i want some for myself.

you can use hand saws and drills and shit to whack off doll limbs to make stuff like digitigrade legs or new joints. also dont be afraid to use other mismatching doll parts when customizing like heads and bodies and forearms and hands and shit. it literally does not matter if youre gonna recolor the doll anyways so have fun with it. make frankenstein’s doll if youre feeling spicy

accessories my beloved. stuff like tiny beads and clay baubles and shit will literally transform the entire doll plus they’re adorable and multi-purpose

i suppose i must talk about clothes now. ah well. you can find great clothing patterns if youre new to customizing on other customizer’s etsy shops and probably google although those will probably be lower quality than paid pattern pieces. and keep in mind that if it exists as clothing irl, you can likely make it doll-sized. there are literally no limits to your clothing options as long as you can execute your idea.

the once all your components have been made, you can assemble the doll again!! and finally see what all the parts look like together!! very cool 10/10 stars.

ight that wraps up my doll rant. i could really go into more detail on certain parts but thats a whole other rant for a whole other day smh. sorry for fucking flooding your inbox ender ahaha……………. you asked for this

little did you know that dolls have been one of my favorite things since like ever. if i can read a 25 chapter long fanfic i can read this B)

mattel definitely fucked up by completely ruining MH doll designs and just stopping EAH, alot of their profits most likely came from people who collect and customize dolls and by changing MH doll designs/Stopping EAH dolls they 1. most likely lost a small (or big if we're not jus talking people who customize dolls) part of their profit and 2. made it harder for doll customizers to make dolls/get commissions out rather quickly because they probably have to waste more time making joints or learning how to make joints.

EAH/MH dolls (specifically MH dolls) had AMAZING MODELS because there was so much variety with height, face shapes, etc (my favorite molds had to be the short/tall dolls and the cat molds because of the tails) and doll customizers really went all out with enhancing a molds unique features. The only "downside" abt MH dolls is that they (or atleast most)(from what i remember)) had slimmer faces but wider eyes while EAH dolls have wider faces with slimmer smaller which left a canvas for the face and not the eyes (and vice versa for MH dolls)

I've never seen any videos where a barbie is customized (maybe because i absolutely despised barbies at the time) so I'll definitely have to check those out but they seem to be good for realistic makeovers. I've seen like like semi realistic makeovers for EAH/MH dolls that were pretty good too tho (pretty sure mostly EAH dolls since yk MH dolls were used for creature makeovers while most EAH dolls weren't)

yeah i was always amazed by the head shrinking with acetone. honestly i still am?? idunno i have no idea how that chemical bullshit works. Ive seen a few of uh makeovers that just pain over the face (in multiple layers ofcourse) but that's usually when they're painting the entire body a different colour (again usually when they're turning a doll into a funky little baby man). I've also seen a few that just chop the hair off and take out the hair plugs yk without uuh like softening the head or just go straight for the hair plugs after taking off the head (i used to do that it was funny to me??). i always really liked when they used watercolour pencils or just colour pencils in general to draw/sketch on the face cause like wow ur drawing on ur doll without ruining it?? kinda epic maybe even poggers and pogchamp?? oh god my brain is failing wjshsmsj.

Watching them putting the hair back on the doll was, other than the face stuff, was the BEST part for me. Favorite type of hair was iuuuuuh was either thick yarn or brushed out yarn. Literally worship the people that would reroot the hair, theyre the most patience people on this earth!! it's literally insane but i guess that's what happens when you've been doing that for years? you guess kinda get used to it. when they put glue into the head does it just become stiff?? like it's just a clump of dried glue or does it like..hollow out again??

dude you literally cannot convince me most of the supplies used for doll makeovers. APOXIE CLAY LOOKS SO FECKING GOOD. its edible and i will die on that hill. The body mods are literally so amazing!!!!! it's so impressive how theyre able to imagine certain features THEN LIKE ACTUALLY MAKE IT LOOK ACCURATE TO WHAT THEY WANTED TO LOOK LIKE AFTER LIKE ON TRY (or many yk trial and error is very necessary for..everything). Absolutely loved when doll customizers would saw off a dolls legs and use different ones or just completely get rid of the torso to use a different one. it's like uuh that one big guy that's mismatched and sewn together. very cool. The accessories are so fun!! just small little details you seen really need but can add because it's your feckin doll!! I used to be absolutely obsessed over the doll clothes i would find on etsy, so much so that i started sewing shitty shirts and dresses for my uh "customized" dolls (they were absolute HORRORS idk WHY my mom let me feck up my dolls like that).

Thank you for this!! i haven't been able to talk about any of my interests for a while and this just really made me happy!!

Question fer u my fellow MH/EAH enthusiast: what was your favorite MH/EAH movie/episode and doll series. Mine was The fusion dolls (MH obvi) and that MH movie "Haunted" cause we got to know more about Spectra :D

#YOOOO LONG POST?!#long post #:) hehehe #this was very fun to read cant wait for ur next fanfic length ask #asks :D #theoreticallyjasper

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beneaththeweirwoodtree-blog · 8 years ago

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Sansa Stark, victim blaming and the lie of being “A Good Girl”

I’m a feminist and I love Sansa Stark. To some, these are contradictory. To me, Sansa Stark is a shining example of a woman who played by the rules that were given to her, saw the rules fail her, and was victim-blamed by much of a fandom. This is the same pattern that we see reflected daily all around us.

Allow me to explain:

In the cast of characters, Sansa easily fits into the category of The Ingenue, aka The Good Girl. According to tvtropes, the ingenue is described as, “kind, sweet-natured, polite and optimistic, and on the sliding scale of idealism vs. cynicism, she falls very much on the idealistic side. Her innocent will often inspire protective feelings in heroic characters, and she is frequently one of the more beautiful characters...Unfortunately, her innocent also often makes her woefully naive, making her a prime target for a villain seeking to take advantage of her.”

Sansa Stark is a product of her upbringing: an upbringing that includes being taught the rules of society. Rules that dictate what she should do (sew, sing, marry well and have babies), who she should speak to and how (Courtesy is a lady’s armor), and how she should be (innocent, polite, kind, loyal). All of these qualities and expectations define the Westorosi ideal of The Good Girl.

Throughout A Game of Thrones, Sansa does her best to follow the rules that she has learned from her parents and her septa. Yes, Sansa is unkind to her sister and to Jon (she’s a teenage girl, not a saint), I would argue that her bias is tied to what she has been taught is acceptable behavior. She repeatedly states that Arya is bad--because Arya acts in a way that her septa and family has told her is unbecoming for her. Her behavior towards Jon is a reflection of what she observes from her mother. Arya and Jon go against the rules that she has been taught, and so they are deemed bad and unseemly. It should be noted that others in the story also seem to share this opinion towards Arya and Jon, though many people only fault Sansa for holding it.

However, when Sansa comes to King’s Landing, her loyalties are conflicted and her courtesies do nothing to help her in the face of people far more skilled at manipulation than she. Joffrey is her betrothed; does her loyalty lie with him or her family? She believes Cersei to be not only beautiful, but also kind. She has never been shown the evils of the world, and so she cannot see them when they are right in front of her face. The rules she has been taught until this point in her life don’t help her in the face of conflict, leaving her at the mercy of the Lannisters and (later) Littlefinger.

“She has the traitor’s blood, not me. I’m good, ask Septa Mordane, she’ll tell you. I only want to be Joffrey’s loyal and loving wife.”

--Sansa IV, AGOT

All her life, Sansa Stark was taught what to do and how to do it (politely, one must never cause offense). She was taught that if she followed the rules and was a good girl, her life would be filled with beauty and pain would be far away. When she is dragged before the court in AGOT, she tries to make them understand that she is good. If she is good, nothing bad can happen to her.

This is the same struggle that we ask women and girls to face daily. We, modern and supposedly enlightened people, teach our daughters to be Good Girls (polite, loyal, kind, pure) as if this will keep them safe. Look at the way women apologize more than men. Look at the way women ask for promotions vs. how men ask for promotions. We, like Sansa Stark, are (by and large) taught that we should be kind and courteous to others. But when we follow those rules and they fail us, society is quick to blame us for it--just like some critics do of Sansa Stark. Literally, in this day and age being polite gets women killed.

When women are firm in negotiating salaries and workload (going against that idea of being polite), we’re known as a ball buster (and not in a positive way), but if we’re too polite or “soft,” we’re told that we should have negotiated harder and it is our own fault that we aren’t paid more.

Women should be sexy enough to appeal to men, but not too sexy--then you’re a slut. And if you’re attacked while wearing a sexy outfit? Well, you were probably leading him on.

Women learn to turn unwanted attention away politely because if we hurt his feelings, he might physically hurt us. But if he does, we’re asked why weren’t firmer in turning him away.

We do our daughters a grave disservice by teaching them how to be a Good Girl and then blame them when Good Girl rules let them down. The contempt that Sansa Stark receives from other characters in the ASOIAF universe and from fans is victim blaming. She followed the Good Girl rules; they failed her; it’s clearly her fault. Nevermind that the rules were shit and the whole thing was rigged from the get-go.

My point is this: Sansa Stark endured. Sansa Stark survived. Sansa Stark is a badass.

Ladies of the world, we are too.

#sansa stark #sansa stark meta #sansa meta #asoiaf meta #game of thrones meta #why i need feminism #feminism #sansa stark is a badass #I will defend this character until the day I die #sansa #sansa stark defense squad

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thewitchronin-blog · 7 years ago

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Stitching Magic and the Fuck-It-Blanket

if that title didn’t get your attention, I don’t know what will. I’ve seen very little about a major part of my craft: sewing! So here’s what I do, what I relate some basic stitches to, and how to make the blanket titled “fuck it.”

Running stitch/straight stitch

To work quickly, but hold strong (my most common! It’s the most pliable, so you can do the most with it.)

Chain stitch

To weigh down, to bind. Also, it looks GORGEOUS.

Backstitch

To work backwards in time, or to undo something that has been done (think like undoing a curse for someone else that you didn’t cast.) Protection.

Blanket stitch

To protect.

Some notable ways to use this information:

Subtle cursing/passive-aggressive cursing. Embroider them a pretty thing, but it’s laced with poison.

Protective blankets. (I’m an adult and I still have a favorite blanket.)

Wards

Sigils

Pillows for good sleep

Literally endless possibilities here folks

But Ronin, you cry, why are you rambling about this?

BECAUSE, BUCKLE UP, MY DUDES: T-SHIRT BLANKETS.

That’s right, my dudes. All those band shirts you’ve had since you were in that emo phase that are probably sitting in a bag for donation somewhere or you’re too sentimental to let go of? Repurpose them. They’re your favorite shirts, or they were-- so they’re just teeming with your energy. You can make them and sell them for your profit, and imbue them with protective energies, or keep it to yourself to feel comfy. Here’s what you’ll need:

AT LEAST 20 SHIRTS. I cannot stress this enough. (Unless you want to be extra fancy and do color blocks as well as patterned blocks!)

You can sew together the scrap fabric from the backs and sleeves to make up the back, or you can buy some soft fleece or something. Up to you.

If you want some insulation, might wanna pick up some quilting material too. It’s this fancy insert that you sew to your actual pattern. I don’t know how to describe it, but if you go to your local fabric store, they probably can help you more than I can.

Thread and needle (size doesn’t matter if you’re hand-stitching. If you aren’t.... good luck.) Don’t forget you can use color magic with this too!! Personally, I used black thread as I find it the most pliable, but that’s my correspondence.

Here we go. Gather your shit.

Basically, you’re quilting. If you know how to do that, disregard this and you do you and have fun with it. If you don’t, I’m not much of a quilter, but I’ll tell you what I did.

Pick your pattern. I recommend doing a Google search of different things to get some inspiration. Mine that is in progress is a collage, so it’s just a shit ton of designs sewn together.

Cut out the pieces you want to use. A common way of doing this is folding the shirts and laying out what you’re going to do before you cut it, or you can wing it like I did and just cut out the designs and use those and sew ‘em together. (Tbh, my ‘fuck it blanket’ -- yes, that’s what my project is called -- is turning out pretty cool.)

Start sewing! Charge as you sew with your intentions. Picture protection or whatever you want to use woven into the stitching as you sew the pieces together. (Hell, you can even curse it if you want for nightmares or poor sleep. You do you, my dude.)

Realize, OH SHIT, I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TEES!

Relax. You can do one of three things: wait until you get bored of more shirts, go to Hot Topic and buy that My Chemical Romance shirt you’ve wanted since you were like 13, or go to your local thrift store (which is what my broke ass did.)

Return with more shirts.

Keep sewing. Ta-da! You’re done with the front!

If you’re using that quilt liner thingy, sew that on.

Sew on the back.

Yes, this is a lot of sewing. But it’s all pretty basic and easy to do, so there’s that.

If you’re worried about the security of the liner or the back, feel free to run the blanket under the sewing machine. What I mean by that is do more stitching, through the liner, front and back to make it more secure. (Honestly, that’s a very quilting thing.) I did that without the liner, but you don’t have to do it. (Maybe you do? Idk, see how it holds up. If not, you can always go back later and fix it.)

Ta-da! You now have a badass t-shirt blanket that’s entirely custom and how YOU want it!

Anyway, I hope y’all have fun with this. I certainly did.

May the stars watch over you!

Ronin

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thedappleddragon · 4 years ago

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last night I dreamed that I was an archeologist tortoise and I was looking at dozens of “human” skeletons in Buckingham palace that was also my backyard. the skeletons all looked like combo human and turtle because the whole torso looked basically like the first google image result for sea turtle skeleton. then my sister woke me up, giving me a comforter and telling me my mom need help with some things. cleaned up around the living room and did some laundry and boiled some eggs and made meatloaf and swept the floor. the meatloaf turned out surprisingly good, idk what I did differently. I evemtually went back to my room and tried to remember what I wanted to do today. last night as I was falling asleep I told myself that I was gonna clear off my desk so I could finally use it, so I moved some stuff around and set up my laptop. I havent been able to sit at a real actual desk in SO LONG and its SO NICE to have just like a space where I can sit down and work and have a chair that will support my back instead of sitting cross legged on my bed or laying down while doing stuff on my laptop. it almost makes me feel productive even I'm just playing the sims. I feel especially cool when im just typing out whatever bullshit because it makes me feel like im at an office job typing up ~important documents~ :) idk man I think quarantine has changed me lmao. if im getting this many emotions from just being able to sit down at a desk and do ANYTHING idk how im gonna handle collage. I keep calling whetever im doing (playing the sims, scrolling through Tumblr, typing up this summary of the day) work because it just. feels nice sitting at a desk and typing. even if it’s dumb bullshit!! idk how to describe it I just feel amazing. it makes me feel like im writing a paper with all the horrible parts like research and thinking. the sound of typing on my MacBook makes me feel like im in school again, but without the horrible stressful parts. idk mn I know I've been going on about this desk and stuff for too long and im gonna hate it if I eventually read back through these daily logs but I just feel so nice. ill change topics anyway. I hung up my calendar again! I literally didn't have any open wall space aside from maybe the wall behind my bed but why the hell would I put a calendar where I can't see it. instead its kind of hanging above my closet. I pinned it to the wooden board in the “doorway” (idk what other word to use) where there would normally be sliding doors that open and shut if they hadn't been taken off YEARS ago. I also played a lot of the sims 4, juggling aspirations for 5 sims. I quit because I got frustrated that all my sims are dumb and the ai Is buggy and doesn't let me do what I want them to do. I also plopped in a house on my family’s old lot and spent some time adjusting the colors and the trees and adding those paper craft cieling things that can either have stars or leaves or snowflakes that came in the free winter holiday stuff pack and holy shit as soon as I found those I think they became my new favorite decoration item. I threw them everywhere but eventually took down most of them, leaving some leaf ones in the bedroom. I was gonna move in a family of a bunch of young adults and children to help with the first kid’s serial romantic aspiration and one of the twin’s social butterfly aspiration, but I ended up not doing that in favor of just decorating more and playing with the family some more. one thing I realized while playing is that there are fucking MICE in my CIELING. well not really in the cieling, in the attic, but I can hear them chewing on shit and its sucks. I would turn on a fan to drown out the noise but my room is fucking FREEZING. I threw the blanket back over my window hoping that it would keep heat from escaping but I don't think that really did anything. so after freezing my ass off I got fed up and put on fluffy socks under normal socks, wore my owl onesie as pants over my shorts, put on my comfy (oversized hoodie), and threw a fluffy blanket over my shoulders. thankfully I was pretty cozy after that, but as I type this after taking off the cosy and blanket, I can feel my toes getting cold again. damnit. ANYWAY after quitting the sims for the night I ate some salad and got a heart shaped crouton :) and I scrolled through Tumblr for a bit. then I decided to finally work on the paws my friend wanted. but I couldn't find the pattern so I instead worked on the brown paws instead. I could only work on them so much, since I still have to finish the lining before I can do much else. I attached the backs of the fingers to the back of the hand. I didnt get much down but what matters is that I did SOMETHING. I'm gonna keep an eye out for that pattern that I need, and if I cant find it, I'll just make a new pattern. tbh I think thad’s be the better way to go anyway since I wouldn't have to figure out how the fuck the old one goes together and I can also have a pattern that perfectly fits the foam underneath. also tbh i have mixed feeling about the white paws my friend wants. I like how dextrous they are and how easily you can emote and move your fingers, but I dont like how ovular I made the paw pads and the hints of black thread peaking out where I sewed the pads from the back. I WOULD just remake them with the free curl works pattern im using for the brown paws but I figure I might as well finish this pair since there’s already one done and the foam interior is already made. whatever. I dont wanna think about it too much. I also dont like the head that goes with the paws, it was a fish job in comparison to my first head and I kinda hate it. but I think I'll eventually get some longer fur for the neck and a hair poof and cheeks (maybe) and do a little refurbishing and give it to my friend if she ever wants it, since it matches the paws and all. I have lots of plans for my 2 WIP heads but not all the materials/motivation. plus I just need to let the ideas stir before I do unything, making sure they’re goof before I act on them. I'm exited that I can shave down fur relativey easily and evenly without an electric dog shaver, which opens up a lot of opportunities. anyway as I was working on the brown paws I had TAZ on in the background and it still baffles me a little bit how different griffin and Matt mercer operate as dms like holy shit. its really funny. and it got me thinking about how I wouldn't mind dming for my friend group if he chance ever arose. I DO have the forgotten realms campaign setting book. I haven't actually looked at it but I assume it has a few pre-built quests and plot lines n stuff in it. I'll probably take a better look at in the morning when it’s not 1:40 am. dang now I'm thinking about my Minecraft dnd idea again. I think the real problem keeping me from being a dm is that I CANNOT keep a straight face when doing improv/roleplaying, so I dont know how well I could hold together a world for them to play in. I would love to give it a try tho. not with the Minecraft idea at the same time, fuck no. I would need to do like. a classic vanilla dnd experience the first time, maybe even using our tiefling family characters since I'm at least a little familiar with them. can you dm and also play your own character? is that fair? is that a think you can do? I think that could be fun but also hard to juggle and also maybe kinda suck because you’d already know all the answers to all the puzzles. meh. actually now I kind of really want to look through thet book tonight instead of in the morning. also I mentioned overnight oats a few days ago I think, and the first morning it was kinda gross, the second time I ate it was still a little gross texture wise, but I finished it off tonight and it was pretty good. maybe next time I'll try it without the banana and a little less milk and maybe slice up an apple into little cubes for texture. hell yeah peanut butter apple cinnamon brown sugar overnight oats. that sound pretty dang good actually. I'll try that some time, but I dont think I can right now because I dont think we have any apples in the house. phooey. I should also probably put this oatmeal cp in the sink before it becomes impossible to clean. holy shit how long have I been writing? SEE THE DESK MAKES ME JUST WANNA KEEP WRITING AND WRITING FOREVER I FEEL SO PRODUCTIVE EVEN IF IM NOT DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE!! I love just typing and typing forever its so soothing just hearing the tapping of the keyboard and getting my thought out without actually having to think that hard about it. goddamn im never gonna read back through this this is a nightmare lmao. no paragraph breaks no capitalization no nothin. I dont even wanna stop typing even though my arm is starting to hurt a little but from leaning the edge of the desk. now im thinking about the movie soul again and the cat as it rides on the escalator to the great beyond and how that dude in the band was the main characters student and how that scene with the girl trying to quit music and then immediately changed her mind didnt make any sense. like what the hell I dont understand that scene at all. also thinking about the transition where he’s like “ok repeat after me” as he’s in the cat and the camera goes over the mom’s shoulder and it’s just him talking, I like how they did that instead of doing dialouge between him and the cat. idk man. I think maybe I should stop typing now since my body is starting to hurt. sorry for putting this H U G E wall of text on your dash but I just like typing out my thoughts :) goodnight!

edit: OH I forgot to talk about something else!! last night I was thinking about valentines day and how cute it would be to have a little overall dress in the pattern on one of my childhood blankets, its like a light pink with white hearts on it so I looked up some fabrics and none of them were the right pattern. I also looked up a sewing pattern that I think would look nice and its on sale right now! I totally want to try and make it, but fabric is expensive so I think I might look at dollar tree for fleece baby blankets because I know they have them there, I bought a few a while ago for some plush sewing projects. they’re decently sized so I think I could do it.idk how many I would need to buy tho. or I might go to goodwill and look for a pink sheet? I have a thin pink blanket that could theoretically work but I want to use a planet im not attached to. or even just find a few big shirts in the same shade of pink? then I could maybe line it with something. I have red purple and white satin but that’s literally the worst fuckin fabric in the world to work with. my first experience with sewing was trying to make plushies out of satin and holy hell idk how I did it. anyway even though I literally never wear dresses I think it would be a fun project to try and make myself a cute little valentines dress. :) I could even give myself POCKETS >:)))

#thanks for coming to my ted talk #long post #I think maybe I should tag my daily shit with something like 2021 journal? idk im lazy so we'll see #January 2021 daily #2021 daily

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aislingeach · 5 years ago

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Another Letter...

Mom,

I love you more than anyone else. I love you big much and forever. I wish you felt more deserving of that love. You deserve so much better than the life you have. You took me in and raised an amazing daughter. Yes, we have our faults and the process of raising me wasn’t perfect… but you did the best you knew how. You gave me all you could. I wish you could see that you’re worth so much more than the love and treatment you accept… but we accept the love we think we deserve. I’m sorry things haven’t turned out as what you actually deserve in life. Currently though, a lot of that is by choice. You continually choose Scott over everyone and everything else, including yourself. Granted, I will never understand what it means to birth your own child and I will never understand the feelings that come with that. From a semi-objective point of view, it is still a choice to risk everything else for one child, especially when you have three children.

Scott continues to perpetuate the same abusive behaviors that I grew up with, that cost him custody of Christian and acquired legal trouble, that continue to harm you. It is unacceptable. I cannot continue to support these behaviors by picking up the pieces every time you fall apart as a result of his abuse. I feel that he is literally leading you to your grave. The stress and emotional turmoil only exacerbate your already existing poor health. I have always known I will be relatively young when you die, but I cannot imagine being without my mom before the age of 45.

His behavior and treatment of others leads to fear and resentment. For myself, I hold a little fear and a lot of anger and resentment towards him. Growing up with someone who would constantly yell, belittle me, make me feel worthless and like I did not belong was some of the worst abuse I have endured. I also hold some resentment towards you for this because of your failure to protect me. I specifically remember as a senior in high school standing in the living room with him yelling at the top of his lungs, pointing his finger in my face “she took you in, you selfish bitch” while you stood behind me and did nothing. This wasn’t the first, or the last time something like this happened; it’s just the memory that stands out the most. Or the time I got between the two of you at around age 10 as he was screaming at you and ended up yelling over and over less than a foot from your face “hit me, go ahead and fucking hit me” and shoved me aside when I tried to stop him. A small child yelling to stop and literally standing between you and your abuser. I would frequently wake at all hours of the night to you two fighting, to his abusive language while you stood there and cried. So, I would try and sleep in the backyard with Mitzy until the yelling stopped. Not that anyone ever noticed. I developed insomnia by the age of 11 due to living in constant fear, and this is something that still deeply affects me to this day. I was also highly suicidal in the midst of his abuse, again, not that anyone noticed. Two failed attempts and self-harm that I still have scars from. Yet, you brush this off, throwing your hands up and stating “I don’t want to talk about this” after your daughter has told you that she tried to kill herself twice because of Scott’s abuse. You have no idea how much this hurts.

His behavior and treatment of Christian has also lead to fear, anger and resentment from his own son. He lacks any empathy for the trauma and inconsistency Christian has had to grow up with. His verbal and emotional abuse, the lies and manipulation, the berating, has unfortunately all lead to Christian experiencing the same emotional turmoil I had endured. When it gets to the point that a child wants to kill themselves, it is inexcusable. History is literally repeating itself, and yet he refuses to take responsibility, blaming it on Alina and Ron. This is wrong. If it were their faults, Christian would not be confronting Scott about it. It is Scott’s doing that has led to Christian no longer wanting to exist, to be done with his life, to die. You commend him on being a good father, but sadly, he is not. He has the potential to be, but not until he can control his temper and have more appropriate responses and parenting styles. And to top it off, threatening to abandon Christian… either by running away to Florida, or “pulling a Paul Reed.” In my opinion, Christian does not deserve either of the parents he received, and this is wildly unfair to him. Yes, he has an attitude and yes, he has behavioral issues. However, being a teenager with rapidly changing hormones combined with the multiple traumas he’s endured account for this. Overall, he is a good kid and this goes unrecognized, which is unfair to him. That despite all he’s been through, he continues to have a good heart.

His behavior and treatment of you… I see how you live in fear of him. Your refusal to confront any problems with him; from as small as the pile of dishes in the sink, to as big as his abusive behavior, and your asking me to talk to him about multiple things on your behalf. I see how his treatment of you repeatedly brings you down to a depressive and anxious state. I see how you repeatedly fall apart, withdraw and isolate in response to his treatment. Not to mention, your statement of being “paralyzed in fear.” Him making you feel small, “stupid,” and like you’re losing your mind is abusive. Him continuously expecting you to provide for him and be there to pick up after him is abusive. Him manipulating every situation, every argument, everything in your life to fit his favor and meet his own needs is abusive. This is not love. Abuse is not love.

And yet, he loves to stand on his high horse and preach the gospel and tell everyone else how to be good human beings. This is bullshit. His “good deeds” don’t mean much in the face of his abuse. He loves to play the martyr and loves to tell everyone how hard he’s had it, how shit his life has been, and flaunt how he is still faithful and a Godly man. Yes, he’s had a rough life… but this is no excuse and many of his challenges have been short comings of his own terrible decisions. He chose drugs. He chose poor health management. He chose smoking. He chose to get in bad relationships. He chooses to start arguments, knowing exactly what buttons to push in others and then blames them for the argument and his abusive behavior. And he chooses to continue perpetuating these abusive cycles. He chooses how he responds to adversity every day.

He has consistently shown his true colors and yet you continue to choose him over everyone and everything else. You consistently back him up, regardless of the damage it causes to your other relationships. He has been the source of about 90% of the problems you and I have and at least 75% of the problems between you and Maggy. He is manipulative. He is egotistical. He is hypocritical. He is selfish. He is abusive. The whole family sees it. And yet you choose him.

He will never change unless he does the deep and difficult work to do so, and he has to want it. Which I honestly don’t think he will ever get to the place of truly wanting to change. A big part of this is that you continue to enable and accept these abusive behaviors, so why would he change when he can stay comfortable in the same patterns he’s known most of his life? Discomfort is required for change.

I carry so much shame and guilt over initially lying to Annie about how bad he really is. I did this because I knew it would be what you wanted me to do. Because I am constantly seeking your approval and acceptance with the goal that someday, you will choose me over him. I see now this is an unrealistic expectation. I also lied for some notion that I was protecting you… but I also have to believe in the systems that are in place to protect people from this kind of treatment. So, I don’t really see this lie as protecting you. This lie was also eating away at me; it’s mentally, emotionally and literally physically hurting me. I cannot engage in my own therapy, my own healing process while lying to my therapist. I cannot have walls up with Annie. Honestly, if I was provided therapy all those times I asked for it growing up, there would have been a multitude of CPS reports against him. So really, it’s a miracle he’s made it this long under the radar. I hold so much anger, fear, resentment and pain as a result of Scott that has affected so many areas of my life. It has been truly damaging. I need to be able to heal from this, so I can live a successful and healthy life. I cannot heal if I am lying. So yes, there was an APS report. I’m sorry this upset you, but I am not sorry of any consequences Scott has to face as a result. You reap what you sew.

Mom, I will always love you big much and forever.

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ghostofasecretary · 8 years ago

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so the pain feelings are probably the easiest and most grounded, let’s have those first

it really, really annoys me that i have chronic pain. i mean, yes, chronic pain is annoying, but i am annoyed at the specifics of my chronic pain because fibromyalgia is a...complicated diagnosis at best, one i am not sure really exists at worst, and one i would rather throw myself into a fire than get slapped with again.

(possibly do not read this if you are diagnosed with fibro, i think your pain exists and effects your life but i don’t quite think mine is and have Feelings about fibro as a diagnosis that i can’t assess and in this post i make some statements that may be distressing. if you’re sensitive to people dismissing pain, even if it’s their own pain, uh, maybe just skip this one)

i think the pain of other people i real and my own is not, sometimes, which is really stupid and i don’t agree with it, but there the thought is, being a thought.

legitimate vs illegitimate pain is one that is often framed through the lens of sexism and while that is probably reasonable, it also makes me curl into a little ball of dysphoria. i don’t want to think i was effected by sexism while i ran the medical gauntlet, and even if i was i don’t...ugh. sorry. no. i don’t want to.

fibro is basically the diagnosis for “we don’t know what’s wrong with you and you’re probably crazy and/or whiny and/or Don’t Real.” i’m not even sure it’s better than no diagnosis. also i am crazy, it’s on my chart, i don’t...i don’t want another thing that makes me more likely to be dismissed.

in my junior year of high school (well, from August to...April? stuff tapered off around the end of February) i had headaches that ranged from irritating to extremely distracting and mildly painful every single day. i say “mildly“ painful because i have had several severe migraines in my life, and while the aggregate suffering of daily aura and varying forms of pain in my temples may have been equal to the multiple days where i would have to be lying down in a dark room that was quiet as we could possibly make it, but even that didn’t quite help because my heartbeat was too loud, the daily experience was...not that bad. i also had some other symptoms that sucked!

these may have made the aggregate That Bad, idk. i was also pretty suicidal at this point, which kind of clouds my memories.

i was really nauseous pretty much constantly. i had aura pretty much constantly. i got diagnosed with chronic daily migraines, although they were atypical.

my hips and knees hurt a lot. my back hurt, my neck hurt, my shoulders hurt. sometimes i didn’t feel like i could walk well at all and i limped. i sat down often. my hands hurt and writing got painful for the first time. i was very tired.

i did some really stressful things in junior year that were made a lot worse by having headaches constantly and being tired and in miscellaneous pain and feeling like i was going to throw up. i had a really bad night one time where everything in my body was pounding and i ached and cramped and felt like i was on fire and also had a migraine i would class as a Real Migraine, complete with high-key pain and horribly present nausea and blackouts and floating dots. it was really hard.

i had a bunch of tests done re: headaches, including an EEG and an MRI. i asked for a full panel of bloodwork because i did not know what was happening and whether there was a cause. (fibro does not have a known cause, although it is sometimes speculated to be “stress” or “mental illness.” thanks, medicine.) there was no detectable underlying cause, but i did get some helpful medication after a lot of trial and error and several months of waiting. by several months i mean about half a year, but, well. what can you do.

(also, i had SO MUCH ANXIETY about diagnosis and i both was terrified of having RA or lupus or cancer or something identifiable and i desperately wanted something fixable. i also had FUN FUN FUN ANXIETY about being a Bad Patient, about whether asking for bloodwork and being upset over not having an underlying cause made me look like a hypochondriac, about whether the fact that i didn’t exercise as much meant i was Destroying My Health even though exercise hurt like a motherfucker and made every part of daily life difficult, etc, etc)

senior year was much less bad, pain wise.

headache meds really helped my other symptoms! yay! it’s also possible i developed a better pain tolerance*? i did have noticeable and distracting pain while typing during senior year but a carpal tunnel diagnosis is not terribly useful and trying to get diagnosed and not getting anything would probably have crushed me.

going to a chiropractor was moderately helpful but also painful, so...eh?

exercise was really, really not. it’s supposed to be, although the studies used to support that are kind of sketchy, but it was not helpful. it might be helpful now but i would not bet on it.

(one time in junior year i tried to stand up and pace around for an hour, to see if i could do it. i wound up having to lie down in bed for four hours. lying down because of Pain sucks and it feels so stupid and shitty and boring, and i knew i probably shouldn’t have stood for that long while it was so uncomfortable but i wanted to see if i could. i could, barely, but it was not worth it. and it’s so stupid, i feel so petty, i stand up for seven hours every day now and i don’t hurt that much, why did i...? surely it couldn’t have been that bad, surely i was making it up.)

sleeping more did help a little.

* i don’t feel like i developed a better pain tolerance but it might be worth noting two things.

one, after a while i got incredibly fed up with noticing my pain and all the stuff on the net about fibro being psychosomatic and not having any reason to feel bad aside from my headaches which also didn’t have a Real ReasonTM, i decided to ignore pain. pain? what’s that? i don’t have that. banging my elbow makes me ache for days? lol, no it doesn’t. it...i mean, i think it helped. not thinking about my pain All The Time defnitely helped, although the Denial might be less than great.

two, even though i really do feel like i have a shit pain tolerance my feet were literally bleeding because of my shoes in DC and i did not take any action about this until K and R told me to. it hurt, but not, like, a lot.

possibly i have a better pain tolerance.

...

anyway. recently during my work as a barista, my hands and wrists and forearms have been quite annoying. my wrists keep sparking when i pick up milk cartons or shake whip cream and i have to do those things many times during the course of a day. it hurts to close my hands and they’re usually very stiff but probably not clinically stiff. my tendons seem...unhappy...but fuck if i know. i sleep in wrists braces every night and have for years, i ice my hands and wrists at least once a week, typing is still hella painful and i don’t draw or sew very much anymore and i cannot shake the conviction that there is Nothing To Be Done and also that i am feeling my nerves dying every day. which. uh. not great.

(and also - my ankles hurt all the time, i stand up for seven hours a day, what do you expect? my back hurts, so what, everyone’s back hurts. sometimes my knee wrenches but idk, man, it does that.)

i can’t tell what’s a reasonable, measured reaction, what’s abject denial, and what’s overwhelming anxiety and desperation to have anything that isn’t The Fake Special Snowflake Disease For Special Snowflake People.

according to the Mayo Clinic, “See your doctor if you have persistent signs and symptoms suggestive of carpal tunnel syndrome that interfere with your normal activities and sleep patterns. Permanent nerve and muscle damage can occur without treatment.” uhhhhhhhh

tingling and numbness have occurred for the past two and a half years, although they’ve gotten much worse recently. i haven’t been woken up because of it, but, like. if i woke up every time i was in pain i would be awake a lot. weakness hasn’t really happened yet. pain is, y’know, kind of a thing.

i’m vaguely worried that i could have more things ala tendinitis but no way am i going to think about that too hard.

options:

continue ignoring everything. this one looks very stupid but i am tempted. if i think i need carpal release surgery i could try to get it then, otherwise i’m pretty much doing okay on prevention and am doing decently at ergonomic support. if i get told to ice my wrists or something i will scream

go to a doctor. a diagnosis would probably make me feel better but also what if i don’t get one, and there isn’t much to be done anyway unless i need surgery which i do not think i do. if i have tendinitis i might get a steroid shot, but really, i don’t think i do? i don’t want to think about it, i am so tired of thinking about my shit body, i don’t want to

go to the chiropractor. this looks like a nice middle balance and i could ask about carpal tunnel in a less serious environment and it might help, but uggggh, why can’t i just...continue ignoring everything. “permanent nerve and muscle damage” sounds serious but not being able to stand without being in a fuckload of pain sounded serious to me in junior year and here we are, with awesome headache meds and a dubiously effective pain tolerance.

at what point does pain interfere with my life? when i notice it? when i start dropping things? when i can’t hold a pencil? idk, man. i d fucking k

oh, yeah, and another thing, my headaches have been..sort of a thing lately. at this point i’m going to have to get a freakin anti-headache earring like it’s a sigil to ward off a demon and/or i will have to get botox shots every three months like a soccer mom desperately sneaking in to the doctor’s office to make herself feel just a tiny bit better about her miserable life and wrinkles, because obviously a 40 year old showing signs of age is A Sin Against Beauty And An Affront To Nature

(note the increasingly bitter and jaded tone of this post. do i sound hysterical yet)

pain is very stupid and i am SO ANNOYED

....probably i should schedule a chiropractor appointment. i shall pester my mom about that now

#emotional sorting #whining #surprise: chronic pain!#ugh that's a lot of feelings #this was supposed to be the /easy/ post #i am a parody of myself #please do not armchair diagnose me #hugs are nice

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