#Friends are friends

[gemmahale]

🧡 When you get this, name 2 fics you’ve written that you’re proud of right now. Send this to 5 people, keep the positivity train going 🧡

Let's see, @the-californicationist, @buttdumplin, @glossysoap, and @alittleposhtoad all tagged me in this. 😘 Kisses for all of you because you're wonderful.

The Price of Pegging is my pride and joy. My first (truly complete) fic, imbued with lots of personal experiences and horny thoughts. Gender neutral reader (though afab equipment is implied) pegs their partner John Price. It's Cali's fault this ever actually made it past the document and into publication. 💚 (I do not regret this decision one bit.)

Righteous Fury has become my baby. A fix-it fic, a memorial piece, a companion piece to Museum Muse. An exploration of what could have happened post-Makarov if Soap hadn't been killed. Still in progress, but no major cliffhangers for what comes next.

It's worth noting: my pieces are on AO3 exclusively, with access restricted to registered users. If you don't have an account, I highly recommend you get in the queue to get one.

Let's see, I'm going to tag @maggiemayhemnj, @mikichko, @waiting-so-long, @indigosunsetao3 and @smoggyfogbottom. Zero pressure, Just excited to see what you're up to. 💚

And if I didn't tag you and you want to participate, tag me when you share, I'd be elated to hear about your work. 😄

[randomluck-ofthe-universe]

Nick one of us 😎

#we know nick, we know

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[gemmahale]

NO FREAKIN' WAY. BIRTHDAY TWINSIES?

I hope your birthday is phenomenal and you get lots of love, because you deserve it. (Whether we feel real or not remains to be seen, lol!)

The sexual tension between a girl and not feeling real every time her birthday comes around

[emilnikos]

love it when my friends say "you would do numbers on Tumblr" buddy I am on Tumblr. and the number is 3

[sepiamestus]

You guys should read thepromised neverland

[lambergeier]

the real danger of spending too much time with friends is you stumble out of ten days of happiness and good food like oh my god THAT was real life. my job means NOTHING

[cheries837]

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

I think one of the kindest things you can do for people with various mental health struggles is just... let people back into your life after they've been absent for a while.

Making friends as an adult is so fucking hard already and isolating yourself from other people is a very common symptom of depression, anxiety, burnout, ocd, trauma, grief, etc. Which means that someone will do the hard work of recovery/healing and resurface back into a world where their previous friends have written them off because they stopped showing up.

So if you know someone where you're like "yeah we could have been better friends but they fell off the map a bit" and that person suddenly reaches out, or starts showing up to events even though you kind of forgot they were still in the group chat... well they may have been Going Through It and you don't actually have to punish them for their absence you can just be glad that they're back.

[dredsina]

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

[gemmahale]

a little late but re: WIP ask game -

MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE MUSEUM MUSE

WIP Ask Game

Oh Mads. You and your love for Museum Muse will never cease to delight me. (And there is no such thing as too late, I promise.)

You clarified in DM's that you were curious about how their first DM goes. I haven't gotten there yet, so I don't exactly know. 😅 I just know the circumstances.

So, instead, I'll offer you this: the stories behind their usernames and some of the forums they are frequent in. (Usernames fuckin' suck to come up with, okay? Especially because John and Daisy are both alive at the advent of the internet.)

Under the cut because I...I did world building again. 😅 Sorry not sorry.

Divider Courtesy of @thecutestgrotto

John's username: TinkerKelpie93

In my canon, kiddo John was the kid that took everything apart and put it back together - just to see how it worked. The radio, the clock, the lawn mower, you name it, he could fix it (most likely). Kid was building inventions in the garage where his father worked with scrap parts cast aside from the vehicles repaired.

His granda (his Da's dad) encouraged him up until his death when John was in his early teens. He told stories to wee John about his ancestors, the Scottish Travellers (from my research, they're similar to/adjacent to Romani populations in Scotland- if a Scot wants to correct my history, please do! I want to do this right. 💚) who are/were called "Tinkers" (usually in a negative connotation - literally meaning "itinerant tinsmith").

So Tinker is a bit of a historical nod to his family history and his tendency to "tinker" with things when he's thinking (hello neurodivergency, it's good to see you. 😅)

His love for Scottish Mythology (and the Kelpie part of his name) is courtesy of his Gran (Mum's Mom). She was a school teacher, and loved teaching the mythos of the region. They had a place on the edge of a small loch, and she would always warn him away from the water with a reminder of the stories about the kelpies trying to drown children. As he grew into his artistic practice, he did this detailed Kelpie artwork to give her for the holidays featuring her house, the swing by the loch and the landscape with the fearful mythological creature in the center of the lake that still hangs over her mantle. This John loves oil pastels and charcoal (it's the tactile part), but will make do with pencils when he's in country.

And 93 because, well, he was born April [redacted], 1993. This man's an Aries, y'all. (Bite me on the date. I have my timeline to back me up.)

Divider Courtesy of @thecutestgrotto

Daisy's username: IrisOfTheLake

Daisy's a symbology and history nerd. (Her love for mythology and art is how she ended up getting a degree specializing in the Still Life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age by female artists, but that's another story. She almost studied Arthurian Legends instead, but decided art history and preservation were her true academic love.)

Her aunt has a prolific collection of irises - she's incredibly active in the British Iris Society and Daisy spent many many seasons after school helping her dig and divide them to share with the neighbors and the other members. She even helped her aunt with cross-pollinating and some breeding attempts (though her aunt didn't progress very far down that road for reasons).

Iris is also the Greek Goddess of messages, often said to arrive on rainbows. Iris flowers hold a number of meanings in the floral language, including hope and wisdom. (Can you see where I'm going with this? I hope so.)

"OfTheLake" directly refers to the legends of King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. (I told y'all, she was a nerd about this shit.) Y'know, the one that gives the sword Excalibur to Arthur and disposes of Merlin? That Lady of the Lake. Badass bitch if I ever heard of one, who holds a lot of wisdom and knowledge to help others achieve their goals.

Why IrisOfTheLake? It sounded good and smashed two of her early fascinations and hobbies together. 😊 (And the irony of our girl having not one but two flower nicknames makes me giggle.)

Divider Courtesy of @thecutestgrotto

Both John and Daisy recognize each other from lurking and posting in a number of forums together, including art history and BDSM. John regularly shares his more refined drawings (usually done on leave or during long waiting periods), and Daisy is regularly active in the floral symbiology threads, talking about the language of flowers and meaning and bullshit like that. (I just realized I have to write all this, fuck me.)

Anyway, they bond over some dipshit in the BDSM forum espousing some gender essentialism bullshit - men are doms, women are subs, blah blah blah. Daisy has an eloquent take on it, John just wants to thrash them for being so black and white and says as much.

Who reaches out first? To be seen. (I have to leave you some mystery lol.)

[great-and-small]

My grandfather and my godfather (a beloved neighbor and dear family friend) had a long standing bet- for one dollar- about who would die first. Both of them being slightly pessimistic (in the funny way), they both insisted that they themselves would be the first to die. Any time my grandfather had a health scare, he’d gleefully call up my godfather to boast that he’d be passing “any day now” and he was sure to win the bet. It was a big family joke and they were always amiably sparring and comparing notes about who was in worse shape, medically speaking.

When my grandfather was in hospice care dying of liver cancer, my godfather was quite ill also. It took him great effort to make the journey to see his dying friend. As he came into the room, supported by a family member, he shuffled to my grandpa’s bedside and silently handed him a dollar bill. He was ceding his loss of the bet, as they both knew who was going first. My grandpa had been in quite bad shape for a while and was no longer able to speak but let me tell you he snatched that dollar with unexpected strength and literally laughed aloud. He knew exactly what the gesture meant and he couldn’t help but find the humor within the grief. It was the last time any of us heard my grandpa laugh, as he passed shortly after.

When I talk about my appreciation for “dark humor” I’m not so much thinking about edgy jokes, but rather the human instinct to somehow, impossibly, both find and appreciate the absurdity that is so often folded into the profound grief of life and death. When I tell this story I think it kind of perturbs people sometimes, but it’s honestly one of my favorite memories about two men I really deeply admired. I could never hope for anything more than for my loved ones to remember me laughing until the very end, and taking joy in a little joke as one of my final acts.

[robyn-i-guess]

liking someone platonically is so embarrassing like. yeah i admire you. yeah i think about you all the time. yeah i look forward to every time i see you even if it's only for a minute. yeah it's all platonic and yeah i couldn't explain this because it'd sound romantic. fucking hell

[ihatemegayachts]

[triangleguy]