#-outlet for me dumping all my thoughts to get out of my system.

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

Congratulations, Kane! You've successfully determined a grocery store was from the UK by looking at one small section of the shelf and only zooming in and looking for the currency symbol on the price tags after you figured it was from the UK.

[spaceratprodigy]

could i bother u for more thoughts on faith and max in a mock apple orchard 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

@gayafsatan — I would absolutely LOVE to brainstorm some fun ideas of them in a mock apple orchard!!

I've been replaying again so they've been rotating around in my mind a lot extra hard and was especially thinking about mock apple picking bc the botanical labs also has a lil orchard where you can pick mock apples up off the ground! But I'm currently in Roseway so oughhh.. ideas....

I want you now I am going to ramble a LOT so please bear with me I swearsies it'll be more fun if we get the full lore dump from my brain 😩💖💕

–

👇 ROSEWAY THOUGHTS 👇

(I AM GOING TO TALK ABT ROSEWAY THOUGHTS AS A WHOLE AND THEN EASE INTO SOME SILLY MOCK APPLE ORCHARD IDEAS AT THE END OKAY. OKAY ILY THANK YOU).

–

My thoughts are very chaotic and rambly so let me try to walk though my ideas lmao

Roseway is typically where I peg Faith's death wish arc happening, and to summarize what all that entails, it's when the mask slips and the weight of everything finally hits her in full force.

I always envision this story happening over a long period of time so a lot of time has passed since first arriving at Edgewater and the Groundbreaker.

Halcyon. Her situation. Her identity. The life Phineas threw her into abruptly and his expectations for her. Making split second moral decisions where no matter what someone is going to get hurt. Being so alien and alone, no one to understand her or believe in her predicament but having to be the mysterious competent captain regardless.

It finally gets to her. Bad. And she makes some self destructive decisions. She gets sloppy, careless, hoping someone else will end this nightmare for her. Until they almost do.

I am swiftly brushing past many details so we don't get too lost in the sauce. But Max went after her, found her collapsed and injured bad, carried her back to the ship for Ellie to do whatever she could, and then stayed by her side for as long as it took for her to wake up.

This is such a key moment for them getting closer. Because there was a lot of frustration and emotion and being forced to confront the possibility of feelings existing, but nothing they fully understand or are ready to acknowledge as such yet.

She tries to brush past the subject of what happened, deflecting everything until he raises his voice in a way he hasn't since she gave him the journal and she threatened he never talk like that to her again. And it was enough to break through her facade, for her to show just how utterly broken and vulnerable she is, and they have a proper fucking conversation about where she's at mentally. He still isn't ready for the truth about her life before. But it's a step forward.

There is a lot of patience and understanding and just. Yeah. A lot happens here. Some walls come down. There grows some room for them to become softer and closer over more time.

All of this is important because a short piece I had written a long time ago took place in this area roughly after this incident.

It was a personal outlet vent piece, I will be honest. When I wrote it it was after I had a very bad panic attack after an awful scare. And I wrote it into Faith because I just wanted to get some feelings from that experience out of my system.

The shortened version of that one is Faith recovering from a bad episode, trying to calm her breathing, waiting for her ears to stop ringing and for her vision to come back. Her legs gave out on her and she was sitting under the mock apple trees. Her voice locks up on her when she's seriously distressed. Yadda yadda yadda, Max had brought along his datapad so she could communicate anything important and she was incredibly confused because she knows he doesn't like using his datapad ever and then rendered even more speechless to know he brought it specifically for her in case something like this were to happen again. It ends with her just asking if he would keep talking to her, and they sit there under the mock apple trees for a while, in no particular rush to get anywhere.

And after this point, I think the mock apple orchards become a really peaceful, therapeutic spot for her when she just wants a moment to herself. Sits there, breathes, takes in the Roseway scenery and collects herself before jumping back into the horrors of Halcyon. Spends some time picking mock apples to take back to the ship.

I've been having a lot of ideas of her asking Max to go with her. I'm of the mind if she'd ask directly that he'd either decline, or at least pretend to be uninterested but she's the one who asked so he accepts the offer.

But I can see her being vague and just saying that she's heading out if he'd join her and she leads him to the orchards. By this point they're already often in each other's company, she indulges his interests often, letting him be the one who is finally listened to. But in general, they get along very well in conversation when it comes to a handful of similar interests and their personalities and attitudes bounce off of each other well.

(In my story anyway, since she spends an extended amount of time in Edgewater and the Vale, there was also a lot of time spent doing some early bonding with Max. So do with that info what you will. They're not likeee besties yet but they're much more than strangers by this point, ya'know? Just to get an idea of where their familiarity with each other is at and why there's enough respect and trust to some extent already existing. Not to mention how much time they had spent on the Groundbreaker).

They'd be having such a peaceful time away from the rest of the crew.

Oughhh hear me out, okay, Faith loves to bake. She doesn't even ask, she just makes Max hold her bag open while she starts collecting mock apples and after they finally head back to the ship she figures out how to make mock apple pie for the crew 😭 we already know Max doesn't care much for sweets (I wonder how sweet or tart a mock apple pie would be.. Faith girl what all Halcyon ingredients are you adding to that bad boy) but.. what if.... After everyone goes to bed...... He tries some anyway........ Because she made it..........

Most of what's bouncing around in my brain is them early on having wholesome bonding time in a spot just for the two of them. Just enjoying each other's company. Realizing they have genuine respect for each other, Faith feeling like she found a genuine friend who went to lengths further than anyone had in her entire life to make sure she survived. I am specifying Faith's feelings here intentionally. I write Max in a more complicated spot very blinded by his revenge scheme more or less unaware for a long while just how much the lines start blurring between his faith and his Faith. To put it succinctly. (Look I know I'm always drawing The Good Stuff™️ but in actuality their relationship is suchhhh a slow burn. They are not the most romantically inclined people lmao).

But also.. once she realizes she can talk to him when she needs to. I think coming back to this spot, off the ship, away from the crew, she just likes it there. She likes being there with him. She finds comfort in that spot.

OKAY BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE WOULD BE CUTE.... they should come back here.. post-scylla and post-gorgon...... Ya'know......... The first being when they establish not wanting to be apart and the second being when they want to make that partnership a permanent one......... ASKING HER IN THE MOCK APPLE ORCHARDS WOULDN'T THAT BE DARLING ough okay I need a minute my brain is going too fast to comprehend

My Roseway ideas aren't the most cleaned up I know BUT so many important bonding moments exist and oughhhh LOOSE IDEAS ARE STILL WORTH TALKING ABOUT OKAYYYYY

I just want them to go mock apple picking together and learn how to get smiles out of each other and not understand why it makes their chests hurt but they know they need to do it again

ACTUALLYYYYY post-scylla when he's much more mellowed out and they're the closest they've been I think would be so so nice. they'd be so much softer and he'd probably be so much more involved in wanting to enjoy silly lil activities with her.....

Currently imagining him reading out loud to her, all the conversations they'd have, maybe he brings his tossball cards to show her, maybe they bring one of the lil games, have a lil makeshift picnic....

Godddd the transition between just how much enthusiasm he shows spending time with her is enough to make me explode. Can you see my vision. The reluctance, to the hesitancy, to becoming absolutely inseparable.

I HAVE A LOT TO THINK ABOUT BUT I'M GETTING SLEEPY SO SENDING IT!!!!!!

Literally feel free to add on or share your own thoughts I'm begging you lmao I promise there is so much room for ideas to be fleshed out and better put together, I'm mostly just spitballing what all I think would be incredibly fun ideas to work with. Plus I'm kind of thinking across the timeline and how much their relationship would change between each visit. And how over time they would enjoy it more and more and make each visit more special than the last.

WAIT BEFORE I LOSE THE THOUGHT!! They make a stop RIGHT BEFORE HEADING TO SCYLLA TO GO TO THE HERMIT'S LODGE!! Oh that could hurt so good omgggg. Okay okay I need to stop now I NEED TO STOP.

[jev-urisk]

Heeyyy :> I would like the biggest infodump on Kazimier you have pls. All the details.

A 💋Kazimier💋 infodump?!? Oh goodness, where do I start 😵‍💫 (Also thank you for asking!). I'm going dump a few favorite things, if I try to dump it all in one Imma be typing instead of feeding myself today 😂

(He's tagged #7c kazi on everything I've posted on him so far if you're somehow thirsty for more after this)

💋Who:

Kazimier (Kashj-meer), an OC for my story 7 Circles

He's not sure what his parents named him, but as a kid he had this Cashmere sweater that acted as his safety blanket and eventually 'brat in the Cashmere sweater' became 'hey Cashmere'. He decided on the spelling when he learned to read/write.

💋What:

Shapeshifter Incubus Hybrid.

Genderfuid (pronouns based on appearance).

On the asexual spectrum.

Just shy of 6 feet tall.

Very likely autistic.

A bastard.

(Feel free to hit me w/specific what questions cuz this can get real outta hand)

💋Where:

He's not sure where he was born, but he's been in Du’Preve as long as he can remember.

Du'Preve is the 4th and final district of the Halkyon Empire. It's a place that's big and abrasive like New York, full of sleezy entertainment like Las Vegas, and is a trashy dupsterfire like the Jersey turnpike.

Du'Preve is home to vampires, gorgons, gargoyles, litches, and hybrids. Collectively they're called Du'Preve'd, darklings, 4th class, nightcrawlers, or just 'lowers'.

But recently he got caught by the govt system and shipped out to District 1 🫶 sucks to suck.

💋When/history:

I don't want to give up tooooo much. 🤔Hmm. He's almost 300yrs old. No clue who his parents were but was a cute kid who found means to shelter himself. A couple centuries and a lot of trauma later and he's a calculating distrustful member of the criminal underground willing to do whatever it takes to avoid revisiting the past.

💋Why (did I make him?):

The thought for my wip 7 Circles began during quarantine 2020. I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and when my school semester ended my skin was crawling with creativity that didn't have an outlet. So I gave in and downloaded tiktak.

Im a drag persormer/cosplayer and ended up on the side of the app where folks collaborate on settings and interact in-character as their ocs to create a story. I joined as my OC Kazimier and not long after, I began interacting with the charming, dark-eyed OC, 'Klaus Calvaire'. We started messaging to plot story collabs.. then started messaging just to say hi.. then messaged our lives to one another.

This witty, handsome, well-written person was flattering me enough by collaborating so much with me- then they fell in love with me, moving 1000s of miles to live life alongside me. I'm humbled every morning that I'm dating the mind behind my internet crush, and we share whispers about our ocs as we hold one another each night.

The og tag group splintered, the clock app is no longer great for my brain, but Kazimier and Klaus are still going on adventures alongside me and my unlikely lover, 4yrs and over 100k words later. ❤️

💋How (did he come to be?):

Personality was originally based on what I thought would be interesting to write, but then I accidentally added chemical X (my truma) and ended up with a bastard.

As for his looks.. they're based off my drag performance style/makeup🫣. Like.. he was a cosplay before he was really a character. It's embarrassing and strange and delightful all at once that this mf kinda looks like me. 😳

Soooooo, Yeah! He's my most developed blorbastard so there's a lot more, but I'll leave the rest for more asks. If you have further q's feel free to send them!

Hope this wasn't too much of an overload lol if you made it this far thank you so so much, I hope the muses bless your wip 🙏

[jonathanthetranswriter]

Why School Should Be A Safe Place- Another Rant

Everyone's experience at school is different. It depends on where you live, how old you are, what teachers you get, ect ect. Most kids hate school- waking up early, doing work, being told what to do. It's most kids' nightmares, and it can be hell if you're somehow atypical. However, school should be a place where people feel safe.

Speaking from personal experience, elementary and middles school was hell for me. I didn't understand why I was so frustrated- why I needed to be perfect. I didn't comprehend when my friends were using me. I didn't know why every teachers making good examples out of me still made me feel awkward. Nothing made sense, so I went with it. I just assumed school was torture and pain and nothing else. For everyone. Ever. Seeing people who had fun in those years made me feel like I was doing everything wrong. Like there was some sort of code I was missing. Then I got to high school. Covid made for a rocky start, but once I was able to get there, I realized I had been so wrong about a lot of things. Once teachers started using my name and pronouns, I felt human. Once they stopped telling students to be like me, I felt comfortable. I now had teachers who listened. I didn't have to suffer in shame wondering what was wrong with me- they understood without me saying a word.

Then I made friends. Friends who didn't want me because I had the answers to the test. Friends who didn't want to dump feelings and emotions on me without asking and without being willing to listen in turn. Friends who didn't talk shit behind my back. I could joke with them, laugh with them. I could tell them how I felt and they'd respond. We could set boundaries and respect them. I was finally able to let go. In the back of my mind, everything kind of stuck, but the thoughts were whispers rather than yells. I had a support system. I didn't have to worry anymore. I was fine. I could be myself. That's huge. When I go home, I have to place everything about myself in a box. My gender, my sexuality, my self expression, my fixations. Everything that I can share, do, BE when I'm at school, I have to pack it up. I have to change myself entirely. I can't bring up LGBTQ+ topics- too many arguments. I can't stim- I'm weird or on drugs. I can't talk about my interests- no one wants to hear that.

What if I had to do that all day? What if I had to keep myself in a box day in and day out? What if I wasn't safe anywhere?

That's the issue, sadly, in too many places. Boxes can only hold so much for so long. They give out eventually. That's why there are so many suicides. Boxes break and no one has the energy to tape it up. No one should have to. You need to be able to be yourself somewhere that's not online. The internet can be a wonderful outlet- that's true- but nothing compares to being able to be yourself out in the world. Your childhood- as in from the moment you're born to the moment you're legally an adult- is meant to be a time of discovery, love, and enjoyment. It's not supposed to hurt all the time. Bumps and bruises here and there are expected- but you shouldn't always have a concussion. If you can't find yourself, you're going to have a hard time adjusting to adulthood. Dealing with the guilt and self-hatred that comes along with seeing everyone else being so sure in their identities is not a great feeling.

I don't even know if this rant made sense- but the takeaway is this: Grades aren't real, school's for self discovery and if you're not safe to do that then it's bullshit.

[bluefirewrites]

i gotta Juke AU story

————

this is inspired by this one filipino movie i watched “para sa hopeless romantic” but julie and luke go to the same uni and julie writes a random line of lyrics on a schools desk and luke writes the next lines when he’s in his class. the next day julie sees someone finished her lyrics and they end up having a finished song throughout the week. they obviously end up falling in love with each other’s words but one day the desks in that classroom were thrown out so julie and luke try and find the desk and run into each other only for Luke to find out it’s Julie, his crush since the beginning of school, and Julie finds out it’s Luke, they boy who she’s been eyeing ever since she’s first seen him. honestly this is all over the place. this is just another random college au. tehe

I DID NOT KNOW THIS WAS FROM A FILIPINO MOVIE!

I have much more pride in my culture now you have no idea haha! But no really,  Filipino movies can be the cheesiest, silliest, most cliche things I’ve ever seen. And I mean that endearingly. 

So it makes total sense that this super cute trope that I see popping up in different fandoms came from a Filipino movie. 

I think I’ve seen an iteration of this on AO3 and it was super cute! (But I think it was more like leaving a piece of paper on a desk). 

But yes, yes , YES. 

Juke is the perfect ship for this. 

Hmm... I think it would be an interesting take, because my mind went to Luke first, if it was Julie who would start it- yes I agree with you. 

It is canon that Luke helped Julie finish the song that she had been working on with her mom (’Stand Tall’), so might as well run with it. 

Maybe during her quiet year, where she didn’t sing or play piano, she often found herself doodling a lot. She kinda threw herself into drawing. It was her creative outlet that brought her comfort during these rough times. 

She’d have trouble paying attention in class sometimes, and so she would end up doodling. 

Now, I used to have a history class that frowned upon doodling in notebooks. The notebooks would be graded, and if there is a non-history, non-relevant doodle in the margins or anything- you get points docked off. 

So Julie, like me, tried remedying this by doodling on post it notes to avoid getting in trouble. 

But one day, Julie forgets or runs out of post it notes, and she’s only got her history notebook and textbook with her. And since she has no qualms marking up her jeans and shoes, she thought she’d be discrete and doodle on the desks.

Not like anyone would have a problem with that anyway. These desks are old af and scratched up and had doodles on them already. 

She would start drawing her usual stuff- funky creatures, bubble letter-ed profanities, etc. 

But then she starts thinking about her mom, she starts doodling dahlias and even a rose in one corner. Memories start flooding back and she starts absentmindedly writing down a lyric of a song they never finished, just bits of pieces figured out: 

‘Don’t blink...no, I don’t want to miss it’ 

She didn’t think to erase it. Just grabbed her stuff and went to her next class. 

The following day however, she pulls out her post-notes (after getting more) and is about to doodle when she sees a new scribble on the corner of the desk where she wrote her lyrics. 

Squinting, she realizes those are words (geez, the penmanship sucks). But she was able to make it out: 

‘One thing, and it's back to the beginning’

It’s written right under her line. And she reads them together- 

Wow. This sounds... pretty good. 

She quickly jots this mysterious new addition to the song in her post-notes, but not before giving writing another shot and provide another line. Curious, if she would get another response. 

She does. 

And it’s perfect. 

It’s been a year, a year since she felt the urge to write, to think about music- but, when all the lyrics fall into place, Julie is suddenly inspired to continue. 

She spends the entire class thinking about how to reply, how to keep the momentum of this song going. 

When she gets it, she writes it down underneath the new line. And waits. 

And like clockwork, next day she sits down and there’s a new addition. 

First verse done- Julie couldn’t believe it. 

Smiling, she records it all and had to erase everything from before to make more room. 

‘Thanks’ she writes ‘Keep going?’ 

The reply the next day has her grinning from ear to ear: 

‘I’m game :)’

And that’s how it goes: Another day, Another killer line. 

Julie would rush from her next class, confusing Flynn who did not think she would be so excited going to history, smile on her face, anticipating another message from this mystery writing partner. 

Sometimes, she gets too caught up in her head, eagerly thinking up new lines that she often doesn’t watch where she’s going. One time, she pretty much embarrassed herself while bumping into the cute Luke Patterson in her rush to History. 

(She practically fell on him and he tried to talk to her after, but she jumped out of his arms before whatever awkward conversation that was bound to happen if she stayed). 

Julie and her pen pal would keep working on the song, even came up with a system to let each other know if they’ve finished a verse. 

And sometimes it’s not just lyrics. Julie draws her normal doodles next to her lines, and she’s delighted to find even more ridiculous ones waiting for her when she gets back. 

There was one time when she’s had to stifle a laugh because a crude caricature of their History teacher in their corner, yelling out the next lyric: 

‘I'm goin’ out of my mind!’

(Glad to know someone else shares the same sentiments about their strict history teacher.)

They finish her mom’s song and Julie’s glad... grateful even. But she couldn’t help but feel disappointed... assuming it’s over. 

But come Monday the following weekend, her pen pal decided to leave another line- 

‘Running from the past... Tripping on the now’ 

and a new comment: 

‘My turn now?’

A new song, and Julie grins, already coming up with ideas... 

She loves writing again, especially music. Sparked by this exchange, she eases herself back into listening to music again, looking for inspiration to use for the song she and her mysterious partner are working on. 

And writing with this person... is really something else. 

But Julie’s favorite part of the whole experience really is the comments written on the upper corner. Stuff like: 

‘This part is killer!’

‘Mindreader, much? :P’

‘Wrecking ball at it again. So talented :)’

and her favorite:

‘You make me a better writer...’

She ducks down so no one can see her blush as she writes back: 

‘I think we make each other better...’ 

Flynn one day tells her straight up she’s got a crush on her pen pal, to which Julie denies because how could she have a crush on someone she doesn’t even know. 

But as she thinks about it.. she feels like she does. Or at least know enough to establish this sort of connection that feels like they’re in each other’s heads, know how the other person thinks, inspiring the other. 

It was... special. 

Flynn suggests that she needs to figure out who is leaving these notes. But it’s hard seeing as though Julie has the class in an earlier period, a bunch of other classes are held in the same room after she leaves. 

(Flynn tries a sting operation, but ends up getting caught ditching class before she could solve the mystery). 

Julie’s worried though. As much as she wants to figure out who this great pen pal is, she wonders if they would be disappointed to find out they’ve been writing her. And not someone as cool and as pretty as Carrie Wilson or her friend Kayla. It’s hard to live up to those expectations. 

In the end, she wants to know. At least so she could maybe thank them in person, for helping bring music back into her life and for making history class the highlight of her day. 

She decides this right before they break for Thanksgiving. She writes down: 

‘I wanna meet you. Can we talk?’ 

And she’s on pins and needles the entire break, just wondering what her pen pal would say back. ‘Yes’, ‘no?’. 

But what she finds when she comes back from break is so much worse than the fear of rejection. 

They got new desks. 

Their school finally got their shit together and replaced their old, worn down desks. 

‘No, no, no, no, no’. 

That means she’ll never know what her penpal end up replying... 

She runs out of class and finds Flynn, panicked, she tells her what happened. And Flynn does some digging, and she’s able to find out where the janitors dumped the old desks. 

Julie totally underestimates just how desperate she is in finding out the identity of her pen pal because she finds herself sneaking back to school at night with Flynn, seeking out the lot behind school where the dumpsters were piled high with the old desks. 

Flynn, the ride or die she is, armed with a flashlight, starts taking out the desks along with Julie, and there are... a lot of desks. 

They go at it for an hour, and the situation starts to look hopeless, especially when Flynn discovers a whole new set of dumpsters with desks that they haven’t even checked yet. 

They’re about to throw in the towel- 

But then they hear voices. 

Quickly, they hide behind a dumpster right when three guys, with flashlights, come onto the scene. 

“Dude, I can’t believe we’re here at this hour-” 

“Oh my god. There’s like a boatload of stuff here-” 

“Guys. Can you not? And please help me? It’s gotta be here somewhere”. 

They sound... familiar. They were definitely not the custodians. 

Risking it, Julie leaves her hiding spot- 

“Luke?” 

Luke Patterson jumps and whips around to face her, “Julie?” 

Behind him are his bandmates, Alex and Reggie. Everyone looks at each other confused. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. 

“I...uh, I’m-” Julie stammers, “Well-” 

Flynn cuts in, “She’s looking for something,” 

Luke nods, “Really? So are we.” 

Alex scoffs, “Nope. Just you, dude. But we’re helping.” 

“Maybe we can help you too?” Reggie offers, “What are you looking for?” 

Julie sighs, “... a desk?” 

“Well... you came to the right place...” Luke laughs, shining his flashlight on the dumpsters, “Funny enough that’s what we’re looking for too.” 

“One in particular?” 

Then the guy gets all clammed up, “Uh... yeah. I think... I might have... left something... in it. Something important.” 

“How about we all look together?” suggests Flynn, “Help each other out?” 

And so they exchange the descriptions on the desk, with Julie leaving out the glaring obvious detail of the note. 

They’re surprised to find out that they’re looking for the same kind of desk. The ones they used in a particular building at school, the same one her history class is in. 

So they break off and search. And she ends up in the same dumpster as Luke. 

“So what’s in your desk?” he ends up asking. 

“Huh?” 

“You know... that’s so important that you’re here on a Friday night, digging through a dumpster,” 

“Right... uh,” Julie scrambles for an answer, “There’s something on- I mean, in the desk... that really helped me. I was going through a hard time. Lost my mom last year-” 

Luke stops his search, “Oh, I’m so sorry-” 

“It’s okay. I just...” she sighs, finding another desk that looks like hers but not quite, “I just want to find it...” 

“I get it. Hopefully we can find your desk.” 

“Hopefully we’ll find yours too,” 

After another 20 minutes searching, Julie finds it. At the very bottom of the dumpster. Luke’s face lights up once she brings it out. 

“Oh my god, you found it!” He exclaims, hands gripping the edge to take it off her hands. 

She tugs it back, “Yeah... I found it... my desk,” 

“Your desk? But this is my-” he breaks off, eyes widening, “Wait. Are you...?” 

“Am I what?” 

Luke drops the desk, clears his throat, and starts reciting: 

‘I believe... I believe that we're just one dream...’

Julie gasps, then continues: 

“Away from who we're meant to be...”

Then together: “That we're standing on the edge of...”

“...great.” Luke finishes, in awe, “You! You’re ‘Lyric Girl’!”

“You’re my pen pal?” Julie says in disbelief. 

Luke Patterson has been her pen pal this entire time? The cutie with the cutoffs? It makes total sense. He’s in a rock band and the songs she’s heard from them have amazing lyrics. 

Wait... she has been lowkey crushing on Luke Patterson through his words... 

“Wow, it’s you! Luke... wow...” she honestly has no words. They used to come easy to her when she talks to him via the desk, but now, after finding out that the local heartthrob is her writing partner, she’s super nervous. 

“Look... if you’re disappointed that it’s me... I get it. I’ll give you an out, and you won’t ever have to talk to me again-” 

“Julie-” 

“-like this is weird- this is weird right? But I mean what we had was nice and all-” 

“Julie, can you-?” 

“-we don’t ever have to talk about this if you don’t-” 

“Julie!” He reaches for her hands and intertwines their fingers, shutting her up. 

“Yeah...?” 

He takes a deep breath before saying: “Why would I ever be disappointed that it’s you? I’ve... got like a mad crush on you since freshman year...” 

Julie choked, “Wait, what?” 

“Voice of an angel and wicked beauty to boot? How could I not?” he smiles, “And... finding out that you’re my mystery muse is just... you don’t know how happy that makes me.” 

His smile drops and he’s all the sudden bashful, “Wait... are you disappointed that it’s me?” 

She shakes her head, “No, no! That’s not why! It’s just... you’re this rockstar in the making! I didn’t think- I didn’t think you’d ever pay attention to me.” 

“I do... I do pay attention,” he looks down at their desk, “Well... maybe not enough attention, otherwise we would have met sooner.” 

She laughs, “Totally,” 

They stand there for a while, grinning at each other like idiots. 

“So...” Julie decides to jump the gun, “Do you... maybe wanna grab something to eat?” 

Luke raises an eyebrow, “Are you asking me out, Julie?” 

She blushes, “Maybe,” 

“Interesting,” 

“So what’s your answer?” 

He leans in, “Might wanna look down,” he whispers. 

She does, right on their desk and finally reads the reply she’s spent weeks thinking about. 

‘Tell me where and when...

I’ll be there...’

Needless to say, but that from that day on- they don’t need to use their desk to talk anymore... 

[orangerosebush]

On minds and matters

It was a bit disheartening to spend years working towards an MA in psychology, only to then use it on hour-long glorified eye-staring contests with the moody adolescents of the UK’s Vieux riches. His job paid well, though, and as such Dr. Po was willing to grit his teeth and soldier on through each meeting on his list.

He’d had plenty of patients who came to him determined not to progress. These were the boys who had a few too many write-ups on their files; the ones whose families were tired of their son being too 'emotionally high-maintenance'; the students who had consigned themselves to being one of the ‘troubled’ boys. The problem with elite boarding schools was that they sometimes served as the dumping grounds for wealthy families who would prefer to not be reminded of their screw-up children — as such, Dr. Po’s target demographic was made up of boys determined to ‘win’ therapy by going home just as bitter and in pain as they were when they started sessions with him.

He didn’t always make a breakthrough. Sometimes, he had patients who showed up to a session with a note from Dean Guiney excusing them from further meetings, and that was that. Dr. Po firmly believed that every single student he’d met with was capable of finding some coping mechanism or outlet that would help them — and he hoped that the students whose sessions stopped before any progress had been made found happiness in the future. Or, at the very least, that they found something that would bring them peace.

There were certain patients he’d had that stood out from the others, both for good reasons and bad. Artemis Fowl II was one of those patients — and standing out for reasons ‘both good and bad’ described Artemis perfectly. 

Following a series of disastrous sessions when the boy was thirteen, Dr. Po had simply stopped seeing Artemis. The boy hadn’t even shown up with a note terminating their sessions. One day, a new boy had shown up in the time slot usually reserved for Artemis, and that had been that. Dr. Po hadn’t seen Artemis since. He vaguely remembered hearing the news that the Fowl patriarch had been found — alive — and not been sure whether to expect Artemis to get better or worse. 

Would the return of his father foster the growth of the nascent emotional maturity that Artemis had exhibited in their final sessions? Or would Artemis’ worst traits — his tendency towards arrogance, his dismissal of others, his budding narcissism — firmly take root, defining Artemis’ personality for good? These questions nagged at Dr. Po, and truthfully, he was too cowardly to ask around the staff to confirm just what sort of person Artemis had become.

Thus, Artemis remained an enigma.

An enigma that just so happened to be sitting in the armchair across from Dr. Po, boring a hole through the doctor with his unflinching gaze.

In true Artemis Fowl fashion, the boy had shown up for a session that had been reserved without a name. Dr. Po had nearly dropped his clipboard when he’d opened the door to usher in his new patient and been greeted with a now fifteen years of age Artemis Fowl standing before him, looking simultaneously defiant and sheepish.

They’d both walked into the room wordlessly, waiting in silence as Dr. Po awkwardly rummaged around in his desk for his old notes on Artemis while the young teen sat gingerly in the patient seat in the middle of the room.

“You’ve not switched to a digital filing system?”

Dr. Po started, looking up at Artemis.

“No psychiatrist or counselor uses iPads or digital notetakers,” Dr. Po explained hesitantly, brow furrowing.

Artemis wasn’t one for small talk, usually.

Shaking his head slightly as if to right himself, Dr. Po continued. “It’d be convenient, but there are concerns about the patient being recorded."

Artemis seemed satisfied with that answer.

Flipping his notes closed, Dr. Po studied Artemis, who raised a single brow.

“I’ve never forgotten our session that you left in the middle of,” Dr. Po remarked, and the frown lines on Artemis’ face deepened. “You were such a smarmy child. But you… made this joke.”

Artemis leaned back in his chair, tapping a foot in annoyance. “What a wonderful memory you have.”

“Not really. But it’s hard to forget a patient like you, Artemis,” Dr. Po sighed. “I tried to ask you about your feelings — you responded by telling me a family heirloom was a blatant forgery.”

The memory caused Artemis to smile genuinely for the first time since he’d stepped into the office. “The fake Victorian?”

The doctor grimaced. “Yes.”

“Despite its lack of authenticity, it was a perfectly nice armchair,” Artemis assured, a gently teasing note worming its way into his voice.

Edged on by Artemis' demeanor softening, Dr. Po pushed on. “But back to the joke. I remarked on the loss of your father — insensitively, I now realize — and you shut down. You started jerking me in this way and that in order to prevent me from getting a real reading on you. You said something along the lines of, ‘I’m depressed that I’m going to therapy,’ I believe. Quite a bon mot.”

“I was impudent as a young boy, I’m afraid,” Artemis said breezily, sounding more amused by the tale than remorseful. “I hope you’ll forgive me for a poor first impression.”

“Artemis, why are you back in my office?”

Artemis didn’t even blink, taking the challenge in stride. “My mother believes it will be beneficial.”

“Your mother? Not you?”

“Correct.”

“And… beneficial? To what end? Elaborate on her reasoning, perhaps,” Dr. Po asked, trying to keep his tone light.

“She believes I am emotionally maladjusted,” Artemis said, giving a small shrug.

“Are you?”

Artemis blinked owlishly, the question not quite computing. “Am I what, doctor?”

Dr. Po clicked his pen idly. “Unhappy.”

“Well, of course.”

Dr. Po was unable to keep his face neutral, and Artemis chuckled slightly at the doctor’s wide-eyed gaping.

“Dr. Po,” Artemis sighed, sobering as if he were explaining something evident to a child. “Of course I am unhappy occasionally. I’m a very busy man. My intellect has made it so I’ve moved beyond the carefree days of adolescence — I’ve matured past an age where my mother could treat me as a child, and although I don’t mourn the loss of simpler times, I suppose she does.”

Dr. Po forced himself not to ask if Artemis had ever truly been treated as a child, deciding to steer clear of the topic of family based on how unproductively the discussion had gone years ago. Instead, he elected to place his clipboard on the floor, looking at Artemis bluntly.

“Artemis, I’m not diagnosing you with anything,” he began, holding up a hand when Artemis opened his mouth to say something. “What I want to discuss today, however, is that right now I see the same pain in you today as I did when you were thirteen — and since I’m no longer getting complaints from department heads, that means you’ve taken that frustration and turned it somewhere else.”

Artemis’ lips quirked upwards, but his eyes were mirthless. “You share my mother's theory that I am some variation of the tortured genius stereotype.”

“How about this — I think that you believe that there isn’t a person alive smart enough to help you. Because to 'fix' you, someone would have to look inside you, and you think you’re the only person that’s able to understand how you work.”

“How narcissistic of me.”

“I’ve met with a lot of people since our last session when you were thirteen,” Dr. Po stressed. “I’ve not met anyone quite as clever as you, but I’ve met people who fit the same profile. You’re well versed in my profession, so you’re able to view your pain as both a participant and as an outsider — and that strangely voyeuristic relationship to your mind makes it so you and all these other folks think that you’re objective. Logical, even, in your analysis of your mind. You understand every tick, every tiny mechanism, every structure of your psyche. And if you understand it all and you still can’t will yourself to be happy, then why the hell should I be able to do anything for you? After all, I’m just some idiot who decorates his office with forged antique furniture his grandfather was gullible enough to purchase. Why should I know better than you do?”

Artemis was silent at that.

“If someone can, say, convince themselves that all their peers are 2D caricatures of people, they’ll never have to think about why they struggle to feel any pleasure from social interaction. If they can look around and see how far their family has come, then they can force themselves to box up and discard the baggage of the past. If they can convince themselves that pain and genius are twins, that the torment is part of the gift by which they define themselves, then the fear they have that maybe they’re destined for a life marked by paranoia and apathy no longer has to be confronted,” Dr. Po tried, searching for some way to express his thoughts before Artemis decided to snap at him. “Maybe you’re the only one who sees the world as it really is. But maybe your mother is right to be concerned. I get why… that’s an unattractive possibility to you. It would mean your analysis of yourself was incorrect. And if you were wrong, if your mind has tricked you into running away from the change that you need to feel happier, then you’re just as human as the rest of us. Pain tricked you into believing its integral to your ‘youness’. You’re... just human. And let me tell you, Artemis, that feeling ineffectual, and frustrated, and sad is... so very painfully human.”

By the time he’d finished his spiel, Dr. Po’s voice was soft. Pursing his lips, he tried to see if he’d garnered any sort of reaction from Artemis. The teen remained stony-faced.

“I can recommend a therapist from outside Saint Bartleby’s,” Dr. Po finally said. “If you don’t want to work with me, then I don’t want to waste either of our time.”

Artemis seemed to be broiling with unreadable intensity, and for a moment Dr. Po worried that he’d start going on a diatribe.

His fears soon were proven unfounded when all of the sudden, Artemis seemed to deflate.

“I do not choose sadness for myself, Dr. Po. I can assure you that,” Artemis remarked, sounding weary in the way men twice his age did when confronted by the prospect of the world having moved on past their prime.

“I would never imply something so insensitive,” Dr. Po insisted. “But there is a difference between me saying something of that sort and me asking you to believe that I could help you. Or if not me, then someone better suited to working with you.”

Artemis ruminated on the statement, his tapered fingers tapping out an unfamiliar rhythm on the arms of the ornate chair he was sitting in.

“I will come to my session next week,” he finally decided, and Dr. Po almost sagged with relief.

Carefully, the two of them continued on with the session. Although it felt as though they were both walking on eggshells around one another, the hour-long session ultimately ended in a place where Dr. Po felt like they could work with. He walked Artemis to the door, and after awkwardly bidding him goodbye, Dr. Po retreated back into his office.

For a while, he simply sat at his desk, thinking.

It wasn’t as though he’d made groundbreaking headway with Artemis today. Frankly, they’d been only nominally productive following Artemis’ promise to give therapy a genuine attempt.

The day stretched on, and Dr. Po was no closer to making sense of the ever-present Artemis conundrum.

After all, how does one describe Artemis Fowl?

Various psychiatrists have tried and failed. The problem is Artemis’ own intelligence. He bamboozles every test thrown at him. He has puzzled the greatest medical minds, and sent many of them gibbering back to their own hospitals.

Dr. Po paused, reaching back for the clipboard he’d discarded at the beginning of the session.

Artemis Fowl II was fifteen. He had various, tremendously important responsibilities, the details of which he refused to elaborate on. His best friend, to Dr. Po’s knowledge, was his paid bodyguard. Frankly, Dr. Po didn’t think they’d talk about Artemis’ family for a long, long time.

Dr. Po couldn’t really describe Artemis Fowl, because he didn’t know him. He didn’t think many people knew the boy, not really.

All the same, Dr. Po wanted to try. He wanted to try to understand Artemis Fowl a bit better. Not because Dr. Po wanted to a hero, but because he wanted Artemis Fowl to just get to be a boy instead of whatever impossible, confusing role Artemis seemed to be trying to fill.

Artemis Fowl was fifteen. Dr. Po hoped that he’d hold onto boyhood a little while longer.

[musicmusing]

First Morning Coffee Equivalent

Welcome!

This is the infinite internet page where I’ll be consciously streaming streams of consciousness.

The desire to express my thoughts on music in whatever ways possible has been building up inside me since the day I was conceived, dare I say.

Plainly, I plan on writing about sounds I come across, old and new, that strike me. I tend to be oft stricken, and I’m hoping that, on top of these blurbs being fun to read, they’ll offer me a bit of an outlet. A canvas for me to destroy with internal connections of external stimuli. I won’t be quantifying reviews, just expressing personal experience, however that manifests; live shows, 15 second clips in advertisements, full albums, whatever. Leaving things a bit open ended here. It’ll definitely take me a second to figure it all out.

Anyway! Leah Wellbaum, the all-powerful leader of punk band Slothrust, writes and sings in her song “Cranium”,

I don’t wanna be addicted to the noise

But when it goes away I wanna die

When I proverbially got some of my shit together (it’s all relative), I moved to Asheville and pencil-dove awkwardly as fuck back into college. Thanks, Charles, for casually mentioning one day that UNCA has a music program. My concentrations became music (general) and neuroscience, a combo that asked me to use more parts of my brain and nervous system at one time than I’d ever known existed. One of my favorite classes involved vast insight on drugs and addiction, and specifics on what parts of our bodies are involved, why, and how. Therefore, another reason I’d like to dump all of my thoughts on this particular topic in one place is to subtly and purposefully reframe the textbook definition of addiction and therefore the way we exist and see other’s existences.

We all have addictions, yet the definition of that word has become so separate from the self and so commercialized, that it seems that we don’t get the time to explore what it all means. We’re too busy worrying if these things make us stand out or fit in instead of discovering how these things make us feel about ourselves and the world around us, and why.

There aren’t solutions to everything, but there are explanations, paths, answers, answers that lead to more questions, compromises, spaces, neurotransmitters.

So, I think I’ll start this page off with some descriptions: I’ll be writing about ten of my favorite albums of all time, in no particular order. It’s extremely difficult to create a seemingly permanent hierarchy of sounds; perception is so fluid.

That being said, if there’s something you want to talk about together, please let me know! Again, figuring out exactly how to make this a well-oiled situation will take some time, but I sincerely look forward to seeing where it goes.

Until next time, here’s proof of early musical influence and the concentration I was willing to put into it (magic blur is brother). It’s not unlikely that we were dancing to an album called Sanctuary: 20 Years of Windham Hill, one that brings up all kinds of emotions to this day when it graces my ears.

[princesssarcastia]

a veronica mars leverage au, i guess, because what else should i be doing with my life?

*deep sigh*

So I was thinking about the mechanics of a veronica mars leverage au—as in, veronica mars characters in a leverage like set-up, because the leverage setup is the golden standard™ of like, the known universe.

you have veronica mars, mastermind; the rest of the crew being made up of wallace, mac, logan, and weevil.  and mac is obviously the hacker.

but I also think that, in this au, the roles won’t be so clear cut.  the problem is that in veronica mars, all of these characters (except mac, who is an archetype) display different skills from each of the five defined roles in the leverage universe: hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, mastermind. 

veronica is a mastermind, sure, but she also makes killer fake IDs and breaks into systems like hardison does and is a hell of a grifter.

weevil can throw down, and lift things like a thief, and even pull one over on someone in a grifter-like fashion. and as head of the PCHers he has some definitive mastermind tendencies; he knows how to plan a fight, and a con.

wallace is more of a solid dude than a member of the criminal element, but when veronica needs him, he’s played roles like a grifter and pulled off lifts like a thief.

logan has a talent for violence, but also can lie like he breathes and put on shows to convince the best of them.

really i guess they all just have a little grifter in them.

if I had to had to had to give them all definitive leverage archetypes, though, it would be veronica: mastermind, logan: hitter, Weevil: thief, wallace: grifter, and of course, mac: hacker.

veronica is the mastermind because she knows all of them best, knows what they can do; because she’s capable of putting all the moving pieces together into one perfect plan; but also because she’s a control freak with maaaajior trust issues.  there’s no way she could ever let anyone else be in charge.

logan is the hitter because he’s just got that underlying current of violence about him at all times, but also because my absolute favortie scenes of his are when he’s being protective of veronica.  not that end of season three bullshit, mind you, but like the scene in season one when he rescues her from the federal agent, or the scene in season two when he bluffs his way into and out of the irish mob’s territory with an unloaded gun to save veronica.  make him the hitter and we get breathtaking violence from him, sure.  but we also get to see logan at his best: giving a damn about the well-being of others. 

weevil is the thief because this guy is smooth.  he pulled the heist at the carnival brilliantly in s2; and he stole that pen from the Kane household in s1 successfully even though the police arrested him and catalogued everything on his person, including the pen. it’s a bit of a square peg in a round hole, but I feel like he;d have comfortable knowledge of security systems and guard rotations and police jurisdictions.

wallace is the grifter because i’ve noticed that a lot of the times he asks veronica for advice on how to do stuff, its grift-related.  “how do I seduce the fake head cheerleader?” for example.  and he pulls some short term grifts for her, like when he infiltrates the silicon mafia at SD State.  also he’s got the best innate knowledge of who people are and what they’re like.  yeah, veronica can pull people apart, but Wallace is just good with them in a way she isn’t.  and also he’s got the most emotional maturity out of any of these basket cases.

mac is the hacker because she’s god’s gift to computers, duh.

what I really want, though; what any good leverage AU is an excuse to do, is to make a found family out of these losers.  imagine if these five people all...trusted and loved each other, in addition to liking one another??  i’m drooling just thinking about it.

I also think that, ironically enough, being righteous criminals in constant close contact would work wonders for veronica and logan’s relationship, lbr.  if veronica is mastermind-ing their cons, she doesn’t have to wonder what logan—or any of her other friends, for that matter—are doing, and go a little crazy to find out.  it’s an outlet for her control-freak-trust-issues.

aaaand if logan is their hitter/muscle, it’s literally his job to protect everyone, including veronica.  violently, if necessary. 

plus, they can both work out their paranoia on things that aren’t each other—cause it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

the best episodes always involved Veronica pulling her friends into cons with her; VM the show is already only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away from leverage, anyway!  solving mysteries, sure, but also getting revenge, retrieving items, getting even...providing leverage.

like, seriously.

Veronica and Wallace effortlessly pulling a grift out of their asses when they’re caught in a sticky situation, using that emotional drift comparability in their brOTP.

Mac, getting the respect and cash she deserves for finding information and recovering hard drives and also, giving her righteous side some room to move.

Logan and Weevil sniping at each other, maybe having not-so-faux fights as distractions or part of a con— but having each other’s backs.  playing partners in macho stoicism even though we all know they’re softies sometimes.

Wallace and Mac, standing to the side as exasperated captains of the maturity and stability team while Logan and Veronica share a dumpster fire.

Veronica and Weevil doing that thing, you know, where they’re kind of flirting and kind of pulling one over on their audience and pulling each other out of messes.

Wallace, prince among men, getting to play the handsome and charming credit to his gender he is.  imagine, if you will, him pulling honey-trap cons on marks like sophie deveraux did.  i am and it’s delightful.

the worst part about canon!VM is how much they all (veronica.  largely veronica) tore one another down; betrayed people; didn’t trust them; hurt them; expected the worst and got it in self-fulfilling bullshit.  imagine if all of that went away and then write it for me pleeeaaaseee

i’ve been brainstorming and like, there’s two paths you could go.  one is a complete graft to the leverage fusion, in which they never actually went to high school together but instead are professional criminals who all grew into their own on their own and came together.  in this path, we’d come in on our anti-heroes already in the thick of it—or at least, having deep histories together that allow them to trust one another right away.

the other is like, veronica falls to the “dark side” in high school and drags them all with her, handing out black hats as she goes. perhaps in a world where Aaron Echolls gets acquitted and Duncan Kane does not have an assassin at the ready to avenge his sister outside the law, where Veronica literally can’t sleep at the thought of him out there.  a world where Logan and Weevil have that same insomnia, and Mac and Wallace care about Veronica enough to help. 

and maybe it starts out as just a way to get new evidence so a judge can declare a retrial and get Aaron convicted; but ohhh, Aaron Echolls is not a man who can leave well enough alone.  He’s a rich, powerful, attention seeking mother fucker who likes to taunt logan and veronica about what he did to lily.  so even though it’s not Duncan paying for him to get assassinated, the end result is the same: Aaron dead as a doornail, like he deserves.

Maybe it’s a fake suicide, like Veronica planned out for her criminology course, the literal perfect crime.  Maybe he gets murdered and dumped on Lamb’s doorstep with an audio recording of him confessing—edited by Mac, of course, to make sure Veronica and Logan’s parts in the charade weren’t included.

also i’d like to think that, in this world where they wear black hats to better play white knights, Veronica and Logan have just...the best-worst reputation.  Yeah, they melt around each other, but ho-ly shit they’re still lethal—especially if you put one in danger.   Maybe Logan’s got a reputation as an attack dog, and maybe Veronica’s got a reputation as holding his leash, and maybe they’ve proven they’re willing to do anything to keep each other safe.  Maybe, they made a deal, a long time ago when they started out: Veronica gets to get into anything she wants, whatever crusade is currently pushing her buttons, as long as she brings Logan along to protect her. 

their story is epic, after all.

anyway! In Conclusion, tl;dr, someone please stop me from having veronica mars feelings, and if leverage could please stop being the best found family ever, that would probably help.

[see-arcane]

Things I’m hoping for in season 5

-Jonah Magnus just utterly eating shit in the apocalypse. Could be after a long, drawn-out battle, a fall from grace, a big epic crescendo of comeuppance, etc. 

OR he could just immediately come eye-to-Eye with the consequences of assuming giant evil horror-gods with no actual concept of a rewards system would just casually hand him a crown and let him chill in omnipotent immortality with the big kids, followed by him just as immediately getting boneturned

-Even funnier addendum: the Fears DO have a concept of giving their big herald an omnipotent cookie and Get Out of Eternal Torment Free card, but they take it very, very literally. I.e.

Jonah: “Guys, look, my scheming paid off! I brought you through the Door!”

Fears: “What? No, you didn’t.”

Fears: “Anyway, hi Jon Archive, thanks for bringing us into your tasty human world. Here, have an endless terror buffet.”

Jon: “Well, much as this feels right, I’m actually trying to stick to a diet here and--,”

Fears: “Would it help if we turned Jonah Magnus inside out?”

Jon: “You know, I think it would”

-Basira and Were-Daisy, monster-Hunting duo.

Basira and Were-Daisy, joining the same ‘So Your Significant Other is An Actual Inhuman Horror, But They’re Trying to Make the Best of It,’ club as Jon and Martin. Martin and Basira have several drinks. Jon gets dragged along by Were-Daisy as a monster detector, Were-Daisy has a fun, monster-throttling time.

Basira and Were-Daisy

-Georgie and Melanie have to strike very careful, compromising balances between their own would-be patrons.

Georgie and The End are too close for comfort because Georgie is Fearless-but-Concerned, and wants solace in the notion that, hey, it all has to End somehow, right..? The End smiles and nods.

Melanie discovers late in the game that the ‘neighbors’ she thought she was talking to are actually extensions of the Dark, extending their invitation.  

I want them to hit the goth girlfriend threshold, is what I’m saying

-At the same time, I also want Jon to finally, finally, FINALLY get to have a big cathartic blow-up at the lot of them for all the micro and macro-aggression bullshit they dumped on him pre-Change. Like, a proper, explosive snap in which he lays out their hypocrisies and double-standards and general dogpiling on him as an outlet for their frustration and fears, while Jon was left to nod and agree with all their assessments of him or risk ‘sounding like a monster.’ Because, like,

Basira nonchalantly implying that she’s sorry to see him alive post-coma, that she will ‘put him down’ if he continues to make people feel scared VS giving her girlfriend who Actually Murdered People a pass?

Melanie doing some a-mazing mental gymnastics to make her rage bullet issues somehow because of Jon, who saved her from becoming a Slaughter avatar?

Georgie throwing up a thousand layers’ worth of cold-shouldering and misreading Jon’s whole deal as somehow intentionally fucking up his life and others’? Just because??

Daisy apologized for plotting to murder him post-Unknowing and had a cooldown session, she gets a pass

But yeah, like—let Jon vent. Or, hell, let Martin vent if Jon’s still too self-loathing to bother. Just let someone stand up for Jonathan Sadman Sims, okay? Let him have rights

-The Admiral as a tiny Hunt avatar

-The Admiral encountering Jon the Archive, immediately trotting up to get belly rubs. Belly rubs happen

-Let’s see some of the old school avatars! I want to see the cyclops from Alexandria, I want to see the monsters who’ve been around since B.C.E. come out of the woodwork. Are they having a good time? Are they coming out to tell the youths they done fucked up, you were never supposed to do a ritual successfully, the fuck is wrong with you Jonahlias Bouchnus?? Are they just there to flex on the youngster monsters with all their millennia-old power??? I don’t know! I don’t care! Let me see them!

-THE EXTINCTION. PLEASE GOD LET THE EXTINCTION BE

1. WHAT WIPES OUT THE FEARS BECAUSE

2. THE FACT THAT JONAH LITERALLY CALLED DOWN THE APOCALYPSE FOR THE SAKE OF A) POWER AND B) AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE EXTINCTION COMING THROUGH PROVES A GREATER FEAR OF EXTINCTION THAN HUMANITY HAS

3. LET THE EXTINCTION HAVE BEEN A COMPLETE IMPOSSIBILITY UNTIL THE MOMENT JOANNE MUGNAS STARTED THE APOCALYPSE, OPENING THE DOOR FOR 15 INSTEAD OF 14

4. WHOOPS –Jonah ‘Now You Fucked Up’ Magnus

-Jon gets to utterly wreck Jonah’s shit

-In fact, let’s just set up a line a entities for said shit-wrecking, everyone gets a turn

-Let us hear Annabelle Cane.

-Let us hear Annabelle Cane.

-LET US HEAR ANNABELLE CANE.

[marcazoshop]

I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt

This photo is from way back in ’98 at my first headline nyc show at tramp’s before the start of this very wild ride with the slim shady lp with jimmy and dr dre definitely a I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt special time I looked back on after watching the premiere of thedefiantones in la the series starts on hbo tomorrow night also be on the lookout for this limited merch to celebrate the premiere. ️ ️ ️ ️ ️ no one has to know your age unless you want to share says fan linda about her eye lift pro experience what else gives you a lift our vote goes to chocolate chip cookies comment below your avon representative is ready to come 2therescue with your eye lift pro. Playing the super bowl last year was indescribable it changed my life so excited to see what justin s going to do I know it will be amazing sb52 superbowl superbowl52

Source: I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt

I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt, Hoodie, Sweater, Longsleeve T-Shirt For Men and Women

I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt

See more: Craft O Lotl Origami T-Shirt

Premium Trending This Summer Season will Presents Who Love:

Today in 2000 the I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt it s gonna be me video made its world premiere on total request live with 28 days at no 1 it was the summer s most requested video. Limited edition and fresh picked for spring meet the newest honest diaper collection available now exclusively for subscribers update your bundle or get started here. So this is going to be a bit long but bear with me I had what I believe to be a pointless and incredibly frustrating experience with the assistant manager jamie at your auburn hills great lakes crossing location today I have been coming here for three years I frequent your orlando san marcos and new jersey locations as well at least once a year when we stop we usually spend 5 to 10 thousand dollars on your products the system is simple I go in park in a corner and bring bins to my corner sort them bag them move them to the front register and repeat today I brought a personal duffel bag as it holds about 8 to 12 of your bags worth of stuff I get told that i’m not allowed to use it because it’s policy not a big deal at all I say okay i’ll do that for the rest rather than rebag all of this i’ll just go up in line and pay for it and it can sit behind the counter seems pretty reasonable to me nope I got obstructed suggested that I might be stealing something and not allowed to pass stating if I don’t want to follow the system I can leave he then takes my entire duffel dumps it onto the floor and then rebags it into victoria secret bags then moves it to the front counter so it can be rang in I thought this was a little odd but hey he was doing all the work rebagging it so whatever i’m like dude i’m going to be spending about 8k today all I want to do is come in spend some money get out without any drama what’s the problem whoevers in charge should be thrilled with a sale like this we’re spending 8k keep in mind that I told him that I would do what he wanted and it wasnt’ a big deal and the response was to the effect of stop being lippy and just listen I told him what do you want from me I just agreed with you and said I would use your bags i’m not being lippy at all I know this because I said okay dude not a problem i’ll use your bags his response was maybe if you get to buy it i’m like what are you suggesting that an 8 000 order is something you guys don’t want he’s like yeah if you buy it i’m like dude we are spending 8k today why would I bag up a bunch of stuff and spend 2 3 hours picking our your fabulous product to not buy it anyway so I had 4 credit cards one card had 2 000 one had 3500 one had 2000 and one had 1000 because I am buying for multiple people I had 4 different cards all in my name I wanted one receipt for each card not a big deal to me right wrong again he cited some policy and said if the order is more than 750 items that they aren’t allowed to ring in under 750 items on any one receipt id like to point out that that amount is higher than your employees said they could take as a cash payment I asked him to please show me that I would understand better if I could just read it he was willing to do so he brought out the policy book and to my surprise what it actually said was words to the afffect of cash payments cannot be split up or over 750 items I forget the second half my immediate reply was so what’s the big deal im using credit not cash he snatched the policy book away from me at that point and said you know what you can just listen to me or I don’t have to let you buy anything it’s up to my discretion I then called your orlando outlet and your new jersey outlet and talked to the store managers and cited your policy I was given I asked them to confirm if that was accurate and both said if it was a policy it was news to them I then asked if they would let me buy my order using 4 cards and 4 receipts the woman at orlando said oh my gosh yes we do that every single day I asked if I went to her store if I would have any trouble with this in the future and was told no then she said you can always come down here if you’re in the area and i’ll be happy to take your order after that phone call I tried again here’s the video of that attempt I said listen I have 4 credit cards your register girl said you told her she can’t ring up an order under 750 items that’s 3500 if it’s 5 items not all of my cards have that much I have done multiple receipts every time I came here heck I can even supply them to show it he tells me that because I am order so many items that I can’t have less tan 750 items per receipt so I point around to everyone else and ask what about everyone else you aren’t forcing them to spend a minimum of 750 items what about the final charge i’ll have 750 items for two tickets but the leftover isn’t going to be 750 items you’re not going to let me buy them he shrugged his shoulders to say no at this point I haven’t yelled ive been a bit snarky and sarcastic because I know he’s just giving me a hard time two people ring in our order almost every time I am up there and we were there 3 times in the last 6 months spent a bunch each time so at 730 8pm or so we are done shopping assuming that two people could ring us up ended up being a fantasy he forced one employee only to ring us up later on he comes up when its now close to 9pm and says hey you mind if we ring you up on both registers I chuckle and say no I don’t but you do you don’t want to be breaking that 750 rule do you he glared at me and then sent the employee away and walked off after blinking a few times I laugh because after telling me over and over he couldn’t do it he just got caught trying to do what should have been done to begin with a short while later after 9 I find out that everyone is standing uip front except for the one girl and another associate because none of the rest of them are allowed to help her ring us up the only two people left in the store with about 700 more items to be rang in if that’s not enough since it was a holidy all of these employees are apparently being paid overtime to stand around and wait at a bit after 10 all but two girls leave and one girl is waiting to count cash while the other girl sits and keeps ringing stuff in we apologize profusely we expected two employees to ring us up like always and timed our visit to be out around 9 if this had happened instead of having one literally stand there and watch her for 1 hour and 47 minutes after close we would have all been out on time and no overtime or extra hours spent so finally at 10 47 pm our orders are done we thank the lovely girl lauren and jasmine who got stuck staying 2 hours past close because a manager made up some random policy and had to double down when I pointed out he really needed to follow that 750 rule when he was going to toss another girl on the register if this is policy fine it doesn’t seem to be no manager at your other outlets knew what he was talking about the orlando one insisted that the only restrictions are on cash payments and verified I was paying cash or credit it’s a pretty humiliating experience to get hassled trying to buy panties and bras by someone who’s on some type of power trip the only thing I said sideways to him was that I flat out didn’t believe his policy and that credit absolutely is not the same as cash I didnt call him any names scream at him or did anything to disrupt the store beyond what you see in the videos if this is not policy i’d like an apology from that manager in person or over the phone admitting he was mistaken I would hope that the next time I go there I am not hassled but if not I guess there’s always orlando or new jersey who seem to be quite friendly I also want to give recognition to jasmine and lauren lauren is the poor soul who got stuck ringing everything in alone because of the manager’s silly rule and not allowing anyone to help because it would be in violation of the 750 item rule jasmine was the cash counter who had to wait until we were out of the store to count cash even more interesting is that I had a former employee with me helping me buy and she said she never heard of this policy either but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t added since she left she was just as confused because the manager spent over 30 minutes trying to explain and defend this when that time certainly would have been more efficiently spent doing productive things instead of hassling someone who literally sits in a corner and speaks to no one while sorting through your products one bin at a time id love a call back about this or to find out what exactly is going on ive never been hassled like this before and it was a little frustrating and very trying to keep my cool joe rossetti alexandria gunn See Other related products: I Am A Simple Woman Dog Paw Flip-Flop Wine Trucker T-Shirt

[gravitasfalls]

A rant on fandom etiquette, the GF fandom, and what they did 4 years ago (and now)

By now, my “bullshit” tag has refuted most of the ridiculous hot takes, fun policing, and harassment that fans of Stanford Pines have had to face from the wider Gravity Falls fandom. But these rebuttals fall short of naming the real problem with anti-Ford wank: we never should have seen it in the first place.

People might have genuinely forgotten this, but fandom used to have etiquette against character hate. We called it “wank” and “bashing” instead of dignifying it as “discourse”. As late as 2014, fandoms on this very site had “X hate” or “anti-X” tagging systems for blacklisting, as courtesy to people who liked X thing...

...a far cry from GF fans of 2015 demonizing Ford in the most inexplicable ways, making every post a platform for that, siccing their followers on anyone fully positive about him, then pretending that never happened post-finale as they continue the bashing more insidiously to this day.

Like, what even was that? There’s a lot to unpack in those people’s arguments but let’s just throw out the whole suitcase.

(Under the cut: Snapshots of discourse I shouldn’t have had to put up with over the years, and snark-based coping with that. It gets ugly, you’ve been warned.)

Ford is irredeemable/deserves to suffer, why he didn’t even thank Stan!!1

Thanks I hate it! “It” being your apparent decision that, because you can’t make the fictional character suffer, real people who like him are the next best thing.

Ford is egotistical! Have I mentioned on literally every post I think his only trait is “egotistical”?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. But while that is just, like, your opinion man, you’re entitled to it on your own posts; you’re falsely entitled about it by forcing it on dissenters’ posts and inboxes.

*dumps negativity into inboxes anyway*

Your Hot Takes have disturbed and insulted me. You fools are unworthy of my great knowledge. The era of human enlightenment shall never come to pass.

You really think Ford is some kind of hero?

Only after you told me I wasn’t Allowed to see him as one and I Examined My Desires™ like you demanded! Funny how critical thinking ≠ agreeing with you.

Ford is your favorite? WHY DO YOU HATE MABEL.

Better question, why are you copying “WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA” logic? 9/11 did fan drama I swear

Ford is NOT PURE OF HEEEAAART, so you have to Constantly Explicitly Acknowledge his Sins and interrogate what relating to him says about you.

I got no friends ‘cause they read the papers. It’s funny, actually, projecting onto him got me dangerously close to processing some negative experiences from my past... good thing I have you here to shut those thoughts down <3 Thanks for saving me from myself uwu

If you just want to project onto a comfort character in peace, Stan is right there! His lack of fantasy elements makes him more relatable anyway!

Ford brought Bill’s manipulation on himself!

Damn fandom, back at it again with the GROSS VICTIM BLAMING

FFS why is this take as prominent now as ever??? at least the outlandish criticisms were funny, this one just makes me want to be dead.

Ford is abusive/manipulative because he doesn’t make fun of Dipper/ made a case for his apprenticeship/ called Mabel good/ complimented her personality!

(Yes, people did these mental gymnastics; yes, my soul left my body instantly.)

STOP trying to justify Ford’s actio-ma’am this is an Arby’s. also:

Ford is the Epitome of Toxic Masculinity, if you defend him either he’s your Male Power Fantasy or you’re a ditzy fangirl broad with ovaries for brains!

Ah yes, the two genders. Pack it in, everyone, we’ve reached peak feminism and patriarchy is over.

Someone negativity-tagged my Ford post, WTF?! I’m not “anti-Ford”, I’m “pro Ford-learning-a-lesson”!

And pro his-fans-never-having-a-moment-of-peace, apparently! Sorry I assumed you were a hater by your complete lack of positive things to say about him tho

Ford is a sociopath/deserves death for having no empathy!

"Tumblr is as ableist as any majority-conservative site," I say into the mic. The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room. "You’re right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 3rd row stands: tumblr.

*Dozens of 10000+ note posts calling Ford stupid, manipulative, solely at fault for everything that went wrong, other inanities*

(This is the fandom that made me get Xkit. I’m sure hundreds of my 1000+ blocked posts are theirs.)

If you like Ford on any terms but ours then I’m sorry, but Gravity Falls just isn’t for you, k?

I don’t have a flippant response to this one. Just... stop. No one has to agree with you about this character; no, nor with me. No one even has to engage with fandom moralistically; I promise it wouldn’t hurt anyone if I were to watch this show without having to Interrogate its Morality. It wouldn’t even hurt if people voiced character hate within reasonable bounds of tagging, as I’ve said. But instead they spread it like the plague in the name of Purity and insinuated (using ages-old “ur a fake fan!!1″ no less) that we don’t get to have outlets. I’m tired.

Look at my hilarious/satisfying art of Ford saying OOC strawman things, Stan beating him up, the kids turning their backs on him! (Srsly look at it I’ve put it in all the tags)

You’re madness, Gravity Falls fandom. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

This is only a fraction of shit we’ve had to wade through, practically every day while the show was running. You couldn’t avoid it if you followed popular blogs. I saw the best meta writers of my fandom dogpiled by BNFs, dragging themselves through the blue hellsite at dawn looking for a fix-it fix. And people now expect me to believe it was “just Discourse” or that anything equivalent happened “in reverse” toward Stan. If I didn’t know better that they don’t know better, I’d call gaslighting.

I don’t expect to change anything. In fact, until this blog’s next go-around I don’t intend on seeking out new content anymore. I can’t keep looking at a fandom where the consensus on a canonically abused character’s victimization is that it was stupid, funny, a moral failing, or deserved, and expect anything to improve.

But to anyone else these people hurt: your anger or upset is valid, and I’m sorry. None of us deserved this. And I’m not letting it follow me into the next decade and make me forget why I liked this show in the first place, even if the only way to do that right now is cut off from the fandom a bit. I’m telling you, it never should have come to that. I don’t know if negativity-tagging can ever catch on here, considering tumblr has no boundaries by design and fandom no boundaries by choice... but for the sake of everyone who comes next, Gravity Falls fandom, make an effort.

[barbariccia]

X57: Bring Down The Sky

ok, i lied. there’s one last thing for me to get through in mass effect 1 - the BDtS dlc, which i’ve never played through before. it’s relatively short and available for free if you play on pc - included with the base game on origin, and can be downloaded on ea’s website for steam.

who wants some Additional Plot all crammed into one long post?!

in true ME style, you’re thrown directly into the action. once you enter the area this mission takes place on via the galaxy map, you’re shown a familiar looking world... and an asteroid slowly approaching.

and we’re dumped onto the asteroid itself in the mako.

it’s pretty easy to see the objective even if you weren’t paying attention to the distress call.

three giant fusion torches are propelling the asteroid at great speed toward a looming planet that looks rather earth-like, though we’re not in the local cluster at all. this is terra nova of the exodus cluster, one of the first planets colonised by humans after they discovered the mass relays and what lay beyond, and the second “extrasolar colony”, the first being no other than elysium, which we’ve heard about before.

there’re bases around the three tourches, all armed with heavy turrets, easy enough to dispatch of via the mako’s own gun, and once we make it inside the first base, we’re treated with a... rather unusual sight.

these charming fellows are batarians, outlaws and pirates for the most part, and while not seen in the base game, they go on to be the face of space-orcs, in a sense. vicious and seemingly war-hungry, they’re directly responsible for a ruthless shepard’s background, who was stationed on torfan and lived through their assault, the only person of their troop to do so.

we clear them and their varren out easily enough, and disable the first torch at a panel upstairs.

read the subtitles, shepard.

the communication line she’s using goes dead. on our way out...

we meet a man, who shoots and immediately panics when he sees the chest he attacked belongs to a human. eh, i’ve had worse.

this is simon, the chief engineer. he’s worried, of course - we’re heading right toward terra nova, where there are four million people living. not ideal.

well, that’s just fucking dandy, then.

Simon: It would be like millions of fusion bombs striking at once. Millions. The heat of the blast... a thousand kilmoeters away, clothes will ignite. There’ll be global wildfires. Air shock will flatten everything for hundreds of kilometers. Terra Nova will die, Shepard. Not just our colony - the planet. There’ll be a climate shift. Mass extinctions. The ecosystem won’t recover for thousands of years. Millions, maybe.

Shepard: Any chance it’ll land in the oceans?

Simon: That would be even worse! Tsunamis would sweep inland at hundreds of kilometers per hour. Millions of tonnes of water would be vaporized at the point of impact. Global cloud coverage. The plants could all die. And if they go, the whole ecosystem rolls over. I-- I’d have to run the numbers, but take my word for it: it’d be bad.

traditional mol nerd notes, since i was a dinosaur kid: the idea of the asteroid that decimated the dinosaurs (and began one of the 5th largest mass extinction events in eath’s history) was only first proposed in 1980, which is way more recent than i thought it was. the asteroid itself is thought to have landed in the area of chicxulub, mexico, and the collision itself is considered to have released around 100 teratonnes of TNT -equivalent in energy. so big boom. as of 2019, dr sean gulick has done research ⁽¹⁾, ⁽²⁾ on the crater itself and the rock record of the impact, and doctorial student robert depalma (and coauthor professor phillip manning) has excavated the Tanis area of Hell Creek ⁽³⁾ amd published a paper on the findings of deposits in the area ⁽⁴⁾, though the latter has been criticised for being potentially sensationalist, having been published by media outlets before it was accepted at PNAS.

either way, it’s commonly accepted that the impact would have thrown enough dust into the atmosphere to have caused an impact winter for up to a year, which was likely exacerbated by vaporised rocks in the atmosphere that helped to reduce sunlight reaching the surface, and causing acid rain. this in turn likely led to the oceans cooling and becoming more acidic. if wildfires were also on the menu, it would have contributed to a greenhouse effect.

whatever happened, the impact led to about 75% of all species on earth becoming completely extinct, so terra nova’s not looking especially peachy with twice the damage incoming.

tl;dr yeah seems pretty spot on

this comes out when you select the renegade’s “damn aliens” response, which is pretty incredible. even as shepard you have the option to be xenophobic... but batarians really haven’t proven themselves to be much more than as aggressive as krogans, honestly, if not worse, somehow. for a non-ruthless shepard to think this way... yeesh. goes to show just how much the attack on elysium affected the human psyche, even if you’re happy enough to bring aboard most other kinds of aliens aboard your stealth cruiser.

well, let’s get on our merry way. simon tells us that one of the torches is surrounded by proximity mines, which were going to be used as excavation tools once the asteroid was brought to terra nova - where it was en route toward anyway, by design - so we have to be extra careful going over them. yay.

never change, shep.

he also tells us that he had a crew working on the asteroid when the batarians hit. it’s easy enough to find them... or what’s left of them, once the batarians were through with them.

they’re, naturally, spread around the asteroid.

the message is cut off by the sound of an explosion.

and as for the third...

all three are very, very dead. but hey, on the way we at least got to turn on the transmission tower once again.

party on, dudes.

after you turn off the second torch, kate contacts you again.

we get the chance to see what’s going on with kate. there’s a man with her, and a small group of batarians that have them cornered.

spoiler: he doesn’t make it.

no time like the present to go turn that third and final torch off. after we do, there’s a small group of aliens waiting for us.

we have a little chat with our new friend, who tells us that he knows he’s in way over his head. another batarian by the name of balak is running the show, and “what balak wants, balak gets”.

[Renegade choice: Don’t be stupid.]

Shepard: Spoken like a true lackey. You get me out of here and I’ll take care of Balak. Or you can take your chances with me.

Charn: An, uh, interesting proposal. It certainly has benefits over the current situation. (to another batarian) Shut it down. This is Balak’s problem now.

he gives us a keycard, tells us where to find the boss, and scarpers. balak’s elsewhere, in a different facility, also guarded by turrets.

in case you don’t want to look at your map, the red gives it away. why’s it red? who cares!

there’s a hell of a shootout waiting for us in the final facility, but once we’ve cleared the area of what feels like every batarian ever conceived, balak himself deigns to come show his face.

Balak: I’m leaving this asteroid. If you try to stop me, I’ll detonate these charges and your helper and her friends are all going to die.

Shepard: You don’t get to leave, Balak. Not after what you’ve done.

Balak: What I’ve done? This is nothing compared to what’s been done to the batarians. We’ve been forced into exile. Forced to survive on what we can scrounge up. It’s been like that for decades.

Shepard: Why take it out on these people? They didn’t do anything to you or your race.

Balak: Didn’t do anything? Aside from colonizing a world that could have been ours? Aside from using resources that should have been ours? We were left to defend ourselves. But the humans were stronger than us. We knew that. The Council knew that. But it didn’t matter.

Balak: It was you. You and your kind are the only reason we’re in this position.

Shepard: How does killing innocent people make up for that?

Balak: We had no other options. Sometimes you need to get someone’s attention before they’ll listen.

Shepard: Is that was Elysium was? A way to get our attention? Well, you got it. And when we responded you ran like cowards. Now you want to start it all over again.

Balak: You couldn’t possibly understand... Actually, you just don’t want to understand. And I’m done wasting my breath.

the choice is, once again, in your hands. that’s a very interesting dialogue they have before this... and one i can understand both sides of. it’s worth noting that originally the batarians were welcomed into citadel space, but their aggression provoked more than one crisis intergalactically. their exile from the council is recent- they weren’t happy with humans colonising in areas that batarians already considered claimed (this is the skyllian verge and elysium, for those keeping track), and when they were told no by the council, they closed their embassy, severed all relations, and became a rogue state, retreating back to their own systems and becoming known primarily as pirates and slavers within the terminus systems, outside of citadel space. those in the terminus systems are actively rebelling against their own government, too, who prefer to stay in their space.

i don’t want to use the word self-imposed exile, but from the human’s point of view it’s very much a throwing your toys out of the pram because you can’t get what you want act. then again, from the batarian point of view, why should they stick with a council that doesn’t seem to consider them as on equal footing enough to grant them rights to colonise the land as they claim it?

i chose to let balak go, and save the hostages. we’re stopping the asteroid either way, and death for death is... well. not ideal. if we’re throwing away our ideals and doing the whole eye for an eye thing we should have started a long time ago.

worth noting here that the base game offers a sidemission i remember me to colonist shepards, where you meet a survivor of mindoir, a colony that was raided by batarians ~13 years before game’s start, and is the colonist equivalent of the sole survivor mission dead scientists. after the colony was attacked, the surviving girl was taken by slavers, and the sidemission deals with you taking her down from a suicidal response to systems alliance soldiers finding and killing her batarian slavers. provided you talk her down, she resurfaces in a minor way in the next game, with an email thanking you for helping her. i think it’s a damn shame that this sidemission is only available to colonist shepard, because in no way is this an isolated view of the batarians and the things they’ve done and would have been a nice bit of additional flavour text for the rest of the game, considering batarians are only mentioned in passing once or twice (and in basegame only get a concept art picture by their codex entry, even).

(laughs in virmire)

you tell simon about the dead engineers you found, and let the hostages go.

she explains that the man the batarians killed was her brother, who convinced her to join the team in the first place. you get the chance to ask her a couple of questions, mostly about herself, but also...

Kate: I don’t even think they knew. When they first arrived, they were talking about getting us back to their ship. They wanted to sell us as slaved. When Balak showed up, everything changed. It was his idea to redirect the asteroid. Said it was the will of the batarian rebellion, whatever that is.

considering balak and his contingency are the outliers of their society... well, buddy, i hate to say it, but you don’t speak for the rest of your people. sure, tensions are high with humans... but they are with the turians, as well, and the turians didn’t throw a hissy and exile themselves and have their people considered the worst of the worst by even their government for the practises of a few.

eghhh. this is one of those surprisingly complicated situations. this isn’t the first time bioware discusses this concept - dragon age 2 comes to mind, and i’m sure i’ll get around to that as well sometime - but we’re not really given any way of viewing the batarians as anything other than an enemy in BDtS. we do see more batarians in the future, and that’s its own thing. we’ll revisit this later.

Bring Down The Sky, complete in around an hour. not bad for a (now) free dlc mission, but the stuff i’ve done here today won’t carry over to mass effect 2. turns out the last save i had on the normandy was actually just after feros; all my other save states were in the middle of something of on the citadel at the end of the game where there’s no way to get out and do something else. thankfully, not having completed the dlc doesn’t affect anything in the future too much, though i think i won’t be getting some me2 background commentary. not that i’d know what it was, having never done this content before.

ah well. upwards and onwards, crew!

[missmentelle]

Obviously it depends on the people involved and a lot of other factors, but thoughts/opinions/advice on whether or not to get into a romantic relationship freshman year of college? is it too early or something to that effect

Unfortunately, there’s just no way for me to advise you one way or the other here - it really, really depends on a lot of different factors. Some people get into relationships in their freshman year and regret it. Some people get into relationships in their freshman year and meet their spouse. Your mileage may vary. There are both situational and relationship factors to consider; sometimes people have bad relationships in freshman year because they truly aren’t ready for a relationship, and sometimes people have bad relationships that would have been bad at literally any point in their lives, and it just happened to take place in freshman year. Having a relationship at any point in your life is kind of a gamble, and you are ultimately the only one who can decide if the situation is right for you. 

I do think, however, that there are some factors that make you more likely to have a successful college relationship; if you’re thinking of dating someone seriously but you aren’t sure if you’re ready, you might want to start by asking yourself:

Have I adjusted to the college environment? There are always going to be stressful and overwhelming periods in your college career, but the initial adjustment to college during your first year can be especially stressful. Have you gotten used to the level of work that is required and the large classes that you have? Do you have a good handle on how your classes are set up, and how to follow a syllabus? Do you feel comfortable going to your professors or TAs for help? Have you adjusted to being on your own for the first time, and to life with a roommate if you have one? It’s probably a good idea to wait until you’ve acclimatized to the college environment before you start dating - at the very least, you should probably give yourself a couple of weeks to settle in. 

Is my mental health in a good place? How are you feeling? Are you dealing with the usual amount of college stress, or are you having deeper feelings of hopelessness and despair? Are you taking care of yourself to the best of your ability - sleeping, exercising, eating the occasional vegetable? Do you have a support system? Hobbies? Outlets for your stress? Basically, you want to make sure that you’re in a place where you won’t dump all your emotional needs on a partner, and where you can also offer them occasional emotional support. 

Am I able to set and enforce my boundaries? Balancing schoolwork and a relationship requires boundaries - you need to be able to tell your partner “no, not tonight, I need to study”, and follow through with that boundary. Second chances are expensive and time-consuming when it comes to college, and it’s really important that you protect your GPA while you are entering into a dating relationship. It’s also important that you know how to enforce other boundaries as well - people enter college with wildly different levels of sexual and relationship experience, and it’s important that you have the ability to make sure that the relationship progresses at a pace you are comfortable with. 

Am I dating because I genuinely want the other person specifically, or am I just dating to date? This is another big one - a lot of people enter college with the idea that they are woefully behind on dating and sexual experience, and that they should rush into a romantic relationship right away to “catch up”. This is a mistake. Rushing into a relationship with the first person who will have you puts you in the uncomfortable position of trying to navigate a very stressful time in your life, while also having a relationship with someone you might not be in any way compatible with. If you don’t have your eye on a special someone in particular, it’s okay to wait to get into a relationship. 

How does the other person’s schedule align with mine? Differences in schedules can be overcome, but the more your schedules clash, the more difficult the relationship will likely be. If you and the object of your affection are going to have difficulty seeing each other more than once or twice a month, it’s important to ask yourself if you can handle that in a relationship, if you are willing to rearrange your schedule to get more time together, or if you’d prefer to look for a partner with more time available to spend with you. 

Do we both have clear expectations for the relationship, and are those expectations compatible? Before getting into a relationship, try to be as clear as possible about what it is you’re looking for. Is this a casual thing that will end when the school year does? Or is this more of a serious relationship that you’re hoping to carry through the summer and beyond? It’s not always possible to know exactly what you want out of a relationship, but it’s important to try to have at least a rough idea, and to keep your potential partner in the loop. Not communicating about your expectations is a recipe for hurt feelings and intense conversations, which is not something that anyone wants to experience when they are up to their ears in midterms. 

Ultimately, whether to date in freshman year or not is your call. You know yourself, you know your workload, and hopefully you know at least a little bit about the other person. Is this something that would add value to your life? Or is this just something that will increase your stress? You are the only one who can answer those questions. Dating in freshman year can be worth it for some, and not worth it for others - there is always a bit of risk involved. Best of luck to you!Miss Mentelle

[artificialqueens]

Impolite 'Thank yous': Chapter one and two (Branjie) - BlackHighHeels

AN: I finally decided to get an account on here, because I was inspired to write this story because of a request I found here by chance while battling with another Branjie idea. This is for Akarana, who made the request. I hope I’ll do the idea justice.

This is inspired by Call me by your name (the book more than the movie)

(Read on AO3)

Chapter 1

When I saw him for the first time, it was also the first time I became aware that a ‘Thank you’ can sound fucking rude. I mean, not the intentional aggressive or ironic 'Thank you’ you say when you’re damn angry or want to be rude. But the kind of 'Thank you’ that just shows that the person saying it, doesn’t mean it one bit.

He stepped out of the taxi, let the driver dump all of his bags and suitcases onto our front lawn without helping him and then just said 'Thank you’ with his stupid Canadian accent.

I walked over to him, and was surprised by how much taller he was than me. I’m not exactly tall, but him… Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Blonde curls, blue-green eyes, bushy eyebrows, white, milky skin…different from me in every way. He was a pretty white boy.

Maybe that’s when I fell for him?

I helped him carry his stuff inside anyway, because otherwise Alexis would surely whoop my ass. Blondie was his guest after all, the prodigy drag daughter of one of Alexis’ pageant friends from Canada. He would stay with us for six weeks to get an idea about the pageant system in the US and then he would leave again. And I was asked to be on my best behaviour and help my 'drag sister’ out. I even had to move out of my room and into the drag room, so he had a bed and the bigger room.

“Jose,” I held out my hand once we stood inside the house, surrounded by his luggage.

“Brock.” We quickly shook hands and I was surprised how cold his hands were, here in the Florida heat.

“Alexis! El muneco de nieve esta aqui!” I watched his face for a reaction to the stupid nickname, but there was none. Looked like he didn’t speak Spanish. His face showed no emotion at all. He was intimidating.

“Brooke, so nice to meet you,” Alexis came out of his office with a large smile and followed by his husband Jeffrey.

“Nice to meet you, too.” While the introductions were made and smalltalk about the travel exchanged, I let my eyes wander over him again. He wore grey sweatpants and white trainers. A large, red T-shirt that had a hole just above the seam on his back. Beside his obvious lack of fashion sense he seemed very confident, but kind of aloof as he spoke to my drag parents.

“Jose will show you your room,” Alexis said and brought the attention back to me.

“You mean my room,” I couldn’t help but grumble.

“Take his bags with you, por favor,” Alexis ignored my remark.

“Who am I? The bag boy?” I turned to the guest and pointed to one of his huge ass suitcases. “You can carry that yourself, you hear me, white boy?” Then I grabbed the smallest of the other bags and led the way to what was usually my room. “This is yours now, usually it’s mine. Keep your fingers off my stuff on the left side of the closet. Right side is yours. I’m in the room over there and we share the bathroom. You better not be a messy ho, put the toilet seat down and don’t leave toothpaste in the sink.” With the warning I left the room and went over to my temporary home. Jeffrey had put a small bed into Alexis’ drag room, but it would do for the time being. I had a bed, a tv and my video games and make up.

***

When Alexis called for dinner I knocked on his door and waited until he finally came out so I could take him downstairs with me. He was still wearing the same stupid outfit, even though I had heard him taking a shower earlier. To celebrate his arrival nearly every member of the house of Mateo was present.

“Jose, gambas?” Victoria asked me and already handed the plate over, knowing that I wouldn’t eat much of the rest of what was served. Meanwhile Brock didn’t seem to have that problem and stacked his plate with a little bit of everything and uttered his stupid “thank you” after each plate that was handed to him.

“You’re only eating shrimp and rice?” he addressed me at some point, after the discussion about his long travel and the placements in pageants of my drag sisters had come to an end.

“Yeah, I’m a pescatarian.”

“Really?” he smiled. I felt that he made fun of me and wanted to punch the stupid grin of his face.

“Really. Got a problem with that?”

“Not at all. Just surprised, because everyone else seems to be enjoying their meat.”

“Don’t want any animals to be killed for my dinner. And I prefer a different kind of meat or sausage. Just need a gay club and some juicy trade for that, though, if you get my drift.” He nearly chocked on his beans and started coughing and finally the smile was wiped off his face. I just raised an eyebrow and exchanged a look with Jelitza. What kind of drag queen was he? Surprised by a comment about sex? This could be fun after all. Maybe the six weeks of him staying wouldn’t be as horrible as I had first thought and I could like fucking with him at least. Instead I grew to hate him over the next couple of days.

***

Maybe it happened when he came along to walking the dogs, my own dog Riley and Alexis’ dog, the next morning and I showed him the neighbourhood. A black cap backwards on his head, his feet stuck in black espadrilles while the rest of him wore the same outfit again. One curl snuck out from underneath the hat and fell into his face a couple of times. Each time he stroked it back and huffed in annoyance. He held the leash of Alexis’ dog more loosely than I ever did and still, the dog pulled less than it did with me. We walked quietly side by side, except for the moments when I pointed out a shop, the house where two of my drag sisters lived or the dog sitter.

It might have also been wile we worked on the new pageant costumes out on the patio. He glued rhinestone after rhinestone to the fabric with incredible accuracy, while I got distracted every couple of minutes by the chatter around me, a bird that few by, Riley who wanted my attention and by him, by his concentration and total lack of attention to what was going on around him. Whenever he glued on the last stone in a row his tongue peeked out between his teeth and wet his lips. The wetness it left behind glistened in the sunshine until it dried a couple of seconds later and was gone.

Possibly it was when we went grocery shopping together. Or during the first joined dance practice when he twirled around the room on his tiptoes. Or maybe when I woke up during his second night at the house, because his loud snores could be heard through the wall between our rooms.

“You want me to show you the pool?” It was Sunday afternoon and only the two of us were home. I could use some time in the sun and the water before I had to go back to work the next day. It was also the perfect offer in this heat and everyone always came over to cool down in the water.

“I think I’ll go to the mall instead. But thank you.” There it was again that polite impolite way of keeping people at arm’s length. Me being one of them. It hurt. And it busted the dream bubble I had of the both of us in swim shorts, all wet and delicious.

“Suit yourself, mami.” I shrugged and turned around to go to my room and get changed anyway.

“Can you drive me?” He stopped me. He’d only ben with us for three days and didn’t know the way to the mall yet.

After deciding that the clothes he wanted to buy would be better bought at the outlet center, I drove him there instead. The drive was silent until he made me stop the car and took the key from me. I was banished to the passenger’s seat in my own car, because of my 'erratic, irresponsible, crazy and dangerous driving that will kill us’- his words, not mine. I took revenge by letting him buy some more ugly ass shirts and shorts, because he only had brought clothes that were too warm. How damn stupid could you be? Bringing sweaters and long jeans to Florida?

“Alexis said you have to go back to work tomorrow. What do you do?”

“Drag.”

“Beside drag. Or is it your day job as well?”

“I work at MAC. I’m a make-up artist. And you?”

“Drag.”

“Beside drag? Or is it your day job as well?” I repeated his words, mocking him.

“Yes.” I snorted. Of course it was. A guy that looked like this and could dance like that could totally make a living simply by doing drag. “I used to be a ballet dancer though.” He smiled. I smiled back. He looked younger when he smiled, not that he looked old otherwise. Just his aloof behaviour and the stick up his ass was kind of getting old. “Ever did some ballet?”

“No. I was just always on the dance team at school. We rocked out ghetto style, grinding and shaking out booties.”

“I can see that.” No laughter, not even a smile. I couldn’t place the look he gave me. It gave me hot flashes.

“It’s getting fucking hot. Wanna hang out by the pool now or go to the beach? I got shorts and towels in the car.” I offered, seeing as he wiped the sweat off his forehead again, as we were sitting outside, sipping cold drinks in the shade.

“You go ahead. I still have to get some stuff. And I have to get a rental anyway, so I’ll drive back on my own. ” With another 'thank you’ he got off his chair and left, vanished into the Nike outlet store.

I felt stupid for even offering spending more time with him and getting rejected again. If he wanted to keep sweating and shopping then that’s what he was gonna get. I grabbed my wallet and keys and drove my erratic, irresponsible, crazy and dangerous ass to the beach and hung out with my cholas. Fuck him, thank you very much!

***

Most likely I fell for him without really realising it. I always noticed what outfits he was wearing.

When he finally showed up at the pool for the first time on his fourth day and shook the water out of his curls, making it fly everywhere, I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, then down over the slight stubble on his cheeks, tangle them in his chest hair. I yearned to see if his white skin would turn red, if I sucked on his neck and wondered if his skin would taste like the pool water, sun lotion or just him.

Five days into his stay I showed our new dance routine to the other dancers. They had problems with the slight jump before the death drop and were afraid they would hurt themselves. I showed them how to do it, then went on to show them the rest. Half way through the routine I felt his eyes on me. I kept dancing, concentrated on the music and the beat. I added a little jaunt to my steps, turned up the energy, straightened my shoulders. Still,  I was aware of his wandering gaze, the keen smile and the warmth in his gaze that melted the ice which usually surrounded his whole being. It made my heart beat even faster and the flush on my face had nothing to do with the dancing.

When the music stopped I looked at him, our eyes met, but instead of the admiration I had hoped to find, I was met with disapproval and something similar to hatred. It nearly knocked my over and I stumbled backwards. What had I done to deserve this? My dancing surely wasn’t that bad. Honestly, my ability to dance was the only thing I had ever really been confident in. It shook me to the core and suddenly I didn’t want to dance in front of him anymore. Or be in his presence in any other way, if he disliked me that much.

I stayed away from him for the next two days, which wasn’t hard. Usually when I came back from work he was already gone. “Out clubbing” Alexis let me know and wiggled his eyebrows. We didn’t even talk to each other when we accidentally ran into each other in the bathroom or anywhere else around the house.

***

When the weekend came and another 'family dinner’ came up before we’d all go out to do drag together at the club, I felt his eyes on me all through dinner. I ignored him and kept talking to Victoria in Spanish, knowing he didn’t understand it.

“You want one?” he asked me, holding out a cigarette, when we were waiting for Jeffrey to bring the van around, our costumes already loaded into the car.

“I don’t smoke,” I told him.

“You’re smarter than me, papi.” He smirked and blew the smoke out into the night.

“I know.” I mirrored his smile and laughed when he bumped his shoulder playfully into mine. Just like that we were talking again.

Chapter 2

Even now, years later, there are many things that remind me of his first week with us. The scent of the sunblock he used back then, feeling the hot wind of an even hotter summer’s day against my skin or hearing one of the songs that played the night he first came to the club with us and saw me in drag the first time. Also anything that is hot and cold at the same time, like deep fried ice-cream; hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold like him during those first weeks. His mood changed so quickly I couldn’t keep up and got burned each time. Freezer burn or burned by the heat, it didn’t matter; the pain was still the same.

He stayed close while we got ready in the small changing room backstage. Alexis and Jeffrey were next door, but me and my drag sisters always got ready together and then the parents would join us and fix what we missed: Make up not blended correctly, a loose curl here or a missed button somewhere.

Brock wouldn’t go on stage with us that night, he was just there. He watched us carefully, watched me carefully, but didn’t offer help, not even when my zipper got stuck. Once Nivana had fixed it I turned  and said 'Thank you’ in the same detached way he always did. Niv’ got the joke and we both cracked up. He didn’t laugh with us. Instead a meaningless small smile showed on his face and stayed there until we were in full drag.

I knew he was somewhere in the crowd when I hit the stage and did my first number of the night, could feel his gaze again. I crouched down, slowly went back up and shook my ass as much as I could. Did he want a piece of that? Did he want to touch me, not with looks but with his hands, his lips, his tongue, as much as I wanted to touch him? Did he like me better in or out of drag? Yet, I questioned if he liked me at all. His face was not giving anything away.

I should just stay away from him.

I de-dragged after my second number and wiped the make-up off the best I could, before I went out to the club.

“You drink Tequila?” he asked me when I had barely stepped out from behind the curtain and shoved a shot glass in my hand. I’d had three already on stage, but who was I to say no? I simply tapped my glass against his and we both downed the shot.

“Trade looks good tonight. Anyone you like?” I wanted to find out what he was into and smirked. Twinks? Bears? Muscle guys? Latinos? Fuck, I didn’t even know if he was a top or bottom.

“Maybe.” He didn’t smile, didn’t blink. Just looked over to he bar and ordered us two more shots.

“I’m gonna dance, white boy. You good here?” I didn’t want an answer to the question, I just wanted to get away from him. His mood was killing my mood and that wasn’t acceptable on a Friday night. This was the time for drag, drinks, drugs and sex. Screw him if he wanted to sulk in silence.

He surprised me by following me to the dance-floor. “I love that song.”

“It’s Ri-Ri, of course you love that song, bitch!” I exclaimed and started dancing. So did he and watched me at the same time once again.

“How do you do that?"

"What?”

“That move? How do you move your hips that way?” Heat shot through me, when I realised which part of my body his eyes were focussed on, his full attention on me.

“Ever tried belly dancing?” I gave him a smug smile and showed him the belly roll move, holding my shirt up with my chin so he could see it better.

“That’s not the move I’m talking about.” He was finally smiling, showing off his cute dimples. I did the same movement, but reversed the belly wave. He started laughing.

“Not the move either. And you know it.” His eyes sparkled, his mouth was still laughing and I realised we were flirting with each other.

“Oh, you mean this move?” I moved my hips from side to side, as sensually as I could. Aware of his eyes on me I felt my dick getting hard. Wrong time for that, absolutely. He tried to mimic my movements, but failed.

“How’d you do it? What’s the secret?” His tone was a mixture of frustration and amusement.

“Get on your tippy-toes, mami, and follow my fingers with your hips.” I touched his right hip bone through his jeans, careful not to brush against any skin. Then his left lower back. Right lower back. Left front. Left back. Once he got the hang of it and loosened up, I stepped back, stopped touching him, ended the sweet torture and got my dick back under control before he would notice.

“I think I got it.” He looked so damn proud of himself and his smile lit up the whole dance-floor.

“Keep going in figures of eight and you a belly dance ho now.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“My dance teacher at school was half Egyptian and showed us. Just with different music.” It switched back to hip hop, Ri-Ri long gone. I went back to dancing along to this beat, but Brock stopped.

“Thank you,” he told me and it sounded as fake as always. He turned around and left me dancing on my own, while he went to the bar and chatted up some guy there. I was back to hating him, stupid asshole, and gave myself over to the music and the cute guy who came over a couple of minutes later, grinding against my body and feeling me up right there. I didn’t give a fuck if Brock was watching us. He could say 'Thank you’ for the show later.

***

It was the next day, I was lying in my room, catching Pokemon, when he knocked and walked in before I even said something. He must have realised me giving him the cold shoulder after the night before. I hadn’t really slept, because I kept wondering how much he had seen. Just the dancing and grinding? The kissing? The hand down my pants? The hand job in a dark corner of the club? Anything? Nothing? Did he even care? I had finally fallen asleep in the early morning hours when I made myself giggle by imagining him hooking up and then saying his fucking stupid 'Thank you’ during or after.

“Wanna come swimming with me?”

“Pool or beach?”

“Pool.  Vic and Niv’ called, they’re already there. Alexis told me.” I nodded, switched my video game off and got up.

“I’m gonna change. Five minutes.” When I made it downstairs he had a whole backpack with stuff. Later I found out it was sunscreen, food, a small ball and a book. We walked the short distance to the neighbourhood pool in silence. I didn’t know what to say, without sounding stupid or getting a fucking 'Thank you’ back. We took two chairs which were standing side by side and I took off my shirt, spread the towel out, lay down and closed my eyes. Imagining him shirtless was better than really seeing him shirtless, because he couldn’t see my thoughts and dreams, but he could see where my eyes linger on his white, creamy skin, his nipples, his belly button.

I smelled the scent of his sunblock and could hear him squishing the tube and the way his hand glided over his own skin. I wanted him to ask me to rub the lotion on his back so badly. I dreaded him asking me to rub the lotion on his back even worse. He didn’t ask me though, fucking bitch.

“Jose! Ven acá!” Vic yelled from the water and I opened my eyes. He even splashed some in my direction.

“Later,” I replied and turned on my stomach, closed my eyes again, ignoring the chaos around me. Brock left, jumped into the water, joked around with my sisters and friends and finally came back out, towelled himself dry and sat down on his chair. I didn’t see any of it, but I could hear it. Even when my eyes were closed all of my attention was on him, where he was and what he was doing.

“You’re turning red,” he said after I had felt him watching me for a while.

“I don’t get sunburned. It’ll be tan tomorrow,” I muttered without opening my eyes.

I felt the luke-warm lotion first, before his cold hands touched my hot skin. Him touching me, running his hand over my lower back and rubbing the lotion in, nearly gave me a heart-attack. It felt like my brain short-circuited, I was rock hard in seconds and jumped in my chair when his thumb dipped into the dimple on my lower back, just above the seam of my swim-trunks.

“You ok?” he asked when I suddenly bolted up. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, but more a reaction of my body to the sensual overload. I was mere seconds away from jumping him, sticking my tongue down his throat and humping his leg. This was all too much in public. What the fuck did he think he was doing? The look on his face was weird, eyes wide and serious, cheeks tinted with a light blush. I couldn’t place it. I didn’t want him to stop, wanted his hands back on my skin, all over my body. But at the same time I didn’t, not here, surrounded by kids and their parents who were wary of the gay drag queens in their neighbourhood anyway.

“Bitch, your hands are ice cold and you ruining my tan with your fucking sunblock,” I barked, got up and jumped into the pool to cool down. Hiding my hard on was also a lot easier under water than sitting next to him. Out of the corner of my eyes I looked at him and thought I saw panic or hurt on his face, just for a second, before it became the emotionless friendly mask again.

“Vic, tell him he needs sunscreen or he’ll look like a lobster tomorrow. Skin cancer is not sexy,” he told me sister, who quickly agreed with him. I splashed some water in her face to shut her up. He lay down on his chair, apparently not worried about burning his back and started reading his book, ignoring me and my wet body in the pool completely.

***

That was also the night I saw him in drag for the first time. Back then I thought his drag persona Brooke Lynn wasn't  a lot different from his real life persona. Except, a lot sluttier in a more obvious way.  I wasn’t sure how far he had gone with the guy from the other night or what he had done while he had been clubbing alone before. I simply suspected, he was out and about fucking around. The way he spread his legs, rolled around the stage, used the pole  and flirted with the trade in the audience when he was on stage, cemented that idea in my head. Brooke Lynn was a slut, as was her creator, I was sure of it.

Sunday he missed dinner without an explanation. No one knew where he was, just that he was 'out’ somewhere.

“Found himself a boyfriend already,” Alexis wondered and laughed.

“I betcha he’s saying his fucking rude 'Thank you’ during fucking him.” I laughed, even though I felt like crying.

“You think he’s rude?” Jeffrey joined the conversation.

“Bitch, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that it never means shit when he says it. It fucking empty.  He could say 'Fuck you’ and it’d be the same shit.”

“I think he’s just shy.” Alexis was usually really good at reading people, but I though he was way off this time. “And I think you’ll like him once you get to know him better.”

“What if I’ll hate him once I get to know him better?” I huffed and puffed a bit more about the idea of liking him and him being shy and him being a good guy. I didn’t know back then just how spot on Alexis was that night.

***

I was working the early shift the next week and because we were also booked solid with gigs and rehearsals for Alexis’ and Jen’s next pageant, I had to get up extra early to go to the gym and walk Riley. As much as I was a creature of the night and liked sleeping in, there was something about seeing the sun rise over the ocean while driving by on the way to the gym. Traffic was quieter, a lot less people around and even the gym seemed less hectic and gave me time to wake up.

I was wide  awake with a start when my eyes met familiar blue-green ones through the window of the tumbling room. It was too late, I couldn’t just pretend that I hadn’t seen him and had to say hi at least.

“Bitch, what are you doing up already? Shouldn’t you be asleep instead of on your tippy toes? What are you doing here?” I teased him even though he wasn’t dancing or wearing ballet shoes. I couldn’t help it.

“I need to stretch and train every day or I’ll lose the flexibility or the muscle memory of some stunts.” He took a sip of water and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a towel. I realised he was wearing the ugly T-shirt with the hole again. It made me grin.

“So, twinkle toes, show me what you got.” He looked uncomfortable for a second, then jumped into a backwards handspring.

“Shit, mami, how did you do that?” I jumped forward, eyes wide. I was barely able to do a decent cartwheel and he could perform these kind of stunts?

“Want me to teach you?” he offered and looked more comfortable and relaxed than I had seen him this far. That was also the only reason why I agreed. He explained what he wanted me to do and then guided me through the movements. We laughed and joked while he taught me, focussed on the tension in my body, the right way to jump and the correct way to land. It took me a while, but then I was able to do it on my own. It wasn’t as graceful as his, but I didn’t break my neck and landed on my feet.

“Thanks, boo. You rock as a teacher, but I have to go.” I realised I had to hurry if I didn’t want to be late for work. The lack of time also helped with the question of how to say bye and putting it on the back of my mind that while teaching he had touched me again. Nothing sexy, nothing sensual, just his hands to stabilise me in the air so I wouldn’t fall. They had been gone again before my feet touched the ground.

***

Hours later I was still thinking about his smile and the way his shoulders slumped for once while he helped me with the tumbling. The tension that made him stand ramrod straight had been gone during these moments.

“Hey.” At first I thought the voice was part of my daydream. Then he spoke again and I realised that the blonde object of my jumbled thoughts and emotions was standing in front of me in the MAC store.

“What are you doing here?"

"I think I heard that one before today.” We both laughed. It was true. And it broke the ice and blockage in my brain.

“How can I help you Sir?” I asked politely and glanced over a my boss, who was watching me. She was a friend of mine, but he didn’t need to know that.

“I need new foundation because I got a bit of a tan. And probably new lipstick."

"You could have just texted me and I would have brought all the stuff home with me,” I told him once he paid for four different lipsticks, a new highlighter, new foundation and a couple of different lashes. I gave him my discount, of course, even though he insisted it wasn’t necessary.

“Don’t have your phone number. And I needed some other stuff anyway.” He didn’t carry any other bags, so whatever he had bought so far must be small enough to fit onto the pocket of his shorts. I handed him the bag with his purchase, then picked up his phone, told him to unlock it and added my number. For emergencies, I told him.

“Hey, you know what you really need?” I asked him when he was half-way out the store. He turned around and raised one eyebrow. “New shirts. This one has a hole in it under your left arm.” He checked, blushed, rolled his eyes and then raised the bag I had given him.

“Thank you,” he said in his usual tone. That’s when I realised that Alexis was right.

TBC

[blairwitchart]

I know literally no one cares but this is my creative outlet sooooooooooo

Here’s the start of a story I’m writing called. “Salem Witch Commite”.

P.O.V Narrator

Witches have been around for millenniums. Long before the Salem witch trials, but since then they have been hidden in the shadows, and whether you like it or not, they've been watching. They are not the only ones, amongst the witches are the creatures of nightmares demons and their underlings. Over the decades' witches have been forgotten, misinterpreted, and even fetishized. Nowadays the witches' numbers have been reduced to a misly 105, and that is on a global scale. with these low numbers, these witches have created a coven, the Salem witch committee. this committee fights everything their ancestors were burned and drowned for, mostly demons. this coven has 7 locations each consisting of 15 members, each is found in a different continent. now on to their legend

P.O.V: Blair

"We should totally go get our palms read together!" says the lady from across the street. "You know all those places are shams right?" says her companion "Ya but it'll be fun. So you free next Saturday?" "Hey, weirdo what have a told you about starring at people through the window of my favorite coffee shop," Jade says while waving my Vienna coffee in front of my face. "That it's wrong and if I keep doing it we might get kicked out and or banned indefinitely," "Exactly now cut that shit out and drink you crappy coffee," "Fine," Now if you can't tell from my name I'm a witch and so is my best friend jade we live in Boston and we and a bunch of others are apart of the Salem witch committee "hey, can get out of here I'm getting bored," I say as I dramatically fall deeper into the booth we're sitting in. "Sure, come on lazy bones!" she says while slowly pulling me from the corner of the booth. as we silly walk towards the door, we come face to face with the disgustingly handsome Alec. "Oh, h-hey Alec what are you doing here," Who jade is crushing on big time. "Oh hey guys just picking up my mobile order," "Oh well we could wait fo-" "yeah well we're actually just heading out, so see you at the clubhouse," I interrupt while pulling Jade past them. "What the hell was that all about?" "Sorry I just could not watch you drool over them any longer," "I don't know what you're talking about," "Yeah, sure dipshit,"

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

P.O.V: Blair

*Ding* *Ding* “as the clock strikes 12 the witching begins,” Tristen says, trying to sound all cool and shit. “Its noon,” Jessica retorts back. “Shut up I know just… let me take roll, Jessica,” “here,” “Jade,” “here,” “Issac,” “here,” “Alec,” “here,” “Blair,” “here,” “Joan,” “here,” “Jeremy,” “here,” “Eric,” “here,” “Taylor,” “here,” “Malissa,” “here,” “Marcus,” “here,” “Olie,” “here,” “Alex,” “here,” “D.J,” “here,” “And of course I, Tristen, is here. Now on to some serious business we have a job. Our sources say that a family in Maryland has been hexed. It should be an in and out job so I’m only sending 3 of you Jade, Alec, and Blair,” What? I understand why he would send Jade and me, we have great teamwork. But. Jade and Alec. We all see how they act around each other. They act like they’re in love while at the same time constantly saying that the other does not have a crush on them yet still being extremely obvious with their crush. Did I do something wrong? Cause last time I checked, I did nothing to warrant the cruel and unusual punishment of being their third wheel. But here I am sitting in the back of Alec’s car watching them laugh at another one of Jades’ flirty jokes. I hate it here.

“Here we are ladies, 8052 Marigold ln, Burkittsville Maryland,” Alec says while parallel parking in front of a fairly new house. “Are you sure no one’s home. If we break-in and someones in there it’s gon get real awkward real quick,” Jade says while picking the front doors lock. “Yeah, Tristen said he checked the traffic cameras 3 times and their security systems 5 times. Isn’t that right Alec,” “Yep,” Once Jade gets the door unlocked we move our things to the kitchen table. Once everything is set up we split up to cleanse the house I take the main floor, Alec takes the upper floor, and Jade takes the basement. “1,2,3 let’s get hexy,” we all say in unison. Yeah, I know its cringe but it’s lowkey funny. I light my blue sage and start wandering around my floor. I enter what seems to be a little girls room I am overwhelmed with a dark menacing feeling. As I walk farther into the room I watch as the smoke from the blue sage flows towards the closet. As I inch towards the closet I find the owner of the room. Whats seems to be a little blonde girl, no older than 10, is sitting in the front corner of her closet. Which is odd since Tristen said there was no one home. Hopefully, she doesn’t call her parents. I reach to turn her over and once I do my heart drops. I come face to face with a little girl whose skin has been ripped off her face and neck, and as I watch the blood dry I notice that one of her eyes has been removed while the other seems to have her eye burnt. As I continue to stare I feel my breath start to hitch, that’s when I knew I had to alert my friends. So my dumbass decided to scream which I guess got the point across.

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

P.O.V: Jade

Damn, they have a pretty small basement looks like I got the long end of the stick. Sage? Lit. Bad energies? Gone. Dangerous entities? Removed. Hotel? Trivago. Now that that’s done all that’s left to do is to hide some selenite and meditate. “AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH” what the fuck was that? Who just screamed. I rush up the stairs not even worrying about the fact that I just dropped a handful of selenite on to the floor. I start sprinting around the main floor when I see Blair sitting in front of the closet in a little girl’s room. She seems scared which is weird for Blair. Wow, shes even shaking. “Hey. Hey! Look at me. You are okay everything is going to be fine. Now tell me what’s got you so spooked babe,” I say while gently caressing her hands. She then moves one hand out of my grip and points towards the closet. I then turn my head to see the horrific murder scene for a little girl. “Ah shit, it’s okay everything is okay,” I say trying to reassure her. “Who screamed,” Alec says while barging in armed with their lucky swiss army knife. “Yeah, Alec everything is fine. Blair just found the massacred carcass of a little girl so shes a little shaken up about it,” “What do you mean massacred, holy shit. How did this even happen no one has been home,” They say while taking a closer look at the body. “ And by the looks of how much blood has dried, she would have had to be dead for at least an hour,” The lights cut out. “That would be my doing,” says a dark and eerie voice from all around us. “Blair get up we need the power of 3,” She stands up and we all hold hands. Alec turns on their flashlight and shines it on the floor for us all to see. For some reason, the floor is engulfed in a black goo like substance that is flowing in our direction. Alec uses their light to find the source by following the flow. Once the light reaches the door we become face to face with a being of absolute darkness. A tall, oddly humanly shaped, drippy being with bright orange eyes is staring at us and is smiling, and just as I thought I couldn’t get any worse it opens its mouth to let the little girl’s eye drop out. “Sorry just wanted a little snack before damning all of humanity to something worse than death,” it says quite obnoxiously. “ Who do you think you are,” Alec barks out. It seems to appear right in front of our faces just to say “Not who but what. A demon to be exact but for tonight I will just be your worst nightmare,” And before I knew it the only sound I could register was *bu dump..bu dump..bu dump..bu dump...bu dump...bu dump….bu dump…..bu dump……..* I look to my left to see that the demon had bludgeoned Alecs Heart out and the sound I was hearing was their heart dying. Before I could even utter a single word the demon looked at us and said “You’re next,” and before I knew it Blair was pulling us out of the room and all I could do was cry and call out to Alec as if they were still alive. Blair and I turn a corner and I can feel something grip on to my leg and as I feel myself being dragged down the hall I see Blair start to sob.

I also started drawing the characters so here’s the first finished one

That’s all for today

[annakie]

-----------

We're back for part two!  Remember the last time how I said....

And after that game... I parted ways with my friends once again.  Because I had tickets... to Critical Role.

Well... not only that, but I was finally meeting @thievinghippo​ IRL to see it!

CRITICAL ROLE (aka Friday Night)

I took off right after the previous game had ended and headed for the show.  My one big frustration was that it took 30 minutes for my Lyft driver to arrive from AROUND THE BLOCK (ok, about a quarter of a mile, but still).  In retrospect, I think he was hoping I'd cancel so he could get a bigger fare or something.  I think he just fucked himself over because he could have done that route twice in the time it took him to come get me.  So I got there with just a few minutes to spare and no time to get in the merch line.  But hey, I found Hippo and met a few other people from Tumblr whose names I recognized!  

It was so great to finally meet her, but we had almost no time to talk beforehand (but when we did, it was all about how mad we still are about Jaime / Brienne and also I tried to catch her up to what's happening in CR since she's pretty far behind.)

The show was AWESOME.  It was so fun to see live!  It was particularly awesome when the entire audience sang along with the theme song (See this video if you haven't yet for those of you not there: https://twitter.com/PhoenixHeart815/status/1157446225223962624 ).  It reminded me a lot of singing along with the Sparks Nevada theme the last few TAH shows, I got a little misty-eyed.

The bad?  It was really really hot in the theater.  At intermission I bolted out to the bathroom and buy cold waters.  I was about to get in the merch line but the lights already started flashing.  SIGH.  I gave Hippo a water and before we could settle in much, the show started again.  I told her my plan for the end of the show, though.

I will admit, my lack of sleep from the previous two nights was starting to catch up with me, and I had no caffeine available to combat it with.  I almost ducked out of the show early because I felt myself nodding off with the heat in the theater masked with the dark of the theater and that the second half of the show was less exciting (but still fun!) than the first.  Seeing the show live was amazing!

Just as Matt said they were ending the show there, I hopped out of my chair (I was in an aisle) and went into the lobby.  I was dying to get a set of the metal dice... and they were sold out of EVERYTHING except the big blue d20 and some pins.  ARGHGHGHGHGH.  So I got the d20, and watched the rest of the show including Liam's very surprising win, on the monitors.  (I'd voted for Liam because I assumed Sam would win.  I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. :)  Though I love Sam to bits.)

Hippo joined me outside in the lobby early, and we left the theater just ahead of everyone else and she waited and we chatted while I called a Lyft.  She wanted to get out before traffic got too crazy, too, so she took off.  I am VERY MAD I didn't get a pic with the two of us at all.  Next year?!  

Then of course my Lyft driver didn't come to where I was exactly (literally at the Lyft pickup/dropoff designated location) and I had to walk around and look for him and by the time I found him, he'd gotten boxed in so we had to wait in traffic anyway.  Ah well.

At least the freeway was re-opened that night heading back to the airport, and thus, my hotel, for a shorter ride.  I ended up not falling asleep til close to 2.

I loved my evening and would do it all again but that Jeremy and Marcus told me that the Starfinder game they played in that night was AH-FUCKING-MAZING and was literally one of their favorite games of their entire lives, both of them.  It was a multi-table megagame that had a pass-fail condition and would shape the next season of the Society, and I'm sad I missed it while being really glad I did what I did.  Sometimes it's feast or feast, and you gotta pick which awesome meal you want.

I didn’t take many pics, just one as they were settling in after Sam came out in his costume, and one during intermission.  It’s all on Twitch, anyway!

SATURDAY

Oh man, for some really dumb reason we'd scheduled our Saturday morning for 8AM... but it was Starfinder!!  Uh, I will say I consumed more caffeine on that Saturday than maybe any other day of my life.  But it was needed.

What also helped keep me awake that it was FUCKING FREEZING IN THE ROOM.  The game itself was an absolute blast, though.  It was a brutal slog through a dead planet with hostile aliens everywhere and we had to stealth through, collect information and get out.  This was the game I felt the closest to death in all weekend, I'll say that for sure.  But we did it!

The very kind Felice(sp?) who was at the table decided she didn't want to carry her hoodie through the dealer hall, where she was going next, and her husband was working the main table at the Pathfinder room, so she told me to leave it there with him when I was done with it.  Since our next game was also in the Paizo room, I took her up on this offer and was warm and comfy the next few hours.

Our DM, an Operative, and Felice, plus the Hoodie of Warmth +2.

A very rare picture of me, on the internet, along with the guys.

And our next game was our first Pathfinder 2 game!  We were very excited to try out the system, and were put at a table with a father and son duo.  Jeremy and Marcus were excited because the DM was the same guy who'd DM'd their Starfinder game while I was at Critical Role.  

The only bad thing that happened here was that the El Paso Cielo Vista shooting news broke.  I grew up in El Paso, from when I was 12 to 22... it's Middle School through college for me.  Even though I've now lived in Dallas twice as long as I lived in El Paso and I haven't been there in like ten years, it's still... a little bit home.  So I left the table for a little bit to get on Facebook and make sure my friends there were all okay (they are), and text with my mom to make sure a family member who still lives there is okay (she is, though she took awhile to answer mom so we were worried.)  I have a lot of thoughts though, which belong in another post, and I'm still angry and upset about the shooting, even though it didn't affect me personally.  But for now, that's the end of talk of that terribleness.

At our table were a father and ~10 y/o son, who I'm cutting out of the pics because posting pics of minors without getting permission is not OK.  Also, the game was SHORT.  It turns out it was designed as an intro to Pathfinder 2 or maybe even RPGs in general so we knocked it out pretty quick, like 2.5 hours.

One very cool thing that Pazio was doing was that when you played in a game, you got a wooden token that you took up to the prize table, and rolled a d20 + d10.  No matter what you rolled, you got a prize, though most of them were cool little boons for your official characters.  However, if you critted, you got to pick a physical prize from the table.  Well, we played so much that Jeremy and Marcus both critted twice.  They ended up getting ALL THREE Token boxes (like cardboard minis, very nice quality) for Starfinder, plus the Starfinder Beginner's Box.  Pretty sure those four things together retailed for over $100.  Score!

So after the short game, with time to spare before our next game, the gang decided it was Dealer Hall time, literally the first time Jeremy or Marcus had time to go AT ALL.  I volunteered to be the stuff-holder.  After dropping off Felice's hoodie, I found a comfy seat near an outlet that was near the dealer hall and let everyone dump the stuff they didn't want to carry with me.  They came back and left stuff with me, and then after a couple of hours, also brought me dinner from the food trucks.  It was a fair trade.

I also asked Jeremy to stop by one particular booth and pick me up a set of dice I'd decided on, Blue Turquiose stone dice from Metallic Dice Games.  I took some pics of the dice below, though the next day I did have Jeremy swap out the d20 at the booth because I didn't like how some of the faces looked (by far the angle in the pic is the best side, there was too much solid color on the other sides of the die.)  These are going to be my official dice for my 4e character, who is a storm sorcerer reskinned as a druid.

LOVE THESE DICE, can’t wait to roll ‘em.

DM, Dad and blurred-out son.

A blurred-out boy and my guys.

Our final game of the day was the Cypher system, which is made by Monte Cook (one of the original D&D designers).  Cypher is a fairly simple system which mostly just uses a d20 and d6, and the DM never rolls dice.  The original system was made for a game called Numenera, which we'd played the beginner's box adventure for a few years ago but didn't feel like we got a good feel for the system, so we wanted to give it a go with a DM who knew the system well.

Overall, we enjoyed the game, it definitely wasn't "bad"!  But the problem was, we all agreed later, that the module that was being run was the kickoff module for a much longer campaign, there was a huge lore dump near the end and we also didn't really "get" everything that was going on.  

It also had the most memorable ending, though.  We ended the game by trying to escape from a base while being chased by some guys who greatly outmatched us.  My character was a pilot, and we needed to leave via a shuttlecraft.  One of the players who we didn't know was on the "get the door open and provide covering fire so everyone else can get to the shuttle" team.  And then he needed to make a roll in order to also GTFO and get to the shuttle.

He rolled.  Got a 5.  There's a mechanic where you can spend a card that you've collected in order to re-roll.  So he did that, got a 2.  Someone else gave him a card to re-roll.  He rolled a 3.  Someone else did.  He rolled a 5.  I was the last one with a card on the table, so I slapped it down.  He rolled a 4.

It was amazing.  Amazingly terrible rolling.

My pilot already had the craft powered up and was waiting for only him to get on.  I sighed, looked the player in the eye and said...

"I'm so sorry, but my character sheet says that I have a personality flaw.  I'm impulsive and impatient and have a setback to anything that requires patience, concentration or willpower.  I'm not waiting for you."  I looked at the DM and said "I decide that he's sacrificing himself to save us, and take off."

So I left him behind.  

The player was 100% cool with it, we had a laugh about it, and he agreed it was what my character would have done.  So it was kind of a tragic and funny way to end the game.  Also Brian needed to get some sleep that night so he hadn't come to that game, and Marcus left a little early to tend to the family, so just Jeremy and I closed out the night.

DM on the left, players I didn’t know in the center, and one on the right.  The guy in the bright blue shirt in the center?  I killed his character.  Sorry not sorry.

SUNDAY

The next morning, sadly, was the last day of GenCon.  We only had one game scheduled that morning, our second Pathfinder 2 game.  And EVERYONE was gonna be at the game!  

I hadn't even SEEN Gwen or Laura the entire con, and when they arrived at just about the same time Jeremy and I did, we joked that we hadn't believed the others were at the convention.  

We'd hoped that they'd let us put all 7 people at the table (Kirstyn had left late Saturday night to fly home and be at a concert she was playing in.)  They did not.  So we split up "Kids" and "Adults".

Sadly, this didn't work out super well for either table.  Gwen/Brian/Ally's table had a DM they did not enjoy and also a married couple who actually fought with each other uncomfortably at the table(!!).  

We had a good DM, but also an old guy who... I did not like.  At all.  He talked over the DM, even when the DM was explicitly trying to answer a question we'd asked him, things like rules questions on how game mechanics in PF2 had changed from PF1, since, you know, it was a system that had released THREE DAYS AGO.  Also, he was very... helpful... in telling me how skill checks worked and also questioning my decisions on how I was playing my character.  (YES, thanks I did consider carefully before casting Sanctuary on myself, and yes, it WAS THE RIGHT CALL.  I was the only healer in the party and had gargoyles flanking me, THANKS.)

I literally told the guy (as nicely as possible) "Sir, I've been playing RPGs for over twenty years, I'm well aware of how RPGs work, thank you" the second time he told me how skill checks worked as I was adding up my die roll with my skill modifier and took two seconds to do the math. And sure he'd probably been playing for thirty or more but um... I know how to roll a skill check.

After a short break, I told my friends I might need to leave the table.  Instead, Marcus and I switched seats so I wasn't sitting next to him anymore and the DM tried to refocus the game a bit.  It helped me at least.  I just did my best to ignore the guy.  I'm pretty sure he just didn't have the greatest social skills in the world but sometimes my tolerance for people like this can be... low.  His brother was also at the table and seemed okay, at least.  

The game itself was pretty good, ignoring everything having to do with that guy.  After the game the DM thanked me for sticking around and basically empathized that he was getting pretty annoyed, too.  

Not the greatest way to end gaming at the con, but hey, it also could have been worse.  I took pics of that game but decided not to put pics of someone I didn’t like on the internet.

Gwen, Brian and Ally's game ended like 45 minutes before ours (sadly, much to their relief) and they'd left to do one more run through the vendor hall and then left the con to start their drive home.  I had Gwen pick me up a set of dice that... I haven't even seen yet... and they were hella expensive.  I'm kinda feeling buyer's remorse about them right now, I didn't need to spend that much on dice this con but... well, we'll see how I feel when I see them in person.  If I hate 'em, I'll resell 'em.

All weekend long I'd been texting with my BFF from High School's husband, who is also my friend.  He was at the Con as well but doing his own thing and we'd been trying to arrange a meetup.  Well, we finally did it!  He came and saw me, and we hung out for about 45 minutes, just talking about the con, and old times and what we're doing now and the family etc. etc.  So that was great!  I was really glad to see him and catch up.

It’s Richard!

After he left because he had to go help tear down the booth he'd been working at, like the day before, I set up "basecamp" in the same place as before.  I had thought about going back to the vendor hall where Jeremy, Marcus and Laura were, but I'd already sent Jeremy off to ask him to pick me up the one last thing I wanted (the official GenCon dice tray.  I have a Wyrmwood Lacewood dice tray for home use, but wanted a nice travel dice tray.  I had a leather one for Kraken, but I'm real unhappy with Kraken Dice now and wanted something else.  I don’t plan on buying from them ever again in the future.  The official 2019 Gencon tray is very nice, and Jeremy had gotten one the day before, so he picked me up one as well.)

POST-CON

I only had to wait about an hour for the end of the con, and by that time the only ones from our group left were "the adults."  So once we were all gathered back up, the four of us headed out and walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant, which we couldn't get into, so we went to the restaurant next door, the Yard House.  

Wherein we had comically bad service, but they were very nice about it, and also WE were really nice about it, and ended up getting about half our meal comped.  Like our waiter had put in all the drink orders for all his tables to our table, so we had the wrong drinks delivered about five times.  We never got water refills.  Marcus had half a beer spilled on his leg (not even his beer, just another wrongly brought to our table), Laura's Appetizer-as-entree came out as an appetizer.  We asked for more chips for the chips and guac and queso we'd gotten as an app and never got it, etc.  Also while the manager was there assuring us we wouldn't have any more drinks brought to our table we didn't ask for... drinks were brought to our table we didn't ask for.  It was actually hilarious by that point.  

The waiter was brand new (his second day) so we got it.  It was just one of those things.  But they took care of us, we tipped well, it was all OK.

So that was the end of Gencon.  Back at my hotel, which Jeremy and I had long decided we wouldn't stay at again, I'd taken a shower very early Saturday morning after Critical Role.  Sunday morning when I showered again, the water still hadn't drained from the tub(!!) but I was in a hurry and just showered in gross cold water at my feet.  Then told the front desk.

They hadn't even been in my room all day to even clean up the room at all, much less do anything about the bathtub when I got back to my room Sunday night, so I switched rooms.  And then the room next to me had left the alarm clock on, and it went off at 9pm.  And my phone in that room didn't work, so I had to go downstairs a second time to get someone to go shut it off.  Also the AC in that room never turned off, the controls seemed to do nothing, so it was like 60 degrees in there the entire night.  It was actually a relief to leave the hotel the next day.  Next year... we'll pay a little more for a bit nicer hotel.

Annnd.. the next morning Jeremy and I got to the airport early enough, flight was full but not delayed, and had no problems getting home.  Spent most of the day from getting on the plane to going to sleep that night with a massive migraine so I spent the afternoon at home sleeping and drinking lots of water.. but yay... no con crud!

I miss the con, but being back in my own bed with my kitties is all worth it.  Still, I can't wait for Gencon again next year. :D