#wrote all these details down for myself to remember everything

[blueberry-beanie]

Visiting Munich & Die Anstalt

8th October - 10th October 2023

A very, very long story about my first ever visit to Munich to see my favourite satire show Die Anstalt. Features long walks through the city, museum visits, Schloss Nymphenburg and its huge garden and a tale about being in the show's audience and meeting Claus. Many photos included. Bonus anxiety and Deutsche Bahn content. The text was written while I was still in Munich or on my way home.

Saturday, 7th Oct 2023: Packing and Heart Attacks

To say that I've been looking forward to going to Munich doesn't quite cut it. When I was still in school years ago, I used to joke that I'd move to Munich, just because it was so far away. I've actually never visited or even passed by - until today. And now the city feels just a bit more special because of the reason for my visit: I'm going to be in the live audience of one of my favourite satire shows, Die Anstalt. But that will be tomorrow. Before I can tell anything about today, I should probably mention what was going on yesterday, though.

Yesterday I posted a drawing of one of the hosts of Die Anstalt, Claus von Wagner. I was really nervous about it because I thought it's not good enough or maybe I'm really bothering him. On top of that I wrote quite a heartfelt caption and was anxious about that the whole time. Good thing I finished all important tasks before posting, because afterwards I was too nervous about everything: The drawing, the journey, the unknown city and of course going to the show. I barely started packing my bag and didn't eat for the whole day when I suddenly got a notification about a new message.

Needless to say my heart dropped and I actually didn't know what to do and sat down on the carpet. And yes, he shared my story and cheekily attached a little timer until the next show. I temporarily forgot how selecting emotions works and felt everything at once. N and I then later discussed why there was no like on the actual post (there wasn't one the last time either), when suddenly he also liked the post half an hour after he shared the story. I didn't care that this whole thing had only a handful of notes, he liked it and that's all the joy I needed.

Sunday, 8th Oct 2023: First Time In Munich

Unfortunately I had a bit too many emotions and it all got quite late - so it was difficult for me to actually wake up today morning. It definitely got better when I was greeted by Claus' very dorky "go vote" Instagram post. Later I discovered that he deleted yesterday's story in favour of election day. Hm, interesting. But I guess it's valid considering the important and serious topic of today's election in Hessen and Bayern.

The train journey started with buckets of rain, my new cleaned & repaired backpack and actually no problems at all until I got into the actual train to Munich. It turned out that seating reservations being displayed in the train was optional today. So I tried to be a decent person and just let the happy couple sit on my seat and went to find another seemingly unoccupied seat next to some guy. Unfortunately it later turned out to be occupied - so I had to go and get my own reserved seat. The train was very full so the strategy of sitting down somewhere else didn't work out anymore. I had a rather unfortunate conversation with the woman in my seat and felt quite bad afterwards. On the plus side, I had dug out an one hour long talk about childhood books with Claus yesterday and so I had the best time listening to this in the train. He's very nerdy and lovely and it was so entertaining to hear about his childhood adventures, teachers, hometown and about how he reads books occasionally with a Merkel voice to his daughter.

When the train finally arrived in München Hauptbahnhof it was an odd feeling to step outside. Like it has been a long time coming until I would finally arrive here. My first impression of Munich wasn't the best. The train station looked old and was being renovated. I stepped outside to look for the vegan restaurant I had saved in my plans, only to get lost in a rather spooky part of town and stand in front of closed doors. So I decided since it was already almost 2pm that I could go and check into the hostel nearby. That proved no problem and I relaxed for a bit in a rather nice five-bed room with a window into the inner courtyard. Knowing that it's not that easy to find food in Germany on Sundays, I ate some of the food I brought with me and then set out for a walk.

First I went to the old botanical garden, which was quite small, crowded with a group of cyclists and police with dogs and overall not very nice. Then I saw the first interesting building that turned out to be Landgericht München. From there I walked into the direction of the obelisk of king Ludwig I. I had an one-euro-ticket for the Alte Pinakothek, an art museum, so that's where I went. Somehow they are very strict there. No jacket, no hand bag, wear your bracelet and don't dare coming close to the paintings (which are already protected by glass). So I got stopped by a guard at some point, which has never happened to me before. Oops. But on the plus side I saw some cool art, for example the self portrait of Dürer, some cool Dutch portraiture, Manet, a little bit of Caspar David Friedrich (though Hamburg has a much bigger collection) and even the old friend Canaletto, whose paintings are always so recognisable, was there. Also they had quite some stuff by Rubens, Delacroix and even a few paintings by Van Gogh.

I didn't spend a lot of time there though and started walking into the direction of Odeonsplatz. Partly because there is the garden of the Residenz palace, but also because there has been this huge demonstration on the 4th October where both Max and Claus participated. I thought it would be fun to visit the place that I've seen many photos and videos of. Upon arrival I immediately understood how 35.000 people fit there - it's massive. The gardens nearby were small but beautiful, with a round Diana Temple in the middle. A lovely lady played the violin in there and gave the garden such a peaceful vibe.

Where to go next? I decided to visit the park near the Maximilianeum, where the Bavarian parliament is situated. So I walked past the huge impressive building of the Bayerische Staatskanzlei with it's huge wings of glass. Then I walked past two impressive buildings belonging to the government of Oberbayern and the museum of five continents towards a bridge over the river Isar. Unlike rivers in north Germany this one is very clear, which is probably because its proximity to the mountains the rocky ground.

The Maximilianeum is a big round building just by the river and I felt more and more as if Bavaria is truly its own little country because of all these monumental buildings. The park was very lovely, but I couldn't explore it fully because it was getting late and my feet were starting to protest along with my shoulders. So I turned around to cross the river at the Friedensengel statue and go back into the direction of Odeonsplatz. On my way I passed by more museums and theatres until I arrived at the tiny park behind the Staatskanzlei and crossed the palace garden again.

At the Odeonsplatz I took a turn into the Theatinerstraße. Suddenly there were many people. It's the center of Munich with fancy restaurants, bars and shops. I walked past the famous Frauenkirche and into the direction of Karlsplatz. Looking at all the people eating and drinking outside in the restaurants I realised I had almost no food at the hostel. So I looked for an affordable place where I could get something quickly and ended up eating a bit of noodles with tofu and veggies at the Karlsplatz. From there it was thankfully only a short trip back to the hostel, during which I listened to a voice message from my school friend Christina (the one I visited in Halle two weeks ago) who wished me lots of fun at Die Anstalt tomorrow.

At the hostel I was greeted by the most annoying shower ever (it turns itself off after ten seconds each time) and fell into bed. The other women in the room weren't very talkative and warned me that they'd get up at 4:30am and 6am respectively. Amazing then, I thought, and fell asleep like a stone at around 10pm. That was a good idea, because the night was loud and restless, but I slept through most of it and woke up in the morning refreshed and ready to go.

Monday, 9th Oct 2023: Palaces and Recreation

Today I woke up at around seven and stayed in bed comfortably until my roommates were done with everything. I got myself ready, ate the last of the food I brought with me and headed out to Schloss Nymphenburg via Tram line 17. It was easy to find and the tram took me right to the palace. Now I've seen some cool palaces in Vienna and London, but this one is truly impressive. It's so wide and the road leading up to it has a canal with huge fishes and some ducks. It's a white building with two huge wings, each of them with a clock tower.

Inside it was a bit awkward at first because there weren't many visitors at half past nine on a monday morning, and it felt like there were more security guards than visitors. The very first room is immediately the most breathtaking: a huge hall with the most beautiful ceiling and so many ornaments on the walls. The sense of wonder I felt while looking at all the extravagance was constantly accompanied by uneasiness. The amount of wealth needed to build this exceeds my imagination.

How could anyone live in such a house? How were the people like who lived in such circumstances? How many people had to be exploited to achieve this kind of wealth? I think it's very useful to keep these magnificent places for future generations to enjoy and maybe use for some art and culture but that doesn't mean their existence sits entirely right with me.

The part of the palace that is publicly open is thankfully not as huge as the palace itself. So after a short while I walked out into the gardens. And if the interior was impressive, the accompanying park is what truly made my day. It is so huge that you can forget you are in a city at all. Its size and the forest and field part reminded me a lot of Hampstead Heath in London, but the massive canal with the fountains in the middle is definitely more like the gardens I saw in Vienna, just even bigger.

The fun thing about this park is that it's publicly accessible, so people go on walks in groups or go for a run alone, go birdwatching or take their dog out. If you have a ticket like me though, you are allowed into the smaller buildings in the park. As if the massive main palace wasn't big enough, they also had smaller little summer houses there. The first I visited was inspired by Chinese art and adorned with porcelain tiles.

Then I walked past cascading waterfalls over a bridge to the temple of Apollo, which is set so beautifully at the pond among the trees. Honestly, the whole time I wished I had a horse to ride around in the park since that is clearly what it was meant for. I walked past a beautiful little fountain with a statue of Pan towards the Badenburg. This little house had a huge swimming pool inside that you can look at from a gallery, absolutely insane. I can't imagine how all of this was like when it was still used as it was intended. From there I saw the garden of the little princes with a hut that looks as if it will grow chicken's feet any minute and turn around.

One of the highlights came in the end: The Marstallmuseum with the carriages, sleighs and everything else that belonged to the royal mews, including two taxidermied horses. I've never seen so many carriages of such colossal and eye-wateringly extravagant quality in one place and I'm wondering how anyone would drive around in these at all. The sleighs looked more like pieces of art than vehicles and the saddles and bits were all so ornamented and beautiful. As a horse-girl I'd be scared to ride on one of these. But please send me my fave horsey Püppi for a turn in the park, thank you.

When the visit was over it was already half past twelve and I was starving. So I went back to the center and got lost in the absolute maze of the U-Bahn underneath the central station until I finally found the right one that took me two stations further to a vegan Döner place, where I had some lasagna. A good opportunity to buy some groceries (and getting lost once again, I have a talent) before going back to the hostel because my feet were killing me.

Overall I'm starting to get the appeal of this city. I'm sure there are many beautiful places to visit here. I like it much more than Berlin so far and I think if I stayed longer I'd get to know many more cool areas. Too bad that this doesn't matter much, because Munich is the most expensive German city. It's near impossible to find anything here even if you wanted to. Looking at how adventurous it is to get a place in Berlin or Hamburg already… no. But I'd definitely love to visit more often to get to know the place better. Now I'm resting in the hostel and slowly getting very nervous becaur it's almost Monday evening. The Monday evening of all evenings I've waited for during these last five months. It's time to visit Die Anstalt.

Monday, 9th Oct 2023: Die Anstalt

I didn't get too much rest because at around half past four the levels of anxiety had risen to such amounts that I jumped up and went for a very short and hectic walk. Then it was already time to get myself ready. I hid the three fancy chocolate bars I had brought from my university town in my handbag inside a black piece of fabric. This way nobody would see them when checking my bag. I didn't believe I would have the opportunity to hand out any chocolate to anyone, but I'll be damned not to try. Since I already can't bring cake to the studio. (There is a very old interview with Claus in which he talks about loving all kinds of cake "If there was cake on the table right now I'd be eating it and I wouldn't be talking to you. Where is the cake? Cake!") Then it was time to leave for the U-Bahn line 1. I was so nervous that even hours after everything would hurt from being tensed up. At some point I had to change to Tram line 25 in the direction of Grünwald, where the Bavaria Film Studios are situated. As expected, it's a rather fancy part of town with big houses and neat gardens. When we arrived at the studios, there were some more visitors heading in the same direction and I had a short talk with two people who also didn't quite know where to go. Thankfully the Anstalt team had set up signs with arrows leading us around the entire fenced off area to the very back. There some friendly people greeted us and directed us to the right building - studio six which I already knew the look of from several past episodes.

And we were not alone! Already a crowd had assembled outside the entrance tent. I didn't linger outside, although I saw today's guests, the duo Das Geld liegt auf der Fensterbank, Marie standing there. Instead I went inside to the queue that was very small still. I left my coat at the cloakroom they set up there and now it was time to wait a bit. After a while a big guy with a grey beard, who actually reminded me of someone I've seen at Die Anstalt, humorously asked us who was here for the first time and explained to leave all jackets here because it's warm inside and to use the restrooms now because there are none in the studio. Then he said, "Alright, let me check if Max and Claus are ready and then we can start." Shortly after we had a security check and were let inside.

The studio looked smaller and bigger than on TV at the same time. There were some chairs, but they were all reserved for special guests, as was the 2nd row behind us. So the two couples who queued next to me sat on both of my sides. The woman to my left quickly started a conversation with me about the show and her daughter who studies something like graphic 3D design and about all sorts of things. We figured out that she and her husband had been watching the show for many years and she was surprised I only started this year - and still seemed to know about all the lore. She even remembered the interview of Claus when he went hiking in the mountains with some guy - an interview I know exists but could never listen to because it's no longer online. We got excited about the little details on the set with a living room area, a court room and - of course! - a whiteboard hidden in the left corner. The reserved seats were filled in the last moment by late arrivals and by people from the back - and then it all started.

The following part I translated, because I wrote it down the same evening in German:

Claus was the first to enter the stage before everything started. He appeared to greet us and to raise our mood a bit. He did... not look too amazing - and that was on purpose. Today he was, as the woman next to me said later, a slimy AfD-politician in a bad suit and with a horrible hair style. But he was there and it was really him. It felt surreal to suddenly see him talking and gesturing, making jokes just in front of me. The same voice, the same smile. I was fascinated by the very fact he was suddenly at the same place as me and cursed the TV-cameras that sometimes obscured our view.

He started asking about who came from Munich and who ("that's the more interesting question!") came from the furthest place. Someone actually travelled all the way from Schleswig-Holstein and they got well-deserved applause. Then he started retelling the old joke about Munich being too clean and the Rats visiting the P1 instead. And the story about the parcel shop he already told at the demonstration. Apparently the joke ended with "Please nobody tell him about Deutsche Bahn, or they will want to overthrow the country." Suddenly Max appeared to a lot of applause - because he wore a Greek philosopher costume with a ridiculous wig and beard today and made us guess what it meant. Correct - it was an allegory for Democracy. He also retold his joke from the Demonstration about why not housing refugees in the palaces and private jets of the rich.

They were telling us about how the show would go. There would be two cuts ("Then we have a bit more time to change. We used to be live-live before the pandemic and only had one minute. That was a battle backstage, believe me. And since some of us are already a bit older...", Claus said, leaning on Max and grinning.) Claus also urged us to turn off our phones, not just mute them "but really truly turning them off". Of course I did that, too. And the people in front of the court practiced to get up when the judge would arrive and were praised for their services. In the end they started to introduce the guests. Das Geld liegt auf der Fensterbank, Marie (a duo "The money is on the windowsill, Marie") who had a long dialogue what annoyed him about her (so she can do it more often in the future). They also introduced Judith Richter ("We didn't just invite her because of her name!" Richter meaning judge in German) and Matthias Renger, who was there for the first time. At some point later Max said something about Claus' dance moves being horrible. Of course the dancer in question had to demonstrate a few moves, which was hillarious.

Then they prepared to start filming the episode. Everyone settled in the living room set and Claus held this stereotypical slate for all the cameras ("The director makes me do that every time and it never works out so well... That's unsettling to have all these cameras on me at once") and talked to the director . And then the scene started. Claus played the right wing AfD-politician Maximilian Krah, an absolute asshole. A disgusting guy who keeps hitting on everyone around him and lounges on the sofa like he owns the entire country. And drinks champagne. And hits Max straight into the eye. I really flinched, because the loud hitting sound effect and the sudden motion surprised me. Also that's not something you would ever expect from Claus.

Both of them are great actors. Neither of them read their text from the screens or had a problem remembering something. Claus was being brilliantly horrible in his role. I don't think I've ever seen him act like a complete villain in this way, it was unsettling. During the scene at the court he constantly kept making suggestive comments to the judge and it was sometimes difficult to look at all of this. Please stop talking man, who are you, this is all horrible and I didn't think I'd have to hear such words from your mouth!

Then he played the overtired Robert Habeck, first falling asleep on the sofa and then kneeling on the carpet with toy bricks. Did someone conceptualise this episode just so I'm alternating between staring, laughing and not being able to look at all of this? In the end they even had a whiteboard scene (of which I sadly didn't see much bc of the damn camera being in my way). There were two breaks indeed for poor Max to change his costume. He played Merz in one of the court scenes and it's so funny how he can resemble him and imitate all of his mannerisms and the voice so well. In the longer break they showed an excerpt from 2016 in which the AfD was a rather unpleasant and murderous baby in its crib. In the end they called on the audience to sign an online petition about making the Federal Institutional Court review a legal ban of the AfD. And then the episode was already over: "Das war die Anstalt!"

Claus immediately tried messing up his horrible hairstyle as if he really didn't want to resemble that despicable AfD-politician in the slightest. But that wasn't the end of the story. First they bowed and had to come out two more times because we didn't stop clapping and cheering. And then a few apprehensive minutes passed. Would they come out once more? And there they were, both of them. And Max even walked straight up to us with a determined face. He was looking for friends and family in the second row behind us. He did not care much for anyone else, and it appeared he was somehow looking for his daughter? This is how I got to see Max up close, but not talk to him. Therefore I couldn't give him the chocolate. But over there, on the stage, there was Claus. And I knew I had to go there right now, otherwise he may disappear and I won't sleep in peace for the next few months. So I parted with my seat neighbours and shyly went up to the stage. At first he was talking to a woman and then it was time for him to join the others for a group photo on the sofa. That was a whole show by itself. He sat on the backrest and firstly made funny and happy faces, then tried being serious and in the end attempted his most seductive look. That wasn't enough, because he leaned forward too much at some point that he slipped down onto the seat behind the others. Everyone started laughing as he had to get back up on his feet again. Sometimes he's really like a little kid. Some of the visitors were actually taking photos with their phones and then disappeared. So after the photo most of the audience had already gone.

But as the photo opportunity was over, Claus got up and walked to the left of the stage towards the backstage exit. I was scared that he would disappear in front of my eyes. But a woman came to the rescue and asked him for a photo. I just stood nearby and listened to the conversation about the show and about the AfD. They were discussing whether the courts could really be filled with right-wing judges and they also talked about the ban of NPD not working out years ago.

It was fascinating to listen to this, because of how knowledgeable he is and how he considers several view points in his arguments. About some things he admitted not knowing enough and needing to read about it first. He is a little waterfall, but so smart and thoughtful and also attentive to what the other person says. I was content to watch the conversation unfold in front of me and took in all the little details with his whole behaviour, intonation and gestures all being just as I know them from watching way too many videos. The biggest difference was how he looked like: He seemed smaller, more fragile and very tired. And still he was engaged in the conversation even more than this woman, despite looking like he needed a whole bar of chocolate and at least three days of sleep.

Then the producer made an announcement and asked all of us to be quiet because Max had to repeat a sentence which he somehow didn't say entirely correctly during the show. The three of us stood there together and Claus told us conspirationally "Ah yes, Herr Uthoff forgot his text again... happens all the time. And now this is particularly tricky because he has to repeat it with everyone looking at him." Max confidently repeated the short passage and Claus resumed his conversation with that woman. At some point I also chipped in, despite being really nervous about it. I said something about how satire shows seemingly unite to save our democracy at the moment with the ZDF Magazin Royale just having released two episodes about right wing extremists at the Frankfurt police.

It was really odd to suddenly have him looking me straight into the eyes. What do you mean he sees me and hears me and replies to what I said? Suddenly grammar and vocabulary were very abstract concepts. I have a general difficulty with looking into people's eyes, it is usually very challenging for me, but I really wanted to try. I knew how lucky I was to get to talk to him at all. Eventually the woman left and an older couple approached. The woman asked for a photo, but I offered to take a picture with both of them together with Claus which they gladly accepted and were really happy about it. They did not stay to talk for long and suddenly they also disappeared.

Now it was my turn to say something. I was very glad to have a reason at least. "Excuse me, may I also bother you for a few seconds? I brought something for you if that is ok." He had already kind of turned to go but agreed, "Oh, yes sure." So I got all three chocolate bars from my handbag and gave them to him. He thanked me and I remarked somehow that these are greetings from Sachsen. He was happy that there was some representation from Sachsen and assured me it is still valid, although I'm not actually from there. Then it dawned on him that all three bars are probably not for him and asked to whom else to give them. I said he can decide himself how he wants to distribute them. In response he cheekily hid two of the chocolates behind his back and joked that these will be for him only. I laughed and said that my friend (it was N!) had suggested to give all three of them to him, and he liked that idea very much. During the whole conversation he kept on shuffling them in his hands, a bit as if they were playing cards. Then he said more seriously that they will make up the main stash of sweets in the writers' room when conceptualising the next episode. I told him that I would have brought cake instead of chocolate if that was possible. The reaction to this statement was priceless. In this short moment I could see confusion about why suddenly cake is mentioned, then recognition that yes, it's something he likes indeed and again confusion about whether and how I could know this. He stammered something about "Ah yes, cake... yes, yes indeed", before he told me that Max apparently often brings all sorts of things to the writers room "but sadly not cake". Poor man, I would have brought an entire baking sheet of cake for him.

I asked him afterwards if I may have a photo together and he immediately agreed. So I reached for my phone and realised it was still turned off! "Oh no, sorry! I listened to what you said and turned off my phone!" He laughed and pretended to be incredulous, "Someone listens to what I say?" I don't know what hit me, but I managed to look him in the eyes and reply in the same joking manner "Yes, of course! I always listen to what you say." "And now we have to wait for three long minutes until it finally turns on again," he quipped with a smirk. Some guy who had joined us in the meantime, saw his opportunity and said "Ah well, then I could quickly ask you something in the meantime!" Claus agreed and they started a conversation about whether forbidding the AfD is really the solution to the problem or rather suppressing the causes or making it worse. In the meantime my phone had turned on again and I just listened to their conversation.

Suddenly a woman called Claus in an impatient tone. Fair enough, around us the technicians and helpers were already taking away chairs and diassembling the equipment. Claus shouted back, "Sorry, sorry! We are still talking. It's my fault, I have been talking way too much again!" The conversation somehow shifted to his (right now nonexistent) solo tours and he said that he is in fact planning to do one. I immediately chipped in, "Oh really? I would love you to go on a solo tour, please!" He said that he actually likes being on the theatre stage much more than "down here" but he hasn't managed to write a program because of family, health and because he writes eight shows for Die Anstalt each year ("And I really write a lot for them!"). I reassured him that a solo tour would be amazing and that I would definitely come to see him. He thanked me and remembered that actually many people have said the same and he really plans on making it happen "before 2025".

The guy wanted to to take his leave and Claus already wanted to say bye, too ("Otherwise I will collapse soon"). But I stood there with wide eyes and my phone and panicked a bit and shyly started "Oh, and the-?" And he remembered about the photo, "Ah yes, of course." That guy offered to take the photo but I said no thanks, I'll manage. And then joked a bit about "at least, if my hands aren't shaking too much", which was true, I was really a bit shaky. But Claus immediately replied "Oh no, it's alright. My hands have been shaky earlier, too." I managed to take a photo and thanked him profusely, also for liking my post. I didn't specify which post, but he understood right away and realisation hit him: "Ohhh, so that was you with the drawing?" "Yes, that's me who has recently been bothering you with drawings on Instagram." "Thank you so much for the drawing. It's great! I wish I could draw, too!" And then it was really time for him to go and we said goodbye. I turned around and realised, that I was pretty much the only crazy person left in the studio and quickly went outside to fetch my coat.

On my way back to the hostel I was still so full of adrenaline and my hands were still shaking. Everything was too much for me and I could not calm down until late at night at around 2am. Not only did I witness the show live, but I also had the huge luck to have met Claus. That I got to look him in the eyes and talk to him is more than I expected. And he even got the chocolate! Psst! I don't mind, you can eat all three of them. I won't tell, I promise. I am a bit worried and guilty about keeping him for so long and hope that the poor guy could get a lot of rest and cake and chocolate to recover. He really looked very tired, despite giving his everything for the show and for everyone who came to talk to him afterwards. I wish that I could have given him a big hug, but we are not at an EE concert where you can receive the prescribed eight hugs a day. That has never been a realistical wish anyway, and I know that very well. And it doesn't matter, because I got so much more than I dared to hope for and I am so thankful and happy.

Tuesday, 10th Oct 2023: A Final Day

Today I realised that I started to really like Munich. Maybe because it reminds me a bit of London. Not necessarily the Biergärten, but the impressive buildings, the wide roads and the wonderful parks. After three days I feel sad to leave this city behind. There are many beautiful things about Munich. In the morning I left around ten and made my way to the Münchener Stadtmuseum. First I got to see the beautiful Marienplatz with so many flowers and beautifully ornamented buildings. Then I got sidetracked a little and ended up at the famous Viktualienmarkt instead. It wasn't overcrowded in the morning and I got to eat an original Bavarian Brezel in the shade of a tree. The Viktualienmarkt has permanent stands with loads of different foods, but I also saw a plant shop and some shops selling souvenirs.

Then it was time to visit the museum. For students the entrance fee was very cheap and for the money you can enter all exhibitions, not just the permanent one. I enjoyed the chronological permanent exhibition, though I feel like the later history was missing, as they stopped with the end of second world war. Then there was an exhibition about displaced people after the war - it was just one room though and I found the one with a similar topic in Bremen much more educational. I made the mistake to go upstairs to the exhibition of puppets. That was eerie as hell and I quickly got out of there. The reason I wanted to visit in the first place was a temporary exhibition about the rise of the NS party and their mechanisms of executing power. A very interesting, but also dark and scary exhibition, especially since right wing parties are on the rise again. Parts of the exhibition also overlapped with what we learned last semester in media history.

After that I was quite happy to go outside into the sunshine again. Today was a very sunny and warm day, a perfect ending of a beautiful journey. First I got a smoothie and a banana at an overcrowded supermarket and then I made my way towards the Eisbachwelle, a permanent wave at a bridge in a huge park. Surfers are riding the wave with many spectators watching them. I kept walking to a place called the Monopteros that reminded me of the Apollo temple I'd seen yesterday. From there I had a wonderful view over the park and the city. I discovered afterwards that the Chinese tower was actually in a beer garden (of course) and slowly started to make my way back.

I passed by the house of arts with a certain golden bar and the P1 club that is famous, although not necessarily with a good name to it, just for being posh.

I went back through the palace garden and passed by the Odeonsplatz one last time. Originally I'd wanted to go and get some food right away but then I thought that maybe looking for some clothing without holes would also be a good idea (I didn't find anything, though). The veggie and rice bowl I got was really good, although a bit sour. And now it was already time to get my backpack that I left at the hostel and board the train. As I'm writing this in the train I'm happy because Claus has liked my comment under his promo post for the show airing on TV this evening. Maybe I'll still get to watch it when I come home... Thanks Munich for such a wonderful time, hopefully I'll be back soon!

[burnyouwithacigarettelighter]

PROVE IT ───

jackson rippner ✧𖦹

ೃ⁀➷ “You think you are possessing me / But I've got my teeth in you.” — ‘Unicorn’, Angela Carter

pairing. jackson rippner x reader

summary. after breaking up with your boyfriend. you meet a handsome stranger at a bar. you tell him your cunt’s better than the girl’s your boyfriend cheated on you with; he tells you to prove it.

warnings. swearing, slight breeding kink, unprotected sex, creampie, p in v, semi-public sex, porn with some plot, impact play, degradation/insults, SMUT UNDER THE CUT!

word count. 3.6k

a/n. i seriously doubt i wrote jackson’s character accurately in this so please comment anything i can improve on LOL🙏

It’s not often you spill your entire life story to a stranger at the bar, but this one, this stranger with his watery blue eyes and plush lips, is oddly inviting; charismatic to a fault. It makes you want to give him everything, and absently, in your alcohol riddled mind, you think he’d make a good scammer. 

Or, serial killer, whichever he prefers really.

But it's not entirely his fault; you’re stress drinking, downing too many shots in too little a time frame, and the alcohol’s already hit your system ten-fold. 

You’re there because you’d broken up with your boyfriend the night before. You’d been dating just short of a year. He was required to travel a lot, mostly in Europe, as per his job, and you let him go each time without qualms - love them, let them go, right? 

Wrong. He’d been cheating on you since he went to Copenhagen — four months, now — with a pretty little Dane that wanted to marry. 

You were furious when he told you, of course, it’s fucking insanity for him to marry someone he’s known for four months, but you began seeing all the differences between you and the woman he cheated on you with: she, a perfect homemaker, you, a distressed professional he saw maybe once a month. 

“Hey, hey, don’t beat yourself up,” the stranger across from you said softly, breaking you out of your nostalgic stupor and back into reality. “‘cause he’s a right asshole. For cheating on you like that.”

The man had entered the bar hours after you did, housing a simple drink or two and absently watching the softball game on the bar TV, before you drunkenly inched closer to him, desperate to rant your dilemma to just about anyone who’d listen. He bit, and here you were now.  

You peered up at the man, inspecting him. He’s gorgeous, definitely, but you can’t tell if you actually think that, or your foggy, not-been-fucked-for-months mind just wants him to rail you into next week. 

No matter, you thought, downing another shot. It burned the back of your throat sweetly, fire trailing down your insides. “M’not beating myself up,” you protested weakly, “jus’ — m’just… wondering if her cunt was - so much better than mine,” 

He laughed, boisterously, the kind of laugh you hear rumble out from a close friend while you detail every wrongdoing or shameful memory in your life: he’s comfortable right now, as are you.

“Well,” he inched closer, large hand sitting itself on your thigh and slowly inching upwards, “if it bothers you that much, why not prove it? That your pussy’s as good as you think.” 

This wasn’t the first of his attempts to flirt with you: firstly he’d tucked a stray hair away from your face, later he swiped a drop of drink off your lip, then he’d clutched you by the waist, pulling you close to him when someone squeezed past you in the crowded bar. His brisk touch wasn’t unfamiliar by any means, but it did suggest more than the other ones, especially coupled with the lustful words he was purring in your ear. 

Then, there’s a gap in your memory. One too many shots, a stranger toying with the hem of the skirt you donned for the bar, and his sweet voice in your ear was too much for your dizzy head, and the only thing you remember is this: one moment, he’s getting braver, rough fingers ghosting the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and the next, you’re pressed against a bathroom stall wall, the handsome stranger’s knee pushing your quivering legs apart. 

You’re trading wet, messy kisses, and his hands are sneakily climbing up your shirt till they reach your chest. There’s a sharp intake of breath from him: “Fuck, sweetheart, no bra? You really were looking for someone to prove you right,” he cooed, touching your breasts needily. 

He’s kneading you artfully, fingers pawing at your flesh like he’s never felt something so soft, so plump. Your back arches as he does this; you’re practically putty in his hands. 

It doesn’t slip past you that you’re being felt up in a bar bathroom by a gorgeous stranger whom you don’t know the name of, but you don’t care. “Please,” you beg, his name coming up completely blank on your tongue, “please.”

“‘Please’ what, honey?” The stranger says huskily, one of his hands moving from your breasts up to your jaw, pushing it to the side to gain access to your neck. “Please kiss me? Finger me? Fuck me?”

You’re too drunk - and fucking horny - to deal with his theatrics, so you whine instead of answering, your weak fingers carding through his brown locks. 

“God,” he says, “How long has it been since you’ve been properly fucked? Just some touching and you’re already too fucking dumb to speak.”

His words make your cheeks burn with shame, but it also makes your core throb. The oh-so sweet stranger who listened to your problems all night telling you you’re just a dumb horny bitch is such a juxtaposition it's got you all hot and bothered. 

“Please,” you beg again, more desperate than before, “I need you.” 

The man let out an incredulous chuckle, head cocking back. “Baby, don’t tell me you like it like that. God, you’re such a fucking whore,” he said, before undoing his belt buckle and fly. 

He had noticed how your legs clenched around his knee, how your breathing got sharper as soon as the words “dumb” and “whore” slipped out of his pretty mouth, how your fingers trailed his back needily, desperate for any kind of touch. 

You bit your lip, watching the stranger through bleary, hooded eyes. He’d pulled his pants down just enough for his boxer shorts to be visible, before he grabbed you by the waist and turned you to press your face against the wall. 

One of his arms then draped across your shoulders, pinning you down and arching your back, hard, making your ass press flush against the large tent in his underwear. You let out a small gasp at the feeling, and you could practically see the smirk curling slyly on his face. 

He can’t be that big, right? It was just your drunk mind, making him feel bigger than you thought through his shorts. Plus, you hadn’t been fucked in over a month — you were probably just not used to it. 

Because, that’d be totally unfair - he’s beautiful, charming, an amazing kisser, and has a huge cock? No fucking way — if he was all that, he’s definitely a secret terrorist, or something. 

However, these days, you’ve learned that you don't have the best intuition. First, with your boyfriend, then again, with the man who just pulled out his thick cock, stroking it gently. 

“Oh, fuck,” you cursed, head straining to look at him behind you. Unconsciously, you shyly closed your legs at the sight of him. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” the man crooned, his other hand sliding between your legs and spreading them apart once more. “No take backs, honey. You did say you wanted me, did you not?”

The two of you were flush against each other, and you could feel his hard length resting between your legs. Just that, just him between you, already had you trembling in anticipation. 

“Then fuck me already,” you bit back, feigning confidence. In actuality, you were thinking: how was all that supposed to fit? And, of all people, you, who hadn’t been stretched out to fit any cock at all, not since last month, when your boyfriend made his routine visit. You were a loyal girl, alright, and your fingers never went as deep as any cock could.

But the moment for you to reveal your worries passed, and he simpered. “So fucking eager.” 

Then, his large hands smoothed down the swell of your ass, following the curve, before he lifted his hand up and came down on your cheek, making a loud noise reverberate throughout the empty bathroom. 

Your breath caught in your throat, a choked gasp mixed with a tense moan coming out instead, and you flushed. Thank god you were pressed against the cold bathroom stall wall, for it provided a miniscule relief to your burning face. 

He’d spanked you, and you fucking moaned. 

“So you do like it dirty.” he cooed, fingers returning and hooking into the waistband of your panties. 

“I bet,” he said, dragging the thin fabric down extremely slow, “that you didn’t come to the bar tonight to just drink,” he pressed closer against you, your folds now sitting right above his thick length, “you came, with no bra and a slutty skirt on, looking to get fucked senseless, didn’t you?”

He slowly slid in and out against your folds, his cock just barely grazing your clit, and you swore you could have screamed. The way he was teasing you was absolutely delectable and, in the same vein, incredibly torturous. 

“Answer me, honey.” he hummed, free hand rubbing circles on the skin of your hip. 

You let out an exasperated groan. “I - I came here tonight, to - ah!” you squeaked when the fat tip of the man’s cock poked your tight hole. 

“You came here tonight to… what?” He said, nonchalant, as if he wasn’t slowly driving his large dick into you. 

“I came here to…” you squeezed your eyes shut, trying to ground your thoughts, and squarely not think about how mouthwateringly good the handsome strangers cock felt, “to get—“

Then, the loudest keen you’d ever heard tore out of you, your eyes rolling into the back of your head, when he suddenly shoved all of his length into your soaking cunt. 

He bottomed out with a breathy laugh, watching your knees buckle and your mouth hang wide open. Then, once more, his calloused hand came down on your ass, a large crack sounding out within the bathroom. 

“Shut the fuck up, whore. Someone’ll hear.” The stranger said, as if he hadn’t just made a loud noise spanking you like that. 

But the way he insulted, complemented, mocked and teased all in a few sentences had you shuddering; never in your life did you think such dirty words could make you so wet. 

You barely kept in another whine, waves of pleasure ebbing throughout your body. The burning pain of the spank in combination to how your walls squeezed around his cock had you barely coherent, your face taut with pleasure. 

“Fuck, baby, you’re dripping all over my cock,” he whispered, leaning down for you to hear. As he did so, however, his dick pressed further into you, and another helpless groan rolled off your tongue. 

“But you’re too goddamn loud.” The stranger growled, and the arm of the hand that was pressing you against the wall shifted, now covering your mouth. 

Before you could protest, he slid out, then snapped into you. Immediately, you saw stars, and a muffled mewl slipped past your lips. 

“Jesus christ,” he murmured, “your little fuckhole’s taking me so well.” He began to slide in and out at a fast, rhythmic pace, so fast you could barely comprehend the ecstacy you were feeling. 

“Oh my god,” you barely stuttered out past his large hand. He was pounding in and out of you relentlessly, selfishly, no regard for your moans or helpless whines, merely focussed on thrusting his fat cock into your sweet cunt. 

Then, the both of you heard the bathroom door open, and you froze. The handsome stranger moved quickly, grabbing you by the waist and planting you on his lap as he sat down on the toilet. His other hand, still trained on your mouth, gripped tighter than ever when he felt the groan bubble up from your throat: this new position of you on his lap had his long length pressed right against your cervix.

“Now you really gotta be quiet, honey,” he whispered, pressing his face into your neck. You shut your eyes helplessly, a dejected whimper exiting your mouth. 

“Just be fucking quiet. You don’t want everyone in this bar to know what a dirty slut you are, spreading your legs for a fucking stranger in the bathroom, right?” He said, words foul and like poison, but actions completely stark to it: he was pressing sweet, chaste kisses on your shoulder, laying his head on your back. 

The man in the other stall was taking so fucking long to finish, and, despite the stranger’s words, he began to slowly rut into you, his large hands coming to rest on your hips and help you slide up and down on his cock.

Your eyes widened. “What are- ah, wh— what are you doing?” you said, a stuttered, hesitant moan leaving  your mouth, but you were completely without the motivation to actually stop him: the pleasure you felt earlier had increased immensely in this slower, riskier pace he took on. 

“Shh,” was all you saw him say, as you strained your neck to look at him. He looked the epitome of smug, lips curled, cheeks flushed attractively, strands of hair falling down onto his forehead.

Without his hand to muffle your groans, you muffled them yourself, biting down on your tongue. One hand of yours gripped onto the stranger's thigh to keep your balance, and your other hand sneakily traveled down to your wet, hot mound, fingers beginning to rub at your clit. 

He noticed this, however, hand gripping at your wrist and pulling you back to pin your arm behind you. “Only I get to touch you,” he snarled, “because this fuckin’ pussy’s all mine. Gonna be all mine.”

You let out a shaky exhale at his words, but you found your cunt more flexible than before, the soft slapping of your skin between each other sounding easier, wetter. Jesus, did you really get more turned on by what he’d said?

Finally, the person who had wandered in and entered the stall beside you exited the bathroom entirely, and you belted out a sharp moan with how the stranger swiftly picked you up and pressed you against the wall once more, this time facing him. 

He plunged his big cock into you like nothing before, animalistically, nails digging so hard into your hips you swore he drew blood. His pace was stuttered, desperate, like nothing could distract him from pounding into you, not even a fucking meteor. 

You, on the other hand, were arching, the pleasure taking your body over completely. Your hands carded through his brown hair, tugging when he hit that particularly spongy spot into you. He groaned, a rough and stuttered thing, feeling himself brush against that spot every time. 

Your tight cunt was stretching and contracting around his dick, like you were made with his fat length in mind, and it drove you up the fucking wall: the pain in your hip, the cold linoleum wall, his cock thrusting in and out — it was all so much, and your orgasm began to spill out from under you. It was slow, like water coming out of an overfilled glass.

“You — god, you’re fucking coming, aren’t you,” the stranger said knowingly. Your cunt had gotten tenser, stickier, trying to grip at him like you were afraid he’d never come back to you. 

You nodded rapidly, opting to do so in fear an unintelligible string of groans would come out instead of your words. 

He grinned, and lifted your legs to wrap around his waist, allowing his cock deeper access into you. Your toes curled, the new angle like being impaled, his dick easily slipping past your slick folds. 

One of his hands lifted off your hip and trailed across your lower stomach, “Can you feel that, honey? Its my fucking cock, so deep m’gonna shoot my come right in your womb,” he purred, pressing the bulge. 

Both of you were affected, a breathy grunt slipping past his lips, and you a feverish mewl. You couldn’t believe how big he was, large enough for him to be fucking visible on you from the outside. 

Suddenly, you remembered the man’s name: he’d said it, offhand, to the bartender before you dragged him to the bathroom. He asked the bartender to put your drinks on his tab, under the name Jackson. 

You face grew taut, your orgasm suddenly switching from a slow, sneaky drip to a hard smack, right across your face. “Jackson! Jackson, please,” you moaned at last, his name sounding right at home on your tongue. 

“Fuck, honey, you remembered? God, that’s so hot,” He whispered sweetly, then dragged you through your orgasm, thick cock pounding in and out of your throbbing core. 

It was like all the pleasure had steadily built up within your insides, all up into a big ball, then had suddenly burst, flowing throughout your entire body like you weren’t already being fucked relentlessly. 

“Such a - fuck - tight and pretty pussy,” he said, leaning into rest his head against your chest. You were weak, sensitively riding out your high, but you knew Jackson wasn’t quite as close. 

His thrusts began getting sloppier, harsher and focussed merely on feeling your walls against every inch of him. Your head rested beside his own, your eyes practically crossing with the overstimulation. 

Despite your orgasm, your cunt was still soaking, definitely dripping and marking a wet patch on both your skirt and his pants. It made you tremble, thinking of you two tiredly exiting the bathroom, disheveled and having to cover the other up. 

At this point, you didn’t know what kind of filthy fucking noises were exiting your mouth, with Jackson’s grunts and groans covering up your whines completely.

“M’gonna come,” he said a few long moments later, almost inaudible. “Say my name, say who owns this tight fucking pussy.”

“You do! Jackson does!” You exclaimed, his cock ripping in and out of you quicker and more jolted. “Jackson owns this pussy!”

Jackson grinned weakly, and with one final, harried thrust, he let go deep within you. He clenched his jaw, piercing blue eyes shutting tight and losing himself within the warm and wet feeling of your cunt squeezing him for every drop. 

You were so fucking full, and even when Jackson pulled his softening cock out of you — which, was still huge despite its idleness — you felt stuffed to the brim. 

His come dripped down your leg, and he promptly pulled your panties up, patting your worn out cunt as he did so. “You’re taking all my fucking come, so good honey.” he said, pressing a hungry kiss to your neck. “You were right: this cunt’s better than whoever your shit ex cheated on you with.”

“Told you so.” You gazed up at him through heavy-lidded, gleeful eyes. He was an absolute darling sweetheart, it seemed, switching from degradingly fucking you to romantically praising you. “Are you… up for round two?” you said, as he slipped his hand within your own, clasping tightly. You didn’t really mean round two - though, you wouldn’t protest it, especially with his delectable way of fucking you - you actually just wanted to go home with him… see where this relationship could lead you.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to ask. You’re comin’ home with me tonight,” he saw through you cheekily, pulling you close to him. 

So, you did go home with him, and in the morning you laid beside him in the ruffled white sheets, counting the freckles on his face.

His eyes fluttered open when you shuffled. “Were you watching me?” he said, voice low and sleepy. 

You nodded silently, your hand coming up to pet his skin comfortingly. After a beat passed, you asked the question that was bothering you all morning. “Jackson, you wanted to fuck me first, right?”

He blinked, tense for a moment, before smoothing out his expression. “What?” he opted on saying instead, sounding every bit clueless and entirely convincing.

Not convincing enough for you, however. “Baby, you think I didn’t notice the shots you were calling over and inching toward me? I was drunk, not stupid.”

“Are you saying I took advantage of you?” He said darkly, a side of him otherwise unknown to you ‘till now. 

You raised a judging brow. “No need to be offended. I wanted to see where it was going to go: ‘did the handsome stranger want to fuck me, or did he want to kill me?’.”

He pulled you close to him, his arm snaking around your hips. “So, what are you saying?” he said, pressing a patronizing kiss to your forehead. 

“Hm. Well, I jus’ wanna know if this is a one nightstand.”

“And you don’t care about the - drinks, the “taking advantage” part?”

You let out a laugh. “I was confident, darling; I keep pepper spray and a pocket knife in my purse. Even if you did - which you didn’t - I’d make it out alive.”

Jackson bit his lip, looking up at you. This had meant to be a one night stand, considering the job he had, but you were looking at him so sweetly, so accepting, like you secretly knew what he did for a living and wanted him despite it. 

“Not a one night stand,” he murmured, leaning into your touch. 

You beamed, and, later, when you did find out what he did for a living, you merely cocked your head. Thought about it… outweighed the pros, the cons, (and the fact you were completely right: he was perfect, but also a fucking sociopath), and merely shrugged. 

“Honey, you’ll never do anything to me. Why should I care what you do for a living? Just don’t,” you warned, staring at him like you could and would fucking kill him, “cheat on me.” 

You didn’t have the best intuition. And, as it turned out, a great moral compass, either. 

[roosterforme]

Always Ever Only You Part 30 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley's excitement over the first set of ultrasound photos is unparalleled. He has never been so happy and so overwhelmed in his life, but at times he feels ill equipped to process everything that's happening. And the last thing he wants is to make you feel like he's growing tired of you.

Warnings: Swearing, smut, pregnancy topics, doctors, angst, fluff

Length: 6600 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order. Always Ever Only You masterlist. Gorgeous banner by @mak-32

Bradley wanted to be able to explain it to you, but he wasn't really sure he could. Sitting in the waiting room with you and anticipating an ultrasound to see the baby was honestly more than he ever thought he could have. You were more than he ever thought he deserved, and you wanted him anyway. But a baby? 

He barely had a baseline to build off of. His dad died when he was young enough that he only had a handful of fleeting memories. The sound of a laugh. Two big hands lifting him up when he fell. A lullaby sung softly as he drifted off to sleep. Besides the photos that you and he collected from his storage unit and the stories his mom recounted when he was younger, that's all he had.

But he could practically hear his mom telling him how excited Nick Bradshaw was to be a dad. Bradley could remember the joy in her voice whenever she told him about the way she would catch father and son goofing off together. She was adamant that Bradley cried almost nonstop the first day his dad was gone for a deployment. And now Bradley desperately wished he could remember these little details that made up their relationship. Because soon, god willing, he was going to be on the other side of things: the parent who loves goofing off and singing, but who also gets deployed and causes tears to fall.

It was all too overwhelming for him to put into words, but as he laced his fingers with yours, he knew he didn't have to figure out how to do everything all at once. 

"Are you nervous?" you asked.

Bradley looked at your open expression and immediately felt better. Talking through things and sharing his thoughts was the best way to keep from driving himself crazy while also letting you know how important you were. "Excited," he replied, kissing your cheek and ear. "Just really fucking excited. I've been thinking... about starting a notebook. Kind of for the baby? Like how sometimes I like to write down what I'm thinking and feeling for myself."

He still felt silly at times for sharing the notebooks with you, but you nodded with a little smile on your lips. "I love your deployment notebooks. I love what you wrote about me."

He reached for you and kissed you without hesitation. "I think I want the baby to be able to read about how much I was looking forward to meeting them. When they're older, I mean. They can read about how I feel like my heart is going to pound out of my chest right now. And how I can't wait to hold them and give them a name. All about how much I love their mom."

Bradley let you bury your face against his neck. It didn't feel like you were hiding from him so much as giving him a taste of the kind of response he'd get if the two of you were alone. "I like that idea." You kissed the side of his neck and said, "I adore you, Roo. You'll be the best daddy."

Bradley almost laughed when you jolted in your seat after the nurse called your name. "Come on back, you two," she said with a smile. "Hopefully mom and dad can leave with some new family photos."

"Holy shit," Bradley replied, palms suddenly sweaty. Baby photos. He was on his feet in an instant, ready to go. And maybe this was what his dad felt like. Perhaps his parents didn't know what they were doing either, but rather they just counted themselves lucky to go along for the ride. He wished one of them had left him a notebook.

You were smiling up at him as he reached for your hand again, and your fingers felt sure and steady all wrapped up with his. "I'm excited, too," you whispered, answering your own question from earlier while he ran his thumb along your rings. "And maybe a little nervous."

"I'm right here," he promised as the two of you followed the nurse into a room filled with equipment. "I'm not going anywhere."

He kissed you and then begrudgingly let go of your hand when the nurse gave you a hospital gown to change into. As she left the room with the promise that your doctor would be in shortly, Bradley dragged his palms across his khaki covered thighs as he sat down and watched you change. Even though you were suffering from near constant nausea, he thought you looked incredible. Your face was glowing, and you kept looking at him with adoration in your eyes. 

"Jesus," he grunted when you removed your bra. Was it possible that today he was the hornier one for once? "Sweetheart. Your tits," he whispered as he ran a hand over his face while you giggled. "Unreal." Then your underwear went sliding down your legs, and he reached down to help you out of them. "Hand me the gown," he told you as he folded your underwear across his knee.

You slipped into the gown when he held it open for you, and then you stood between his legs while he secured the ties and kissed you through the fabric. Your laughter filled the small room, and when the doctor walked in, she found you sitting on Bradley's lap while he ran his knuckles gently across your belly. 

"I'm Dr. Morris," she said, shaking hands with you as you stood and then reaching for Bradley's. "I love it when partners show up for appointments, too. It's a lot more fun."

He watched Dr. Morris help you up onto the table, immediately missing your warm body next to his. "I plan on being here for every appointment unless I'm deployed." Your smile faltered a little bit at his words, so he added, "And even then, I'd steal a jet and fly in for a few hours. This is that important to me."

Your smile was restored and then some. Bradley scooted the chair a little closer when you reached for his hand as Dr. Morris started to ask you some questions and enter them into the software. "Do you recall when you last menstruated? I'd like to calculate a due date assuming we find a healthy fetus."

Once you told her the date of your last period, Bradley blurted out, "Why wouldn't it be healthy?"

Now he had two pairs of eyes on him as you squeezed his sweaty hand. "It's very early," Dr. Morris said. "Complications are more likely to occur in the first trimester than in the second or third. And your wife is just between seven and eight weeks along based on her cycle."

"Oh," Bradley said, swallowing hard. You'd tried to tell him all of this information before, letting him know it was too early to inform your parents or Nat or any of your other friends. But it felt somehow wrong coming from someone else. He didn't like this information when it was laid out before him in the exam room. 

"It's okay, Roo," you told him, a sweet smile still on your face. So he nodded and watched your lips and the curve of your cheek as you answered a few more questions and asked about prenatal vitamins.

Then eventually Dr. Morris said the only words Bradley really wanted to hear right now. "Let's see what we can find with the ultrasound."

He was sitting on the edge of his seat, elbow leaning on the exam table as he gripped your hand for dear life. As excited as he'd been, now he was on the verge of being sick. What if he'd been too rough with you in bed? What if the football at the beach really did hit you in the wrong spot? What if all of the vomiting had been worse than either of you considered?

One thing was for certain. Bradley was going to love you no matter what, until his dying day. So he held onto your hand and kissed your knuckles as Dr. Morris squeezed lube onto a wand that looked a bit like one of the vibrators you had at home. "Is that for the ultrasound?" he asked, watching you spread your legs wider. 

"Yes," the doctor replied, and a huge computer monitor lit up. "We need to get really up close at this stage to be able to see anything, so we're doing a transvaginal ultrasound today. The ones you're thinking of that use a paddle on the belly will come later."

"Right," he replied, and as soon as she slipped the wand inside you, he watched you purse your lips in slight discomfort. "You okay, Sweetheart?" he whispered, eyes glued to your face for any sign of pain. But your pinched expression melted away, and your lips parted softly as you sighed and stared at the computer monitor. 

"Oh. Oh, Bradley! Look!"

When he turned toward the screen, he slowly stood as you pulled his hand closer to your body and held it with both of yours. Everything looked a little fuzzy at first, just some gray and black shapes. But then a cute little bean started to take shape as Dr. Morris adjusted the wand, and Bradley rasped, "Is that the baby?"

"Yes," she replied evenly, also watching the monitor. "And everything looks great."

Warmth spread through his entire body as Bradley huffed out a laugh while you giggled. He wasn't sure if his hand was shaking or if it was yours, but he leaned down and kissed your wrists before finding your lips with his. "That's our baby," he whispered, kissing you once more.

"It's adorable," you said, smiling nonstop. "Like a little bean, or a chicken nugget."

Bradley leaned on the table, keeping as close to you as he could. "I'm already so in love." He could feel tears in his eyes as Dr. Morris froze the screen. "Is it over?" he asked in a slight panic. In all honesty, he could happily spend the rest of the day right here with you and the baby, and he wasn't prepared to say goodbye yet.

"Just capturing some images," she reassured him. "Baby's first picture."

"Oh my god," Bradley groaned softly, and you ran your fingers through his hair as he ducked his head against your shoulder. "That's the first picture, Baby Girl."

"The baby looks just like you, Roo," you told him with a laugh, and he kissed you until the doctor cleared her throat.

"Let's see what we can find if we zoom in a little more."

With rapt attention once again, Bradley stared at the screen. It looked like the baby was bouncing around a bit, wiggling to an unknown song. "Is that movement good?" he asked. "And what's that little flickering spot?"

"Very good," she replied. "And the flickering is the heartbeat."

"The heartbeat?" That was inexplicably what threw him over the edge as a tear managed to squeeze its way down his cheek when he blinked. "Holy shit."

He just let his head rest against your chest and basked in the feel of your fingers in his hair as you whispered, "I love you." Bradley had no idea if you were talking to him or the baby. Or maybe both. Or maybe you loved Dr. Morris, because in this moment he certainly did as she snapped more photos. Maybe you loved everything right now just like he did.

"I love you, too."

--------------------------

Bradley was falling apart as you ran your fingertips along his scarred cheek. Or perhaps he was completely keeping it together. You weren't really sure. He had some tears in his eyes even though he was smiling, and the two of you were holding onto each other. 

"Do you want to listen to the heartbeat as well?" Dr. Morris asked, and the two of you responded at the same time. 

"Yes!"

She laughed and adjusted the ultrasound wand inside you which was actually extremely uncomfortable, but you were starting to think Bradley would cry harder when she removed it. And then you heard it. Dr. Morris adjusted something on the control panel, and set a device on your belly, and you could hear the heartbeat. 

"Why is it so fast?" Bradley asked, squeezing your hand. "That's like really fast."

Now your heartbeat was picking up, but Dr. Morris said, "One hundred and fifty two beats per minute. That's perfectly where it should be."

"Oh, okay," Bradley sighed, eyes transfixed on the monitor. "That's good then. That's a strong Bradshaw heartbeat right there. Can you take another picture? The nugget looks really cute like that."

You laughed and reached for him when she eventually shut off the equipment and removed the wand. At Bradley's request, she printed out enough copies of each image that you'd be able to give them to your parents, all of your friends and even Bradley's cousin Brenda in Virginia. 

"This seems like overkill," you whispered as the printer just kept going and going.

"It's not," he promised. "I need all of them to wallpaper my locker and fill my helmet bag. Just a bunch of pictures of you and now the baby, too."

"We'll get more ultrasound photos at the next appointment. And the next one after that," you reminded him. 

"Good. We'll have enough to wallpaper at home, too." Eased himself back down into the chair as you sat up a little bit while Dr. Morris cleaned up her workstation. 

"When is the due date?" you asked suddenly. 

"March 24th," she replied, and you and Bradley shared a smile. "Do either of you have any other questions for me?" she asked as she handed a massive stack of ultrasound photos to your husband who looked like he just won the lottery. 

"When can we find out if it's a girl or a boy?" he asked, looking through the images with a crooked little grin on his face. 

"In the second trimester," she assured him. "You'll make a special appointment for an anatomy scan."

You cleared your throat and said, "So... I've been really quite... I'm sure it's the hormones and everything, but I've been extremely aroused for the past few weeks." Bradley gave you a wide eyed look as you asked, "Basically, I want my husband around the clock right now, and I want to know if that's normal?"

He let out a strangled choking sound, and his cheeks started to flush pink as Dr. Morris said, "That's totally normal. Have at it."

You pressed your lips together before you quickly asked, "And rough is okay? Like pretty rough."

"Yep," she replied, completely unfazed by your words as Bradley looked like he wanted to run out of the room with his stack of baby pictures. "Anything else?"

A smile crept to your lips, one that Bradley would have probably found alarming if he were looking anywhere else except the door at the moment. "Actually, yes. I do have one more question for you, Dr. Morris. Based on the size of the baby and the date of my last period, can you tell me when you think the baby was conceived?"

"Sure," she replied, turning the monitor back on and scrolling through all of the information in your electronic file. 

"You did not just ask her that," Bradley whispered, his voice deep with annoyance and maybe a little bit of desire as you grinned at him and bit your lip. 

"I would say you probably conceived right around June 27th."

You squealed with delight as Bradley groaned. "Thank you so much, Dr. Morris. We'll see you again in a few weeks."

When she left the room, you hopped off the table and started to untie your gown, pausing to pump your fist in the air while Bradley held his forehead in his hand. "Okay, okay. You win," he whined as he laughed. "You win."

"I told you the baby was conceived in the Honda!"

---------------------------

Later that night, Bradley kept reminding himself that Dr. Morris said rough sex was okay. That seemed to be the only way you wanted it as you got on all fours on the bed and said, "Fuck me hard, Daddy." And Bradley was never going to be one to deny his wife anything she asked for. 

Beads of sweat were rolling down his face, occasionally dripping onto your back as he leaned over you. He was panting next to your ear as he went as hard as he could, fucking you until your knees buckled and he had to hold you up. "You know, I used to have a wife who liked it sweet sometimes. I wonder what happened to her?"

"You knocked her up," you gasped as he rubbed your clit with his fingers. 

Fuck, he was getting close, and your words were not helping in the least. "Come on, Baby Girl. Come for Daddy." 

A few more swipes of his fingers and a little more dirty talk, and you were coming. Holy hell, you were coming hard, which was a good thing, because Bradley needed a break. You released an unholy moan as your legs gave out again, and this time, he let you sink down to the bed as he grabbed his cock in time to come all over your ass and your back. 

"Roo," you gasped as he painted you up, and you met his eyes over your shoulder. "That's so fucking hot!"

"I'm glad you think so," he grunted before he sprawled out on the bed next to you on his back. "I got nothing left in the tank, Sweetheart. Do not ask me for more tonight."

You crawled over to kiss his sweaty face and whispered, "You did so good," as you patted his abs adoringly. "You're already the world's best Daddy." Then you leaned down and cleaned his cum from the head of his cock with your tongue, and Bradley moaned as you climbed out of bed. "I'm going to shower and get ready for bed."

He raised his hand in a wave or surrender, he wasn't quite sure which. Forty-five minutes of nailing you until you screamed his name was the most intense workout he'd had in weeks. He needed to hit his home gym in the garage a little harder. Maybe he could invite Jake over to lift weights with him, and then he could sneak away and take a nap while you and Jake had one of your gossip sessions. That actually sounded pretty great.

Bradley managed to get out of bed long enough to let Tramp out and brush his teeth. By that point, you were getting out of the shower and drying yourself off,  humming and sighing softly. 

"I know what you're trying to do," he said with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. "And it's not gonna work."

You looked at him with one eyebrow raised as you ran the towel across your chest. "I'm sorry. What exactly am I trying to do that's not going to work?"

He spit out his toothpaste and rinsed his mouth, sending a glare at you in the mirror. "Look at your fucking tits, Sweetheart. Now you're just flaunting them."

"I'm literally just standing here."

He shook his head and kissed your forehead as he walked past. "You know what you did."

When you slipped in bed next to him, he pulled you close while you laughed softly. You were wearing nothing except for his old UVA shirt, and when you curled up next to him, he pushed you gently onto your back. Then he yanked the shirt up and shimmied under the covers so his lips were next to your tummy. 

He kissed up and down your side before laying with his cheek on your hip and one hand on your belly. "Listen kid, I don't know what you're doing in there, but I need you to chill, okay? Someday soon, you'll get to see how pretty and perfect your mommy is. Yes, I think about her all day long. Yes, I love her, but I can only take so much. Your old man is an old man."

You lifted up the covers, and Bradley felt your fingers in his hair. "No, you're not."

He kissed the spot just below your belly button before returning to his pillow. "I'll be close to thirty-eight when this little nugget arrives."

"That's not old."

When you curled up on him this time, he collected you in his arms. If you were surprised by his words, you didn't let on. "My dad died when he was twenty-nine. My mom died when she was forty-two. You're a bit younger than me, not that I mind. But my age is something I think about a lot. I'm older than all my friends. I like to be prepared for things before I jump into them. I like to feel out my surroundings. Except when it comes to you, apparently."

You snuggled in a little closer, voice soft as you asked, "What do you mean?"

Bradley kissed your fingers before lacing them with his in the dark bedroom. "I was all in with you as soon as you looked at me. Zero hesitation. No turning back."

You buried your face in his chest and moaned. "You can't just talk about me like that. It makes me insane for you," came your muffled voice, and Bradley laughed. 

"I guess I never had any hesitation about us having kids either. And I'm just saying... it's nice to have time to think about the baby before the baby actually gets here. But I'm also in my head a lot right now about my parents and how much more flying I've got left in me and how I don't actually know how the fuck to take care of a baby."

"Bradley!" Your voice was scolding as you propped yourself up on him. "We're a team. And I wouldn't lie to you. You're not old, and I'm pretty sure nobody actually knows how to take care of a baby until they have one in front of them. Then you just kind of do it, I guess. The fact that you are so excited about this pregnancy is at least half of what's turning me on so much. You will be the best dad imaginable, because you love me so well, and I don't doubt you have more of that to give."

He was exhausted, and your words settled over him like something he could physically feel. "I really am so excited. Today felt like a dream. I just want to cover the whole house in the ultrasound photos, and I can't wait to get another smaller paper airplane tattoo."

He felt your fingers trace his tattoo in the darkness. You knew exactly where it was without guidance just like he knew exactly where yours was. "You'll get it right here? With the baby's name on it?"

"Yeah," he whispered, starting to feel like he was going to doze off.

"I have a question," you said, and he squeezed your hand softly. "Earlier you asked when we can find out if it's a boy or a girl."

He smiled at the hesitation in your voice. "What's your question?"

Bradley could feel your heartbeat against his body, and he thought about how he had been able to see and hear what the baby was doing just a few hours ago. The beautiful sound of that rapid heartbeat that belonged to his child. 

"Do you care? If it's a boy or a girl?"

"No," he answered honestly. "Not one bit. I just care that it's ours."

"Me too. I'm happy either way." Your words sounded soft and dreamy, and he believed them.

"I love you both. Now let the old man sleep."

--------------------------

The rest of the week felt like a bit of a reality check. You tried taking the prenatal vitamins from Dr. Morris, but you threw them back up almost instantly every single time. "Just skip them," Bradley said on Friday morning as you threw up in the toilet when you were trying to get dressed for work. 

"I can't," you practically wailed. "They are supposed to keep me healthy so I can keep the baby healthy." You looked up at him from where you were sitting on the floor.

He sighed and checked the time. "Why don't you just stay home today? You're looking pretty green, and it's Friday anyway. Text Bickel."

Anger flared inside you. He was standing there looking nice and tidy in his khakis while you were on the floor turning yours into a wrinkly mess. And the reason for that was the fact that you had to deal with all of this shit. He just got to enjoy your libido while being excited about the baby. You really didn't want to start resenting him right now when you were leaving for Maryland soon.

"I can't just skip work on a whim like what I'm doing isn't important," you snapped. "I'm trying to get my presentation ready for Annapolis, in case you forgot you offered to help me with that."

He was on his knees in an instant with your chin in his hand. "Hey, that's not what I meant. I just don't want you overexerting yourself, especially since your work is important and you'll be traveling soon."

You still felt bitchy, even though he made you peanut butter crackers and took Tramp for a walk while you stayed curled up in bed for an extra twenty minutes. "That's right. I'll be gone for a week. I'm sure you're looking forward to having a break from the near constant sex."

You used the vanity to pull yourself to your feet while your stomach lurched, even though he was holding his hand out to help you. "Look at me," he demanded without touching you at all. You didn't want to, but you shifted your gaze to his face as he stood too. "If you really think that's true, then we have a serious problem. I'm going to assume that you feel the need to take your nausea out on me, and that's fine. I don't really mind. That's what I'm here for. But do not accuse me of ever wanting to be separated from you."

You pressed your lips together and just nodded as he leaned down to kiss your cheek. You didn't want to be away from him either, but you felt another wave of sickness rolling through your body.

"I need to go, Sweetheart. I'll stop and get you some of those ginger pills on my way home. Maybe they'll help. I love you."

After he left, you threw up again and fought the urge to throw the bottle of prenatal vitamins across the bathroom. Even now you were horny enough that you considered climbing back in bed with your vibrator to take the edge off, but you knew nothing would be as good as the real thing. And you'd have to apologize to Bradley before you could have that, and it would undoubtedly make you cry when you did. 

When you finally made your way back out to the kitchen, you found more peanut butter crackers arranged on a plate in the shape of a heart with one of the ultrasound photos next to it. Tears welled up in your eyes, and you tried to call your husband, but it went to voicemail. You listened to his raspy voice before ending the call and texting him instead.

I'm sorry. If you want Marry Me Rooster for dinner, pick up some chicken along with the ginger pills.

After you tucked the ultrasound picture in the new Bronco, you spent your whole morning sitting quietly with Cat, the two of you going over each presentation slide with a fine tooth comb. "Is that calculation correct?" she asked, pulling out a calculator. 

"It fucking better be. I did it myself. Months ago."

She looked at you with wide eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," you lied, anxious that Bradley hadn't responded to your text. Two days ago, you were having the absolute time of your life with Dr. Morris, and now you wanted to scream. "Can we just finish this?" you said through gritted teeth as Cat checked your math which was obviously done correctly. 

"That's what we're working on," she said smoothly, using her mom voice on you and making your nerves prickle. "Finishing the slides so we can spend next week practicing and getting our notes in order for all of these meetings and cocktail receptions."

The last thing you wanted to do right now was pretend you were drinking alcohol while trying not to vomit. Nothing about this trip to Annapolis seemed appealing. And you didn't want to have to try to hide your pregnancy from your parents if you drove to see them one night. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cat asked, and you had to steel your spine as you nodded. 

"I'm perfect." There was no point in making her mad at you when the two of you would be in close quarters for several days, so you rolled your shoulders and got back to work.

-----------------------------

Asking Jake if he wanted to workout actually wasn't the best idea Bradley had come up with recently. It would be nice to have someone to spot for him at the weight bench, but if you were making his favorite dinner, he'd rather spend the time with you. 

"Fuck," he groaned as Jake followed him to the grocery store on his way home. Apparently he needed protein powder and didn't mind that Bradley had to stop for chicken. Of course now he had to try to discreetly grab the ginger pills that you wanted to try for your nausea. 

It ended up being easier than he thought since Jake took fifteen minutes to decide which flavor of protein powder he wanted. He was still looking at them when Bradley went back to that aisle. "Are you almost done?"

Jake shot him a nasty look from where he was squatting at the bottom shelf. "Listen, it would go faster if I didn't get hit on constantly when I'm wearing my uniform."

Bradley rolled his eyes so hard, he was afraid he'd get a migraine. "Keep it in your fucking pants. I'll meet you at my house."

Jake grabbed a container and followed him to the registers. When they passed a hot sauce display, he grabbed one and handed it to Bradley. "Get this for Angel, and maybe you'll get laid. Sounds like you need it."

"It's literally the last thing I need," he mumbled, but paid for it anyway along with the ginger and the chicken. When Bradley slid his credit card back in his wallet, he saw the corner of the ultrasound image he had tucked in there last night. He unfolded it and took a peek as Jake paid for his powder. You were everything. And the baby was everything. And he should have been a little more patient with you this morning. 

"You coming?" Jake asked, and Bradley shoved the nugget photo back inside his wallet before slipping it into his pocket. 

You were already home, and Bradley parked the blue Bronco next to the red one. Jake came careening into the driveway, stopping about two inches from the back of the new Bronco. "Show her a little respect, okay?"

Jake snorted as he climbed out. "You literally fucked the other car to bits. I didn't do shit."

Bradley groaned as he walked inside with Jake on his heels. The first thing he saw was you in the kitchen, feeding Tramp a treat. You had on some skin tight yoga pants and a little shirt without a bra, and you turned to him and said, "Can we talk?" He opened his mouth to tell you that you could have any damn thing you wanted, and then you said, "Hi, Jake," with a look of surprise on your face. "I didn't know you were coming over."

"Hey, Angel," Jake crooned, walking into the kitchen and pulling you in for a tight hug. Shit, Bradley forgot to text you and let you know he wasn't going to be alone. "Didn't see you at lunch today."

"I worked through lunch," you replied, your eyes on Bradley. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Nah, just going to lift weights out in the garage with Rooster for a bit. I'll be out of your hair after that."

"You can stay if you want," you told him, but he was already heading toward the hallway bathroom with his gym bag. "Why didn't you tell me he was coming over?" you whispered. "I'm not even wearing underwear, and you left one of the ultrasound photos on the fridge."

Bradley quickly pulled it down and stuck it in the freezer on his way to get to you. "I'm sorry. I meant to text you, but then I got in the Bronco and forgot." Tears welled up in your eyes; he should be used to this by now, but he was not. "If you're horny, I'll take care of you as soon as Jake leaves."

You scoffed at him. "It's not that. I don't just want that. I wanted to talk. You're not just a gigantic, walking dick to me."

Jake cleared his throat, and you and Bradley both turned to see him standing there in his gym clothes. "I'll meet you out in the garage," he said with a smirk. "Take your time."

"I'll just be a minute," Bradley called over his shoulder, but you'd already started to open the chicken he set on the counter. "Do you want to talk now?"

"No." Great. You were giving him one word answers now. 

"Would you like me to get changed and get out of your hair?"

"Yes."

---------------------------

As soon as Bradley walked through the sliding glass door and headed for the garage, you broke out in tears. What the fuck was your problem? You didn't mind if Jake was here or if he stayed for dinner. You didn't want to completely discourage Bradley from hanging up the nugget photo. You just couldn't control your emotions, and you had zero patience today. And you couldn't stop running to the bathroom to pee. 

You decided to fill up some travel mugs with water and take them out to the guys to smooth things over. Tramp ran around in the grass as you walked across the yard, and you could already hear the two of them talking over their playlist as you approached the doorway. 

"Is Angel's ass bigger now?" Jake asked, pointing to the dirty calendar that Bradley hung on the wall and strategically covered part of with a post-it note.

Your husband shook his head. "Stop staring at my calendar," he replied as he added weight to one side of the bar. "And stop talking about my wife's ass."

"She's in a feisty mood today. You probably didn't even need that hot sauce to get laid, old man." Based on Jake's response, you were pretty sure neither of them had seen you in the doorway yet as you stood there awkwardly. 

Bradley's brow creased. "She's been a real handful, actually."

Jake hooted with laughter. "In the bedroom? Never mind, I don't want to know."

It took Bradley a few seconds to respond. "Can we talk about anything else other than my wife? Please? Literally any other topic would be great."

You turned on your heel and carried the waters back toward the house as soon as you heard Jake say, "Speaking of asses, you know who has a great one..."

They were out there for a full hour. You made what turned out to be perhaps the most incredible looking batch of Marry Me Rooster of your life while you stewed. Even your husband was already sick of you. Soon you'd gain so much pregnancy weight, your ass would probably be enormous. He'd probably have to close his eyes just to have sex with you. 

You froze as you were putting the chicken onto a plate. What if he couldn't stand the sight of you with a belly at all? All stretched out and weird? Bradley had probably glorified it in his mind, but you knew it wasn't going to be all that appealing when you were nine months along in the middle of March with stretch marks galore. You were already bloated enough that Jake noticed.

You were turning and looking down at your body when they both came walking back inside, out of breath. "Smells good in here. Are these for us?" Bradley asked, pointing at the waters on the island. 

"Yes," you whispered, afraid to meet his eyes. As soon as you heard his voice, you were horny again, but you didn't want to keep forcing him to have sex with you just because you couldn't help yourself.

Jake kissed you on the cheek, and when you told him he was welcome to stay for dinner, he said, "I'll take a raincheck. See you for golf on Sunday, Rooster," and headed out to his car.

"Do you think you can eat dinner?" Bradley asked you softly. When you turned away from him and nodded, he said, "You didn't have to wait for me if you were hungry. Do you want me to shower first?"

You burst into tears once again. "I don't know if I'm hungry. I don't ever know. Sometimes I just grow up. And I can't stop fucking crying! And I don't want you to be so sick of me that you'd rather talk about literally anything else with Jake, including someone else's ass."

"Whoa, whoa," he said quietly, spinning you around again. "I don't want to talk about anything else besides you, Sweetheart."

You shook your head and covered your eyes with your hands. "I tried to bring the waters outside. I heard you."

When you were pulled snug against his sweaty shirt, you felt slightly better. "Baby Girl. I was not about to get into a conversation with Jake about how I can barely keep up with you in bed. In order to keep my pride intact, I would at least want him to know you're pregnant if I'm admitting that you're wearing me out." He kissed the top of your head over and over.

"It feels like you're getting sick of me," you sobbed softly. "And you brought me hot sauce even though I can't eat it right now, and that made me so sad."

"I couldn't be less sick of you if I tried. I just needed to keep Jake off my back rather than let slip that you're pregnant, so I got the hot sauce. And it's completely my fault I forgot to tell you he was coming over, but I had a lot on my mind today."

"Like what?" you asked, inhaling how delicious he smelled even compared to the dinner you made.

"Like possible baby names and the look and feel of your pussy when I fuck you. Do you need me right now? Because I'm ready to go when you want me."

"So badly," you squeaked. "I'm sorry, Roo."

"Don't ever apologize again for wanting to have sex with me. I will be the one to apologize if I don't last as long as you need me to."

You nodded against him. "Well then I'll apologize for having a bad attitude."

"Do you need me to fuck the attitude out of you?" 

"Yes, sir."

-------------------------------

Imagine how excited he'll be holding that baby in his beefy arms. Just stay calm, sweet Roo. The hormones won't last forever. Up next, we're going to Annapolis. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 31

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[saltpepperbeard]

Call It Through as a Crew: Alleviating Some Phone Anxiety

Hello everyone! So as you probably already know, there has been a recent call to make, well, calls! Another member of our crew figured out that the max customer service line (855-442-6629) is a very effective way to get our feedback heard, as the feedback gets transcribed and shared to a multitude of teams.

I already sort of briefly shared my experience on this post, but I wanted to go a bit more in detail to offer some solace for those who are also phone averse, as well as share resources and get the word out even more.

And y'all, when I say I'm phone averse, I mean PHONE AVERSE LMAO; MY FEET WERE SWEATING JSDKLS LIKE I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE. So I totally, TOTALLY get it, and am here to walk you through everything in detail!

So I called that number and was on a brief hold--probably like 5 minutes or so. The customer service representative (Margot my bestie Margot) then picked up, and asked for the email associated with my account as well as my full name.

I was extremely extremely worried and anxious about being bothersome/annoying the person on the other end and just being able to feel it in their tone, so I was shivering and sweating all the while. But then when she asked for my reason for calling, I said, "Oh, it's actually in regard to some feedback," and she went, "Is it for Our Flag Means Death?"

And we both laughed, and I was like, "Haha how did you knooooowww?" And she laughed some more and was like, "Let me tell you, I have never seen anything like this in all my years working here. We are getting so many calls. It's incredible."

And by that point, a large weight was off my chest because she was friendly, I was friendly, EVERYONE WAS FRIENDLY.

I laughed and told her that we were a very passionate and concerned bunch, and she told me that she thought that was so cool and also super important. She then allowed me to tell her my feedback, and she transcribed it as I talked. This was the little script I had prepared in case you'd like to reference it:

I just wanted to call and express my disappointment, dissatisfaction, and concern with the recent cancellation of Our Flag Means Death on Max. As a queer person myself, this show has a tremendous impact on me. And in a climate where so many diverse and LGBT-centric shows have unjust ends, I’d just like to express my wish for reconsideration, and just the hope that…Max will allow LGBT stories like ours to live and flourish. And I’m really worried about there being some kind of…homophobic angle to the cancellation, so it would mean the world to myself and so many others if the decision could be reversed, and we could get our third and final season.

I went a little graver than originally planned, because I saw talks that taking a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) angle, as well a "hey I'm a queer person and this feels like a decision made for a nefarious purpose" angle, are supposedly more likely to be noted.

Anyway, she allowed me to say my piece and wrote it all down, and then actually stayed with me on the line to chat a bit more. So, the phone call didn't feel rushed or anxious which was SO so huge to me; it felt far more conversational.

She was like, "I don't want to toot our little horn or anything, but Max really takes all this feedback into consideration. It will be passed to the properties team (or something equivalent, I can't remember the EXACT term she used), and they're in charge of what goes on Max and why. So, I really feel like you guys have a fighting chance with these efforts."

And of course I was thanking her profusely for telling me all of this, and for listening; polite menace, that will be my brand!

But man, the coolest part of all? She told me that she was POC, and a queer person herself, and that this was all so cool and so amazing to see. She applauded our efforts, and expressed interested in the show. I laughed and said, "Well uhhhh I might have a BIT of a bias, but I cannot recommend it enough."

And then she proceeded to tell me that it might be even MORE effective to hit from different angles. So, keep calling (they're available 24/7), and also keep utilizing the online feedback form. Basically just keep FLOODING them with how much this means to us and why.

I then expressed a lot of gratitude, we exchanged pleasantries, and there was a brief survey at the end. I don't think the survey is necessary, so you can probably hang up by this point, but I stuck around for a little more horsepower. It tells you to rate the customer service on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest, and you know I gave my bestie a fivvvveee. It also tells you to press 1/2 if your issue was resolved or not. I said HELL TO THE NO, DUDE SJDKLS. And THEN, it asks you to leave a voice message after the tone describing your experience. I said that I was with the customer service representative Margot, and that she was extremely friendly and helpful, but that the issue at hand will not be resolved until Max reserves their decision about the recent cancellation of Our Flag Means Death (I'm also always saying the show title in full as opposed to just the acronym, just for more OOMPH).

...And thennnn I proceed to shake it/shriek it all off LMAO.

Buuuut yeah! Probably took a total of 10 minutes or so. @xoxoemynn also shared with me that she's seen people say that these customer service representatives likely deal with older folks who need help with technology, and are subsequently stunned (and maybe even excited) to talk to younger people who just want to voice concerns instead of chew the poor customer service people out lol! And Margot also mentioned that they were eager to take calls no matter what, so as long as we're all polite and succinct, I don't think we'll have to worry about a very tense and awkward call.

I hope this alleviates some fear a bit! We got this, crew. We're doing so, so much. And it seems like it's being heard all over the place; it also seems like we've got so many people on our side, too. Big big hugs, and I'll share the necessary resources once more-

Customer Service Number: (855) 442-6629

The Online Feedback Form:

The original tumblr post with all the information:

The tumblr post where Fox and others were sharing even more information:

[thetypingpup]

I think woohwa are such an underrated pair 😵‍💫 I didn't realize that until I wrote them myself but listen... wooyoung as the more aggressive partner, handling you more roughly and pushing you to your limit--his mouth on your used cunt, hands holding your spasming hips down while he eats his own cum out of you. but then seonghwa's there to push him off you, giving you a break while he peppers tender kisses over your heated skin, only to slip his neglected cock inside you when you least expect it, holding it between your walls until you beg him to fuck you too.

so you chose personal violence i see 🤯 (fyi this ended up completely different this is super soft the whole time i couldn't help myself 🤧)

naaah but imagine seonghwa guiding him to be gentle from jump. wooyoung is all grabby hands and kisses riddled with teeth and tongue, tugging your clothes out of the way in his eagerness to get to you, which while fun is a bit overwhelming at first. your mind is spinning within a matter of moments, trying to keep up with the flurry of touches and kisses. between the feeling of his body pressed against you tugging you closer, the feeling of his cock pressing against your thigh, the hums that emit from between his lips as he slides his tongue past yours, you're too overwhelmed for words. seonghwa's calm presence manages to cool things down, and knowing you exactly what you like, teaches wooyoung to do the same thing.

"you like her, don't you? you wanna make her feel good?" seonghwa inquires, a roving hand stroking your thigh with fleeting fingertips, and wooyoung nods emphatically.

"i do." wooyoung breathily sighs, gazing right into your eyes, "i really do."

"then you need to be gentler with her." seonghwa tells him, demonstrating his point by pressing a tender kiss to your lips, "treat her softly, like a princess."

and when he goes to eat you out, wooyoung's fervent eagerness drives him to latch his mouth onto your clit instantly and lick all over the sensitive bundle of nerves, making you whine from the onslaught of pleasure. grabbing him by the hair, seonghwa pulls him back and redirects him to go, "slowly, wooyoung. remember, you need to be gentle with her, like a princess."

"like a princess." wooyoung echoes, tenderness seeping into his heated gaze.

"now start slowly." seonghwa instructs, letting you lean back against his chest, spreading his legs to widen yours, "kiss up her thighs. build the anticipation for both of you. she likes when you take your time with her."

and wooyoung takes his time making his way up your inner thighs, eyes sliding shut as the scent of you gets closer and closer, his cock hardening even more as he takes in the aroma of your arousal. soft groans sound from his lips because he just can't believe how enticing your scent is, mouth watering as he anticipates the first taste of you on his tongue.

"look her in the eye." seonghwa tells him, his own hands making their way up your body to cup your breasts, "show her how much you like her with your gaze."

and when your eyes meet, your breath hitches at the intensity in his gaze. you can see such ardent lust darkening his eyes, faced with how he's practically trembling with anticipation. his gaze sweeps over every part of your naked body, taking in every detail, before honing in on your glistening folds. it's taking everything in him to hold himself back, having to muster every ounce of restraint not to just ravage you like he's always desired, and that evident desire has arousal pooling between your legs because fuck it's hot to see how much he wants you. but he takes his time for you, wanting to show you just how much he likes you by doing exactly what you like, just as seonghwa said. your heart pounds in your chest, both at the eroticism of it all, and at the consideration from both of them.

"now wait." seonghwa gently gets you both to sit and savor the moment, his hand trailing down to softly stroke your folds. he traces light circles over your clit before running his fingertips over your flaring folds, slowly, letting you open up for both of them on your own time. you gasp softly at the feeling of his fingers, arching up into him automatically, as you have countless times before. but this time, with an audience right between your legs, the excitement makes your head spin all the more viscously. his other arm is wrapped around your waist in an embrace that you both take note of, and wooyoung watches with rapt attention how you easily relax in his warms.

"you see that?" seonghwa hums lowly in your ear, tingling shudders rippling through you when he kisses the curve of your neck. his fingers keep slowly teasing your pussy as he continues, "you see how pretty her pussy is? how much she yearns to feel your tongue?"

"yes..." wooyoung breathes out in a voice that sounds like he's far from this plane of reality. he's transfixed, completely entranced by the meeting of your thighs, especially now that he's made to savor and wait. it just makes him want you more, seeing the very subject of his obsessive affection laid bare right before him, and being told to wait until he can indulge. he busies himself by planting soft kisses on your inner thighs, satisfying his need to do something with his mouth while he waits, making you shudder from the subtle affection.

seonghwa can feel the desperation emanating from you both and chuckles lowly, eliciting pulses between both of your legs at his next words, "i can tell you from experience she tastes incredible, but remember, take your time with her baby."

before he lets him dive in, seonghwa tilts wooyoung's chin up to look at him directly, and wooyoung would shyly retreat if not for the firm yet tender hold on his face. once more, seonghwa reminds him, "remember baby, slowly, softly. treat her like the princess she is."

"like a princess." wooyoung nods, nosing his way between your legs before addressing you, "are you ready, princess?"

and there's something about the way wooyoung calls you princess, the endearment so warm with fervent fondness, that it brings heat to the surface of your cheeks. you shift a bit, letting your legs fall open wider, welcoming him into your most sensitive space, "i'm ready for you baby."

and wooyoung smiles, his own heart leaping in his chest, before his tongue slips out and gently caresses your folds.

[books]

Writing Workshop Week 1: Show & Tell

Hello, writers of tumblr! It’s @bettsfic again with this week’s generative workshop. 

Today we’re doing what might be my favorite class activity: Show & Tell. 

You might be thinking, do you teach kindergarten or something? No, I teach college. But my students are often weary, downtrodden 20 year olds who are more than happy to go back to basics. Tumblr—being a website of people who care deeply about things and share that passion with others—seems like a great place to host Show & Tell.

Speaking of basics, let’s first talk a bit about…

The Writing Identity

The goal of many writers is to become better at writing. While I think this is an admirable goal it’s also a complicated one, because good writing is entirely subjective. Everyone has their own definition of what good writing looks like based on their knowledge base, history, and personal tastes. And so I often encourage my students, before they begin their journey of becoming a better writer, to step back and ask themselves, “What does good writing look like to me?”

And that’s the thing: you can’t really become a better writer. You can become a more patient writer, with the ability to write and revise multiple drafts of a work. You can become a more ambitious writer, with the ability to write longer stories and deeper themes. You can become a more detailed writer, with the ability to render images and the small details of living that maybe other people don’t notice. Writing is a skill that requires practice, but it also requires joy. You have to enjoy the work more than you fear the potential for failure. And to enjoy the work, you need to honor yourself, your interests, and your ideals. In other words, to become a better writer, you have to become more you.

I remember when I first started writing, I frantically sought out writing advice. I clung to simple adages and rules: active verbs are stronger than passive verbs; remove words like “think” and “realize” and other indicators of your characters’ interior experiences; take out adjectives and adverbs. If you were to adhere to all this advice, your writing wouldn’t become stronger, it would become colder. You would write like Hemingway. There’s nothing wrong with Hemingway, but Hemingway already did Hemingway, and that means you’re free not to be Hemingway. 

Don’t we read to feel closer to people, to experience that which we couldn’t otherwise experience? The beautiful thing about prose is that it’s the only medium that conveys consciousness, because language is the way we contain our thoughts, and writing them down offers others the chance to understand them. E.M. Forster in his book Aspects of the Novel says that the only difference between a character and a person is that a character’s secret inner life can be known, but a person’s can only be understood in observed behavior. Novels are stories of consciousness; biographies are stories of deeds. 

In my early days as a writer, those inane adages of “good writing” began to weigh on me, and I found myself frequently opening a blank document and telling myself, “I’m just going to write something for fun, for me, and so I don’t have to follow any rules.” Every time, that lawless thing I wrote would become better than anything I’d written when I followed the rules. And in this case, “better” means I was proud of it; in writing as close to myself as I could, I was able to help my technical skill reach the level of my personal taste. 

Good writing advice doesn’t spout shallow adages of what should be, it tells you all the things that could be; it opens your mind to possibilities and techniques. “Should” restrains creativity; the entire point of writing is to be creative. To be creative means to make something that has never existed before. And so one of the first things I tell my students is: You already know everything you need to know about your own writing. You already have good and important stories in you. You just have to sit down and write them.

“Show, Don’t Tell”

One such adage that still really gets to me is “show, don’t tell,” which a lot of writers believe. Many people take it to mean that you should describe the exterior circumstances of your narrator in order to allow the reader to interpret meaning. Instead of describing how your narrator feels, these people would rather have you describe their facial expression. But if you’re so interested in rendering the exterior rather than the interior, you’re better off becoming a director. 

Others take it less literally: you show your story instead of tell your story, which, sure, is a valid personal belief for your own work but it’s ambiguous and impractical, and also denies the nature of people to tell stories. Fairy tales and fables are stories that are told. Telling stories came long before showing them.  

In some ways, “show, don’t tell,” can be useful. If you spend a thousand words of character A lovingly and carefully describing every detail of character B, you don’t then need to say something like, “She was pining for him,” because you’ve allowed your description to do that work for you. So no, you don’t need to say it, but maybe you want to. Maybe you want to make it inarguable that character A is pining for character B; you don’t want a reader to say, “I think she’s paying that much attention because she wants to kill him and she’s looking for his weak points.”

And so that’s what it comes down to—choice. Ultimately, writing is about making decisions, and those decisions are stronger when you understand all your options.

Behind the adage is a more difficult truth to swallow: prose is both infinite in its potential and also frustratingly limited, because you have no control over your audience. You can lovingly describe every snowflake that falls in a blizzard, and your reader will be taking their own meaning from it—for people who can mentally visualize things, it’s the images their mind conjures; for those who can’t, it’s a mass of facts. And there are also those who are sleepy and missing details, or who are skimming to get to the bits they’re most interested in, or who accidentally dropped their book in the bath and now the bottom half of every page is warped and unreadable.

Or you can say, “It snowed.”

No matter what your beliefs are on “show, don’t tell,” the truth is that it’s a false dichotomy. The very nature of prose is to navigate this divide. Some stories call for more showing, for example when your narrator is at a distance, when we don’t have much access to their thoughts or feelings. Other stories will ask you to tell, especially if we’re deep in your narrator’s head and they’re giving us everything. Showing lends itself to setting, imagery, and plot. Telling lends itself to character, voice, and style. One is not inherently better than the other, in the same way that a screwdriver isn’t better than a hammer—the tool you use depends on the task at hand.

Any time you encounter a trite rule in writing, it’s usually pointing to something much greater and more fun to think about. In this case, showing and telling are two integral tools in meaning-making. For this week’s activity, we’re going to use both show and tell to make meaning.

Prompt time!

In Donald Barthelme's essay “Not-Knowing,” he calls objects magical. “What is magical about the object is that it at once invites and resists interpretation. Its artistic worth is measurable by the degree to which it remains, after interpretation, vital.” 

So what does that mean? Although this essay is a hot mess (lovingly), part of its intended work is to be a mess. In fact Barthelme describes the mess of his desk and allows it to define him. It’s covered in coffee cups, cigarette ash, unpaid bills, and unwritten novels. In reality, those objects are just objects, but when rendered in prose, they give us an impression of this particular world and the character within it. The writer renders; the reader interprets. The things we own, that mean something to us, are also things that can define us. Who is the person who carries a leather wallet embossed with their initials, with the inside holding credit cards and a stack of neat bills? Who is the person who carries a canvas wallet with a faded Punisher logo on it, attached to a chain, and the only thing inside it is a Subway rewards card?

Objects are important. Especially in this world we live in where so many things have become virtual, tangibility will always be integral to us. We are a species that reaches out and touches. We like to hold things in our hands. We love things which cannot love us back. 

For this week’s prompt fill, I want you to find a magical object for Show & Tell. Ideally, it’s something with a long personal history that’s important to you. Maybe it’s the object you would save in the event of a fire, or maybe it’s something you lost long ago. 

First, I’d like you to show us the object by describing it. Then, tell us the story of it.

You can write about how you acquired it and the memories it conjures. Allow yourself to link and associate memories and feelings. Don’t box yourself in too much—just see where it takes you. 

But you can also put a spin on it. Here are some ways you can do that:

If you want to try fiction, you can write the same story about your favorite character’s beloved object, or you could completely make up an object and its history. 

If you want to try something experimental, you can write a story from the perspective of the object, and maybe its beloved thing is you. 

If you want to try poetry, write a poem of your object. This is a separate lesson, but T.S. Eliot’s concept of an objective correlative may be illuminating to consider. 

The purpose of this activity is to dig through your memories and/or observations, connect them, and use something external to conjure meaning from them. You begin with what your object is and it will eventually lead you to what it means.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.

[itgomyway]

(you)r sp and you ♡

i have already made a post about how you should love yourself and your sp will love you almost as much (bc they actually are you!) but lets go into more detail

a lot of you guys, including me, wanted to get into a relationship. and with that, youve discovered the law of assumption. the basics start off with whatever you assume will be. but after months of arguing, harassment, and bullying on twitter, you’re probably confused and too scared to ask.

FUCK THAT. let me be the one to tell you that none of it matters. you very much can and WILL manifest your sp. others false opinions (false because theyre not real) mean nothing. this isnt a loass post though im talking about non dualism (which is not the same).

“but wait… i want my sp and non dualism isnt about getting so why would i-“ because your sp shouldnt be someone that brings you happiness. they should be someone who adds to your quality of life. why does that sound like loass vs non dualism? because it is.

people use the law of assumption to manifest desires for their physical world. theres nothing wrong with that! that is how i manifested my current relationship. however, when we speak about non dualism, it goes beyond trying to get anything. youre just being. and “getting” into a relationship can very much help or make your false sense of self feel better. you as consciousness know relationships themselves dont exist because it is you but your ego, the false sense of self doesnt know that. it wants to experience love as part of the human condition. but youre still not getting anything. lemme explain.

you were trying to “get” something that was never outside of you TO make you happy. that doesnt make sense when not only are they you, but they are apart of you. everything your awareness is on “reflects” how you feel about yourself because all there is is you.

lets go back to non dualism’s basics. everything is consciousness = you creation is brought on by your awareness = you. “but back when x happened-“ the past and the future do not exist. the only thing that exist is now. you cant “apply” this way of thinking to something that doesnt exist. that makes no sense. youre just going to confuse yourself. i am telling you RIGHT NOW the only truly real thing is YOU. that is all there is and will ever be. you can control your awareness through observations meaning youre in total control. read that again.

so when it comes to your sp, romantic or not, they are never not yours. they were never not you or not a part of you. every thought, feeling, affirmation, or word you wrote down, they have received. because its you. think about it. are you ever aware of anything youre unaware of? (no). because things only exist the moment youre aware of them!

and remember, if something can come to our awareness like a relationship and leave our awareness it is not real. but you, as consciousness are infinite and are always here and always consciousness. so you are real!

after discovering non dualism i have thought about the feelings my boyfriend has presented to me and how they currently match the feelings i have for myself. i have always loved myself and will always love myself. if i didnt, how could i expect my creation, which is a projection of my own self image, to have different feelings than me? your sp isnt a separate person. Your relationships will always show how you feel about yourself, romantic or platonic. they’re not real because they come and go through your awareness but your ego as the false self believes they are. and thats okay. thats its job. let it be and observe them as consciousness.

nothing can happen outside of your awareness because the moment you are aware/conscious of something, it exist instantly. so if your sp is treating you the way you dont want to be treated then reflect on your own feelings about yourself. this DOES NOT necessarily mean work on your self concept. ask yourself if “you” think youre worthy of what it is your ego desires. a lot of my blockage came from that. i had to fall in love with myself so my ego could comprehend how i could be loved. because its still me.

lets talk about “free will”.

“free will” doesn’t exist. lemme tell you why. the idea of free will is a person outside of you having a say in their own life. the basic principle of non dualism means theres only one being, consciousness (you). so tell me how can “another person” “outside” of you have a say in their “own lives” when none of that exist in the first place?

your sp having or not having free will shouldn’t effect how you feel about them unless you see them as a separate entity outside of you. they’re not an “object” you control theyre your creation and another form of consciousness so of course you have control over your creations you have control over EVERYTHING.

your sp feels the same way you feel about yourself. always. if you dont feel good about yourself then i do suggest working on your self concept. not to “get” anything but for YOURSELF! why not love yourself? why cart that responsibility off to your creation?

at the end of the day, itll just be you surrounded by your creations. you can pick and choose what they are specifically BUT THE ONLY REAL THING IS YOU

© itgomyway

[lavender-long-stories]

Writing Advice: Getting Words on a Page

With the 75k word count in November and 90k in August, I have been asked questions like how do I keep focus and what do I do when I get stuck. I am going to compile all the advice I have.

Over the last few years, I have posted 700k+ words of fan fiction and have been posting 3 to 6 chapters every week for the last ten months. This is not how to make your writing better. This is how to get words on a page. 

This is not all my original ideas. This is just a collection of things that have worked for me.

I am not sure I am the person to tell you how to make your writing better, but if people want my thoughts on that. I can make that post too.

When inspiration strikes, write like wild. 

If you have the time and you are bitten by the writing bug, keep writing anything while you are in peak form. You will thank yourself later when you feel like you can’t write everything. I have done the extreme version of this where I have a month (four chapters) written ahead of almost everything on my post schedule (you don’t need this), but this was really nice after I brunt out after finishing out the 90k challenge I destroyed myself with in August.

Write in little pockets of time.

You don’t need to sit down and write for two hours. Write 100 words here and 500 there. It will all add up. When I was struggling at the end of the 75k, I would just open a doc every few hours and write half a page until I got distracted and tried again later.

Change your font.

If you are struggling to edit or even just find yourself drifting while writing, change your font. It helps trick your brain into paying attention. (I like doing a mono font like Courier when I need writing vibes. It looks typewriter-y)

Take a shower. 

Not just for shower thoughts, being clean and fresh helps with focus

Get dressed.

I love being comfy, but something about getting dressed makes me feel like I am working and should finish my task. Extra points for it being fun. (Maybe cosplay a pirate or something.)

Move Locations.

Desk, kitchen table, bed, outside: changing location helps move you out of a brain rut.

Handwrite notes.

I take most of my notes on notion, but when I am struggling with my plot, I write out notes by hand, starting with what happened last and continuing from there, writing even things I know will happen. Then I transfer this to my digital notes so they are easier to move around in order, AND a lot of time, I add details when revising them to digital. Double power.

Always, always write down your thoughts and keep them.

Some of my most popular stories came from me rediscovering a 2 am thought that I wrote down six years ago. Keep a notepad next to the bed if you have to.

Change POV

If something is not working in a scene, maybe it is who you have reacting to it. Try switching POV. It helps you think of the scene from another perspective.

Watch a show in your genre.

I watch a lot of the silliest KDrama’s and get lots of romance ideas. Maybe I didn’t think of sending my character to a park or trapping them in a sky lift. Maybe I should add a stalker that sounds fun.

Take your bathroom breaks.

You should always drink lots of fluids and remember to take your bathroom breaks because the brief moment of walking away always gives me an idea.

Skim through the story and make notes on what HAS happened, not just what will happen.

This helps more with my style of having next to no plot outline. Need your next plot point and don’t know where to go? Remember that time they did x? Let’s build off that. This helps intertwine the plot without losing things.

Just read the story back.

You don’t always need to make notes, but sometimes just reading from the beginning can make you pick up on a detail that was unimportant at the time, and you may not even have meant to put in that could have a lot more meaning now. Then, you can call it clever foreshadowing.  

Explain your problem or the scene you are struggling with out loud.

It doesn’t have to be to someone. It could be a glass of water. This is called ‘rubber ducking. It’s a programmer term (hello, that is my day job). Restructuring your problem in a way you have to articulate it most of the time makes the solution come to you.

Try focusing on the scenery.

If you can’t get a scene to work open with the weather or how the floor is creaking under step, give the world a new feeling. How does the person feel about the weather or the temperature of the room? 

Can’t figure out what is wrong? Rewrite the chapter from scratch. 

Open a new doc and rewrite the chapter from memory. I do this a lot in the beginning of a story that didn’t quite hit the way I wanted it to. I will start the chapter from memory and skim the old one to ensure I didn’t miss anything important. Can’t do it from memory? Read a paragraph and write that from memory. 

Take a left turn.

Sometimes, if you can’t go any further, go back a sentence, a paragraph, a scene, a chapter, and just make a different decision. Turn left instead of right. Change how someone reacts to an argument. It opens a whole new lane to go down.

Excited for a scene that is in the future?

Write it! You don’t have to use it word for word in the future. Sometimes, you can copy and paste it in, and sometimes, you can just rewrite it, and you lose none of those thoughts you originally had.  Writing it might remind you of something that needs to happen first to help you get there.

Have more than one story you are working on.

I don’t think you need to be working on four+ stories like I do, but having something to switch to when your brain really isn’t feeling your main is a great way to keep you writing. Call it productive procrastination. This is the REAL reason I have so many stories uploading.  (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

Other Somewhat Related Advice

Context Switching

I work on multiple projects at a time, and I tend not to mix them up because they have a different vibe to me. It feels like stepping into each world.  If you are struggling with context switching between stories, I suggest finding a song or making a playlist that gives you that story’s ‘vibe’ and keeping a link to it in your writing folder or snagging a section of your story that captures the vibe you are going for and keeping it off to the side to reread when you need to switch.

Don’t edit the same day you write.

You’re not going to catch errors. Your brain is too familiar with what you wrote. Also, I recommend Grammarly or another grammar checker for all your missing comma and period needs. (Word, Docs, and any other text editor simply won't bully you enough.)

If you hate editing, don’t leave yourself with a painful amount of editing.

When people ask me how I edit my work, how many passes I take, etc, I tend to disappoint them. The short answer is one read-through (after using a grammar checker).  I learned a LONG time ago that as much as it would be nice to write a bunch of dialog and then tell yourself you will go back to add all the actions or write without quotes because it takes time, you will save yourself a lot of time and pain if you learn to write it correctly the first time and then editing won’t be as much of a chore. I have been writing for years, and I am used to how I write and edit. If you are newer to writing, give it another pass or two, but try to shift some of that work to the writing process, not the editing process.

Make yourself an editing cheat sheet.

Make yourself a doc or a notion of words you notice you use too much or common words you misspell when writing.  I usually make one when I get back and do a post edit (when the story has been up for a while and I get back with fresh eyes and edit it). Reading through your old work and find things that you don’t like or don’t want to do anymore is a great way to build this list and improve your writing.

Now go write.

Got any advice for me? Reblog and tell me.

[gummybugg]

🎶Stuck in an ADHD Rut🎷🪲

Howdy! If this applies to you, let's see if we can get you out of there!

From what I have learned, the little ADHD brain creature craves happy chemicals. What usually gives us those? A sense of completion and satisfaction with our work! But those with ADHD lack a sufficient amount of baseline happy chemicals, which means it's harder for us to want to get things done! 

If the reward at the end of a task doesn't give your brain enough happy chemicals, you're more likely to procrastinate!

So what are we going to do to get unstuck? If unmedicated or without therapy, it can be very difficult to work around the ADHD rut! But I can share some things that have helped me in the past.

Of course, everything I mention will not help 100%, because everyone's brains are complex and this is anecdotal!

If you are able to, find a window of time that is easiest for you to work at! I typically do my best work in the evening or at night. This isn't always the best solution, as working around a schedule is not always easy.

Crank the stimulus up to 10 if you're feeling under-stimulated/bored! Louder music, brighter lights, drink something warm... Even stretching can get the blood pumping because now you got all the bone crunches out of your system! Are you there, Brain? It's me, Bug!

When I can remember, I create a Very Detailed to-do list. But I also know that people with ADHD are notoriously bad at keeping track of lists! I tell myself, "First, write a bullet list of ideas. Second, cherry-pick what you like. Third, write the thesis/main idea. Fourth, write ONE paragraph…" This works more so for writing essays or an entire draft! For some reason, breaking down every single step makes it slightly more manageable for me. 

I have heard of people who stop writing right before an interesting part and take a break! Perhaps the thrill of wanting to finish up that good part is what makes people want to jump back in. 

This goes against the previous points, but sometimes writing the most interesting pieces of my stories first (as opposed to writing linearly) helps more! The burst of energy I get when reading back on these pieces drives me to continue writing! I remember how excited I was when I wrote it all down, and it makes me think that past Me was definitely onto something!

To sum up, the ADHD brain is a fussy child who needs to be constantly reminded how to get things done. The more you get angry at it, the harder it is to cooperate with it! But, that is easier said than done. No one said that gentle parenting your brain was easy.

If you made it this far, then kudos to you because writing this was a miniature hurdle of its own! And If it seems scattered, I am well aware!

[squid789]

Squid's Trigun Fanfic Recs

Hey, so I'm done with self promos so its time appreciate a bunch of you guys in line with @trigunfanfic appreciation week! A lot of this is gonna be straight up vashmeryl, heads up. Although we all know what I'm about, so I guess have fun! :3

Gonna start with one of my best friends and also my beta, @eomma-jpeg. You may know her from her millynai epic, In the Meadow. But right now she's working on a vashmeryl college au fic called What a Shame! By far one of my favorite writers! She also wrote a companion millywood oneshot for Sea Foam as well called Refuge from the Storm that I want to get printed for myself.

@scoundrels-in-love is another prolific writer I usually look forward to! Man, they sort of write a little bit of everything in regards to ship and canon. I mostly know them for mashwood, but my all time favorite fics of theirs is If this is communication, I disconnect. its everything I could ever want from a post max vashmeryl fic. Absolute gold!!

Okay, here's the thing. I am a slut for vashmeryl, but @ladymaliwan's writing is so good to convince me to branch out. Their stryfewood fics are to die for and imaginative and thank you for sharing so much of your snippets with me!!! They mean the world to meee ;3;

Next up is @eezybree's Bluebells. Man, ngl, Sav you give me a lot of writer's envy with this fic. AHHHH it's so fucking goooooood. I know I'm a chapter or two behind but man they get emotions across so well and that fluff is to die for. Comletely wonderful post max vashmeryl

Another one I am woefully behind on. But I remember way back last year when @faindri was still doing a lot of the concept art for EBS. I'm not usually one for aus but who can resist a space opera? And the amount of detail and worldbuilding in this fic is astonishing and actually super inspiring!

Okay I feel like @wandererriha's Get Help series is criminally underrated. Again, usually not a fan of aus, but this modern au is charming as all hell and I find myself coming back to it whenever I feel down.

Also shoutout to the folks who I have no idea have a tumblr account or not or just plain too scared to say hi too but also highly recommend Birds do it, bees do it, plants can do it by RambleFox, Condensed Trigun by SugarPill, Horticulture Blues by dweeblet, The End by ginger_mosaic, Reporter's Notes by @museqmeg, No Reason by @eilwen, this is our body (come out of the bath) by @spacebeyonce, and Arcaronar by JackelJamboree. All of these are on AO3! Also on ff.net, I recommend looking at Their Life by cmr2014. It's a super short post 98 vashmeryl oneshot that makes me super giggly when I read it! My FINAL rec is After the Fall by Girl.Interpreted, also on ff.net. If any of you have known me for a while, you'll know that this fic has some sentimental value to me personally. To start, its an unfinished post 98 vashmeryl fic with a healthy does of adventure and A LOT of trimax references. Way baaaack about a decade ago, I had just trimax for the first time after rediscovery of trigun, which was first introduced to me as a kid by my weird, weird dad. And man was I craving more trigun. So I went on ff.net for the first time ever at like one in the morning and this was the fic that got me into fanfcition just as concept and a hobby. I wouldn't be writing fic until early college, but man this story STUCK with me in ways I couldn't begin to imagine. But the writing and the story and just everything... AHHHHHHHH Anyways go read After the Fall!!!! I doubt it will ever be finished, but I can dream But literally, GO READ ALL OF THESE FICS! GO ENJOY THEM!!!!!!! IM BEGGING YOU!!! Happy Trigun Fanfic Appreciation Week!!!!

[necros-writing-stuff]

Eden's new spouse had a diary on them when he took them. Spouse doesn't write in the diary for a bit at first while at the cabin, then starts writing again. Eden's spouse is pretty quiet, so they get curious. Eden reads the diary, and there are a bunch of entries about how awful life was and what they needed to do to survive, then spouse starts writing again and it's all about how much better life is now, and how much they love and appreciate Eden. Cue feels.

Brief, non-specific mentions of types of abuse PC faced growing up mentioned. Other than that, pretty fluffy (with some horny strewn throughout):

Eden doesn't always come back home this early from hunts. This one, however, went pretty badly when he'd stumbled across another hunter's old metal trap and cut his forearm. Of course he'd left his cleaning shit back at the cabin. It was just one of those days where nothing seemed to go right.

You'd seemed frazzled as you buzzed around him, still too quiet to really ask if you could help but the worry obvious in your eyes. That's when he noticed the poorly hidden notebook. You'd tried to put it behind the drawer, but in your haste to appear normal it'd fallen from its hiding spot and Eden finally discovered your little secret.

He kept his discovery to himself. Best that you wouldn't know so that you wouldn't change the hiding spot and Eden would be able to read future updates you wrote.

The chance to find out what the book entailed came early the next morning. Eden had an excuse to laze around a bit with his healing arm, but you were up and out to do chores. He didn't know what to expect. Plans to run away? Gorey scribbles of his head on a pike? Confessions of love for another?

The truth was somehow worse, yet far better.

The hunter's throat had a lump growing in it the further he read. It was a diary of sorts, detailing life at the orphanage before you were taken by Eden. He couldn't read too much of it, every hit and insult dredging up memories of his own he'd rather stay buried. His stomach flipped when he got to the sexual abuse. Goddamn it Bailey. Of all people, he should know better.

Despite the horrific details, there was a hopeful tone to the words he read. A tone that made sense as he continued to read. You'd written all of this after having been at the cabin for a while, having settled in and been allowed the freedom to use Eden's things as your own. Part of him was peeved he'd lost out on using a perfectly fine note book, but it was worth the words he had before him.

"I feel safe here. I didn't think I would ever know that feeling again, but I do now. Eden keeps me happy - which is still strange some days because he did sort of kidnap me. And he was terrifying. But with every new day I just can't help but feel like I might be starting to love him? Just a little bit? Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome."

That was just one entrance from three months ago. The trend continued.

"Yeah no, definitely lust at least. Caught myself almost drooling at him today while he was chopping wood, didn't even stop staring when he saw me. Ahhhh I must look like a freak to him sometimes. Well ya get what ya didn't pay for mister!"

The hunter couldn't help but chuckle at that. Though his cheeks grew hot from the thought that you'd been oggling him so. He'd have to remember to tale his shirt off while getting firewood more often.

"It's so fucking stupid, but every damn time he lets me sit in his lap and he reads to me I forget everything else ever existing. It's just me and him and the story he's reading, and I never feel so content anywhere else. Well, except maybe when we're doing it. He's getting really good when he goes down on me these days, I only wish he'd do it more often. I think I might have scared him by how hard I pulled his hair last time?"

More oral... yup he can certainly remember to do that. And no, it hadn't scared him at all when you'd pulled on his hair. It had almost made him finish in his pants before he could get to fucking you properly, actually. Hence why he didn't let you do it anymore.

There were more entries that Eden had to save for later, carefully placing your book back into its place and then finally joining you outside to do his share of the chores. A bubbly feeling rose in his chest as he worked, each time he caught your eyes on him only having him remember the words you'd written about finding it a turn on to watch him do jobs around the cabin.

It had been a long time since you'd felt safe. It had been a longer time since Eden had felt desirable. Since he'd felt accepted and loved.

Each day he'd find the time to check if you'd written something new. It was meant to be private, but he felt as though he needed to hear your praise. It became a crutch, a way to tell how the relationship was due to your withdrawn nature. You still didn't speak up very often. The hunter didn't hear your voice as much as he'd like to, so your written word had to fill the void. And it did, greatly.

Each and every compliment made his cheeks grow hot, his back a little straighter and his head was held a little higher. Every small declaration of love felt to be the size of Jupiter. Every moment of frustration endearing. He'd even been using the bedroom tips you had for him - carefully, of course. Didn't want you catching on.

You would eventually. You'd learn that he was reading your diary. But for now, Eden got to enjoy you in his own private way, too.

[lady-fey]

Don’t Mix Thoughts and Dialogue

During a bit of dialogue, it can be incredibly tempting to give your reader a glimpse of what the characters are thinking. This is a trap. Don’t do it.

Why?

Well, the best way to explain this is to just give you a quick example.

Mary laughed, her eyes sparkling. “Hey, do you remember that night with Jimmy and the cat?” Ryan smiled, his mind drifting back over the long years of their friendship. That they would still be so close after all this time was truly a gift. Yet a part of him still asked ‘what if?’ What if they were meant to be something other than friends? Could that every happen or was he being greedy? Risking something beautiful for so little gain. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. Then he smiled and said, “Yeah, I still don’t know where he got it!”

Question: when you got to Ryan’s response, did you remember what Mary said or did you have to glance back up to jog your memory? If you glanced back up, then don’t feel bad! You are completely normal and that’s why this is a technique that you should use sparingly.

When we’re reading, our brains are constantly processing new information. It’s basically an ongoing memory game! If you’ve ever played one of those, then you know that it can be quite tricky to recall which picture is hiding under which card or what objects were on the now-hidden tray. However, we can always pick up the card or reveal the tray to remind ourselves of the answer. Similarly, we can always glanced back up the page and reread the previous line, but a story isn’t a game. Most writers want their audience to be fully immersed in the scene. Their eyes should travel down the page, following the flow of the words, never needing to look back at what was said three paragraphs ago.

You’re never going to be able to make your audience remember everything that you wrote. There are just too many words in the story. That’s why, when you’re writing dialogue, you want to keep all of the surrounding text related to the dialogue. Don’t let your characters go off on tangents like Ryan did because then your audience’s brain will switch to this new topic and forget the old one the same way that a verbal tangent will lead to someone asking, “Hey, wait, what were we talking about?”

I get the temptation to do the thought thing. It can give some really fun insight into a character. I will do it myself in early drafts. Then, upon rereading, I’ll realize that I switched focus from the dialogue and, as much as I like sharing my character’s thoughts, dialogue just isn’t the place to do it. If you’re including dialogue, the point is usually the interactions between the characters, not their deep, individual thoughts.

In this case of the above, Ryan’s thoughts needed to wait until after the conversation was over OR I should have introduced this topic earlier so that I could briefly hint at Ryan’s feelings with something like:

Mary laughed, the sound making Ryan's traitorous heart skip a beat. Then she asked, “Hey, do you remember that night with Jimmy and the cat?” “Yeah, I still don’t know where he got it!” Ryan said, gazing at her with melancholy fondness. “Did he ever tell you?”

This is not to say that you can never do the thought thing. You can. Just be aware that it's dragging your audience away from the dialogue and they will likely forget the details of what was being discussed, making it a not-so-great techniquie.

The only time when I’d do that is when I want the character to forget the conversation, too. Then I can bring the character and the audience back to the discussion in a natural way.

I’ll also note that readers do remember things long after they happen. It’s just that what tends to stick are the big, important details (ex: Alim was murdered) or the things that get repeated constantly (ex: the suspect list that the detectives go over after every new clue). Dialogue tends to be largely forgettable as the point is rarely the specific words, which is why breaking a conversation is so jarring.

[yandere-fics]

New idea: Selene with a writer darling who often wrote romance books specifically for supernaturals and their mates to give them ideas. However, her darling has a diary detailing every slight that Selene has made. Talking about how afraid they are that Selene will toss them away, her moaning other women’s names in her sleep, how she talks about soulmates saving themselves for each other but Selene obviously didn’t, and finally… how Darling wonders if she is even capable of pleasing Selene… and eventually… Selene finds the diary.

♡ Selene Finds Your Diary ♡

Selene couldn't believe the nonsense she was reading right now, mates were supposed to forgive each other yet here you were writing down every slight she'd ever made in your stupid fucking journal, holding everything against her, stupid fucking ideas about her abandoning you, would never happen, worrying about her mumbling under her breath at night and thinking it was another girls name, she'd have to have learned their names in the first place for that to be plausible, wondering if you weren't able to satisfy her fully as if she didn't pump you full every morning and night, you clearly didn't want to forgive and forget so she walked into the living room where you were sitting and slammed the diary on the coffee table in front of you.

You were a bit shocked she read it, you figured it was safe to keep because selene had a busy schedule of taking you out to a nice restaurant and then rawwing you as people rushed to evacuate the building and when she wasn't doing that she went out running and tried to convince you to come with or was busy cuddling you so you really didn't expect her to read anything at all, sure she'd read your novels but you'd asked her to, you didn't ask her to read this so you figured she just wouldn't, turns out she didn't just pick up books just because you made her. Kind of sweet to know she genuinely wanted to read your things, less sweet as soon as you remembered all the things you written about her in there.

"Dove, sit on my lap." You nervously shuffled over to her lap, not looking at her as she pulled you down to straddle her. She leaned her head on your shoulder awkwardly, her hands gripped your upper arms tightly. "I'm only going to say this once dove, since it should be common sense, i'm only ever going to want you, if i have to look myself in this house to prove it, I will but that also means i'm going to lock you in the house with me too."

She let out a heavy sigh mixed with a growl. "You're never leaving me."

[star-studded-whales]

ADHD friendly writing tips from and ADHD author

Write in a notebook to start out. We all know that sinking feeling of dread when we open up a blank google/word document. Circumvent that writer's block inducing fear by jotting things down in a notebook. Honestly, transferring from page to computer helps me catch a lot of simple errors and awkward wordings. Its like a secret first round of editing.

Make lists for everything. If you're anything like me, you lose yourself in the details all the time. A good way to keep your head on straight when ironing out plot points (or really any fiddly aspect of your story) is to make lists. Seriously, make them for everything if your heart feels called to do so. There is something about the repetition of it that helps me organize things in my mind, even if I never look at the list again.

You are your own worst critic. Nobody else is as harsh on your work as you are, I promise.

Constructive criticism is NOT an attack. When you get solicited constructive criticism from peers, they are not attacking your work, your skill, or you personally. Rejection sensitivity can be a real struggle with this one, so I like to periodically remind myself that good faith con crit will make my writing better if I let it.

Be careful with hyperfocuses. It can feel so satisfying to really dig into your writing for hours and hours at a time, letting time pass by without a second thought. However, you are in possession of a human body that needs food, water, and sunlight. When you're in a hyperfocus, it can be really hard to remember to take care of these things. Ask a friend to check in on you every now and then, set timers to remind yourself to take breaks, keep water and snacks nearby to make it easier if you have to, and all of this is doubly recommended if you take daily meds (for any reason.) Put up a system of checks to make sure you're taking care of yourself while you're hyperfocused.

Pomodoro timers are your friend. If I am really struggling to get words on a page, I will turn to a pomodoro timer to give me an extra boost of productivity. The concept is that you're supposed to work for a certain amount of time and then take a short break before jumping back in and then repeat. My favorite pomodoro timers go for 25 minutes of task with 5 minutes of break. Some pomodoros go for 50/10. These are easy to find on YouTube. If you like to work with music, look up one with your preferred type of instrumental (lofi, classical, Zelda and Chill, video game sound tracks.) When the music stops, it's time for a break!

There is no such thing as wasted writing. I repeat, there is no such thing as wasted writing. If you write out fifty pages of something that will never see the light of day, or an entire chapter of unusable plot, it is still good that you wrote something. Every time you write, you grow your skills. Even if you dislike something right now, you may refine and use parts of it later on in your creative practice. Seriously! Don't beat yourself up for "wasting time" when you are learning and growing. And as always, even the pros learn and grow. Get out there and write!

~ Nomi

[kalstar]

Akira when something is bothering you

Genre: comfort/angst, fluff, gn!reader

warnings: mentions of bad mental health (ed, depression, sh, etc)

word count: 838

A/N: I had this in the drafts for a couple months and mostly wrote it cuz the mental illness was hitting me extra that day lolll. but I'm doing good now!! I hope if you've ever felt something similar this can make you feel better :)

likes and reblogs are appreciated, fic under the cut <33

A lot of things were on my mind, college, my family, my weight. I can't remember the last time I ate a proper meal. I hadn't been taking care of myself properly and I would just work or sleep the days away. I thought about hurting myself, running away, or just ending everything. One day, he asked if he could come over just to hang out. I tried my best to hide everything and plaster my best smile and the laugh that he loved hearing so much. But of course, he knows me down to the minute details.

love, you okay?

Hm? Yea, why'd you ask?

You seem quieter than usual

Ah it's nothing I'm just a bit tired

. . . . .

You're lying to me

huh? why would I-

He moved closer toward me and stared me straight in the eyes. Our difference in height made me have to look up at him.

Something's bothering you, isn't it?

It's really nothing

You've been zoning out and only saying one or two-word answers

. . .

He cupped my cheek, his hands smooth and warm. I tried to laugh it off again, as if it was nothing, yet his gaze was still as serious as ever. Firm but warm.

You know you can tell me anything

I wanted to tell him everything, but the weight in my chest made it impossible for me to open my mouth. I couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. I could only hold on to his hand. Something about him is like magic. He could understand my different kinds of quiet. He knew that I couldn't get the words out of my mouth.

Come here

He slowly let go of my cheek and placed it behind my head and pulled me into his chest.

I know it's hard for you to say what's on your mind sometimes. I'll wait for you however long it takes.

I could hear his heartbeat and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. I could feel the tears falling from my face, staining his shirt. As all my emotions bubbled up to the surface, he stayed quiet as he listened to my troubled sobs, patiently patting my head.

As my tears subdued and my breathing started to calm down, I bring myself up away from his chest, his hands moving to secure my back. I knew deep down he was concerned but all he showed me was his kind smile that would make butterflies flutter inside of me.

You're a pretty crier

I couldn't help but laugh

Thank you

Are you ready to tell me now?

I nod slowly

Take it slow, I'm here for you all night

The words finally managed to flow out of me like water from a leaking pipe. Slow but sure. I still couldn't look him in the eyes. He listened intently to every word I said, making sure that I felt heard. He played with my hair as I talked knowing that it helped me calm down.

I just feel so lost, I don't know what to do. I feel worthless and the only way I know to push myself to be better is to torture myself.

Love, look up for me

As I turned my head up slowly, he placed a soft kiss on my lips. He tasted like the usual Leblanc coffee that he and I both loved.

It really is hard being you huh

I chuckled

You can be such a handful sometimes you know, but I wouldn't trade you for the world I know I can't give you the best advice and I can't give you an instant solution, all I can do is be there for you. I really don't understand how you could see yourself like that when all I've ever known is how perfect and beautiful you are. I'll be with you every step of the way so you can depend on me a little bit more okay? I'll stay with you every single day if you need me to.

Being left speechless, all i could do is bury my face back into his chest saying a muffled "thank you".

All I could hear was the sound of his pretty laughter. He smelled like coffee and felt like rain on a summer's day. He was everything I needed.

He continued to pat my head as he hummed a soft melody he had probably heard on TV. He always claims that he's not much of a singer but I loved his voice. Drowning in the sound of the melody I could feel myself drifting away.

Love? Don't fall asleep, you haven't eaten yet, right?

Hm?

I'll warm up some curry for you, eat a little bit, okay?

. . . . .

I'll eat with you if you want

...okay

He let me cling to him for however long I needed. Something really is magical about him. My one and only, the one person who can understand me down to the minutia, I don't know where I'd be without him.

[xoxitgirl]

⊹₊ ⋆ seasons results! ⊹ ࣪ ˖

⟡ part one ⟡

so usually I try to write it down from the day i start and document the results from then but I literally forgot lmaoo so heres it broken down into every couple days/every week! ima keep this method tho ngl because its so useful but this is probably gonna be a long post bc i wanna be as raw as possible w ya’ll.

season one: jdnavsthewrld ⋆𐙚 ₊ ˚ ⊹ ♡

overview

so first and foremost—my season is going to be filled with all of my designs blowing up, making hundreds of dollars a week, improving my relationship with my boyfriend, and getting a new charger. I wrote out everything in detail so that way it was easier for me to understand exactly what I want like shipping out orders and stuff in my new car, taking a trip to NY, collaborating with some designers that I really like + meeting some designers as well, having hella photo shoots, etc! so it starts off with me getting a new car, it’s easier for me to process all of my orders and get yarn/make clothing just because I have a more efficient car.

dec 3-10

this week was full of me reminding myself im living in my season and my whole idea is about my buisness blowing up and a new carr so ngl its already blown up a little cause someone posted my skirt but it slowed down and now its picking back up. one thing that I’m trying to remember is that I’m not going to know how good it is to have a lot of sales unless I know what it’s like to have lower sales like understanding the duality of owning a business that not every single day you’re going to have the most ideal amount of sales, but that time to be creative and breathe will definitely lead you to that outcome in the long run. I made 4 sales this week so its definitely making me feel a little like imposter syndrome like this cant be happening blah blah blah but I quickly redirected my thoughts to, “what happens in my season? my business was meant to blow up, this is what I’m meant to be doing.”

dec 11-18

okay I made 6 more sales, when I started I had 25 now I’m at 35 so I feel hella confident because I’m constantly falling asleep doing SATS. I can literally feel all the excitement and anxiety and nerves that come with an abundance of success. I sold my biggest custom order to a new client, this two piece set and a fur skirt so I’m like damn. its only bigger and better from here. another thing I added was me and my boyfriend are getting better and connecting more and I feel like our relationship is definitely growing in a healthier way. I made around $300 this week from my pieces so I cant even be upset if I wanted to (,:

dec 19-25

so okay new updateee I sold another 3 item set so I made another $100 this week, mind you im writing this the 21st so the week’s not even over yet, and I feel hella confident in my season. I finally finished drafting everything thats happening. im also having a lot of fun maintaining that it’s already mine. I literally spend so much time vaunting. I was meant to be a designer. of course I have sales, im that bitch. people loovee my clothes cause who else is doing it like me? literally nobodyy. this is what gets me to feel more confident too, if you’re not reassuring yourself who is yk? and my relationship is sooo goodd 🥺 like its been so peaceful and my bf has been surprising me with pinterest dates and shit like what is my lifee!!

ima come back and update after my moms bday, I always have a routine for the new year which is expelling all old energy. like cleaning my room, donating clothes, i also sage everything, make new sigils, wash my hair and alll my clothes so yeah lol i have a feeling the new energy will be beautiful.

dec 26-jan 2

okay I’ve been learning how to sew and I’ve been getting really really good at it. like making my own pieces by myself—before I used to have my mom help me, but now I actually know how to sew fr. I wanna show y’all so ill insert some things ive made/been making. ngl tho I think ima give it like a week or so more to really saturate my mind because I been listening to this sub by slade and its really been helping but I gotta focus on consistency! so thats really what im focusing on through the 15th so more updates around then!! my goal is to have more posts and get ready for a mini photoshoot.

jan 3-jan 12

jan 4th.. coming up with designs that are exactly what I envision/things that ive never seen knit or done in this style. made my collab post but skeptical about when I should make my collab collection so well see but I feel like the things im making rn are multimillion dollar designs like I can feel it in my core. also about to clean my car out soon to trade my car in for the charger of my dreams, apparently my parents were looking for chargers for monthsss and didn’t tell me cause they wanted to surprise me.. for reference y’all I literally have a charger sub i made 5 months ago and was so in my head about it but now i feel like my mind is fully saturated. every time I drive, it feels like im already in a new car, I imagine it in the driveway. I already have it in the 4d so its beyond mine in the 3d.

jan 7.. omg so update, I literally cleaned my car out today and I’m trading it in on friday like what the fuck is my lifee I knew it would happen but this was the first time where I realy put my foot down and envisioned myself driving the car literally everywhere. I race ppl like im in a charger already lmaoo the planes were bound to align sooner or later!! ill insert how it looks when it gets here yall we might have to order it but this is the first step in my journey—I get my charger, my design acc blows up, and so forth. (;

okay hi guys I made 2 sales recently and I just got my charger, everything literally feels like it’s falling into place and it’s kind of surreal. I think I’m gonna make a part two for my results because this post is getting helllla long but I GOT A 2023 CHARGER STX and tbh I wanted an R/T but the only one I could get was 2015 so im just hella happy I got a brand new car and it looks EXACTLY HOW I WANT—black rims, spoiler, it looks so mean!!! ugh im in love. peep my noface air freshener from my last car (,: and it only has 10 miles yall… I love using seasons so much

next post coming by valentines day! 💋

itgirl ⊹ ࣪ ˖