#when you're in your early 20s but feel really old every time someone your age says something really stupid

[greenapplebling]

Jason: I've been feeling really old lately...

Tim: You're 23??

Jason: Yeah, but- Kids these days, man... They act like they already figured out the secrets of the universe and shit like that

Tim:

Tim: THEY'RE OUR AGE

Jason: I know, but still-

[leonstoenailunderhisbed]

My baby, my baby…

Summary: Leon is a man pushing 40 and you’re a girl in her early 20s. You confessed your feelings but things went south.

Warning: age gap. literally any older version of Leon. reader is young. female reader. haha guess what? it’s sad again.

a/n: I love mitski <3 still mad I didn’t go to her concert. Guys I love writing, I feel like I’m god waiting for shit to happen. TEEHEE.🤭 also, should I make a part two with smut?

(pt.1) (pt.2)

“You're my baby, say it to me” - Mitski, I Bet On Losing Dogs

You hated him. Well not really. You just hated the way he made you feel when you two were in the same room. Your heart beat faster and you felt your face grow hot. You had butterflies in your stomach every time he did something. And you felt stupid because he’s a man twice your age.

You did what you always think is best, avoid him. To which you failed miserably. You both worked on the same team on the DSO, of course you were bound to be next to him. It was as if the universe was mocking you. You couldn’t help but feel guilty. This man, poor innocent man, probably doesn’t know that he has someone so much younger after him. He must be worried about missions and not dying, while you were here crushing over him.

It didn’t help the way he would talk to you, distant but polite. He didn’t hate you, he just thought you were too young to experience such a miserable life the DSO puts on its agents. He wants you to live life. To be a normal girl in her early 20s. He wanted you to have the life he wished he had. He wished you would live your 21st year way differently than when he was 21.

But those thoughts remained unspoken. Neither of you actually spoke about anything besides work and missions. You tried to find excuses to talk to him but he would just stare at you in silence as you talked. He wasn’t mad, he just stood there. (Like this lol🧍‍♂️)

Professional and polite conversations turned into jokes. One time, during a meeting, you were sitting next to Leon and the poor man looked like he didn’t get an ounce of sleep. Chris was talking about some mission in Antarctica and Leon couldn’t help but grumble a stupid joke about all the penguin shit roaming around. It was such a stupid joke but you laughed. When Leon heard you laugh, he turned his head your direction and stared at you with a raised brow. He smirked to himself and laughed a little bit. It was funny to both of you.

From that moment, he became more warm towards you. When he saw you, he would nod at him. And you being you, a delusional lover, gushed about how much he is in love with you.

You managed to break the ice exterior he had because he would look at you with soft eyes every time you got near him.

-

But things changed when you confessed your feelings to him. The softness in his eyes disappeared and he looked at you with the same distant look he had. “I’m too old for you, y/n…” He spoke with a quiet but firm tone. The two of you were currently alone in some room inside the DSO building. You thought this was the perfect time to let your feelings out.

He took a step towards you and stood in front of you, “You should focus on someone your age, sweetheart,” He mumbled as he brought his hand to your face and brushed some strands of hair behind your ear. He then ran his hand down your cheek with a gentle touch. You couldn’t help but lean into it. His thumb gently grazes against your bottom lip as he ran his fingers around your side of your face.

You were upset, you wanted him despite the age gap. “Please… I only want you,” you whispered and leaned into the palm of his hand.

Leon stared at you and then sighed as he brought his hand down your chin to lift it up more. He wanted to see those beautiful eyes of yours, even if they began to show how sad you were. “It’s wrong for me to have you,” he whispered gently as he examines your face.

You felt your eyes become full of emotion, “It’s not fair…” your voice came out strained and barely audible, it was a miracle Leon still understood you.

"I know." Leon sighed, unable to keep himself from looking you with a soft look. You were his soft spot after all, "Trust me; nothing would please me more than to be with you..."

“Then let me have this one chance…please?” You begged with pleading eyes. "I shouldn't," he breathed, eyes traveling down to your lips before returning to scan your face, "It wouldn't be right for me to take advantage of you..."

“I want you to take advantage of me, to use me… I just want to be yours,” you whispered as your eyes shifted down to his lips and then back to his eyes.

"You're sure about this?" His breathing quickened as his eyelids drew heavy, his gaze locked onto the soft curve of your lips. You nodded, “I wouldn’t be asking you if I wasn’t sure,” you whispered as your hand intertwined with his.

He squeezed your hand, and with a slight shrug of his shoulders, he leaned down until your faces were just mere inches apart.

He breathed slowly, eyes scanning your gaze, "Promise me one thing..."

You stared at his eyes and nodded, “yeah?”

"Promise me..." He breathed out slowly, allowing himself to lean in closer to you until his breathing was near whisper. "...That you will not regret this.”

“I won’t,” you whispered as you closed your eyes and felt Leon's lips finally make contact with yours, kissing for the very first time. It was a gentle, tender caress that made your cheeks flush with color, his broad hands gently resting on your hips while the tips of his fingers grazed the skin of your waist. You brought your hands to his broad shoulders and rested them there. You felt your knees grow weak from the gentleness of the kiss. His lips felt so soft against yours, he tasted the flavor of your chapstick and he couldn’t help but love it even more.

He sighed against your lips as the gentleness of the kiss began to build into something more passionate. His lips pressed against yours firmly, a hand cupping your chin to keep your face closer. His lips parted slowly, urging your lips to part as well. When you felt his lips part and his tongue press on your bottom lip, you gasped and he dived his tongue right into your mouth. His tongue finally danced against your tongue, inviting a response back from you. Your grip on his shoulders increased ever so slightly as you moaned in the kiss, sending the vibrations to his tongue as both your tongues danced passionately.

He moaned softly in response, his hands sliding around to your back once more holding you as close to him as he could. His tongue continued to swirl around your mouth, gently sucking at your bottom lip. His hold on you was strong and firm, a silent command to stay pressed against him. His hold on you only grew stronger as he kept you pressed up against his body. A hand ran through your hair, keeping your head held in place. His tongue and lips continued the dance of teasing and pleasing, your own lips responding in kind. The passion built within his embrace, his breath growing labored and his heart beating rapidly against his chest. It felt so surreal.

You moved your hands down to his chest and gently pulled back to catch your breath. You panted as you tried to breathe and remain focused. Your brain felt mushy from how good the kiss was. You finally got the chance to taste his lips.

His lips parted from yours, and he breathed out slowly, his breathing rapid and throat parched. His hand slid to your lower back as he kept you pressed close to him. He brushed a few stray strands of hair from your face, then gently tucked it back behind your ear. "Are you ok?" He whispered, voice still strained, but his body relaxing slightly.

You nodded and breathed out a small “yes,”

Leon let his grip on you loosen slightly, allowing a small distance to form between the two of you. He brushed the side of your face, and his hand moved to grasp yours.

"Good," He whispered slowly, his gaze falling to your lips, "So very good..." he sighed and let his hand slid back down your back before letting go, "Forgive me if I got a little carried away..." He took in a deep breath, his voice now returning to a normal tone, "I've wanted to do that for a very long time..."

You eyes nestled bulged out of their sockets after he said that, “You did?” You asked softly in disbelief.

He nodded slowly, his gaze flicking between yours, “Yes. Ever since the moment we first met, I was attracted to you, even though I knew it was wrong. I wanted you, wanted to hold you close, kiss you, and make you mine…” his eyes growing distant, "I've wanted you..." He took a deep breath, then gently caressed your chin with a hand, his lips gently grazing your forehead.

You closed your eyes and felt the softness of his lips plant a kiss on your forehead. A gesture so gentle and soft it could bring anyone to their knees.

He breathed out slowly, closing his eyes for a second before opening them to peek at you through his lids. He raised a brow and sighed, adjusting the hold on your chin to gently tip your head up.

"But as I said, I'm too old for you," he brushed his fingers across your jawline, "And I fear that our relationship would be met with judgment and ridicule..." he looked at you with saddened eyes. He wished he could kiss you anytime, to be with you in public and not have to worry about the judgment. In his eyes, you were the most beautiful woman to ever step foot on earth. It was sad, really. How much love he had for you but he hid it for your sake. He loves you so much he didn’t want you to get hurt.

You furrowed your brows together and looked at him with those sad eyes of yours. But his heart ached the most with the strain of your voice, “I don’t care what anyone says…”

"But you should," he replied softly, "You're still young... You should find someone closer to your age,” he caressed your cheek once again as he looked into your eyes "What about your family?" He sighed, "What if your parents disagree with us? They'd say that I'm taking advantage of you and manipulating you because you're young..."

“Leon, please, I’m an adult. I can make my own choices…” you whispered with a sad tone, “I don’t care if you’re 20 years older than me. I want you… dare I say I love you…”

Leon fell silent as your words sank into him. He froze in place, for a few moments, he was speechless, his facial expressions shifting through multiple emotions.

"Love me?" He whispered, leaning down towards you, "Y/n… you don’t love me. You love the idea of me you have in your head.” He whispered softly as he caressed your cheek once again. His voice so soft and tender and full of sadness.

Your throat was caught up into a knot. Did you screw things over already? Or were they already screwed up before this began?

You bit your bottom lip to contain the threatening tears that were about to spill. He saw this and gently brought his thumb over to the corner of your eyes and wiped them for you.

“I love you…” you nodded and felt your eyes get glossy, “I love you, Leon…” you whispered, “This feeling I have… it’s controlling me. I can’t breathe when I’m not with you. I need you…”

“Don’t cry, angel,” he whispered as he kissed your forehead again and gave you a sad smile. “How do you know this is not just infatuation?”

You stared into his blue eyes deeply, “Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone before..”

His eyes were locked onto yours, a million thoughts running through his head. As much as he wanted to be with you, this was never meant to happen. You’re way too young. You needed someone else, someone better than him. He sighed and looked out the window. What was once a sunny day became a rainy one. He looked back down at you.

"Go home, y/n…" he whispered.

He let go of your face and took a step back. You watched him go with sad eyes, you wanted to chase after him so badly but you felt frozen in place. It was bittersweet. You got the kiss you wanted but at the cost of him leaving you.

You sniffled and cried silently as you walked out of the building and to the bus stop. You put on your headphones and began to listen to some music while you watched the raindrops race down the window.

Leon watched you from the second floor window. He felt a pang of guilt in his heart. He knew you’d cry but he couldn’t let you get too attached to someone like him. He was broken, never meant to be fixed again. While you were everything. In another universe, maybe the two of you could’ve been together.

[miioouu]

Mean Dad's Best Friend! Ghost

In which he asks you to hook him up with your bestie as you're riding him. Tw: smut, age gap (ghost is in his late 30s, reader in her early 20s), f!reader, mean mean ghost, a bit of dumbification if you squint like really hard. Wc: 2.1k

  "You're a big girl now!" is the first thing Ghost said when you opened the door to greet your dad's military friends. You only smiled at him, with a slight blush as you took the small bag from him, which you assumed is your birthday gift.

  "It's not everyday that you turn 21 my dear, so let's celebrate big time. Invite your friends, I'll invite mine, we'll have a nice barbecue, the weather is nice this weekend." and although you didn't need such fancy celebrations, how could you deny your old dad? How could you reject the chance of seeing one of his dearest friends, the one you've been fantasising about for years now? So you nodded, eager to invite your friends over.

It might've been your first mistake that night. How dare she? Come to your house, your birthday party, in such a short dress (albeit, it wasn't too short, but it got your blood boiling anyway). How dare she smile so brightly, her shoulders shaking with every laugh, her eyelashes batting anytime someone would say a word to her? And more importantly, how dare she steal his attention? His chocolate eyes following her every move, twinkling and shining when the wind would lift her dress up just a tiny bit, revealing more of her thighs, darting over to hers whenever he made a joke, seeing if she's laughing. How dare she walk past him? Making him sit up straight, his nose flaring up, obviously under his mask, to breathe in her perfume. And what made it worse? when she sat next to him at the table, your place, your seat. When he started to serve her, put food on her plate, pouring her a drink as if she couldn’t do it herself, as if she’s the birthday girl getting spoiled on her special day. When your eyes would stray to him, seeing his thumb rubbing circles on her knee, pushing the hem of her dress up to feel more of her plush skin. How dare she steal Ghost away from you? And how dare he entertain her too?

Just because you're older doesn't mean you're more mature, and doesn't mean that you have to be the bigger person. Your eyes start to line up with tears as you saw the big man lean in to whisper something in her ear that made her blush and giggle, making you storm up, excusing yourself for a second as you stomped to your bedroom to deal with your feelings in peace, away from everyone and precisely her.

Your face was buried in your pillows, silencing your screams of frustration, you haven't even seen the light peaking through the opening door, you haven't even heard it close and lock. You only felt a hand, big, warm, and calloused, slipping under your shirt, rubbing circles on the small of your back. "Can't have the princess be sad on her special day, hmm?" His hum sounded more like a growl, rumbling in his chest, trembling your whole soul. You didn't want to look at him, giving him the same treatment that he gave you all night, but he knew you couldn't resist him; not when his hand slid further up your back, experienced fingers undoing your bra with ease, and it's only when you felt the mattress sink under his weight that you looked at him with puffy red eyes. 

     He's cruel, it's not new information. Of course he is, years in the military broke his moral compass. Years of violence and brutality enabled him to differentiate between right and wrong, why else would he be chuckling over your tears? Why else would his lips be pressing sentimental kisses to the back of the neck of someone half his age? "What's the matter darling? who's gotten you so upset tonight?" you didn't have to answer, your glare was enough for him to understand, and yet again, he laughed. He laughed at your misery, your pain, your jealousy. 

      He's cruel, it's not new information, but he's manipulative too. Ages of studying the human's body language, he knows exactly how to read between the lines and into their minds. Twisted smiles or gruesome threats, either way, if he wants something, he'll find a way to get it. So is it really a surprise when he flops beside you, the bed squeaking under his enormous figure? His swift hands found your waist quickly, pulling you on top of him with ease, as if you weighed nothing. "Come on, don't be like that princess." He said in his low voice, erupting goosebumps across your skin. He removed your shirt, discarded your bra, throwing them somewhere on your bedroom floor to be lost. And he leaned in. His eyes fluttering as he looked up at you, his lips parting as he locked them around one of your nipples. His hot tongue is flicking your bud, his teeth dragging against your soft flesh here and there, all that while he kept his eyes on yours. He can't help it, such a cute young girl's resolve crumbling because of him.

      Oh he's cruel, so cruel; he didn't miss the way your eyes widened in surprise when you felt his wet muscle on your skin, or the way your fingers curled in a fist, shaking as you tried to fight your desire off with reasoning. But he also didn't miss the way your head fell back, a sigh of delight escaping your lips as your digits uncurled and rested on his well defined chest instead. He didn't miss your shivers and the biting of your lips when his hands found purchase on your hips, grinding you against him, softly yet pressing you so tight against him. "Tell me…what have I done that has gotten you in that state?" he asks mischievously, a smirk on his lips because he knows, he knows exactly what he's done. When you don't answer him and only let out a frustrated huff as your grip tightens around his shirt, he rolls his eyes "Come on, don't be like that, darling… Was just entertaining her. You know I only have eyes for you." You scoff again at his obvious lie, and you wanted to speak up your mind, let him know you're not one to fool around with, but as soon as you gathered the courage to open your mouth, he lifted you hips up slightly, keeping one hand on you, the other quickly unbuttoning his jeans and in a swift motion pulling them down alongside his boxers; you barely registered the dark spot on them. But yours weren't better. He thanked whatever God is above that you wore a skirt. His fingers easily touch that soft spot between your thighs, chuckling at the wetness covering your flimsy cotton panties.

         He's disgusting, really. The way he's teasing himself, eager to see what exactly you are wearing under that red skirt. Is it some cute, girly panties with strawberries on them? or maybe some flowers? Maybe they're stripped, baby blue and white. Or spotted, black and pink. What if they're a solid colour? What's your favourite colour again? Purple, yeah? Yeah, what if you're wearing a soft mauve pair of underwear, with a bow on the front, small lace details on the hem? And he groans at the thought, having enough of restraining himself, he's quick to flip your skirt up, laughing, laughing, when he sees that his assumptions were right, that you were so pretty in purple. You gasped, you whined as you tried to push his hand off "Simon…I…what are you doing?" you wanted to sound angry, livid and grossed out by the older man, but Ghost only looked at you, eyes sparkling brightly in your dimmed bedroom "Showing you that you're my favourite girl, of course!" His voice is laced with malice, and the upturn of his lips didn't make you feel any more reassured. 

       His fingers pushed your undies aside, too eager to take them off properly, and in all honesty, if they weren't this cute, he would've ripped them off. Your folds are glistening under the light, he can't help but lick his lips at the sight. "Look at you, darling. Look at you…Thought you were mad at me. If that's what I get anytime I make you angry, I might as well do it more often then." He chuckles, mean, as his hands find your hips again, guiding you closer to him, hovering you over his dripping tip. His eyes dart up at you for a second, he expected fear, or disgust, ready to stop if he saw tears rolling down your cheeks, but to his surprise, you were biting your lower lip, your cheeks were a glowy pink, and your eyes were half lidded, it didn't take a genius to see how badly you wanted him.

        He's the cruellest man alive, there's no way someone is more evil than him. He didn't give you time, as soon as he heard your small whine when the leaking head of his dick brushed against your clit, he slammed you down onto him. Your mouth opened in a silent scream, your nails digging, tearing little holes in his thin black shirt, as you took all of him in one movement. "Big girl aren't you, dear? Doing such a good job, taking all of me like that…" He groans out after a few thrusts up into you. "But come on now, big girl, you can do it yourself, yeah?" He sounds a little frustrated, irritated and tired that his heels are digging into the mattress and he's the one moving his hips, doing the job. 

       Your second mistake is that you're too much of a people pleaser, and you had a soft spot for the huge military man. So you nodded at his command, pushing at his shoulders so he's laying flat against your bed as you begin to move. Up and down with every breath you took, your knees already hurting, but you pushed through, picking up the pace each time his fingers dug further in the soft skin of your thighs, a warning of some sort.

       He's sweating, beads of perspiration collecting on his forehead as his eyes rolled so far back his skull. "Such a good girl for me." He'd moan out, calloused digits leaving the plushness of your thighs to grab at those of your breasts instead. You whimper, back arching at the feeling, your hands dig further more into his chest to keep yourself steady. "And you know how you could be even a better darling for me?" His voice is with malice, but your mind is already hazy and dizzy, melted as the tip of his cock kissed your cervix with every movement you made. You only hummed in acknowledgement; whether you had the brain to think or not, you would've still agreed to whatever he had to say, after all, you wanted to be his good girl, his only girl.

      Third mistake, you're a dumb, stupid and hopeful young girl. What were you thinking, really? You thought he'd be kissing you and whispering how much he loves you? That his hands would comb through your hair as he whispered sweet nothings into your ear once you reached your high together and collapsed on his chest? 

      Your chest is heaving as you approach your climax, your mouth opening to let out a yell of his name as your walls tightened around his length, but he was quick to stop you, pull you into him and pressing his lips to yours to silence you. And yes you hoped for that, you prayed every night into your pillow to feel his lips against yours, wondering what he'd taste like, how they'd feel. But you were disappointed when you felt nothing, just an animalistic kiss, driven by pure instincts and predisposed desires… Where's the love you were dreaming of?       

Keep dreaming of it. Keep dreaming of him, because that's the only place you'll ever have him. He's hasty to push you off of him, placing you on the mattress beside him, and looking at you with a hint of disgust after you finally orgasmed, unsatisfied as you didn't feel him fill you up to the brim as you imagined he would. "If you want to be my good girl, hook me up with that pretty friend of yours downstairs. Convince her to give me her number, tell her how stupid my cock makes you. And who knows? Maybe next time, I'll give you what you want." But he didn't mean it, obvious by his tone and the way he rolled his back, cracking his spine as he closed the door behind him as he left, not even glancing your direction as you tried not to cry your heart out…

[kalamity-jayne]

Sorry for asking but I am a cis male teenager (well, I thought I was.) but lately I have realized I think I might be a trans girl? I am very scared to drop my masculinity. How did you find out you were trans if that’s okay to ask?

Of course it's ok! I am always happy to help someone who is questioning their gender. However, this is actually a pretty loaded question, because while there is a lot of talk about "when my egg cracked" in trans circles, figuring out you're trans isn't always attributable to any one singular event. Some folks might crack through and emerge from their egg in one swift motion but that is not true for everyone, it certainly wasn't true for me. Sure I could tell about the moment the first crack in my shell appeared, but a single crack in the egg is a far cry from actually breaking out. For many it's a process that can involve a series of revelations and tends to require lots of self reflection and learning how to love yourself. So, there is no quick and easy answer for this. However, I think my story will have a number of different lessons relevant to your question.

Before getting into all that though, I feel I must point out that cisgender folks rarely ask themselves these kinds of questions and when they do entertain these thoughts it's brief and comes with very little agony. The fact you have gone so far as to reach out to trans woman for advice, the fact the you are clearly worried by the prospect of being trans, is a pretty clear indicator that you probably are trans. Regardless of whether you actually are transgender or not, I want you to know that either way, it's ok. You will be ok, no matter what conclusions you come to.

Now, the story of how I figured out I was trans. Bear in mind, the first “aha moment” was 20 yrs ago and things were very different back then. I was about 17yrs old at the time and the term transgender didn't have the currency then that it does now, there wasn't the robust set of terminology that we have today, there were far fewer resources to turn to, no social media, and the overall public opinion was significantly more hostile towards anything LGBT. Anyway, more below the cut.

I didn't follow the typical trans narrative of the time in the sense that, as a child I didn't really care about my clothes so long as my favorite cartoon characters were on 'em, I liked toys typically marketed towards boys, I looked like a boy and everyone referred to me as a boy. So I thought I was a boy. However, I do have a vague memory from early childhood, somewhere between the ages of 4-6, of sneaking into my mother’s room and stealing a pair of her satin underwear and trying it on (it surely would have been too big on me but I remember liking the texture of the fabric) and hiding it under my bed. This memory has since been confirmed during my adulthood by my brother who shared a room with me at the time and had apparently found the hidden stash.

From an early age I was explicitly shunted towards masculinity. I was regularly told to “stop acting like a girl,” and “quit crying like a girl,” and even at one point to “stop walking like a girl,” by my peers and one of my brothers. By the time I was a teenager I was doing my best to be as masculine as possible going so far as joining the highschool wrestling team, a sport that is as homophobic as it is homoerotic, and I hated every minute of it because being manly didn't feel natural to me (and it definitely didn't stop the bullying). It felt like I was trying to ice skate uphill. I fit in but only imperfectly for I was merely acting.

I was also very confused about my sexuality. I thought maybe I was gay or bisexual (turns out the latter) but that didn’t really explain what I was feeling. Around 17yrs old I got curious about transsexuals, thinking maybe the answers would be found there and hoped on to the early and oh so clunky internet. Now I knew of transsexuals conceptually but I didn't know anything about them. Sadly, pornography was really the only reliable way to actually see what a trans body looked like back then. I was stunned because the women I saw did not look at all the way I expected. I was blown away by how so many of them, genitalia aside, looked indistinguishable from cisgender women. And they were all absurdly beautiful. I felt an immediate attraction but there was something else I felt too, envy. And that realization was the first crack in my eggshell.

After that I couldn't get the thought of crossdressing out of my head. So, I dug through a box of my mother's old clothes and took a few items she no longer wore, an old white tennis skirt and a very very 70s sleeveless orange blouse. I was so comfortable in those clothes and when I looked at myself in the mirror I felt good, really good. So, I continued exploring, shaved off all of of my body hair, went to department stores that were open late at night to buy girl clothes (deathly afraid someone would recognize me), I would stay up late at night to watch HBO because at midnight they would occasionally air stuff about trans people, (I remember two documentary shorts in particular and the movie Soldier’s Girl) and I scoured the internet for more information. The internet search brought me to a website called TG list (at least I think that’s what it was called, this was 20yrs ago after all) which was a directory of resources ranging from The Breast Form Store (which still exists!), a myriad of gender identity quizzes (I took nearly every single one), and Susan’s Place.

Susan’s place was one of the few reliable places to hear from actual transgender adults. Unfortunately, while Susan's Place had a lot of useful information the forums there were full of horror stories, a never-ending supply of all the things those women had suffered. So needless to say, there was little to no positivity around transness to give me hope. I was afraid to call myself trans as a result, afraid of what it meant for my life, my future, and my physical safety (you have to remember that back then Mathew Shepard wasn’t old news, his tragedy was practically current events). So I called myself a crossdresser but for reasons I didn't understand at the time I deeply resented that label. I think deep down, no matter how much I tried to deny it and bury it, a part of knew I wanted to be a girl. So when I came out to my parents as a crossdresser and explicitly told them I wasn't trans, that I didn’t have any desire to transition to female, there was that lil voice at the back of my mind calling me a liar. That voice would follow me until my late 20s.

Coming out was a real struggle for me because not only did I think my life would literally be in jeopardy, I thought everyone would think I was making it up, having not followed the stereotypical models of transsexuality. When I came out to my parents they didn't disown me or anything but they were noticeably uncomfortable around me when I was in girl mode. At a certain point I needed their help (credit card) to buy a gaff for tucking and that was when my parents, out of a misguided desire to protect me, pushed me back into the egg. Because of their rejection I spent the rest of highschool and most of my college years trying to hold the egg together with even more denial and by doubling down on masculinity. While I did have some fun during my college years, on balance I was miserable and depressed. I chafed at my male costume and I knew I was lying to myself the entire time, and I hurt myself a great deal.

During my senior year of college I started privately dabbling with crossdressing again, the desire had been nagging at me incessantly. A short time after graduating I met my wife who accepted that side of me and she introduced me to the BDSM/kink community, and the overall culture of nonjudgmental acceptance there cracked the egg for good, because is provided spaces besides my own room where I felt safe being a girl. From that point on I slowly but surely came out of the egg, first calling myself a crossdresser, then genderfluid for awhile, then GENDA passed in NY making me an explicitly protected class and for the next 2 yrs I presented as a they/them genderqueer woman 100% full time without HRT (I was still reluctant to call myself a woman).

I wrestled a long time with the choice to go on HRT. Ultimately that was always a big stumbling block for me. Therapy had gotten me pretty far but I was still afraid of so much and was unsure I would be happy with the changes because my parents had initially rejected me as their daughter in very paternalistic fashion I struggled to trust my own instincts. I still struggle with that sometimes. Eventually, I befriended a trans woman in my neighborhood who pointed out HRT works very slowly and that it takes a long time for any permanent changes to take root. So, she suggested I give it a try and if it didn't feel right I could stop.

I was also taking gender identity quizzes again. Now most of these claim to be diagnostic and those ones a generally misogynistic garbage (they ask stupid questions like, “are you good at math?” and assign a gendered value to the answer) but I happened upon one that started with the disclaimer that it wasn't diagnostic and instead only offered questions that are good to think with. Two questions in particular were very helpful. The first asked, "If you could take a pill that would allow you to wake up tomorrow as a girl, would you take it?" My answer was a hesitant yes, but that yes was bolstered by the next question, "If you could take a pill that would allow you to wake up as a man, in your current body, but without any dysphoria or desires to be feminine, would you take it?" My answer was an emphatic no because that would have felt like killing an important part of myself off. I then at the age of 33yrs old started HRT and 4yrs in I am incredibly happy. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Now, I know that was a lot of fucking text to read but I wrote all of that because I know the prospect of maybe being a trans girl feels scary to you right now but I want to assure you that as daunting as it may seem there is so much about being a trans woman that is full of beauty and joy. I love my trans womanhood and despite the hardships, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. In fact the opposite is true. Knowing what I know now, I would give up almost everything in order to be a woman. So if you feel like you want to give girlhood a try, do it! You can take small incremental steps and you can always stop if it doesn’t feel right, either way you will gain a degree of self knowledge most cisgender people lack completely and that is absolutely priceless! Plus, unlike me when I was a teen, there’s all kinds of resources and information available to you now and an entire community of people ready to help you, and unlike the women in the forums from my past, we aren’t all gloom and doom.

As for your fear of giving up masculinity, don’t let that fear lure you into the denial trap like it did me. Denial is like quicksand, once you’re in it becomes hard to get out, the more you struggle the deeper in you go and it is so very suffocating. And the thing is, you actually don’t have to give it all up. Back when I was presenting full time as woman without HRT, I felt like I had to be ultra feminine all the time, full face of make-up, dress, heels, the whole nine yards. Now that I’m 4 yrs in with HRT I don’t feel that pressure anymore and have since reclaimed certain aspects of masculinity I actually liked. I sill like presenting high femme from time to time but these days I mostly rock a soft butch aesthetic, flannel/t-shirt, jeans and the only makeup I wear daily is just a lil bit of blush. At certain point you become comfortable and realize that gender is just a sandbox to play in and experiment. Masculine and Feminine are just concepts, they aren’t real! so regardless of being cis or trans, don’t let those mere concepts box you in! Just do what feels natural and right to you!

I hope all of that was helpful to you anon, and that at the very least you walk away from this knowing you don’t have to have all of the answers about yourself right now. Now, I don't no the particulars of your situation, so I’m happy to speak with you further if you have follow up questions, just send another anon.

Best of luck to you anon, I am rooting for you!

Big hugs,

Mother Calamity

[shaunamilfman]

Being Shauna Shipman's Controversially Young Girlfriend

Adult Timeline Headcanons

nsfw mention

Shauna’s been divorced from Jeff for a few years for the sake of the plot. I think she'd be a writer maybe.

Shauna definitely enjoys the confidence booster that dating someone in their 20s would give her for sure. Shauna is very confident in her own attractiveness, but the idea of pulling someone that young really gets her going.

At the same she'd be extremely jealous of you interacting with attractive women your own age as she'd feel strangely threatened by it in her more insecure moments. She's definitely the ‘pull you away to make out in a back hallway’ type. She's got you pressed up against the wall covering you in hickeys asking stupidly jealous questions that you're far too focused on the feeling of her mouth to answer. Like what do you mean “is she hotter than me?” You just shoved my hand in your pants?? 

Leaving the function looking like you've been mauled by a bear while Shauna glares at whoever happened to speak to you. 

Shauna is a jealous and possessive partner in general but older Shauna is on crack. you're lucky to ever leave the house without being covered in hickeys in various stages of healing. she wants you to give them to her too. there's just something about physical representations of “ownership” that drives her insane. She likes when people see you together and know that you're both taken. 

college freshman Callie coming home a few days early and catching you standing in the kitchen in nothing but boxers and her mom's old high school t-shirt. this leads into the most awkward dinner ever because Shauna needs everyone to at least be civil. Callie making snarky comments all night until you finally make one back mean enough that she reaches a begrudging understanding with you. she still takes every opportunity to mock the two of you unfortunately. 

"please please please let me punch Callie" / "absolutely not”

Shauna calls you her step mother as a fuck you whenever Callie gets annoying. she's so petty

god Callie’s all in your business all the time but i also think she'd also be the first to defend you if someone else said anything though

side note but TaiVan would definitely serve you food on one of those kid plates to fuck with Shauna. God she'd be so mad.

unlike my Lottie HCs i do think Shauna would be embarrassed to meet your friends. Like the absolute queen of communication she is she would tell you she was embarrassed of the idea, but would instead pick increasingly petty fights with you leading up to it. Shauna finally ends the cold war when she misses you too much and confesses how she feels about it. You've definitely got to comfort her by showing her texts from your friends asking about your hot milf girlfriend or something before she'll be confident enough to do it. 

divorced Shauna would be pretty experienced sex wise I feel. Shauna Shipman is a woman who enjoys sex and seems pretty confident in her sexuality. Given the chance she'd definitely be really into exploring it with different partners. Long story short is that I think Shauna is definitely a woman who knows what she likes, but would be very open to exploring things sexually with you if she didn't already know she didn't like it. Shauna's not very open with her emotions, but I do think she's very open with her sexuality. This is a woman who canonly agrees to furniture store role play i think she'd humor you in most things. 

writer Shauna for sure works from a home office and would go crazy about the idea of yall hooking up in there fr

Shauna would get off on the idea of teaching things to you even if it's not necessarily true. She'd definitely like it if you let her pretend she was teaching you how to get her off. Your comparable inexperience is something she really enjoys about your age difference. 

Shauna Shipman and pet names is a lethal combination. “Sweetie” this, “sweetheart” that, “is that okay honey?” shauna is so nurturing when given the chance she'd thrive with someone she felt like she needed to take care of

Older Shauna enjoying teaching you things extends beyond just sex. She likes to teach you how to cook things that you don't know by like hugging you from behind and resting her head on your shoulder as she directs you on what to do. Beyond that it also just makes her feel useful and she enjoys feeling that way. 

Shauna hits you up once a week asking how bluetooth works. Shauna's okay with technology but she's the slowest fucking typer. I definitely think Callie lies to her about what acronyms mean so you get the wildest fucking texts sometimes and she's like “what??” when your confused

Shauna loves when you steal her clothes. just lounging around her house in nothing but her boxers and her flannel and she's going insane. Shauna accidently misplaces your clothes all the time so you have to wear hers instead. “oh i must have put them in the laundry you can wear mine” but suspiciously there's already shorts and a t-shirt laying out on her bed. strange. 

she's loves making you dinner, or making you something for lunch every once and a while. there's something about watching you eat something she made that makes her feel important and valued. 

Older Shauna gives the best fucking hugs of your life bro. Coming home from a bad day and just sitting with Shauna while she hugs you so tightly you can barely breathe. Shauna kissing you on the top of your head while her arm is around you watching TV?? insane 

[miru667]

Hiii Miru!!! ♥︎

How is your day going?

Sorry if I’m bothering you, but I just wanted to ask you something that was in my mind for a while, what’s your opinion about the today’s Once-ler Fandom?

I mean, the new oncelings (like me) and all the new stuff that is here, you probably think that all of this is so different in comparison with how the fandom was back in 2012!

And also… do you miss something from the fandom? :p

Something that you don’t see here anymore or not as much as it used to be?

Hiii suemooon! Today was yet another tiring work day =w= but my coworker gave me hot chocolate mix and marshmallows today as a christmas present so that was nice! I hope you're doing well too.

To compare today's onceler fandom vs 2012's onceler fandom...man I could talk forever about this haha! This is all just from my own point of view of course but I would say, yes a lot of things are different, but a lot of things are the same, too.

UHHMMM extremely long post so it's under a readmore LOL

For the differences, a lot of them are simply due to the way the internet has changed in 12 years. In 2012, most oncelings were in their early 20s, and if you were younger than 16 you were extremely rare and we would be like "WOAH?? THEY'RE 15?? I HAVE NEVER SEEN A 15 YEAR OLD ON SOCIAL MEDIA BEFORE". But today's oncelings are like, mostly teens now, I feel? I think it's because of tiktok, which didn't exist internationally until 2018, and also because of parents giving ipads to their kids at the age of 2. But yeah, to compare today to 2012 is like comparing gen z to millennials, the content and jokes were different and, due to 2012 being in the past, what was socially acceptable was different, too.

Another thing that's different is the way young people act towards characters nowadays, but let me specify some more. I really dislike the term "content" when referring to someone's personal creations because it just sounds so corporate. And I don't know how to feel when I see some new oncelings treat an old popular askblog character as if they're public property produced by some big company, instead of as an OC that someone worked really hard on. For example, Truffula Flu Camp Entre and Thneedville High AU are like "established media" to a lot of people out there now, as if they're well-known series recognizable to the masses (no, they're not). And as a result, I've seen people headcanon whatever they want on other people's OCs and ship them however they want without even knowing if the mods are okay with those ships anymore (it's better to be real careful, if you want my advice..). I've also seen new oncelings give other people's OCs to public merch-selling sites without the mods' permission, and I've even seen new oncelings try to take inactive askblog OCs as their own. Why? :( Just make your own OCs. You can do it! Hold my hand.

New oncelings don't understand what they're stepping into when they look at our old content from over a decade ago. Our personal feelings and our private friendships from those times, whether good or bad, are precious to us and I guess it's just a new phenomenon that we have to deal with now, so I don't have the answers for this yet. But I would encourage everyone to also look at new and current OCs in the fandom - which many people do, and I love to see that!! I also love seeing people making friends with each other and having fun with each other, that's what reminds me of the better days of 2012.

Another difference is the...landscape? We have tumblr DMs now and we have discord communities so a lot of things are hidden now from public view. RPs used to be public on tumblr but now we rp on discord and only people in the server can read them, and there are pros and cons to that. Also the fandom isn't dominated by only a handful of askblogs anymore. Things are WAY more balanced and evenly distributed now compared to 2012, where Swag Once-ler was the king of the fandom with 200 asks sent to him every hour and 4000 followers accumulated in just 5 months. (And I'm not dissing on Swag, I loved Swag too. I'm just stating my observations. In fact I miss him a lot ;-;)

As for what's the same...xD The excitement and passion that a lot of new oncelings have! I find that so cute. People being creative is the same, people gushing over the onceler and fandom ocs is the same, even if internet slang has changed. People being ambitious with projects is the same, even if those projects are never finished (but this is just general human nature). And PEOPLE BEING SWEET TO EACH OTHER is the same! I was nervous during 2020 since a lot of "ironic" fans joined that year but I'm happy to have seen some genuinely sweet people around in more recent years, just like there were in 2012. 😊

I also see a lot of the same movie analysis discussions each year, which makes sense since new people keep entering the fandom, haha! "The lorax movie could've been better", "the 1972 film is better", "I wish they kept biggering", "they should've expanded the factory scenes and taken out the car chase scene", "i hate the onceler's mom", "the movie's point gets muddled because too many people think his mom's to blame", "i can't believe zac efron and taylor swift didn't sing in the movie", and on and on, those never change, and I've seen these same discussions so often that I support the antithesis of each topic now, just to be a rebel. 😇 But usually I don't engage in those anymore, I just think "haha aww! they're having fun :]" and leave them be! But like, it truly reminds me of the earlier days. It's me who has changed, in this case.

And finally, "do you miss something from the fandom? Something that you don’t see here anymore or not as much as it used to be?" I mentioned Swag already, I also miss a lot of other askblogs that belonged to my friends, and most of all I miss a lot of my friends who've drifted away, and I hope they're all doing well. I had a lot of good times with friends over the years. Some of them were rp partners and I miss our rps and I miss their characters dearly, I can't think about it too hard or else I might cry. What else...I want to say that I miss the crazy nightblogging events we used to have but I don't know if I could keep up with those anymore if they happened again haha. Same with askblogs answering asks live, almost no one does that now because people want so much to make every ask pretty with a new pretty artwork. But like, even if that comes back, again I don't know if I could keep up. So I suppose everything had its place!

Things will continue to shift and change, and you never know what the future holds so it's best to just keep going. I'm still making new friends and new good memories in the fandom each year, and I'm grateful for that.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this ask and thanks (and sorry) to anyone who read through all of this!!

[olderthannetfic]

Anon from 722398181104795649 again about YA as a G-D and it's failure(s). Your response is really interesting because it definitely aligns with the market research I've had to do over the last 3-ish months for work. Adult YA readers want YA to skew older superficially as escapism from the woes of adulthood (It's like someone who orders a pasta with broccoli in it because they appreciate the flavor it brings, but they have no interest in actually eating their vegetables). Teenagers feel alienated by the G-D that is meant for them no longer allows them to confront said woes with honesty or maturity for their age to prepare them for adulthood or discussing broader ideas. More teenagers skip over YA altogether or just reader adult genre fiction with some Middle Grade fiction mixed in because the teenagers feel in MG, there's still an honesty to the stories that they can understand, having once been young children. In short: teenagers think YA books are talking down to or patronizing them.

The result is YA authors pushing for NA, New Adult, as a G-D, which hasn't taken off within tradpub outside of romance circles. Mostly, because what they're pushing for is already an established genre for around a century: campus novels--books about characters 18+ who are entering college, establishing independence, beginning to explore sexuality and enter the workforce, etc. But, again, YA adult readers refuse to engage with adult genre fiction because there isn't the facade of protection from adult themes or topics, and there's an aggressive refusal among many agents in literary fiction (and some adult genre fiction) to encourage authors to sanitize their stories. YA authors began attempting to cross over into adult genre fiction with mixed, but overwhelmingly negative, results, as they cannot shake the stigma of writing YA. And the genre fiction crowds they want to appeal to have higher standards, typically, than the average YA writer is able to meet. YA authors then complain about the differences in publishing YA and genre adult fiction. It's like when MCU actors and directors get upset when prestige film directors don't consider MCU movies to be "cinema."

--

This is fascinating.

I pretty much missed the YA boom (slightly too old, not paying attention, etc.), so I've mostly encountered YA through its worst evangelists of the Hunger Games knockoff era, and often a good bit after their favorite books were at their height.

As I've said before, this really strikes me as that pattern where something is big when you're at a formative age, and it becomes the Normal Default to you.

I'm sure some of it is refusal to engage with adult nuance, but I'll bet a lot of it is resistance to leaving the name of YA behind. People spent so much time defending this niche that they started believing their own rhetoric about it being the only place the good queer stuff was or the feminist stuff was or whatever. They identified really strongly as A YA Fan. It's hard to let that go.

And if you don't remember much about pre-YA boom publishing, the fact that all that YA-tastic Mercedes Lackey stuff was filed under fantasy, not YA is completely obscure. The places you find stuff you'd like that aren't called "YA" are not obvious. The fact that YA in its boom era form isn't universal and eternal is not obvious.

I think people are waiting for their Cool Era of their early 20s to return and for the things they think should always be in fashion to come back... Like everyone else aging ungracefully, they may be waiting a while.

Gotta say, every New Adult book I've been shown sounds like a hideously boring contemporary romance that would probably make a good coffee shop AU against a backdrop of a canon that's dark or magical but that isn't really pulling its weight even if you like contemporaries.

[modify-and-sever]

On Aromanticism, Youth, and Growth

Though, I suppose this applies to asexuals, too. Just know that I'm speaking specifically from the aro perspective. I'm new here - be nice to me 😭

Today, I came to the (honestly, long overdue) realization that I am aromantic. Upon many sleepless nights, fitful daydreams which all ended the same way - "You don't have to think about that right now" - I realized that perhaps I want to think about it, and I did.

I am also a very young adult.

I am certain that there is much discussion on the idea of "growing out of" being aro or ace or anything in between (in fact, I know there is, I've seen it from the outside, pawing at the windows of the aspec community that I wouldn't let myself touch for so long), but I guess I just. Want to talk about it, too.

For months (let's be honest, years), the main, big thing keeping me from the wider aspec community was my youth. Adults and well meaning peer-age friends told me with certainty that it's normal to not feel romantic attraction until you're older, it's normal to not want to date, or to settle down, until you're older. But there's always that caveat.

Until you're older.

And that always had me wondering - how old to I have to be to be allowed to opt out? 20? No, far too young. 25? Maybe you'll see some prospects when you're older? 30? Maybe.

They act as if I'm in a race to end my social life as I know it, like I'm ruining something if I "decide" too early. Decide what? Not to date people? Does every non-partnered person on earth wake up with the conscious decision not to be dating anyone? Am I expected to always be available for that kind of relationship?

I find this experience has a lot of overlap with other queer identities - which sucks for me because I guess I have three of them now. Gay people are told "maybe you haven't found the right opposite gender partner yet," trans people are told "you might regret changing your body eventually," and aspec people are told not to "limit themselves." But really... I'm not?

I want to have deep, meaningful relationships with people. I want to have sex. I want to go out with people in the way people who are "dating" might. I want to have these experiences, but I don't want a partner. And if that's "limiting," then maybe I don't want to have those experiences with people who expect more than that out of me, anyway.

But the real point is, and this is applicable to any identity, who cares if I'm "wrong?"

What harm is done if I decide this feels right for me now, and later it doesn't? What happens then? Nothing. Nothing happens. In fact, the only thing that does happen is that once the label stops fitting, I'll know for certain that it doesn't, because I spoke to and related to a thriving and supportive community about these shared feelings instead of forcing myself to "grow out" of them.

Maybe in a year, maybe in ten years, I'll feel differently. Maybe by then I'll want to settle down with someone. But I don't live ten years from now. I don't even live a year from now. I live in the same time as the rest of the world, so what's the harm in being who I am for now?

[unsettledink]

An interesting thread on comments and comment culture passed by on my dash, and for some reason it hooked me in. As usual, I started off wanting to say one thing and next thing I know, I'm 4k in with thoughts that everyone wants to hear. Right?

I left most of it on the post, talking about how comments used to be conversations, and how it never feels like people address the vulnerability of leaving a comment when they try and encourage more feedback.

I don't have answers. It's a cultural shift and how do things end up shifting again? Something big like a new platform or a radical change will probably have to appear before things go in a different direction, whatever it may be.

So no, I don't have an answer. I can say what helps me out, personally, when trying to remember why I want to go through the work of leaving a comment:

I write. I know from the other side what comments feel like. I remind myself of the excitement of seeing a notification pop up. (Obviously if you don't write, this doesn't help that much lol.)

Whatever I fear them judging me for, I can almost guarantee someone else has already judged me for something much worse. I mean, come on. I know the sort of things I write or rec.

I've done it enough I have a template in my head of how to write a comment. There are a few resources for that floating around that are good for getting started. Practice makes perfect.

Applying techniques from therapy. I'm not great at it, or have really internalized it, but at least aware that my fears are being egged on by anxiety, by past bad experiences, by the special hell of rejection sensitive dysphoria.

Easier said than done, especially on certain days, but just... running out of fucks to give. Like, oh my god self, so what if some author thinks I was too enthusiastic about their fic? What does it matter? They're just another random person on the internet, what are they going to do? Laugh at me? Then they're the one being a jackass, AND they don't get any more comments. Whatever.

And on that last one, if it's feeling impossible, like it'll never happen... holy shit this is going to sound condescending, but give it some time. Me from 10 years ago would have laughed at the idea of not caring what someone else thought. At some point, without me really noticing, I just could not care what some rando on the internet thought. It wasn't an active 'no I'm not going to care', it was 'wow I cannot find the energy to give a shit about you'. (But I can still find it to be mad when someone is Wrong on the Internet, so.)

I bring that up because every time I find out someone's age lately, I'm like, Jesus Christ. I forget how young fandom - esp tumblr - skews. Cause of course, I'm still young! It's not like I'm old, it's just that everyone is... younger... than... me. Wait. But for real, being in your late teens SUCKS. (Maybe you're lucky and they don't, but I doubt.) Being in your early 20's somehow sucks even more??? Being in your 20's period sucks. You couldn't pay me to be 20-anything again.

(Thinking of all the fandom people on here 20, 30 years older than me being like lol, you're still so freaking young :D )

Every comment I get these days I hoard like a dragon, and anytime I'm feeling crappy about writing or about some new thing being a bomb, I pull those suckers out and reread them for ages. I've got a whole doc just of tumblr comments, cause there's no other good way to find them again. if I'm really desperate, I go poke to see if there's any new bookmarks on my fic, in case they dropped a tag or put in a collection of favs or left a note of some sort (ya'll know authors can see those right?).

And I'd say I'm a pretty confident writer. I know I write a lot of niche stuff in tiny fandoms, so comparatively, I probably get a lot of comments. I have a moderately high opinion of my writing skills, so I'm mostly not sitting there going 'oh god I'm the worst writer ever', whereas I know that's the case for a LOT of fic writers. I'm mostly just sitting there like 'why didn't it hit the spot? why won't anyone say anything? I am so desperate to talk shop please anyone give me an excuse!!'.

So just... yeah. Throw an emoji at me. Throw a gif at me. Throw a novel that takes six comment boxes at me. Throw the exact same comment at fifteen different chapters/fics. I love it all.

(And hey. If you just lurk and read, it's okay. I get it. I still love you too.)

[mlobsters]

one person's messy relationship to asexuality, relationships, sex and fandom

i saw a post the other day talking about how whenever the topic of asexual folks not having sex comes up, people will chime in that ace people can/do have sex sometimes too and that's okay! and basically how it adds nothing/takes away from the conversation. which, i mean, both things are true.

there's so much deep misunderstanding of what being asexual is and means. take myself, an ace person, i had no clue what being asexual meant until the past handful of years. at my big age of 40+. i'd seen some posts by cody daigle-orians, ace dad advice (tiktok, they have a book out now too and another on the way! i am ace), and things started churning in my mind. i read some simple definitions in a healthline article and it's like a lightbulb went off.

What Does It Mean to be Asexual - Healthline

Libido. Also known as your “sex drive,” libido involves wanting to have sex and experience sexual pleasure and sexual release. For some people, it might feel a little like wanting to scratch an itch.

Sexual desire. This refers to the desire to have sex, whether it’s for pleasure, a personal connection, conception, or something else.

Sexual attraction. This involves finding someone sexually appealing and wanting to have sex with them.

i realized i'd never experienced sexual attraction, and in fact had a complete misunderstanding of what sexual attraction even was. i was conflating my libido and sexual desire with attraction. similar to being agender and having aphantasia, i think it can be difficult to conceptualize something you've never experienced. whenever you hear people talking about things, you're trying to fit it within the framework of what you experience and how you understand the world works, to realize they are experiencing the world in a fundamentally different way you didn't know existed. it might seem absurd but i remember being around women talking about how they were looking forward to a movie because it meant some dude's ass would be out. and inside my head i was just like, really?? ....huh. (i said it was absurd.)

sex has been a large source of conflict and stress in the past 20 years of my life. so i guess this is that story.

i don't know how old i was, but some time in my early teens, i figured out women's bodies were what turned my crank. i had romantic crushes on boys at school, but thinking about girls got me going. but no one specific, never anyone specific. to this day, never anyone specific. this would be an important detail i didn't connect until much later. so i knew i was bi from early on, but it was the 90s and being out just wasn't really happening in school where i lived. i got into a serious, and abusive, relationship with a boy when i was 17 and that lasted 11 years. i was interested in sex, i had a lot of sex with him at the beginning. over time, i didn't want to have sex anymore.

i've always been conflict avoidant, and being with someone who picked a fight with me nearly every day for years made it so much worse. i didn't feel like i could say no. i looked forward to my period because then i had an excuse to not have sex. i briefly was in therapy, never mentioned the abuse or a whole host of other things but i did tell the therapist about not wanting to have sex with my then-spouse. she told me "use it or lose it", that the less sex i had, the less i'd want it. so have more sex and you'll want it again. that poisonous bit of advice stuck with me a long time. i didn't believe it, but i didn't not-believe it either. i didn't stay with that therapist more than the whatever number of allotted weeks insurance would pay for. years later, i asked for a divorce and left that relationship.

i got into other relationships, and sex again was that shortcut to intimacy/attention/affection and it was good. but then at some point, again, i didn't want to have sex. i was married, i had kids. i seriously thought it was part of my responsibilities of being married. like, spousal obligation. i knew when it had been too long and i needed to step up. go search on the internet "don't want to have sex with spouse" and basically the vast majority of advice will say sex is essential to the relationship and sometimes you have to compromise.

but i didn't want to, and i hated having to. why is it that i always have to compromise in a way where i'm losing bodily autonomy? my body is mine except once a week because i have to do this for the better of the relationship? this obviously was a big source of stress for me, and my partner could tell things weren't right. i avoided physical affection because i didn't want it to be confused with interest in sex.

i've spent a long time feeling guilty about not knowing i was ace. that i got into relationships and then flipped the script when i didn't want to have sex anymore. like i'd inadvertently done a bait and switch. i've been trying to pick apart what changed, why it changed, etc for years. ultimately, sex was a shortcut to affection and undivided attention. and if my libido and desire for sex was lining up, it worked. until it didn't. maybe six months before i was really sure, my spouse asked if i was ace. i thought i was somewhere in the spectrum maybe but i didn't know. and then things clicked and i got it. i was honest with the fact that i didn't want to have sex, i hadn't wanted to have sex for years, and as far as i could tell i could be fine with never having sex again. i didn't want to be "fixed", i didn't want therapy, or hormone checks to see if there was something "wrong" with me. i still have a moderate libido, i just don't want sex with someone else. i still struggle with some guilt over that last bit.

there was some inner turmoil over whether it was the years of baggage, of having sex that was vaguely consensual but also clearly unwanted, if that's what "caused" my loss of interest in sex. that the inability to say what i wanted from the abuse trickled down to other relationships. maybe if i'd figured out what was happening in my 20s, i'd be less rigid about no sex when i understood i could say no. i slowly came to accept that it didn't matter. what matters is where i am now.

all that said, let me wrap up a bit with how this all intersects with media and fandom. sex scenes, especially with my faves, in visual media often weirds me out (not always, and it's not terribly clear to me when it does or doesn't, but also not sure it matters.) and there again, there's been a trend of less sex scenes in movies etc, and i don't think that's a good thing either. just because it sometimes makes me very uncomfortable, i don't think they shouldn't exist. i just often don't want to see it. but i can skip it or look the other way or whatever. that is my problem, not everyone else's who does want to see it.

and nowadays the only time i feel much turmoil is within fandom spaces. being horny on main for your faves is normal and expected and i don't begrudge anyone that. especially with how puritanical some fan spaces have become and the nonsensical moralizing over shipping. i'm a wincest shipper, i read plenty of pearl clutching fic on the daily. but there's some internal weirdness for me seeing people being horny on main about their faves. please go ahead, but i don't want to see it. but i absolutely also do not want to unfollow people because of it, but it's also not something i can filter on.

so i try to get a feeling of the type of posts people might be getting up in their horny feelings in the tags and i scroll past without reading. people being horny for their faves and writing some explicit fic about it, sign me up. it's a step removed from anyone i know and i can just sort of, live vicariously through the characters experiencing things i don't experience. but there's something very different in my mind when it's a person talking about it on tumblr or twitter or whatever. it doesn't make sense and i get irritated with myself over it pretty regularly, and it adds to feelings of isolation.

i already have a lot of unpopular opinions about my current fixation, just add this to the pile of things i am alone in feeling. which is terribly dramatic and ridiculous, but it is what it is. and my anxiety+social anxiety+depression make this whole cocktail more potent. i'm always trying to find a way to let these things roll off my back. it's a work in progress.

so i think the point of this all is that it's hard talking about asexuality in general terms because the spectrum of feelings and experiences and relationships to intimacy is vast. and as asexual people, we're often combating some very base level misunderstandings from the public at large - that being ace isn't about not being interested in sex. it may involve that, but it's not what the literal definition is. so this is just one person's very messy relationship to asexuality.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[reviewinghiccup]

I'm in love with your blog. No one ever goes into this much detail about Riders of Berk or Defenders of Berk and it's long overdue. I'm not too good with words, so I'm really thankful you're able to explain so clearly what makes these shows amazing. Every post is so well written! Can't wait to read more 😊

Hey! Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.

I revisited this series, following a transition in my personal life, and felt like I needed some space for fun. I love reviewing shows / breaking down characters and when I latched back on to this series, I thought I would be alone in the fandom because, frankly, its a pretty old show.

ROB and DOB isn’t as easily available like RTTE on Netflix. And it was my brother’s subscription to HULU and PEACOCK that got me the chance to rewatch them. So, I thought, who else would wanna read or know about this show given the chance, yannow?

I do pour my heart and soul into writing, editing, framing the show into posts and I do feel a little exposed when I talk candidly. I think the HTTYD series speaks to me on a deeper level than just an adventure movie, and I trust it is the same for many of us. It means the world that many of you have been responding so kindly and encouragingly on this platform. We can never have too much of this type of positivity.

Hiccup is a lost boy in a forgotten age, Toothless is a totem of his courage. He is finding himself, in a world where he shouldn’t succeed (naturally), in a world that only wants to take from him, to take from anyone. A world greedy for power, influence and money. Similar to ours.

But Hiccup isn’t interested in that. Though a born leader, he comes into his purpose from the angle of kindness, and it is that angle that makes him such a great heir / chief to Berk. Berk is in a transition. They don’t need a large, strong Viking chief anymore. They need an innovator, a listener, an inventor. Someone smart. He is exactly what Berk needs for the future, the village is just beginning to know that.

The thing about ROB and DOB is, it is where it all started. It is a show portraying the incremental developments of Hiccup from boy to man. His temperament is still immature. His goals, a little superficial. But his heart, it grows larger and larger, because he is open to making mistakes and correcting them. Forgiving and moving on. Sure, it is about training dragons, but it is also about parenthood, friendships, family, relationships, responsibilities. Growth. To miss out on ROB and DOB is to miss out on a lot.

He becomes a strong leader of Dragon’s Edge because of his compassion. He becomes a man worthy of Astrid, because of the same. And that spoke to me, because for a long time, I wondered what the point was in being considered “the nice one”. For many years, I thought it was always weakness to be nice, because you get bullied for it / made fun of for it. But, I see now, that kindness is strength. And in time it will reap benefits. What kind? Too soon to say.

I get that this is a cartoon, it might just be for kids. But as a girl, in my early 20s, still growing, finding myself as I navigate through the cusps of adulthood, I am beginning to realise why we need nice people. I can see how this show relates to me, even if I am no longer the target audience it was created for. But having watched this as a kid, and then revisit it and finding different messages and take-aways can we consider this show timeless? Apt?

Be kind. There will be a few, those treasured few, who would pierce beyond the veil of our compassion and realise, that there is more to life than just gold, treasures, power and titles. It is all about community. And that is in essence, what Hiccup is, a man born to serve his community, the son of a chief. The impetus of change.

I believe that his father saw it, and that’s what lead him to say, at the end of DOB :

P/S : @hiccstridshipper19 thanks for reaching out. I bet if you ever wanted to write anything, you would do amazingly. Tag me, if you ever do any write-ups. I wasn’t too good w words too when I started other blogs, but w time and practice, I started to find my own rhythm and style. A writing voice takes time. I’m still very much honing my skills. One thing I’m working on is keeping things concise (which, as you can tell, am failing terribly at).

All my love to you. Take care.

[rebellum]

Every once in a while I'm reminded that I'm like actually traumatized from being mentally ill and the helplessness I felt

Like I've been okay for maybe around a year now, actually good, I'm no longer disabled

But I still have rough nights like tonight where it's like I can't help but think about it and daydream scenarios where I tell people about how absolutely failed I feel I was from the people around me

Like I did what you're supposed to do in that situation- I told multiple trusted adults about my mental health issues. And my mum helped a lot, definitely, and she did her best, I don't fault her for that, but no one else did anything either

I wish I had gone behind my mums back earlier

At 17 I knew how anti-medicstion she was (or, thought she was, it was a whole situation where she's not actually anti medication and just felt like it was best to tell me that meds wouldn't help bc she wanted to help me to feel better, esp since in her opinion I wouldn't have gotten medication while under 18)

and finally went to a psychiatrist who of course was like "oh my god yes I will help you" because she realised if wasn't fucking okay or normal for a teen to hallucinate when they get anxious and have paranoia and be so desperate for death from depression

And im. Starting to realise by typing this out that I don't think my mum did really do her best, maybe. She still should have taken me to a doctor. When your 15 year old tells you they want to die and that they think aliens are after them and that almost every day they feel spiders crawling all over them, you take them to the fucking doctor, not hope it goes away because you had a simular mental health issue that went away in your early 20s

I was just in such desperate need of help and almost no one helped me. I went to my aunt and she was basically like wow that sucks. I told my acting instructor and she, to my absolute befuddlement, told me anxiety was actually good because without it people wouldn't do things like meet deadlines. No one fucking helped me and its been 13 years since the whole thing started happening that made me spend ages like 12-21ish in absolute agony. So I guess I just get into states like this sometimes where I can't help but feel terrible that at 12 years old I literally wrote a suicide note every single month but chickened out. For years I've thought like, that's fine, 12 is almost 13 and therefore basically a teenager, and many teens have rough times, so it's actually good that I got to have 11 years of childhood

But as I get older and more separate from my past self I realise that wasn't enough

That there are 15 year olds worried about normal teens things like if someone has a crush on them, and that adolescence is actually a part of childhood, and that it was robbed by me by my mental illness. I've so far bad to spend my early 20s where other people emotionally are at teens because I straight up fucking missed a big part of my development. Of course I'm traumatized. I don't even know how to deal with it though. This times where I can't help but imagine explaining it get farther apart, at least. I haven't had one like this in months.

I think I still feel helpless. I m no longer disabled but i still struggle and I still feel like I'm under control of some monster of mental illness. And I don't even know if it's normal or not! I don't know if everyone in their 20s feels helpless like they're on a raft in an ocean because they know what they need to do and how to do it but have to deal with the idea that their body just won't let them do it. I've been in uni since fall 2016 because of mental health issues making me drop my classes, and I'm supposed to have just one year left, and I plan on doing it, and I want to do it, but an outside force may stop me from completing it on time. And yeah maybe just everyone young feels this way, like some mercurial outside force is keeping them tethered. And maybe I'm just being a baby about it. Or maybe crying about it is also a normal and okay part of it and I'm not being stupid and oversensitive.

Tomorrow will be better, I suspect, today has just been a REALLY rough day for me

[thingabmajig]

twenty-three: act my age

In case you don’t know me or you’re new here, this is my birthday tradition to post a reflection on my past year, along with a birthday playlist, since 2016. Here's the link to this year's birthday playlist, too: https://sptfy.com/2023actmyage. Hope you like it!

Now that I’m 23, I’ve realized how coming of age is easy but acting like it is the hardest part. Throughout my life, I sometimes never really felt like I acted my age—either I was too old or too young. This essay is a collection of twenty-three years of introspection from the outside looking in and a reflection on where I want to go in the future.

Going back to where it all began, around my nuclear family, the firstborn usually gets to teach the parents how to become one. Growing up, it's always a case of being the responsible and better person. To add insult to injury, being a son of church pastors isn’t necessarily easy either. You’re sometimes subject to other people’s expectations of holiness and goodness and even more from your parents preaching on it. Isn’t it that we’re just all the same too–falling short of perfection from God?

Things change quite differently when I'm with my extended family from my mother's side: I'm at the other end of the spectrum this time. Being the son of the youngest child, I'm also one of the youngest of the bunch. This meant that I had to look up a lot of times to my ates and kuyas and this felt quite nice for a very long time. It’s quite true when they say, “When you are young, they assume you know nothing.” There were no expectations and you’re always taken care of, but it wasn’t the case until I decided to be the family's overachiever.

Then back at elementary and high school, getting ahead of the curve sometimes requires you to fit in. This time, I'm also the youngest of the class, and finding someone you're older than (or the same age with)  is much harder than a needle in a haystack. I sometimes wonder whether this shift had me acting well beyond my age: that I thought I was older than I thought and that I had to act like them to fit the status quo. Suddenly, Club Penguin and Poptropica were child’s play when they became pivotal to my middle school life. One of my favorite (short-lived) phases of my life was college. I think that was the only time I found myself slightly acting my age—but not quite, though. Classmates of the same age became common and everyone was in the same blurry space of adulthood and youth altogether. Then again, you're at the national university, so what you once thought was the top of the world was just someone else's footing. Fun and happy it might have seemed, you were just an anchovy in an ocean full of whales.

It’s also one of the things I’ve learned growing up: getting older feels scary and overwhelming every time. Things start to change, you begin to question your place in this world, and you even lose the glimmer you have all this time. Taylor talks about this in her 2021 Seth Meyers interview on “Nothing New”. She says, “[They] have their breakthrough moment, and then, the moment after that is really hard for them because they’re just not getting the same [acclaim].”

One of those big changes came to me early this year: I got a job. Currently at one of the country's largest developers, aligning your behavior with your age seemed a bit harder than I expected. As a recent graduate, I thought people were more lenient to someone starting out their careers. Turns out, when you're just another cog in the system, people tend to forget your place in this world—that sometimes I feel like I’m a 29-year-old worker who's supposed to know the ins and outs of real estate after 5 years of experience. It was the most grueling time of my life in the last 9 months at work, but I guess that’s another story for me to tell.

Oh, it’s interesting that the world's also a bit harsher for people in their 20s. "Acting your age" suddenly becomes ambiguous too: some friends are off traveling the world setting to find their own selves, some getting married and settling down with families, some getting their licenses and post-graduates, and you’re still here. You question not only your place in the world as a lost 20-something trying-to-be-an-adult person, but what standards societies have placed on responsibility and adulthood altogether. Is adulthood even a social construct?

But who cares? I’ve long imprisoned myself towards other people’s expectations of me and put myself in roles they wanted of me, but this time I’m going to live by my own expectations and from people who mean the world to me. For me, being twenty-three means being free—especially from other people’s expectations—like the seagulls flying over the ocean. I won’t promise that I’ll “act my age”, but I promise to be the best version of myself regardless of what age I might be. This means being more mindful of myself and of everything and everywhere from now on. Simply put, I promise to put an extra worth on myself, seize the days to come, and be grateful for everything and everyone. As told by my hero, “I think it's important that you know that I will never change. But I'll never stay the same either.” 

Thanks for coming along with me and now we’re onto the next. I’m so excited for whatever lies ahead, and I really wouldn’t be here if not for all of you. 🙂

Time to run free, be me, and turn twenty-three.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SECTION]

A massive thank-you to these twenty-three(+) people who made this year the absolute best:

Thank you, Mama, Papa, GG, and Mei-mei, my forever stronghold and (literal) home.

Thanks to the entire Solis and Ibañez families, for always supporting me behind my back in all that I do.

Thanks to the best-est bestie one could ever ask for, Kyle—no way I could ever make it sane today without you and your delulu-ness.

To my ever-faithful constants, Errol, Jang, and the rest of Team Squammy (Ge, Fel, Mark, and Jaubs), thanks for always being there rain or shine for me. Always grateful for you guys.

To my college boomer bestie, Hannah, to more chika with you soon! Absolutely love you from the moon and back.

Giyay, Ry, and Gellie—forever my idols and people I look up to in college! Thank you for the bond we made outside of org work and you’ve changed me forever always.

To my senior high school best friends, Hazel, Sefa, Anne, Edlyn, AM, Ed, and Jeriel, I feel like sometimes I’ve known you guys for a lifetime—forever my SHS treasures.

To my work family, Sir Elton, Ms. Jen, Ms. Jessa, Ms. Jane, Ms. Steph, Ms. Sah, Ms. Krissy, Ms. Keith (and Sir Rayn), and Gian, no words could ever amount to the kindness you’ve shown me in the last few months at work. Wouldn’t have made it sane and alive without you guys too. Thank you so so much!

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

i appreciate your answers. I'm not looking for permission. I just needed to talk about this to someone who isn't my therapist or social worker or doctor. I need to talk to other adults, who've been through shit, who can understand where I'm at, you know? because I'm so alone, and there's no solutions to anything, and i have to make my own decisions. i have to live with these thoughts every day, and sometimes i just really want to talk to someone who can say, yeah, this is hard, and i know what it's like to be in pain, and here's what i think or what I'd do. so thank you. it's kind of you to take the time to talk to me, especially given this family history. I'm sorry if i upset you, and I'm sorry you had to live through all of that. it must be VERY hard.

Oh you're fine. I'm not upset at all. I don't know what it is and I think it is really just my relationship with God and a lot of prayer and some therapy that I am now to an okay point where it will pop up and it will devastate me out of the blue but on a daily basis I'm okay. But it took me a long time to get there. From the time I was 12 until the time I was 25 I was suicidal everyday. So I know exactly how that feels I know what you're going through. And I couldn't tell anyone about it because no one understood and no one knew what was going on at my house. And even if they did no one would care, it was a really small town and my dad knew the police department and and it wasn't my dad that was doing all this s*** it was my stepmother but it was still an absolutely hellacious way of growing up. So around age 22 I woke up and magically I didn't want to kill myself anymore suddenly I was just angry really really angry with the world. I was angry that no one listened to me, I was angry that nobody helped me, and was only angry with myself I was okay with myself I was just angry at everybody else and that's what I kind of called my Nine Inch Nails face because that's what I was listening to at the time. And for decades I really thought that I somehow brought myself out of it until I got therapy. And I will never forget my therapist saying no that was the other part of your pain body coming to life you were no longer in the position of the victim you were in a different position and so that's what your subconscious picked up on. All that Suicidal Tendencies was still there it was just not at the service. So that was this huge Revelation to me because I literally thought that I had somehow cured myself just by surviving and that one day for everyone else they would just pop out of bed and be okay. And that led to like several nervous breakdowns later on. And I totally remember sitting in a car in my early twenties getting drunk with one of my friends and finally telling her about all the abuse that I've been through and her saying if you do not see a therapist now you are going to have a nervous breakdown by the time you're 35. And she was totally right I mean who knew how she got that information as a 20 year old but still she was dead on. So it took me years to get therapy. But when I did get therapy I got EMDR therapy. If you've never tried it I suggest you try it. For me it worked very well but then the lady who is my therapist for 5 years suddenly stop doing therapy and since then I have not been able to find a therapist at all and I live out in the middle of BFE so . . .

So yeah I am always around if you need to talk or anything like that.

I may not be able to give any great advice but I can listen. And I just did a huge poetry dump so if you want to read what mental illness pretty much wrote way before I got any therapy you are welcome to it

[the-dream-beyond]

January 25th: You Can Achieve Anything with Mark Moses

Nik: I believe that you can achieve anything you want. Anything is possible if you believe in yourself, and a lot of people said self imposed limits on themselves. And why limit yourself.

I'm really excited for today's episode where we're going to be talking to someone who has just won everything on the outside, whether it's business, whether it's hobby, sport family, he just wins all the time and really getting to see behind the scenes, that it doesn't always feel like that from the inside that it doesn't always feel like we're enough.

But how do we harness that feeling of not being good enough to go and achieve amazing things in the world?

Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO, musician and overall seeker of truth, inspiration and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible.

Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it.

On the dream beyond, we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land you are expecting? How to process the lessons from your past while mapping a course to true fulfillment. Let's get started.

Nik: Alright, guys, today's guest is Mark Moses. Mark is an impressive guy. He's an author of two books make big happen and making big happen. He's also he's won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, completed 12 Ironman triathlons, above what age were those? Oh, I think the first one was in like, 41 through maybe 51.

Man, that's impressive. You have a beautiful family, I've met just so many other accolades. And again, I could probably burn up the entire podcast talking about those. But some of the ones that really stuck out to me is you may have seen Mark in the business world as the guy who rode in on an elephant to accompany meeting which is just such a flex, such a cool thing to do really live in the brand. And he's also the founding partner of CEO Coaching International. And it's the organization that I actually have coaching me through Gerry Perkel one of his coaches, they've coached 1300 high growth CEOs, which is just unbelievably impressive the amount of people that you guys have affected, and just the amount of the world's economy that has affected by the people you guys work with. It's truly, truly impressive. And Mark, I'd love to kind of jump in on the idea of, you know, talking a little bit about your dreams and how that process went early on in your life. And when did you feel like when did you first know you made it? Because you've had an interesting journey?

Mark: Well, first of all, Nik, it's good to see you again. And thank you for having me here with you today. And it'll be fun. Just you and I just sharing some stories together. So that's a good question. When did I think I've made it, I don't think I have yet. I'm, I wake up every day fired up to see if I can make a difference every day. Even though I'm 58, I still feel like I'm in my 30s just aspiring to be somebody someday.

So I've had some wins along the way. I've had some losses along the way. And I wake up every day energized to do something good every day.

Nik: So in your 20s, it sounds like you had some interesting successes as a leader of your business at the time. There was never a moment where you're like, holy shit, I exceeded my own expectations.

Mark: It was interesting. I read a book, I think I was 20, maybe 23 years old. And and the book was called, if it ain't broke, break it. And I forget who it was from. And then when I finally moved to a few years ago, I saw that book sitting on my bookshelf and I took the book out again. And I and one of the questions in the book asked to dream a little bit about what success might mean. And it was fun to do that then I didn't remember that I did it. And one of the things I wrote down was when the US squash championship.

That was one sell my business was another...be a millionaire before I was 30. And then someday, I did such neat things that I get to speak all over the world.

And so those are the four things I wrote down. And it was funny when I was 28 I won the US squash championship when I sold my business in when I was 26. I now become a millionaire and and a net Today I speak all over the world. And it's really cool to be able to share my message. And, and I think the power behind all of that is, if you dream, it'll happen. And we even every year, my kids don't want to do it anymore.

I don't know, if they don't want to do it anymore. My wife doesn't want to hang that stuff on the fridge anymore. We used to put our goals, they were due every January 1, we'd have at our family meeting on January 1, everyone would have to review how they did on last year's goals and then present the new goals. And they everybody do it in a cool with a pictorial of all the things that they wanted to achieve. So it was really, really neat.

And but it was cool, because one year, my son put on it that he wanted to do the Antarctic marathon when he was 14. And it was like, that's pretty big shoes. And, and then, of course, he did the Antarctic marathon, we did it together. My daughter had put on the list one year that she wanted to win the California State for gymnastics. Well, funny thing, she ended up doing that. And then later on, I want to go to the University of Michigan. Well, you got that on your goals is you post that and I want to do crew, I want to win a big 10 ring to amazing the power of belief. If you actually write it down and look at it every day. Good stuff happens. So I believe it's great to have goals, great to have dreams, because if you do, it'll happen. We just had one this summer, it was our dream to take our boat to Europe some some time. And my wife and I and many friends and family did four months on the boat in Europe this summer. And Matt and I still want to get to 100 countries. I'm at 97 right now. And I'm gonna have to up my goal, because I can hit that pretty soon. And so anyway, power dreams, it just works.

Nik: So I hear two things that come through on that, which is the first thing I want to touch on. I want to split track. So I don't forget is one you said that you still haven't felt like you made it. But you did say that you achieved all of your dreams that you had written down in your 20s. Fair. So is it, is it is it a moving target for you that you actually it's the chasing that you're after not actually the Achieving part?

Mark: That is a really good question. I reflect on that often. And I think that it's inspiring to be in the game, and the monetary success, I don't know where metrics are any that part of it. That may be a scorecard that people use to judge or measure how they're doing. For me, I just like setting new goals and going out and seeing what I might be able to achieve. That'd be super fun. And there was I was inspired by a 21 year old who by the time she was 21. She had been debt every country in the world. And I had these goals that said I want to go to 100 of them. And I thought I think it's too small. She had 20 one's been to all of them already. And so there's a few countries I don't want to go to, but I think I was thinking too small. And as it's time to recast that goal to go down all the countries. So I think I'm chasing the journey. And more than that destination.

Nik: Do you take time to celebrate when you achieve the goal? Or are you right on to the next goal?

Mark: No, we do. And it's my wife and I have a little tradition here at home that for example.

We could turn in Alcoholics with their set tradition. But every time our firm would land a new client who's been going on for 15 years, we would celebrate with open a nice bottle of wine. As the firm's gotten bigger it's been a lot of clients coming on board so there's been a lot of glasses of wine open or bottles of wine open so we do celebrate we do. Nik You know me I like to have fun just doing cool stuff. So yes, we do pause and celebrate and enjoy along the way.

Nik: Awesome and I think that's such an important thing because I've seen a lot of high achievers that don't do that part where they're like great golden on to the next thing and and obviously I do know that about you that you have taken a lot of time to invite people out also enjoy those successes taking people out on the boat, creating really cool experiences even your conference seems like you know a lot of the conference time was spent celebrating and connecting so

Mark: You know what there's the and Andre Agassi story taught me a lot and his dream if you don't know This was to win the US Open Tennis, and he wanted, and then he felt he still wasn't good enough. So even though he achieved it, maybe I just got lucky this team and this time or I need to validate it, I need to win it again. And then. And then he still wasn't happy winning it. So it was an interesting I forget the name of his book I read several years ago, but his interesting story about the the chase, and then you're still unsatisfied, versus like you said, Do people pause and celebrate? As they go on to whatever they're gonna go chase next.

Nik: So the other piece I wanted to follow, which is an interesting thread is I think there are people that set goals in their head where it is purely I want to achieve a number. It's a rational number. I think there are other people that set goals as an emotional state. And what I heard you really talk about what's the belief piece, which again, is not in the mind, I think it is in the in the emotional center. So how, how do you really make the goal real? How do you make the dream real that you have been able to kind of pull yourself to that reality? And your family? It seems like you've all got a powerful practice for making things actually happen, that you set out to do?

Mark: Yeah, so that's perceptive of you to pick that up. The I believe that you can achieve anything you want. Anything is possible, if you believe in yourself, and a lot of people said self imposed limits on themselves. And I believe why limit yourself you can achieve anything you want. If you just believe in you just go after it and won't do the work and, and do that. So I believe very strongly in that. And then see what when I was it was years ago.

Iron Man in its early days, when he would watch it on ABC while world of sports and I've watched it and I go, man, that is so cool. Why would anybody want to put themselves into that pain and do all of that, man, but that looks so cool. Maybe someday I want to do that. And it wasn't till I was older. I started thinking about that. I think first time I really said maybe I really am going to do this was when I was 39. And then ended up doing it when my first one when I was 41. So it was it's interesting that if you believe you can achieve anything, and then and then I said, Man, maybe someday I could do the Hawaiian Ironman. But you need to win a race most time to get to do that. And so that whole evolution, it had to do that. And I've had the opportunity to wire man five times so and when there's a will there's a way to make that happen.

Nik: Again, you keep answering with things where like, there's so many questions that come up, because it seems that you've got two unique characteristics. One, I think a lot of people have dreams and they believe but they don't know how to do it right. There is still an execution challenge in making any dream a reality. So I am very curious about that piece. And I also think the other thing I hear is, I think when a lot of people dream, there's an unworthiness that says like, Yeah, but why, like, I'm not worthy of that I'm not good enough to actually achieve that. So I would be curious to know, I mean, again, you've you've raised a family that seems to have the same beliefs in themselves and the same values. How did you figure it out? In your own case, when you talked about like the squash championship, for example, what made you believe that was even possible for you? And then how did you actually execute on that?

Mark: Yeah, well, that's a good story. I never tell this story. It's really rare. So I played competitive tennis in high school, and I was number one, in the little town in Canada that I grew up in. And then our club went bankrupt. And there's the only place to play when it was winter, about eight months a year. So that was the end of my tennis career. I went to college in Canada. And I tried out for the squash team. And that was the last guy cut from the team. And they took eight people, I was number nine. And he told me Scott work a little harder and maybe try to come back next year. Well, I never did. And then I moved to California and the club that I joined just the gym that I joined had four squash courts. And one day, I walked up to a guy that looked pretty decent. And I said, hey, hey, man, I'm Mark. Do you think we wouldn't be able to play squash together sometime? And he said, Do you think you can play at my level? I don't think so, sir. But I'm a pretty good athlete, and I'll give it oh my god and get to know each other and we'll have some fun. He said, Son, when you think you can play at my level, you come back and talk to me. So he turned me down and I was passed and my dream was, I need to just beat this guy's ass.

And so I practiced, I played with other guys. And finally, this guy agreed to play with me, and he beat the shit out of me. And it was fine. And what he liked my spirit, he was, I don't know, maybe 20 years older, and I was and he's really good. But eventually I'd beat him. I beat him once, and then again, and then I dusted the floor with them every single time. And even though I still liked the guy, I needed to upgrade my game. And I stopped playing with him because I needed better talent to play with. And, but that's how I got hooked. And then the first time first, I start playing tournaments. And then I joined the US championship and it was in Houston that year, I was an unseeded guy, and ended up winning the tournament. And it was like, wow, that's unbelievable. I didn't even think I could win the tournament. It was just wow, this is really, really cool that I was able to do that.

Nik: That's impressive. So I have to ask the question, because I've seen both sides of this. Some people succeed because they never believe that they're enough. And they're trying to feel like they're enough. Other people succeed because they think that they're already enough, and they deserve everything. So as you're more that you're approaching more than you believed you were deserving of everything, or was there some like, I gotta prove that I gotta prove them worthy.

Mark: Nik, I still feel like I'm rooting for the movie, Rudy. I still every day. I just feel that way. I hope it never changes. Because I really like that. I like feeling like the underdog. I have always felt like the underdog my whole life. I still do. And, and I like it. It drives me to be better.

Nik: That's powerful. It's good to know the why right? For a lot of people, I think they don't know that.

Mark: We watch movies. I watch it with my wife and kids. And they know exactly where I'm going to cry every single time. And I still do in the same place. Every time. I just, I don't know, I got I grew up in a small town being a little guy. It's just a funny story. I think it was the sixth grade. We just played King of the Hill.

You got big, snow plows would make a big pile of snow. And we'd see you could knock each other off the hill. And being a little guy, man. I was always getting my ass knocked off the hill. This one day, I tackle this guy, Peter fish. And I knocked him off the hill. And for about 10 seconds. I own the hill. Man that felt good. And until he clobbered me, which is fine. I probably deserved it. But it was it was cool that feel like keep trying get back up, run up the hill, there's a day you might win.

Nik: So how has a guy that identifies in some ways as a Rudy character, lead the leaders of the world? How did you have the confidence to now I mean, build an organization that truly impacts the world on such a large scale, given that you are you know, you're dealing with the people who are at the frontlines of all of this stuff?

Mark: Yeah, well, slowly. How it started was, in 2008, I said to my wife, hey, Warren Buffett's having this event in, in Omaha, like he does every year for shareholders, I think we should go. And she says, I wouldn't want to do that. I said, I know. We sold our business like two years ago, we got nothing going on. Maybe we go learn something. So why don't we go? She goes, Why am I don't really want to go. But if you really want to go, we'll go. He was having some parties. And YPO is having some parties. And we went, I met this guy named Joe at the party at one of the parties at the eel party. And Joe said, Just coincidentally, Hey, would you be my business coach? I said, business coach, to do what Joe? And he helped me with my business. I said, I don't know, maybe a couple months. So that's almost 15 years ago now.

And so it's amazing how that got started. It happened slowly and organically the first six years, it was just me. And then I reached out to a buddy and said, I got more clients than I have time for would you be willing to help me? And he said, Sure. That sounds like fun. And then two guys that you know, had just exited their businesses. And what do you guys do announce? Hey, you want to join me? You guys have been great clients and you want to help some other guys so it grew very organically and slowly.

And then in 2018, we got really intentional about growing the business like, like, we are going to be the global leader at this. And from we were 6 million in revenue in 2017. And this year we did 40. And so we really scaled it, we have dreams to take this thing that 200 million in top line over the next five years. And, and it's not the top line that motivates us, it's really having a global impact on so many leaders, and the CEO, the leaders in their firm, the people that their employees that they work with, and the families that they impact. And it's really fun to make that difference all around the world.

Nik: That's impressive. Again, it just seems like you have the DNA for winning at whatever game you play. And, you know, when I, when I talk to people on this podcast, it really is curious to hear what drives fulfillment for them. And it sounds like just being in the game. And playing beyond your own expectations seems to give you a lot of sense of meaning, is that a fair thing to say?

Mark: Yeah, I kid around a lot about that very topic. And I was just talking to somebody yesterday, about winning, and, and like I do everything for fun. I really like to have fun. And it's really fun when I win. And so I really do like to win. And I'll make every effort even as the underdog to try and win. It's pretty cool.

Nik: How does that transition to, you know, again, you are leading all these people, you had a period of time where you were coaching a lot of people yourself, I'd be curious to know how you've helped steer some of those people to their own sense of fulfillment. Again, this idea of they've already achieved maybe the early dreams of success, but that deeper thing that they're after the deeper why that they're going after, what have you seen really helps people get closer to fulfillment as you've coached them?

Mark: Yeah, it's, it's really interesting question, it leaves we with a few thoughts. One of them is, I'm going to write one of these down, because you'll find it funny, I want to share it with you. It's about at the summit, we were just at together, the one I had my mortgage company, which was really successful, we grew it to 1.6 billion in annual business, and back then in those, those are meaningful numbers. And it wasn't as moving.

For me, it wasn't as purposeful, because we might do 1000 transactions a month, and never meet any of the customers never talked any to customers. It wasn't as fulfilling. What is neat about what we do today, helping leaders be better is super fulfilling. And so I get people call me up from all over the world and say, I just sold my business. And I'm trying to figure out what to do next. And it's like, well, what do you really want to do what really drives you? When you get out of bed in the morning? What's the dream that you really have and what you really want? And for a lot of people they don't know.

And it's really trying to like I like to say to them, all right, if you take out a blank sheet of paper, and you pick whatever age you are today, and let's say a leader is 45 years old, and you wake up and it's three years from now, you're 48 years old, and you're living the dream. What does that look like? And why does it matter? It's pretty clarifying one on what success is for me, whoever that person is, determining what they really want. And then why does it matter? But like, are they motivated for the right reason? And so what you ask some follow ups around that? Well, when you achieve that, how you feel and what impact does that have on you? Your family, your life, your business, your hopes, dreams and aspirations. And so I think it's important to think about what will be totally fulfilling for that, that person at that stage of their life, and that can change over time.

Now, it's funny when you and I were at that make big happen summit together. And on opening day, we had all the guys that built a billion dollar businesses they got speak on day two, we're the guys that build businesses that were between 100 million and a billion. And so we I kid, this one guy Rick stern had just sold his business for $710 million. And he says, Man, I gotta go build another business because I'm not even good enough to get opening day. And it was really interesting. Thinking of that perspective. Whitman, dude, you and your business partner built this business from scratch to an incredible business that you sold for $710 million. And now he's gone.

What? That just wasn't good enough. So it was, wherever you are, there will be people that have achieved more than you have. And that's okay. But for him, it might have been inspiring to get him back in the game to go do something else.

Nik: Are there some common thread lines or through lines, you've seen that just again and again, and it really more to the High Achiever mentality? Because I think some of the least fulfilled people are the high achievers. Have you seen things where it's like it just this common theme that keeps coming up when you talk to him about what really drives them, or what what fulfillment means to them?

Mark: Some people don't really know. And they get up every day, and they just do. And then they wake up one day, and they go, I'm 55 years old. I've been doing the same thing for 25 years. I'm tired. I'm not motivated. I don't know why I do this anymore. I think it's just re grounding yourself. In terms of what is your why? Why do you do it? And why does it even matter?

I think I think that it's really important. And then there are others on the other side of it. I'm very, very clear on what it is that they want to achieve. I want to do X by this period of time, and I want to do it because this is meaningful to me. And or I'm making a difference in the world. Or I'm creating something brand new that's going to revolutionize whatever I'm revolutionizing. I think it's different. I think my learning along the way, when I when I was on my mortgage company, what I learned was a house is done.

And I was done because I got the word. And and then I got lucky, I sold my mortgage business in 2006. At the end of 2006. Oh my god, if you're ever going to sell a mortgage company, and you sell them before Lehman and bear crash, that's just lucky. And so anyway, for me, I think having a purpose and doing what you're doing is really cool. It's even like take some of you've met a lot of our coaches, Nik. They're they range in age from early 50s to late 60s. And what really drives them at this stage of their life is getting up every day and doing something meaningful and purposeful, by helping others. And you know, what else is really neat for us doing what we do is we like to say when one teaches to learn, and we learn as much as when we're given we're also learning at the same time.

Nik: How often have you seen where someone comes to that moment of going on board? I'm sick of this, I want out I want to find something else. They sell their company. And then they have sellers remorse where they go, you know, actually at the end of the day, I missed that game.

Mark: Yeah, I thought you were going to ask a different question. But I'll answer that one.

So let me go back to Rick Stern, who we just talked about a moment ago, he sold his business on December 28. of 2021. I was out on the run that morning and have my listen to the book. And and my phone rings. And it's December 28. And it's Rick. And I knew the deal was closing today. So or that day, and I said Hey, Rick, what's going on? Good morning. I'm on a run here. He goes, You know what? This is the first time I've ever been unemployed. It's today. And I need to figure out what I'm going to do next. I'm gonna go crazy. Hey, can you hold a minute mark? Yeah, yeah. What's going on other banks on the phone? Yeah, okay, I'll wait.

So it was the bank on the phone, trying to clear the wire needed confirmation on the wire. So why are you gonna hit his bank yet? And he was already panicking about what he was going to do next. It's like, Wow, dude, why don't you take a bit of time and just chill out, relax, and go enjoy yourself, your family, a hobby at thing, take a year and figure out what you're gonna do next. Amazing, right?

Nik: Yeah, I mean, I imagine that it's probably really uncomfortable to have to sit with oneself. I mean, that goes back to like meditation, all these other practices I've tried for centering and heard from other entrepreneurs, it's real hard when you take away all the distractions that allowed you not have to face that inner stuff.

Mark: Yeah, I found it. You asked about buyer's remorse. And there's a there's a huge build up for people when they go to sell their business. And I think we've had I think it's 59 of our clients that have exited now. And and some of them for really big numbers. Six of them were over a billion dollars in the day after and the month after there's a bit of you got that? Yeah, got it done. And then there's the oh, now what is that? Now what is that's the most frustrating part, because I had an identity in what I was doing before. And now I don't there was a friend of mine there was running this, one of the top banks in the United States, and, and then he left that, and he became a professional speaker speaking all over the world and stuff like that.

And as he was building his speaking practice, he said, I used to be the man. And when I was running the bank, and I went from lender to vendor, I could get anybody on the phone anytime, because I had power. And I was running one of the largest banks in the country. But now, I was pitching my speaking services. And nobody gave a crap about what I was doing. So there was a real low this kind of sucks being in this place, that I didn't expect that I would find myself here. So that feeling of emptiness. I've sold to companies personally. And it's cool for about a week. And then it's if that long, and then you start getting up. What am I gonna do with myself? For me, I started by train, like a professional triathlete. And, and I didn't have enough people to train with me, because all my friends had day jobs, and suicide a lot of time in my own head, ride my bike all over town and or many towns and I don't know, it's it's different perspective. That's why I think determining what you want, really matters. And that can evolve for all of us.

Nik: So I'm curious, in your case, again, because you've had so much success, at least from everybody else's perspective. Again, you may still feel like Rudy, but what is the dream beyond for you? What do you what do you dream of today, when you wake up?

Mark: I, I love what I do professionally. And my dream today is to become the McKinsey of the coaching space globally. So not playing in the world. McKinsey is playing in but the level below McKinsey, but everybody in the world knows what we do. And ideally, it's the place where the private equity, the the operating partners of private equity firms come to us to help them protect their investment.

And, and what this does, like there's some really neat things about what we do when we get to help people all over the world. And what I recognize later, was now the ripple effect into their communities in the lives of so many people that ripples so far, is really cool. It also is really cool for the community of coaches. I didn't realize this, when we started doing this, it was just a few of us buddies initially. But today, our community of coaches of about 60, coaches, former who's who have business around the world, it's a really cool community. And it gives those guys and gals a place to really do something meaningful and purposeful for them at this stage of their life, and build a really unique community of former who's who have business.

And that is that too is a secondary benefit that is become really impactful and purposeful to me, this community that we can all learn learn from each other. And this fraternity or sorority like feeling that we have amongst us.

Nik: I appreciate what you've done. I mean, I've been part of EO Summit Series, YPO, all these different communities. And I really was blown away by the conference that you guys threw and just the quality of the whole experience, the quality of the people, the openness of the people, the fact that I did feel people were there really to connect with other. And I've not always felt that other groups I've been to, it seemed like it was more insular. So you can, I'm just grateful to be, you know, able to be in that ecosystem. And to have the support of you and Gerry and the rest of the team, it was really fun, really, really appreciate it.

Mark: Thank you, it was really fun for us to oh my god, we've COVID we had to cancel. And so it had been three and a half years since we had done when so we had all this energy. And I found it really, really inspiring. And for many, the highest rated speaker at that event, and I want to do a shout out to him. Because it was so so so moving. Like who has their own DJ on stage, right? Jesse Itzler just was, what a cool guy. And how meaningful that talk did he did and how passionately he did it. To me, that was the, that really inspired a lot of conversation for many people that were there, that people are still talking about it. And just connecting with so many people just they were there to meet others and and feel the inspiration and love from each other. And that was really cool.

Nik: And actually, I just got Jesse's big ass calendar in the mail today. And he's one of the people I'd love to get on the show at some point. But I was moved too as a musician, a guy who took his music career and found a way to spin it into his talks to business communities and having more impact through speaking really cool to see that done in just such a creative awesome way.

Mark: Well follow up with me, I'll get you his his number. So you can just send him a text and see if you can get him be amazing and on your show. I don't know what you'll do. You're gonna be the DJ forum.

Nik: Whatever it takes, man.

Mark: He's a really, really, I thought that was so terrific. Really cool. I haven't got my calendar yet, but I'm looking forward to get mine to.

Nik: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate all you shared today. And I, again, so much you said I think resonates with I imagine, you know, other high achievers definitely resonates for me. But the two things that I'm really still processing, as we're speaking is this idea of really getting super clear on what success means to you. And I don't know that for me, I really thought I did. But in a lot of ways I was using other people's definition of success. So that is something I hope to reflect on, especially in the next coming weeks with kind of coming to the end of the year, the start of a new year.

The other piece I really liked is I think so often we don't allow ourselves to be motivated by negative shit, which is like, yeah, I just want to crush someone, I just want to absolutely beat someone's ass who made me feel small, and great. If that's the motivation to go do something extraordinary, then go for it. Obviously, you don't physically hurt anybody. Ideally, you know, and don't make the world a worse place.

But I think sometimes being motivated by just like the desire to prove oneself, and if that's what it takes to get the engine going. I think there's really something to be said for that. And I'm sure we can all channel our Rudy's or inner Rudy character, there's so many leaders like that.

Mark: Think about jobs, Steve Jobs, and what it must have felt like getting exited out of your own company, and then finding a way back into your own company. And then to think that we all have, like, I wish jobs were alive today to see the impact that his firm continues to have. But wow, what demons he had going on in his early days. I don't know if you read that big book that he wrote up pretty amazing. And even think of guys like Warren Buffett, who just pursuing his dream. Still, it was about 90 years old now or almost 90 And, and still on top of his game. And then in the news every day these days is Elon Musk, who's continues to revolutionize all kinds of industries. He's got himself upside down here with Twitter at the moment. And the Tesla stock is plummeting at the moment. And I don't know. I'd be betting on Musk to figure it out because he seems to for whatever his reasons are, continues to figure out as he continues to revolutionize entirely different industries.

Nik: Yeah, I mean, I do wonder the inner workings of people like that, like, how much are they just trying to prove to themselves their worth? Right or just make an example of others. And I think that's why they said Trump ran right. It was ultimately got insulted at the the press correspondents dinner. And I think they said in that moment, he decided now I'm going to be president just to prove you wrong.

Mark: I think, I totally thought speaking of Trump for a minute, when he first ran, and there's all these people on stage. It's gone. Are you kidding me? This guy, there's no way and all of a sudden, one at a time, one at a time. And I'm bet you one day, he went, wow. It's a possibility I might be able to win this thing. Right. I don't think he believed it from the beginning. I thought he probably figured it out along the way. So who knows?

Nik: Talk about a story of fake it till you make it feels like a very large scale.

Mark: Amazing. And we there have been other guys look at Clinton as a as a president that came out of nowhere. I remember you weren't at the summit, where I interviewed President George W. Bush. And he has a really interesting story of how these guys evolved. And finally, all of a sudden they all the failures that they go through that most people don't remember. And then somehow they find a way to become president and its president knighted states is super, super cool. Everybody's got story. Everybody has a journey. And you know, at the end, at the end of the day, I believe this. There are three kinds of people, those that make big happen, those who let things happen. And mostly they ask what happened? Oh, no, we all get to decide that right?

Nik: Yeah, what a great, what a great way to close it to have and I think for everyone who's listening, I just hope that you get a little bit from Mark's message around the fact that you could probably go way bigger than you think you ever could.

And I think that's really the magic of people that are high achievers, it's swing above your paygrade go make some magic happen. And in the meantime, if you get a chance, check out Mark's books make big happen and making big happen.

And if you're in any form of competitive anything, whether it's business sports, how to win at life, go get a coach, checkout CEO Coaching International as well. If you are playing big and want to go way bigger, maybe even take your company to an exit and again.

Mark, I just really appreciate you being here and taking the time and I'm grateful for your friendship as always.

Mark: Nik, you're a good guy I love every time I get to see you. It's been a few times lately in the last quarter this year anyway, so it's really awesome and congrats on what you do. And I love which the messaging in your podcast here. It's it's really cool. I hope you get future really cool candidates if if there's ever one that you see in our roster that you want to talk to just reach out I'm happy to help make that happen anytime.

Nik: Will do thanks for the support and again, appreciate the time okay, all the best to you. Cheers.

Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you received whatever message or inspiration you were meant to get from today's episode. I had a great time recording it for you.

If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it. That really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at:

https://www.instagram.com/niktarascio/?hl=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/niktarascio/

youtube.com/nTarascio

[incubum]

can i request a 20yo reader whose friends with the girls who has the mega hots for uncle bruno who feels like a dirty old uncle while he's being seduced but can't deny how badly he wants it

"bay window"

NSFW, not rly dom/sub, afab reader with gender neutral pronouns

summary: you grew up around the madrigals. you started hanging around them so early that you remember tío bruno, and you're so close that the familia madrigal thinks of you as one of their own. however, when tío bruno returns, he begins to think of you in a completely different way.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36756796

NOTES: THIS IS A CREEPY AGE GAP. bruno is being a creepy (honourary) uncle in this!!!! read at your own risk

you visit la familia madrigal almost every day. you have for a pretty long time; you couldn't remember exactly how long, but you were really young. it was long enough that you remembered tío bruno.

he was probably already in his 30s when you first laid eyes on him; maybe his 40s. you didn't really know. but ever since you first met him you had a gigantic, intense crush on him. it was just something a little kid goes through, at first. you constantly wanted to be around him and found yourself hoping he had one on you as well; he didn't, obviously. you were 10. but you still found yourself wishing on stars about it every night.

the crush never went away, though. you found yourself, even well into your teen years after he left, thinking about him constantly. not to mention that, the moment you hit puberty, you thought about him sexually. long after he was gone, you saw pictures and paintings of him, and it seemed like every time you looked at one for a little too long your mind began to...wander.

even now, having made your way into your 20s, he always weighed heavy on your mind, even when you weren't allowed to talk about him.

needless to say, when word spread of him having returned to the encanto, you immediately had to go and see for yourself. you were so eager for confirmation that you knocked over the townsperson who had greeted you at your family's door to tell you about his return.

when you laid eyes on him, it was like seeing sunlight after years of being trapped in a basement. he was helping to lay bricks to rebuild la casita, covered in sweat as the blaring summer sun brought out the warm tones of his skin.

you couldn't help yourself. you ran straight up to him while he was in the middle of passing a brick up to someone on a ladder.

"tío bruno!" you exclaimed, wrapping him up in a tight hug and earning a terrified squeak from the older man because you were out of his peripheral vision and he didn't see you approaching. when you pulled away, and he turned to face you, you saw his eyes scan your facial features for a moment before his expression softened into a gentle smile.

he called your name, almost like a question, and you nodded excitedly as you pulled him into another hug. this time, he reciprocated. his warm embrace felt like a home-cooked meal, and his breath on your skin felt like the first nip of cold fall air after a scalding summer. "where have you been?" you asked him; you could feel yourself tearing up, so you blinked your eyes rapidly as you pulled away this time.

"well, i..." he started, looking around while scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, "i've been...around."

you nodded solemnly. it was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it, so you left it be; you would ask isabel or dolores later about where he had been. right now, all you needed was to see him. to see the colours of his beautiful eyes dance in the burning sunlight as you both looked into each other's faces, trying to find something to say.

you were lost in each other's eyes, admiring one another's facial features, like two long-lost lovers who had been apart for a decade. for you, it was the familiar face that you had been thinking of for all those years; for him, it was almost like a complete stranger, the beautiful person that his honourary sobrine had grown into while he was gone. you saw when the colours in his eyes changed, and you saw when he gulped and looked away from you like he was thinking of things he wasn't supposed to.

that day, you helped the madrigals rebuild their casita, sneaking looks at bruno every time you got a chance, and it seemed like he was looking at you over half the times that you looked at him.

that was weeks ago, though; now, la casita was completely up and running. you had come to visit every day since then, and every day you visited you found yourself making moves at tío bruno. it's not that you were trying to, really; you knew he was way too old for you, you knew he saw you as his sobrine, you knew he couldn't possibly be interested in you that way, but something deep inside you was hopeful. something deep down yearned for his affection in a different way.

bruno was nice to you, sure; he was kind to you since the moment he met you again, but something about the way he interacted with you was...off.

he was more playful with his real nieces and nephews than he was you. he was touchier, he was more responsive to their jokes and jabs you wondered if, maybe, after all this time of being gone, he stopped considering you as close as you were to him before he left. sure, you were older, but that didn't explain why he was treating isabela, dolores, and luisa the same way he did ten years ago, but not you.

you began studying his body language. every time you touched him, every time you smiled at him; you watched him. you began to pick up on things that were subtle and unnoticeable to people who weren't paying attention.

you started to revel in the way that, when you placed your hand on his shoulder or gave him a playful shove in the chest, the tips of his ears turned a deep, burning red. when you laughed at one of his jokes, his eyes would get wide and he would laugh with you nervously. when you would smile at him adoringly, he would smile back, bashful, his face, ears, and neck flushing that same deep red.

the more you noticed his behaviours, the more you wanted to do the things that triggered them. you found yourself leaning extra close to him while sitting or standing next to each other, or fluttering your eyelashes at him when you caught him looking at you. and, the more you experimented, the more you realized; he was thinking about you that way. he wasn't getting flustered with your presence because he wasn't used to being around you. he was getting flustered because he was attracted to you.

how couldn't he be, after all? with the amount of time you spend stressing over your appearance, he had better give you something to show for it. your jawline and facial shape framed your eyes, nose, and lips in a way that most men of the encanto would describe as something that filled their deepest desires.

so, while it was a surprise to you when you came to the realization that tío bruno wanted you, it was absolutely a welcome surprise. from the moment you put two and two together, you became a menace.

you began flirting with him tenfold. you started taking his hand when you wanted to lead him somewhere. you started kissing his cheek when he did something nice. you started hugging him for extra long when you arrived at, and before you left, la casita.

then, one night, you hit the jackpot.

normally, isabela would stay up late with you; she was a night owl. however, she seemed to be extra tired today...which left you up, and one thing you know about tío bruno? he doesn't sleep.

exaggeration, of course. he does sleep. but he stays up all night long, only getting a few hours in by falling asleep around 3 and waking up at 6. it was something he always did; you could remember being 8 or 10 and getting up in the middle of the night for water or the bathroom and him being wide awake, snacking on something leftover from dinner or looking out the kitchen window at the stars.

when you realized that you had to be the only 2 still awake in the house? well, you pounced at the opportunity. you immediately went out of your way to find some kind of excuse to go to his room. bring him a glass of water and some pan blandito from dinner? just as good an excuse as any.

so, grabbing the plate of pan blandito off the counter and a cup full of cool water, you made your way to his room.

when you arrived, you didn't knock on his first door; it was never locked. his room was very similar to the one he had before, just more condensed and easier to navigate. it was tricky making your way through the sand, and while there were less stairs than before, it was still a good few minutes before you reached his second door. this time, you knocked.

bruno answered almost immediately. "tío bruno!" you exclaimed, a sweet smile finding its way onto your face, "i can't sleep. i knew you would be up!" you offered him the glass of water and the wrapped up plate of pan blandito.

he accepted them with a 'wow, thanks' and, albeit hesitantly, let you into his bedroom. it was small, but in a cozy way; full-size bed, a desk with a cushioned chair, a bay window with the curtains pulled back, and a bookshelf.

he had to have been looking at the stars again. it was something he did frequently, whether it be through the windows in the house or by wandering out of the casita at night to sit by the river and watch them. you found him doing it almost every night that you stayed at the casita.

you found out that it was exactly what he had been doing when he placed the food and water you brought him on his desk, and sat back down at the bay window, continuing to look out at the stars, legs pulled onto the cushion and criss-crossed. for obvious reasons, you decided to sit next to him; after all, you did have certain...intentions. you had a reason to be here, and bruno's reaction - him squeaking and turning his gaze to you abruptly when you sat down - was that exact reason.

"tío bruno..." you trailed, leaning into him close. you could see the way his eyes darted around your face as you leaned into him. "you know...you know how badly i missed you, right?"

your voice was sweet as honey. placing your hand atop his, you waited for his response. it was as if you could see him running around in his brain, trying to string together a coherent thought about what was happening.

"i-i...i know you missed me, i missed all of you too!" he answers your question almost like he's trying to convince himself tht it's the appropriate way to respond.

"no, bruno. i missed you. badly." you pressed on, about an inch away from his face, your breath on his lips and your eyelashes fluttering. you could physically feel him stop breathing.

"y-yeah, well, i--" he swallowed the words in his throat and he began to tremble beneath you, "i-i really appreciate it!"

you placed your hand on the space where his neck meets his jawline, closing the gap between the two of you only slightly, your plush lips grazing against his for just a moment. he jerked back, almost hitting his head against the side window in his panic.

"l-look, i..." bruno couldn't form a sentence. you could feel his skin getting hotter and hotter under your touch, and...you could feel his hands moving around beneath you. looking down, you could see him pulling at his ruana, trying to cover the hardening bulge in his pants.

you tutted at him, and your hand found his, shoving it out of the way to inspect the damage. you could see the tent in his trousers growing, and bruno let out a whimper when he realized that you were onto him.

"i-i'm so sorry, i didn't mean to, i just--"

he couldn't find the words for the life of him, eyes screwed shut tightly as he whiteknuckled the fabric of his ruana, and you couldn't help but smile; he was precious like this, melting and falling apart under your fingertips. it made you proud of yourself. almost.

"you know, i can help you with that." you offered. bruno shook his head profusely, with his eyes still tightly closed.

"n-no!" he exclaimed, called out your name, and his breath quickened with every inch closer your hand got to his crotch, "th-that's wrong! i would never forgive myself, i...i-i'm too old for you, and you..."

"nonsense, tío bruno!" you said it almost condescendingly, like he was a silly child and you were a grown-up amused at something he did. you swiftly popped the button on his pants, and shimmied them down with his underwear, just enough to set him free.

there he sat, in all his glory; hands covering his face out of embarrassment, breathing heavily, cock thick and veiny, and already leaking at the feeling of your breath against the tip. his breaths were ragged, they rattled in his chest and came out in soft sobs and whimpers every time.

"oh my, tío bruno..." you gasped as-if you were shocked, as-if this wasn't something you completely expected when you crawled down to reach eye-level with his crotch, and you heard him let out a much louder sob. you looked up at him, saw him sniffling and saw tears running down his face.

"d-don't-- don't fucking call me that!" he snapped, and you, once again, couldn't help but smile sweetly at him as you placed soft, adoring kisses against his length.

"why, tío? does it make you feel nasty? does it make you feel like the disgusting old man you are?" you clicked your tongue and shook your head, taking the base of his cock into your hand, "it's so sad...50 years old and getting this hard over someone you watched grow up? have you been waiting on me to get older all this time? is that why you--"

"sh-- shut the fuck up!" bruno cried out as his hips stuttered upwards, begging for some kind of friction. you took that as an answer, a very telling one at that, and generously licked his cock with a broad, flat tongue, from the base to the tip, earning a desperate mewl from the man above you.

he called your name again, breathing so quickly it sounded like he might pass out, and let out a 'por favor, we can't do this!'; which only egged you on more. it made you eager, desperate to make him cum. it seemed like it wouldn't take him long, you knew he had to be touch starved after all that time alone.

so, all at once, you sunk your warm mouth down his length, nearly being able to bottom out before it hit the back of your throat and made you swallow thickly around him.

bruno let out a...primal-sounding noise, something deep in his throat that you couldn't quite describe, and his hand flew down to your head, forcing it down the rest of the way and causing you to gag.

"f-fuck, i'm sorry!" his hand moved from your head to his mouth, almost as fast as it got there to begin with. you looked up at him through your eyelashes; one hand covering his mouth, the other tangled in his own thick curls. the sight of him, disheveled like this, only made you yearn for his release more.

it set a fire in your belly, and every reaction that bruno gave you stoked the flames. you only bobbed your head up and down slowly, terrified that if you went any faster he would cum immediately, but you made one fatal mistake.

you reached your free hand up, and began to fondle his balls. after a good few moments of you squeezing them lightly, and rolling them around gently in your hand, you got the bright idea to pull off his cock; a disgusting, wet sound leaving your throat when you did; and place open-mouthed kisses all over the fine hairs that covered them. the taste of his sweat was bitter and intoxicating, and--

after the second or third kiss you placed upon them, bruno was crying out, louder than ever as he shot thick, hot ropes of cum into your hair. he moaned out your name, apologized profusely between whines and pants, and you found yourself smiling again.

"that didn't take long, tío." you teased, rubbing his thigh with your hand affectionately.

"d-don't call me that..." he panted out. his eyes were still shut tightly, his hands still covering his mouth and tangled in his hair. he didn't notice you moving around until you placed yourself on the other side of the bay window cushion across from him.

he opened his eyes to see you, laid back comfortably, underwear nowhere to be found and knees spread. the look on your face was enough to lure a man off of a cargo ship and into the murky waters below.

"aren't you gonna help me?" you asked, a pout on your face as your pussy glistened under the moonlight that was shining in through the window. you were wet. absolutely fucking soaked. when you rid yourself of your underwear, they were ruined completely; at least until they had a good wash.

he looked you up and down, deciding whether or not this was a good idea, and you saw his expression change when he remembered that he literally just shot a gigantic, pent-up load into your hair.

"y-yeah...yes."

he leaned forward on his hands, soon switching to his elbows as he got closer and closer to your soaking wet heat. his breath on your skin once again, this time extra cold when combined with the dripping arousal against your skin.

"come on...please" you whined as your fingers found their way into his salt-and-pepper curls. he nodded, a small enough movement that you wouldn't have noticed it had you not been looking, and then he dove in.

it was gentle kitten-licks at first, soft enough that if you didn't like it you could pull his head away. when you felt his warm tongue grazing your heat, you moaned out, loudly, tugging gently at his hair, and it made him stop for a moment; to which you pleaded with him to continue and bucked your hips up against his face.

your cunt was burning hot, throbbing, the temperature of bruno's tongue had to be cooler than that of the organ it was lapping at. every lick that he performed only made him drool more and more, his sticky saliva mixing with the slimy wetness between your folds as he tasted the heavens in front of him.

you made a mental note that you couldn't have been the first person he's done this to -- not with the way his tongue circled your clit and his teeth nipped at the sensitive bud between the contact with his tongue; especially not with the way the soft muscle dipped in and out of you and explored your depths so thoroughly. it was like he knew his way around...or, maybe, it was like he was desperate. just maybe, he was so eager to be doing this to someone, anyone, that he couldn't hold himself back.

"bruno..." you growled, the sound of his name low in your throat as you bucked your hips against his face, your clit brushing against his nose as his tongue explored the velvety walls of your pussy. you felt a soft vibration against your skin. was he...moaning into you?

tugging at his hair, you bucked your hips forward again, earning another soft moan from him. the shockwaves it sent through your body were insanely pleasurable, making you gasp out and yearn for the feeling to last. when his tongue found your little bundle of nerves once more, you held bruno's head in place, and began to, effectively, facefuck him.

the feeling was incredible, the way he groaned your name into your cunt as you rode his tongue made your whole body tremble. you began to feel lightheaded, the knot was tightening in your stomach oh-so deliciously and bruno was reaching forward to stuff his long, elegant fingers deep inside you.

as badly as you wanted to hold it in, as badly as you wanted this moment to last forever, the feeling of his fingertips against your g-spot (which he found fascinatingly quickly for someone who had been away from human interaction for ten years), is what sent you tumbling over the edge. you shouted his name, your dripping release covering his face as you rode out your orgasm against it.

when it died down, you untangled your fingers from his beautiful mane of curls, and ran them through your own hair. bruno looked up at you, helpess, speechless, unable to even really breathe correctly. you shifted positions, got onto your knees so you could lean down and hold his face gently, and you pressed a kiss to his lips.

your first real kiss, and it was passionate, and he reciprocated immediately. when you pulled away, you looked deep into his forest green eyes just like you did the first day you saw him again. that same exchange, like two long-lost lovers reuniting after being apart for a decade.

you stayed that way for a while, eventually moving to where you were lying on your stomach in the same position as him. you caressed his face and pressed soft kisses to his skin, smiling at each other and exploring one another's eyes like vast oceans. before you knew it, the sun began to rise, and you had to depart.

when you got dressed, bruno ushered you out of his room. you whispered a 'see you at breakfast, tío bruno!', earning a scowl from him as he shut the door.

that morning at breakfast, dolores didn't look at you funny...you remembered soundproofing her room while rebuilding la casita. camilo, however, couldn't keep his eyes off you and his tío for the entire meal.