#I actually finished this a few months ago before my hiatus hAHA

[echoes-in-echoclan]

Finally!! At long last!! The next page!! Took me long enough huh

Anyway new cat alert!!

 Moon 46.2 - Moon 46.4

[sipsteainanxiety]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

i was tagged by @coopigeoncoo @andypantsx3 @willowser and @namodawrites to do this lil self fic rec game and after finally sitting down to think about it for a very... long... time... i have done it! thank you all for the tag i kiss you each on the forehead and give you a bowl of sliced fruit<3

after looking at all the wips i have in docs right now, i can definitely say that this list would be completely different if i had finished a few of them, but for now this is my ranked list for things i've published already lol

devil's glare — demon!bkg x reader

bakugou katsuki is a powerful demon that you have the pleasure of dating. but when he pisses you off one day, you decide to get back at him in a pretty petty way: drawing a salt circle around you to force him to apologize 

i had THEE most fun writing this one shot LMAO. it was based on a tiktok of all things that i'd found back when i was still on the app pfft. i just loved the idea of bkg being all surly and aggravated that his little human had purposely drawn a salt circle to prevent him from encroaching on their space. and like... him dealing with wanting to idk kiss you so bad but you're trying to teach him a lesson and he's sooooo mad and fuck, he's gonna do whatever he can to get you to comply to him lmao. if i could draw, there's this one scene where you're wearing this like. cute little set of pjs staring up at this big ass demon, wings unfurled threateningly, snarl on his face, arms crossed with a line of salt in between the two of you. like i have a vision. too bad i can't draw it LMFAOO. maybe one day

2. holding out (just for you) — dragon!bkg x reader

in which you find a horrendously injured dragon in a cave and make it your duty to heal him, not knowing that he’s the infamous dragonshifter, bakugo katsuki, who has been cursed to remain trapped in his dragon form forever—unless the spell is broken

this fic... oh boy. i've been working on this fic since mmm 2021 i think? i can't believe it's been a year since the big bang LMFAOO. i also can't blv this shit evolved from being a standalone to having 3 spinoffs and a sequel but well. here we are. complaints aside i really do have fun writing this fic!! i dunno!! i dont think i'd ever read a dragon bkg fic before and i was like fine i'll do it myself and this happened. i added way too much plot and you guys don't even know about half the worldbuilding and shit i have planned for the sequel HAHA. i can't even talk about it bc it would be major spoilers rn rhrsfjhrjfrjrhjg. it's also been giving me such a rough time lately pfft, especially with having to make sure everything lines up for the spinoffs n stuff. im so afraid of publishing ch4 and having to go back and tweak things bc i havent planned out far enough sdkjfsjkdf. i think it just means i'm gonna have to go on a hiatus or smthn and write out all the spinoffs + ch4 at once idk

3. and i give my all (to you) — merman!bkg x reader

you think you bit off more than you could chew when you decided to do your dissertation on ocean acidification, leaving you stranded out in the open ocean. alone. for months. well… maybe you weren’t so alone after all

this is another fic that i've been working on way longer than it's been posted for pfft. i can't blv the first chapter was released over a year ago LMAOOO i am so sorry. i do like this fic tho bc it's one of the easier ones to write and i go back to it sometimes between writing for dragon bkg lol. like i have the chapters all mapped out, all i have to do is sit down and write em. ch2's at abt 3k rn tho and i hit a spot where i'm like oof i dont wanna write these descriptions dfhdkfg it's just a silly goofy story with merbaku and dealing with some of the subtle intricacies of getting to know a mermaid. actually, fun fact, this originally started off as a fic for jotaro from jjba, back when i was in my jjba era. but then i went back to my bkg era and switched it over. i didn't even have to change much LMFAOO jotaro and bkg act the same sometimes. also!! this is the first fic where i'm like... drawing little doodles for each chapter!! and it's so nice but also i'm like damn wtf do i draw for the rest of these chapters.... i'll figure it out ig

4. loving all the parts of you — pro hero!bkg x reader

in which you learn to love all the prickly parts that make up bakugou katsuki

i.. don't think i've thought about this fic for a very, very long time. but i just scrolled thru the masterlist and stuff and i... really liked writing it (when i was focused on it anyways). it's one of my gentler fics tbh. it's more of a character study of bkg, exploring a different aspect of him in each chapter. tbh i need to go through and reread it and make edits so it can better match the writing style i have now, but i rly liked thinking abt what would make bkg tick as a pro and as a person. and tbh, with what i know now of the manga and anime i think i could go very deep with it pfft. also the banner i made for this fic is so cute LOL. it's not high on my priority list rn bc i have other things i wanna work on, but i do hope to return to it one day.

5. forget me not — pro hero!bkg x reader

When you first woke up, you found yourself in a white room, lights blinding you from all directions. A bit disoriented, you squinted and looked around, realizing you were chained to a chair, your arms locked behind you. In front of you was a poster of a man, muscles rippling throughout his body, a spiky mess of ash blond hair nestled on his head, and striking crimson eyes glaring right at you from behind a black mask. In the upper right corner was the name “DYNAMIGHT” in black and orange letters. As you observed the poster, the sound of a P.A. system suddenly rang into existence, the deep, hoarse voice of an unknown person echoing around you. “Your name is [Name] [Surname],” the voice said without emotion, “and you hate the man named Bakugou Katsuki.”

THIS FIC... THIS FCKIN FIC. i have so much i can say about this fic and i am so sorry for the oncoming ramble pfft. firstly, it's both my baby and my number one fucking enemy. like, holy shit i think it gave me the most paralyzing anxiety and bc of this it took me like 3-4 years to finish (apart from being generally busy of course). i started it literally while i was in high school n applying to college, so of course there are aspects of it that i look at now and i'm like mmm don't like that. not to mention there have been so many things that happened in the anime/manga that i wasn't able to add or delve deeper into!! like the war!! bkg's fcking trauma!! midoriya's quirks!! i was an anime only when i first started releasing chapters (and i still am), so i didnt know about the endeavor agency arc or anything so i defaulted to shit with best jeanist and idkidk.

if i could rewrite all of fmn, i think i would. or maybe not all, but a good chunk of it. like i'd condense the first few chapters probably. i also have a different grasp of bkg's characterization now compared to when i was younger lmao. putting bkg in that specific circumstance (iykyk, i wont spoil it) only happened bc of certain outside factors that forced him into that position. which was how i was able to justify it. but... idk. IDK!! this fic had so many things to it that i was not knowledgeable about so i winged a lot of things without doing proper research (i.e. hospitals, police investigations, general bureaucracy and whatnot) and i feel like this has caused certain plot holes that i am not able to detect, but like.... it's been so long already that i'm too lazy to fix it.

i just really wanted to write about having amnesia but... still having this muscle memory and ache of the person you were in love with. that you can fall in love with them all over again. but, jeez, i put the reader through so much that there's so much... trauma and brainwashing and just rhhrhjrkhrhgrkjg. she's a mess and a half!! and this makes it so difficult to read fmn bc she's so frustrating!! but! at the same time idk it was interesting exploring that kind of ptsd and recovery. i think at my core i love writing about truly heartwrenching topics and horror. i rmb i had the most fun writing about reader's nightmares or that one chapter where she was messing around with illusions. actually- one of the things i would change is the reader's fckin quirk and hero name LMAOOOOO what the fuck i made her so op i basically just smashed together dr strange's and wanda's powers for her pfft. i'd also tweak her personality a little, i think.

i digress. anyways. im in the process of editing all of fmn (just like. writing tweaks. changing the phrasing of certain sentences. adding more fluff to descriptions) and i can really see how much my style has evolved lol. like, i am the most happy and proud of the later chapters, where you can really feel certain emotions with bkg and reader. like... the beach scene, or the stakeout scene, or the party scene!! i think i would also add more substance to the investigation and how being a hero is like post-war. the antagonists as well!! there's just so much that could've been built on, but at the same time... i didn't want to go too deep into it bc i was writing an amnesia recovery story.

flaming aside, i am very glad i was able to pull those plot twists successfully LOL. i loved reading people's theories back when i was still updating it, seeing them question things and being like wait a minute... no way... it can't be... it was an era i will never forget pfft. but... because of that expectation i think i was very nervous to reveal specific things or even write the ending bc i didn't know if people would be satisfied lol. fmn was so complicated and for what sdfkjhs. fanfic shouldnt make you this anxious fr and yet there i was. i'm glad im done with it, but at the same time.. i do miss it.

tldr: fmn is the fic that i am the most proud of but also the most insecure LMFAOO. i do eventually want to get to the extra chapters from bkg's pov for it but... idk. i don't wanna even look at it right now sdhfskdfjsf

thank u all for coming to my ted talk B) i'm sorry if u've been tagged alr in this but here we go anyways!! no pressure tags: @earthtooz @call-me-ko @thecatduet422 @boo-kugo @theloveinc <3

[clocks-are-round]

yeah so this has been sitting in my drafts for a month •<• i thought i posted it already. whoops.

Writing 3MoM has been really good character study for what Caboose is like before and after O’Malley and… other brain ouchy events, but I’m still figuring out how to write him, especially regarding serious topics, so things like Caboose’s dialogue might be different when I finish (whenever the hell that’ll be)

but ye. now others may finally meet Bruh, my beloved. until now only a few mutuals know about them haha. i’ll have to scrounge up my brainstorming bits about them for the rest of you at some point.

——the initial post——

Here’s something I wrote a month or so ago, inspired by the encroaching holiday season and my other Caboose-centered fics-in-progress (including this one, there are 3 I think?). Haven’t really worked on it since but I’ve been on sort of a fic hiatus so I’ll share what I’ve got. (Next chapter of 3MoM still dropping sometime this week) fggsddf that’s how long ago i made this post? oof literal month

contains: Caboose struggling to remember things, fun family interactions, troubling family interactions, hostility towards mental disability, hopefully accurate spanish but it’s a rough draft so whatever, i’ll be sure to check it all over before publishing the final product (am aware of the missing accents over i, will add them in later)

So uh. Prepare yourself for pain, I guess. There’s plenty of fluff too tho

----

(Incomplete WIP-- end result may look different)

A Caboose Family Christmas Special

Headache. Maybe he should just go back to sleep. No, it was okay. He’d feel better after he had his medicine and some water and some breakfast. He swung upwards, immediately reeling in regret. Too fast. He blinked.

This wasn’t Blue Base. He looked around. He was on a couch. Where was this? A basement in someone’s house, it looked like.

There were people noises nearby. He walked to the stairs and climbed them. He peeked over the half wall on the side.

“Hey, Michael! You’re up!” He knew this person.

“Feliz Navidad!”

“Where am I?” Caboose was sure he’d never been here before.

“Oh, this is Ella’s house. Bad morning?”

Caboose looked around. Everyone was here! Even some people he didn’t know.

“Tio Michael!”

Caboose turned to the voice. “Uh… Hello!”

Two little kids were staring up at him. He was glad they were not babies. Kids were fun.

“Do you remember us?”

“Uncle Michael forgets a lot.”

“Tio Michael.”

“Uncle sounds better.”

“No, tio does!”

“Hey, stop crowding your tio, you two!” It took a second-- a scary second where he wasn’t sure-- but it was his sister.

“Ella?”

“Michael,” she acknowledged with a grin. She paused and looked around, searching.

Caboose knew that face. She took a breath in, and Caboose covered his ears.

She shouted, “Gabbi! Spongebob meme!”

Bruh walked over rubbing their ears. “She’s outside. Thanks for the busted eardrums, though.”

“Bruh? You have grown up so much!” Caboose ran up the rest of the stairs and around the railing to scoop them up into a bear hug.

“Ohh this again.” Bruh sighed but they smiled up at him. “Yeah, yeah, happy to see you too, dude.”

“Where’s Deli?”

“He’s actually going by David now.”

Caboose set them down. “For a long time? Did I forget again?”

“I mean… Not that long.”

“Sorry.”

“Hey, you remembered our names. Two out of three’s a passing grade!”

“Barely,” Del-- David joined the talking circle.

“Speak of the nerd.” Bruh said. “Michael’s saying hi to everyone.”

David didn’t look as happy to see him.

“Hi David!” Caboose said. “I like your shirt. Robots are the best. Have you met Freckles?”

David looked away from him. “I’ll take Miguel and Legend. C’mon guys. There’s more room to play outside.”

“We wanna talk to Tio Michael!”

“It’s just going to be the same conversation you had yesterday.”

“No, David, we should all talk. It’s not that often we’re all together.” Ella turned and called over her shoulder. “Martín! Can you take the kids?”

“I’ve got my hands full with Sadie.” The guy was holding a baby.

“Take your son and nephew, too. I want to talk to my brother without children harassing us.”

“Bruh is right over there. Why can’t they watch them?”

“I charge by the minute.”

“They might run off. A standard rate might be better,” David mumbled to Bruh.

“En serio, chico?” Martin responded. “Es la Navidad!”

“Yeah, working holidays costs extra.” Bruh grinned.

Ella pulled Bruh into a hug. A squeeze one, not a cuddle one.

“Just watch your nephews, you little--” She looked over at the kids. “Orejas.”

They covered their ears.

“Burrito.”

“Burrito is not a bad word,” one of kids objected.

“Hah! I knew you were still listening! Now, go with your Tío Bruh.”

“Yeah, Miguel!”

“Los dos.”

They both grumbled, but they followed Bruh out of the room. Without a word, David walked off with them too.

“David! Wait—“ Ella did an angry pout to where David left.

“His name is Miguel?”

“Yeah, I named him after you. Well, kind of. The Spanish version.”

“Woah…”

“Do you remem-- Do you know your other niblings? I can introduce them to you.”

“Ella, have I... met them before?”

“C’mon, what’s with the questions? Don’t you want to say hi to everyone?”

Ella was good at acting, but she didn’t like lying to him. She didn’t want to tell him the truth though, either. He needed to find Gabbi.

Someone said she was outside. He was pretty sure he heard that.

“I am going to say hi to Gabbi first.” And before Ella could object he ran out the front door.

—

“Gabbi, do I forget everyone a lot?”

Gabbi froze. “Whatttt??” She laughed uncomfortably.

“Like, a lot, a lot.” With the Reds and Blues and Carolina… they were used to him being like this. No one got worried when he couldn’t remember the right words. It didn’t cause problems much because that’s just how it was, but when he was away, things felt different. He felt— He realized that he was different. Even with his family. It especially bothered him with his family because sometimes they looked so sad and that was worse than strangers looking annoyed and— “I know— I know I don’t— Some stuff is harder for me, and I don’t forget because I don’t care, I forget because I forget. I—“

“Michael, it’s no big deal, really. It’s ok.”

“Is that why David’s mad at me?”

Gabbi’s face fell. So it was.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“He is not mad at you. He’s... mad and sad for you. Everyone was at first, but he’s still got it all bottled up in his heart.”

“How do I... unbottle that?”

“I don’t think you can. He just needs more time, I think.”

Caboose considered. “I will make him stop being upset with fun and hugs.”

“That is the exact opposite of what I said.”

“Too late. I am doing the fun plan now.”

“Hey hey, wait. Did you have your meds? Any breakfast?”

“Nooo?” Caboose responded guiltily. He had been distracted by all the people.

“C’mon. We’re going to the kitchen together. And then you need to get out of your pajamas. No friend quests until you’re ready for the day.”

“I’m all grown up, you don’t need to baby me.”

“Imagine how Ella feels. She’s married with kids, but I’m not going to stop with her either.” She started poking at Caboose. “C’mon, c’mon, a la cocina, let’s go!”

———

It’s very incomplete but I had wanted to explore how Caboose’s relationship with his family might have been affected by what he’s been through. I don’t know when I’ll continue working on it but it still feels like a solid starting point.

also still figuring out how to write Caboose’s perspective and how his memory difficulties and whatnot manifest. might rework some parts.

again, chapter 2 of Three Months O’ Malley coming soon fggsddf it’s been out for like a month now

it’s been a lot of fun figuring out all of Caboose’s many many siblings (still figuring many of them out tbh) and iirc chapter 2 has a little bit about Ella and Gabbi, with focus also on Sephi, Maria, and Christina in later chapters. My first fic introducing a lot of the siblings (Cabooses Slumber Party) was pretty overwhelming with like nine sisters at once, so hopefully the focus narrowing to only a few at a time will feel easier to follow.

[sapphicscholar]

Fanfic Writer Question Meme

Having just submitted 45 dissertation pages, I decided today is the day to do this fun little fanfic writer thing I’ve seen floating around on my dash lately!

1) How many works do you have on AO3? 89

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?  2,031,148 ... jfc. I aspire to be this prolific in my academic life.

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?  Only 5 shows, though a variety of ships in one of them! Supergirl, Grace and Frankie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Wynonna Earp, and This Way Up (I’ve got some draft-y stuff for a Hacks fic but dissertation stuff sent it to the back burner)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos? -Stronger Together (Supergirl, 1-shot compilation with a variety of ships) -Welcome to the Gayborhood, Danvers (Supergirl, Sanvers academia AU, my first ever fic, too!) -6,500 miles away...but getting closer (Supergirl, Sanvers long distance epistolary fic that I co-authored with my wife; we actually ended up, unexpectedly, writing a big chunk of it while we did long distance for the first--and hopefully only--time) -Noise Complaint (Supergirl, Sanvers neighbor AU that’s mostly canon compliant) -Supercat Sanvers 2020 (Supergirl, Supercat and Sanvers political AU)

5) Do you respond to comments, and why or why not? I try to because I really do love and appreciate them SO MUCH! But I often binge write during my breaks from the academic year and post when the semester is at its busiest, and then I do the thing of going “oh no! it’s been 2 weeks and now I feel weird, I shall let it go another 4 months until I feel much too awkward to ever reply!) But I’ve been trying! 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Forgotten, But Not Gone! Thanks to fan demand I turned it into a 2-part series, but that first fic ends on a note that is, at best, a kind of gesture at some sort of future but with no guarantees (which is the kind of ending my wife likes best of all haha)

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? Hmmm I often don’t love super sweet endings, but one of the few where I’ve given an epilogue that’s pretty straightforwardly sweet and happy is Her Knight in Tiny Spandex 

8) Do you write crossovers? Not really where the characters from one universe mix with another, though I’ve done some, like, Buffy AU type fics, and I had a series where Supergirl characters were active participants in other shows’ fandoms

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Holy shit so much hahah! I took a break from fandom for a while after the worst of it, and even though there are some really lovely people still in that particular ship’s fandom, my level of involvement and investment dropped considerably. I’ve been much more...cautious since then about feeling out fandoms before really jumping in 

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind? Yep, plenty! I’ve only ever written for femslash ships and poly arrangements, though

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Uh yeah once or twice several years ago, but I think I was able to report it and show proof of my posting it on AO3 many, many months before it showed up on Wattpad or something

12) Have you ever had a fic translated? No, I got a request once, but it was for a longgggg fic and I don’t think it ever appeared (totally understandable, it would’ve been a huge endeavor!) 

13) Have you ever co-written a fic? Yup! A couple with my wife, plus one with a group of Supercat writers where we rotated and did a sentence at a time

14) What’s your all time favorite ship? I genuinely don’t think I can pick! I rotate through my ship-of-the-moment, and have plenty that I’ll probably never write for (came late to the fandoms) but love reading 

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I do aim to finish all my fics, but I have 2 WIPs (one dystopian AU that suddenly felt very close to the world we were actually living in, and one that involves a major character death that I put on hiatus after having a number of family members pass away in a single year) that I think it’ll take me some time to get back to

16) What are your writing strengths? Dialogue! I like to think I also do a good job of infusing humor into fics--something that makes the reader smile, even in what can be a fairly heavy fic

17) What are your writing weaknesses? Fighting scenes. Oof, they take it out of me, and especially writing for a fandom like Supergirl where so much of what happens includes fighting...damn am I out of my element! I also have no vocabulary for it, so it’s like...she punches a thing. Then another punch. Then a kick. Then an elbow. Also I think people use knees??

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think there are ways to do it that can be really important and ways to do it that can veer into shitty fetishizing (e.g., when characters will slip into a language other than English only during sex and always with the exact same phrases borrowed from fic to fic). I only feel comfortable writing in other languages myself it if it’s a language I actually speak to avoid the weird awkwardness of Google Translate speak, but I know some writers who will find a language beta for this purpose, and that’s really awesome!

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? Supergirl (I arrived to fandom much, much later than my wife!)

20) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written? It’s a total cop out, but I don’t know/it changes depending on the definition of best! I think one of my recent favorites has been I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bone

[insignem]

Suddenly remembered "with your shield, or on it", and went back and reread the it. It's so good! Genuinely one of the only college aus that really reminds me of being in college. No pressure at all, but I was wondering if you're still working on it, or if it's been put on permanent hiatus? Whatever it is, I totally understand! Hope you're doing well! ❤️

Hi; thank you so much for this message! I'm so glad it reminds you of actually being in college haha; that's definitely the intent (it's the most autobiographical fic I've ever written 😬). I fully intend to finish it... and my other WIPs... and the several other fic ideas I've had percolating... I've just been woefully short on time to write. I started a new job a few months ago (at a university, which should help with the realism) but it's been pretty nonstop between finishing up at my old job, moving, and starting my new one. I'm hoping to get back to writing once things settle down; right now I feel like I'm treading water just trying to keep my apartment clean and myself fed when I'm not working. I've never been great about writing/posting consistently, so a part of me thinks I should just wait til I finish the fic before I post any new chapters, but I'm also very motivated by the instant gratification of posting a new chapter as soon as I'm done with it, so we'll see. Thanks again for the message; I really appreciate it!

[cruecifymesixx]

Love and Leather /part fifty seven/

Word Count: 5.5k

A/N: Just a filler, and imo its boring :/ feedback is always appreciated! I’m gonna pair ‘Wish You Were Here’ from the playlist for this one! moodboard credit goes to: @itsclaranotcarla

Warnings: language

Taglist: @brideofdraculana , @xstarryeyes , @aryssav , @miserablecunt , @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol , @fandomshit6000, @anntheboneless @venus-calum, @justjodeye, @supernaturalvikingwhore, @are-we-real, @hi-my-name-is-riley, @extremesadnerding, @thatbandchick39, @awkwrdcait, @countrygirlswonderland, @natsuyaxo @awesomealmostdopestudent @romanticvengeance , @tashy-bear, @krazykatkay456, @terror-triplet, @shouttatthedevill @beachystars, @rodriguez025, @kickstart-myheart-sixx, @s-outhie, @anxious-diabetic, @awkwardblackgirls, @rockersbox, @brooklyn-antiques, @shamelessobsessions, @jerseytaint, @lilytalebi, @criminalyetminimal, @motley-queen, @trapt-in-a-dream, @lunamadhatter99, @broke-n-bitchy @thanks2pete, @slowandangry, @lovesick-heart0, @keepcalm-and-beyou, @miriampraez, @teenwolflover28, @lilyhw1, @swoopygorl, @motherloovebone, @random-internet-user-4471, @falcon-arrows, @talranocchia2001, @wheresmyvodkabitch, @waywardprincess666, @malibubarbievince, @iluvmesomemarvelndc, @zoenicoles @vamprlestat, @supersoldierballerina, @primal-screamer@electradestiny, @marshbev, @n0-sh0rtage-0f-faults, @cruebaby, @ggorehorror, @valentines-in-london, @miss2001babe, @nassauartistm @emmaelizabeth2014, @cmft-jr-winchester, @bokkie92, @notworthyofyou1120 @xrosegoldwolfx, @cranberribread, @lauravic, @mgkobsessed, @chaoticvybe @kellysimagines @thoughtsoftheantagonist @marvelismylifffe, @meetthesixxter. @xpoisonousrosesx, @sleepyjunhong @lovemythsworld @sparxx27 @gingerspicetalks, @unknownoblivion, @love-struck-aries, @lavendersoundbarrier, @oskea93, @idumpyourgrass, @minxtruck, @i-want-to-shoot-myself, @xsixxx, @fentitrbl, @cruesixxlover1991, @kaitieskidmore1, @arianareirg, 

-May 14th, 1994-

 *Nikki’s POV*

I stepped into the tattoo shop on the strip, Greg, my tattoo artist immediately coming out from the back, “Hey man, you ready?” He questioned as he lead me through the shop and over to his area. I loved the smell of the sterile environment, the lights gave me a headache sometimes but it was tolerable. Some other dude was getting his leg worked on by another artist as he gave me a nod of acknowledgment. I pulled off my shirt and sat down in the leather chair.

We were gonna start filling in the octopus on my other shoulder that would lead down my arm alongside the Motley tattoo, flowers and the little Cupid figure I already had. It was also going to cascade down my chest as well.

I let my mind drift off as the buzzing from the machine started. The band was on a little hiatus at the moment. Music was still being produced, but just not at the speed I would like for us to be at. I guess everyone’s just tired or something. Vince has been using his free time with Sharise and Skylar and when he’s not with them he’s driving race cars. It’s a new interest of his clearly, I haven’t been to the track with him yet but I know Tommy has.

Mick has been off doing his own thing with Emi, they got married a few months ago so he’s off in la la land with her. I think she’s a total airhead but whatever. He’s happy so I’m happy for him.

Tommy is currently going through a separation with Heather but his ass isn’t even here to deal with it because he keeps jetting off to New York for some bitch he met. I remember when he told me, he said he was in love. Which honestly, isn’t the first time those words has came out of his mouth. It’s annoying though, he just takes off and doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going or how long he’s going to be away for. Whoever this chick is, she has him wrapped around her god damn finger and I hope Tommy knows what the hell he’s doing.

“You still got that?” I opened my eyes to look over at Greg as he wiped away the excess ink.

“Still got what?” I questioned as he chuckled, “That.” He pointed down to Vanity’s name.

“Yeah, so what?” I became defensive and pulled away from him before he brought the needle back down on my skin.

“What does your wife think of it?” He grinned as I rolled my eyes.

“She hates it and wants it covered up.” I admitted as I looked down at the cursive, rolling my eyes at the arguments Brandi and I had have over it.

“Shit, I would too if my lady had an old boyfriends name tattooed on her. I can cover it up if you want?” Greg suggested as he continued coloring in my shoulder.

I was quiet for a moment, “How would you cover it?”

He glanced at me, “Well, I could either black it out or we could put some roses over it or something like that. At least you’ve learned your lesson on tattooing someone’s name on you.” He laughed a bit as i shook my head.

“I don’t regret it, not one bit.” I expressed as he nodded.

“Where’s she at anyways? She skipped town on you?” Greg questioned as I nodded.

“I don’t know, and I don’t really care. Can we stop talking about her?” I demanded as he nodded.

“Say no more, Sixx.” He finally shut up and continued working on my shoulder as I sat there staring blankly at the tattoo flash art in front of me on the wall.

“So, how is Brandi? Did that little tattoo on her ankle heal okay?” Greg asked me as I smiled.

“Yeah man, she’s great. Thanks for doing that for me..but she’s good, we’re good. She’s at some photoshoot right now working.”

He nodded, “...Saw her playboy issue last month, you’re a lucky dog.” I chuckled at his words with a proud smirk on my face.

“Yeah, maybe I am. She’s hot ain’t she? Always got some swimsuit photoshoot poster on my mirror at a gig. Sometimes she’s naked, sometimes she’s not.”

Greg laughed, “Lucky bastard.” He shook his head before we continued tattooing.

After a few hours of a needle being driven in and out of my skin, we were finished. I stood in front of the mirror, checking it out, “Man, this looks so fucking sick. Thank you. I fucking love it.” I praised him as he continued to wipe it down. My eyes drifted down to my rib cage.

“So roses?” I asked him, pointing at her name as he nodded, “Yeah, I’ll free hand it. Draw one here, here and here. Maybe color it with some deep reds and purples. It will be like it was never there.”

“Let’s do it man.” I looked at him as he patted the seat again. I sat down and rested, feeling him take a marker as he started drawing on my skin.

It was time to get it covered up. To close the book on the Nikki and Vanity story. The trial and tribulations of two fucked up people trying to be together when they clearly don’t mash well with one another.

“Okay? How does it look, Nikki?” Greg asked, holding up a hand held mirror as he showed me. I nodded, “Looks good man. Let’s do it.”

*Flashback, Nikki’s POV*

I laid in bed with Vanity, hearing her soft breathing as her face nuzzled into my chest and her lips ever so softly pressing light kisses to my skin. I sighed in our embrace as I pulled her closer to me, that alone being impossible. Our legs were entangled together as we were wrapped around the burgundy sheets of our bed.

Her arm was slung around my waist, holding me tight, “I love you.” She mumbled to me as I kissed the top of her head, running my finger tips up and down her back.

Her fingernail traced her name on my skin as i squirmed under her touch, “Stop, that tickles.” I laughed a bit as she lightly pinched me instead.

“I didn’t think I’d actually like this, but I do. It’s like I own you now.” She chuckled, looking up at me as she propped her head up by her elbow.

“Own me? Kinda like how my band owns your ass?” I retorted raising an eyebrow as she rolled her eyes at me.

“That wasn’t my choice, and quite frankly I was taken advantage of while I was under the influence.” She pointed out, combing fingers through her messy bed hair.

I laughed a bit, reaching up to give her a kiss on the lips. “Taken advantage of? If I remember correctly, you laid there and took it like a champ. Which I mean, is usually what you do- Ow!” I let out a loud laugh when she punched me in the gut.

“So mean in the morning.” I mumbled, wrapping her up in my arms as I rested my head on her shoulder.

“We can always get it covered up if you want.” I suggested as she looked at me like I was crazy.

“What? No! I absolutely love my tattoo! I’m never getting it covered up! I’ll be an old lady in the nursing home flaunting it and telling all the other old ladies how much I partied with the worlds baddest rock band back in my hay days.” She explained with a laugh as she kissed my lips.

“And rolled around the bed with the lead singer, or wait was it the bassist- Ow! Nikki!” She groaned as I swatted her tattooed ass cheek.

“And I’ll tell all those old ladies how I got this groupies name tattooed on me.” I smirked as she rolled her eyes.

“Haha, so very funny.” She muttered before giving me another kiss, “As long as I’m your favorite groupie ever, that’s all that matters to me.” She whispered against my lips as they tugged into a smile.

“Shit, I don’t know baby. How am I gonna tell the other groupies that they aren’t my favorite?” I questioned as she swung her leg over my hips and straddled my waist.

“You’re gonna pull up your shirt, point at my name and tell them to come talk to me.”

*End Flashback*

I watched as Greg started bringing the the tattoo needle closer to my skin, “No! Wait! Wait!” I shoved his hand away as he stared at me.

“I don’t-I don’t want it.” I said, wiping off the purple drawing of roses from my skin, “I don’t, no I’m not getting rid of it. Not yet.” I panicked as I grabbed my shirt.

“Okay man, just relax. You don’t have to. Do it when you’re ready.” Greg smiled at me as I nodded, trying to catch my breath.

“I...does it make me a bad husband?” I mumbled, looking up at him as I put my shirt back on.

He didn’t answer me, instead he started cleaning up his station, “It doesn’t matter what I think Nikki. It matters to Brandi. I’m sure it hurts her feelings every time she sees it.”

I rolled my eyes as I put my sunglasses back on, grabbing my jacket and put it on too as I handed over some cash for him, “Till next time, man.” He nodded as I walked out the shop.

I shook my head, stuffing my hands into my pockets as I moved to the side of the walkway as someone with birthday balloons walked past me. I walked to my car before getting in and driving back home.

*Vanity’s POV*

“Happy birthday to you!!” We finished singing to Arianna as she smiled at the camera, “Blow out your candles, princess!” I cheered and she attempted to do so until I had to help her. I didn’t want to eat a toddlers spit riddled cake.

“Good job, baby!” I kissed the top of her head as Clementine snapped a few pictures.

“I want cake! And presents!” She shouted, giggling as I started cutting a piece off for her, handing it to her as she started eating it.

It was just me and Clementine celebrating her birthday. Mom had sent gifts from my siblings and herself. My grandparents had sent their separate gift which included paperwork for a future bank account when she’s way, way older. Tommy left gifts before leaving a few days prior to go back to California. But it was okay, by the smile on her face and high pitched laughter ringing through the house, her heart was full and that’s all that mattered to me.

I opened my mouth when she attempted to feed me a piece of her vanilla frosted rainbow cake, only to smear it all over my face, “Thanks Arianna, that is exactly what I needed.”

I glared at the camera when I heard the click, “Oh, that’s gonna be a good one.” Clementine smiles, “Good job Ari.” She reached out for a high five.

I wiped my face quickly before sitting down at the table and having Arianna crawl into my lap right after. She turned three today, even though it feels like she was just born yesterday. Now she’s walking everywhere and talking in broken up phrases. Shes Constantly telling me what color car passed us while we’re driving to the park. I signed her up for preschool which she will start later in the fall. Mom suggested it to me, that since she is getting a bit older and a hell of a lot smarter. Plus, it would give me a few hours of the day by myself.

I also wouldn’t have to worry too much about leaving Arianna with people I don’t know because Clementine works as a teachers assistant at the school she’ll be going to. So, I pulled some strings, signed a check and she was placed into the Butterfly class with Clementine.

“Mommy, open presents?” Arianna tilted her head to look up at me, her cheeks and nose completely covered in icing. I wiped her face as fast as I could before she started complaining and wiggling off my lap. She ran over to her mountain of presents as she pointed at all of them.

“I think she’s in overload, way worse then Christmas morning.” Clem pointed out as I agreed with her, smiling as Arianna started ripping open packages of pink and purple metallic foil with yellow bows.

“Well, what can I say? She’s spoiled.” Arianna ran up to me putting a Barbie in my lap, “Wow, Malibu beach Barbie? How cool!” She took the new toy away from me and ran back to all her presents.

“Just think, after going to preschool her next birthday party will include a whole bunch of screaming, drunk on sugary treats children running around your house.” Clementine giggled as I shook my head.

“Hell no, her parties will be outside from then on out. I love my kid, but I don’t want someone else’s kid touching my stuff with their dirty little sticky hands.”

We watched as Arianna tore through all of her presents, throwing the clothes to the side as her only focus was on the toys everyone had sent to her, “What did Uncle Tommy give you now?” I asked Arianna as she trotted up to me holding a stuffed bear. She handed it over as I looked at it. It was your simple fuzzy teddy bear, however it was wearing fake spiked cuffs around the wrist and a black shirt that read ‘Mötley Crüe’ and the bear even had tiny fake sunglasses on it.

I handed it back to her, smiling “We’ll have to call Tommy and say thank you, right Ari?” She nodded as she held the bear close to her chest.

“That’s sweet of him.” Clementine said, adding a swooning sigh as I rolled my eyes.

“Oh please, don’t act like that when you’ve been turning him down every chance you get, Clementine.” I barked back as she chuckled.

“Keeps things just a tad bit interesting, don’t you think? Plus, I haven’t turned him down. I have at least hanged out with him once every time he comes to visit.” She explained with a snarky laugh as I smiled back at her.

“Watch out Clem, he might get bored.” I chuckled as she gave me a frown.

“You really think he’d do that?” I glanced over at her, leaning back in my chair as I kicked my feet up on the table.

“God no, Tommy’s in it deep with you. He won’t stop till he has you. It’s only going to get worse from here on out. The flowers, the gifts, the cute little comments he makes that you say you hate so much.” I pointed out as I saw her cheeks turn a rosy pink.

“Plus, I think you kinda dig him too.” I shrugged, licking the frosting off my spoon as I wiggled my eyebrows.

“He’s sweet and everything, but I don’t know. He’s...you know...he’s-“

“A rockstar? He’s what?” I questioned, curious to what her answer would be as I glanced over at her.

“Well yeah, he’s Tommy Lee. He gets chicks all the time why would he want me?” She shrugged as I laughed at her words.

“Cause Clem, you’re fucking hot if you choose to see it or not. And Tommy is a man who loves to love women and you just happen to be in his eyesight right now.” I explained as she shook her head.

She sighed and looked at me, “Vanity, I know he’s going through a divorce. What if I’m just something to keep him busy? How do you know he isn’t just keeping me around cause he’s lonely?”

“He would’ve already taken you to bed if you were just something to keep him occupied.”

“And how could you possibly know that Vanity, what if-what if.” Clementine continued to express her worries.

I rolled my eyes, “You’re looking way to deep. I know Tommy pretty well and I’m positive he’s trying to take his time for like once in his life.”

She let out a huff as she picked up her paintbrush and started painting again, “I hope you’re right Vanity.”

I smiled, “I’m always right Clementine.”

*Fall of 1994, Vanity’s POV*

“Mommy! School time!”

I shot up to a sitting position, half asleep as i stared at Arianna who was at the foot of of my bed smiling at me. Her morning hair reminded me of Nikki’s.

I groaned, laying back down, “But I don’t want to go to school, princess.” I heard giggling as she crawled up onto my bed and sat at my side. I turned to look at her.

“No! Not for you! For me!” She said, grabbing ahold of my hand and trying to pull me up as she started jumping on the bed.

“It’s my first day of school, mommy!” She shouted with glee as I pretended to go back to sleep, “Mom! Wake up!” Her little tiny hands tried pushing me off the bed as I started laughing.

“Okay, alright. Let’s get up.” I rubbed my eyes, glancing to the alarm clock and seeing it was only six thirty in the morning. I was caught off guard when Arianna climbed onto my back and tightly wrapped her arms and legs around me.

“I had a dream about unicorns and, and they had wings made out of cotton candy.” She explained as I walked to the bathroom, her clinging to me like a monkey.

“Well that sounds super cool.” I chuckled, pulling her off me and setting her down on the floor. I brushed out her hair with minimal complaints and whining. She wanted it up in a ponytail with a neon green bow so I obliged.

She followed me to the kitchen, climbing up onto the dining table chairs as I quickly fixed up a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a sliced banana for breakfast before I started packing a lunch for her and making sure she had her backpack ready.

“I need to go potty!” She announced before running down the hallway. It was time for coffee.

After Arianna finished her breakfast, we went back to the bathroom so she could brush her teeth and finish getting ready. She lead me to her room and went to her closet to pick out clothes as I made her bed.

Arianna picked out jeans, light up shoes and a matching shirt to go with her bow, “You get dressed and go watch some cartoons, mom has to get ready.”

I went to my bedroom, opened up the curtains and straightened up my bed before getting dressed. I tugged on a pair of leggings and pulled a red hoodie on before slipping on a pair of flip flops. I quickly washed my face, brushed my teeth and threw my hair up into a messy bun.

I glanced out my door when I heard loud rock music playing, “Ari! That doesn’t sound like morning cartoons!” I took one last look at the mirror before leaving and going to the living room.

Nirvana’s ‘All Apologies’ was playing as Arianna was slowly head banging to the music. I sat down next to her, “You like this?” I questioned as she nodded.

“Yes! It’s cool!” She chimed as I nodded in agreement, “I guess you’re right.”

I closed my eyes as she kept babbling about something until I heard Vince fucking Neil’s voice on the TV. I opened my eyes to see their music video for ‘Anarchy in the UK’. I sighed deeply when Nikki appeared on the screen before glancing down at Arianna who was amazed by the music. At least she has somewhat of good taste for a toddler. Way better then cheery nursery rhymes on repeat all day.

“Mommy he broke his guitar!” She pointed, “Uncle Tommy?!” And there it was, she made the connection and now it’s time for the question game.

“Mommy! Uncle Tommy is on the TV! Why’s uncle Tommy on the TV? Why do they have long hair? Why do they sound mean? When’s uncle Tommy coming back? Is he going to bring me a toy? Are those uncle Tommy’s friends?”

I smiled down at her, “That’s uncle Tommy’s band. He’s a rockstar and he makes music with those other guys. They have long hair cause they like it And they don’t sound mean, baby. That’s just the type of music it is. It’s rock n roll. And I’m not to sure when he’s coming back, but he’ll let you know don’t worry.”

She giggled, “But only girls can have long hair.”

I shook my head, “No, boys can have long hair too, it’s not just a girl thing.” I corrected her as she nodded.

“Oh, okay! Can we go to school yet?” She questioned as I glanced over to the clock, it was about a quarter after seven.

“Yeah, let’s get a jacket on and we can go.”

After a small traffic jam and me almost loosing my shit with Arianna laughing at the situation in the back seat, we arrived at her preschool. I helped her out of the car as she quickly grabbed my hand as we started walking up the stairs. We walked down a hallway with doors and art work littered across the walls, some teachers gave us a smile while other moms dropping off their kids gave me glares.

I saw Clementine standing at the door greeting other kids as she saw us, “Auntie!” Arianna yelled, letting go of my hand and running to her.

“Hi pumpkin.” She said, picking her up and giving her a hug, “Morning sunshine.” Clem spoke to me as I sent her a glare. I’m just not a morning person.

I knelt down next to Ari, “You know, you can’t call auntie that here. You have to call her Miss Clementine while you’re at school..” I told Arianna as she nodded, “Okay.”

“...cause all the bitchy moms will complain about it.” I whispered to Clem as she giggled.

I walked into the class with them, seeing other kids playing with building blocks and some coloring with the teacher, Miss Jackie. Arianna handed me her jacket, backpack and lunchbox as I gave it to Clem and she immediately went over to a group of kids and started playing with them.

“She’s gonna be fine.” Clementine told me as I nodded quickly.

I was trying to keep the water works from coming, “Van, look at me.” She nudged my arm as I chewed on my bottom lip, staring at her.

“She’s going to be okay here, alright? She’ll be more then ready for kindergarten next year. It’s good for the both of you.”

I rubbed my eyes, “I know, I know.” I smiled when Arianna came over to me. I bent down and fixed her shirt.

“You be good okay? I’ll be back in a few hours and be nice to the other kids. And please share the toys.”

“You can go mommy.” She gave me a kiss and then ran back to her little friends.

“Mommy, you can go now.” Clementine snickered as I rolled my eyes.

I gave Clementine a quick hug before glancing at Arianna one more time before leaving the classroom. Is this how every first day of school is going to be like? My daughter telling me to go away while I am trying not to freak out? But school is good, and Arianna needs to grow mentally and socially.

I sighed as I walked out the door of the school and headed back to my car, “You know this is the unloading zone, right?” I turned around to see a platinum blonde haired woman.

“It’s unloading for a reason, not put it in park and take your child inside.” She continued to bitch at me as I stared at her.

“Lady, I didn’t know. It’s my daughters first day here so back off. There’s no sign saying it’s the unloading zone.” I retorted quickly as she stared at me, pushing her knock off Gucci sunglasses to the top of her head.

“There doesn’t need to be a sign, everyone knows it’s the unloading zone. What’s your name? I’ve never seen you before.” She questioned as I leaned against my car and stared at her.

“Vanity, what’s yours?” My voice oozed annoyance and I hoped it would give her the idea to back off, but she didn’t.

“Ginger Thomas, I run the PTA here.” She stuck out her hand, her nails were done cheaply too. I shook her hand and forced a smile.

“Cool, look I gotta-“ “Were having our annual back to school bake sale next week. We encourage all parents to join.”

I went from snorting rails of cocaine and banging rockstars to fucking being apart of the PTA? No thanks.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. Me and Arianna have a lot going on next week.” I explained, when in reality there was nothing I just didn’t want to deal with the other moms.

“A child appreciates when the parents are involved, all studies show that.” She told me as I nodded.

“Yeah, Uh…I’ll make cookies for her on my own time. Thanks for the invite.” I smiled at Ginger before stepping into my car and driving away as quick as I could in a school zone.

I decided while Arianna was in school I was gonna stop by a few places and apply for a jab. I knew I would be bored with Arianna being at school for a portion of the day, so a part time job would be fun. I noticed a sign say Daisy’s Gentleman Bar and Grill off the side of a building. I parked my car and headed inside.

I walked through a small corridor before seeing a whole bunch of booths and tables surrounding a stage area that was covered by a red curtain. Not a whole lot of people were in here. Just a group of guys off in the corner smoking and laughing. I looked over at the bar, seeing no one behind it as I pulled out a barstool and sat down.

“Can I help you?” I turned around to see an older red headed woman wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots topped with a blue and red plaid shirt. It made me miss Texas for just a split second.

I stood up and stuck my hand out, “My names Vanity Blackwood and I was wondering if you were hiring for like a waitress or something like that.”

“Daisy Jackson.” She shook my hand before sitting down text to me, “A waitress? With a beautiful face like that you belong on stage.” I furrowed my eyebrows before the gentleman’s bar clicked in my head. I looked back over at the stage and put one and one together. It was a strip club.

“Oh, I don’t- no, I’m not a dancer or a stripper.” I chuckled as she nodded.

“Well no one is born a stripper, sugar. Do you have experience bar tending?” She questioned, but I shook my head.

“I have experience drinking, but not bar tending. I have a lot of experience as a waitress though. My last job, I practically ran the place when my boss wasn’t around.” I explained as she nodded and grabbed two waters for us.

“May I see your resume?” Daisy questioned as I stared at her.

I scratched the top of my head, “Um…I don’t have a resume. I’ve um, only had one job.”

She looked at me like I was strange, “You’re out job hunting and you don’t have a resume?” She let out a laugh, “Wow.”

I frowned, but she spoke up, “Tell me about yourself, Vanity.”

I nodded, “I um…I’m from Dallas but I lived in California for a while before I moved here. I have a three and half year old daughter. I was the head waitress and hostess at a diner in Los Angeles and all my customers always loved me. I’m rather nice and funny as I get along with pretty much anybody I meet. I really like shopping too..” I added a nervous chuckle because by the look on her face I couldn’t tell if she took me serious or not.

“What are your worse qualities?” Daisy questioned me.

“Um, my mouth gets me in trouble sometimes-“ Daisy let out a laugh, “Me too, sweetie.”

“And sometimes I loose my cool but I’m usually level headed. I’m really blunt and some people don’t like that as well.” I added on as she just nodded.

“So you could handle handsy drunks?”

I nodded, “Oh definitely. I have a lot of experience with that.” I blurted out as she tilted her head to the side in a confused manner.

“Uh…I mean…I use to party a lot so I know how people can get when they are extremely intoxicated.” I quickly added on as she nodded.

“Well, you have a cute little face and a interesting personality and I’m sure you’re trainable. Can you start tonight?”

My eyes widened, “Tonight? I would prefer hours during the day…” I trailed off as she smirked.

“If you can’t tell, we aren’t busy in the day. I don’t need another girl in the day time, only at night. Those are our busiest and best hours. You’ll be walking away with a lot of tips. The hours are from eleven to four in the morning when the bar closes.”

I thought about it for a moment. I’m sure I could find a babysitter for Arianna or I’m sure Clementine would be more then willing to stay the night.

“It’s only three days a week, so it’s not much. But you’ll make up for it in tips.” She continued as I shrugged.

“I don’t care about the money, but yeah. I guess I could start tonight.”

“Good, wear something sexy and I’ll see you at-“

“Hey Daisy! Where did you want these boxes again?” I looked over seeing a buzzed cut blonde haired dude holding a few boxes. I took a second glance when I saw his neck tattoo.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t know you were talking to someone.” He smiled at me, eyes drifting down my body and then back to me, “Have we met?”

“Jason, this is Vanity. She’s gonna start working here tonight as a bartender. You can put those on the back counter for me. Vanity, this is Jason. He’s a bouncer here.”

I nodded, his eyes narrowing at me “You look so familiar.” He chuckled as he left the boxes where she had asked, “Hey, Paul is asking for you.” He told Daisy as she rolled her eyes.

“Never work with your husband. I’ll see you tonight Vanity.” She patted my shoulder and went to the back.

I turned my attention to Jason as he was already looking at me, “You don’t remember me do you?” I asked with a bit of a laugh in my voice.

He sat down next to me, smiling “As much as I love to remember pretty chicks, I’m afraid I don’t remember…”

I shook my head, “It’s okay. Um, we met at a club a while ago you Uh…you gave me blow.” I whispered that part to him as the wheels in his head started turning.

“Oh! At Ivys! That’s right, that blue haired chick and that guy who I swear was Tommy Lee barged in. You never called me.” He pretended to pout as I chuckled.

“Yeah, he gets that a lot.” I smirked, “Yeah sorry about that. That blue haired chick kinda threw a fit over me doing blow.”

He nodded, “Well, you’re here now. I’m looking forward to seeing you from now on.” Jason rested just hand on my lower back as I smiled at him.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

*Later that evening*

“A…strip club? Vanity, can’t you get a normal job?” Clementine questioned me as we sat at my dining table while she painted and Arianna watched cartoons.

“I’m just gonna be a bartender! Not a stripper it’s totally fine.” I retorted as she sighed.

“What are the hours? During school hours?” She questioned as I smiled and took a sip of my water.

“Well, thats what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s only eleven to four in the morning for three nights…so I was wondering if you would consider staying on those nights. I’d pay you of course.”

She looked up from her sketchbook, “Vanity, really? You took an overnight job? What am I suppose to do on those mornings when I have to be at the school?” She asked as I shrugged.

“I mean obviously you can sleep too. She sleeps during the night so I’m not worried about that. She’ll be good for you, you know that! And I’ll tell her I’m just going to work and I’ll be back before she wakes up.” I clarified as she sighed.

“Tonight?” She groans as I nodded, “Okay, okay fine I’ll be her babysitter.” I squealed and gave her a huge hug.

“I swear, you better not turn into like an alcoholic being a bartender or whatever.” 

[stevie-writes-the-pain-away]

Alcoholics Anonymous - Chapter Seven

       "Good morning, princess."

       I smiled at his text, replying back with tired eyes. "Good morning, princey."

       Murdoc had texted just a few minutes after my 6:00am alarm. I was finishing my breakfast when he messaged back and I placed my dishes in the sink. "Plans today?"

       "Working from eight to five at the café, you?"

       "Damn, I'm heading into work as well. Perhaps I could visit during my lunch break?"

       "Haha, I don't see why not."

       I began to wash my dishes, including Cassidy's leftover breakfast as well. I put them away one after the other and carried on my usual morning routine. I had a quick shower and fixed my hair, putting on my uniform before brushing my teeth. I got back to Murdoc's text as I headed out the door. "Then I can't wait." It made my morning.

       Despite working in London, this café didn't get any busy days. Surprisingly, the busiest days we got were on Saturdays and I didn't even work a lot then, so I never really saw how many costumers typically stopped by. There were usually three workers at a time, leaving me plenty of shifts to get in extra hours if I wanted and wasn't too busy with my other jobs. My manager wondered if I could juggle three jobs at a time but she didn't know how desperate I was for both money and distraction. From many, many things.

       I worked as both a cashier and waitress at the café. I even stocked shelves a few times, but there were never many shelves to stock considering how small the place was. It was a simple desk with one register, a display case, and only five tables, not including the front window where we kept the highchairs. That's probably why I loved it so much. I actually got paid well enough to stand and not do much of anything most of the time.

       "Hey, (Y/N)," I heard from behind me. I turned to find my coworker setting a box down and turning into the other room, most likely to get another one.

       "Hey, Lawerence."

       He came back out, stacking boxes of food for me to show off. "How're your other jobs doing?" He was a lanky green-eyed kid with long brown locks and warm, pink skin drowning in countless freckles. He was only twenty and he just started working a few months ago. We talked every now and then but it never went anywhere, I couldn't even call each other friends yet. You could say he was your stereotypical hipster if I'm being honest.

       "They're alright, but you know this shift's my favourite for obvious reasons," I said, struggling to converse.

       He smiled at me, looking out at the empty tables with understanding. "Well, nobody else was able to come in, so would you mind stocking these while I fetch a few more boxes?"

       "No problem," I smiled.

       I had many opportunities to make friends around me, but none who I thought would want to deal with me. We could hang out until they found out about my drinking problem and soon enough, I would be alone again; like everyone I knew before I hit rock bottom. But meeting somebody from the clinic who actually understood the struggle of quitting really lifted a weight from my shoulders. When I went into work I felt like it was another job to try and make friends, but I finally knew I didn't have to do anything apart from the actual job I was being paid to do. I just had to keep at it and be respectful, which made me feel a lot better realizing.

       I spent the next few hours charging and serving customers, putting things away little by little as Lawerence worked in the back. "(Y/N)! Help me lift something!"

       I turned on my heel and walked through the back to give Lawerence a hand when I heard somebody walk through the front door, the same familiar bell notifying our assistance. Lawerence and I hauled the box towards the front and I glanced back, "I'll be right there!"

       As I set our items on the ground, I heard a familiar voice address me. "(Y/N)?" I could hear him smiling. I instantly straightened my back and looked across the other side of the counter.

       "Murdoc!" I exclaimed with surprise. "What are you doing here?"

      "What? Thought I was joking when I said I'd come see ya?"

       All I did was smile and lean on my folded arms. "Would you like to order anything?"

       "Just a large black coffee," he said. I placed the order and handed him his cup.

       "3.50."

       "Aww, you're not gonna give it for free?"

       "Nah, I'd rather keep my job, but maybe some other time," I smiled.

       He chuckled and pulled out change from his pocket, leaving me to count it for him. He left me at my station to get his drink and on his way to his table, he leaned against the counter. "You're free to join me for lunch," he said.

       Looking up at him I sighed. "Not sure if that's very professional," I winced.

       "Who cares about profession," he rolled his eyes. "Nobody's here, anyway."

       I shook my head slowly and gave in, picking a muffin from the glass case beside me and following him to the table at the very back. He pulled out a chair for me and I laughed at his gentlemanly behaviour, sitting down. He took his seat across from me and sipped his coffee. I wondered how one could ever stomach black coffee but figured asking would be pointless. "How did you know where I worked?"

       "Told me the last night," he answered.

       "Right," I corrected myself. The night before was a blast. Murdoc's vision of a hangover cure was multiple glasses of water, juice and caffeine with sunglasses and a movie marathon. I couldn't pay attention to any of the classics that played, they were simply playing in the background as Murdoc and I conversed, telling each other about ourselves. I learned a lot about him; his religion, what interests him, random facts. He told a lot of stories, too, and I didn't remember the last time I had laughed so hard with somebody. Whenever it was my turn to speak, I felt bad. I didn't have anything to say but he still seemed almost hypnotized by anything I said. I didn't understand his patience, but I was grateful. "What've you done today?"

       "Helped a few people think of lyrics and what-not." I watched him shift his cup, focused on the coffee stirring around inside.

       "Is that an everyday thing? Are you a producer?"

       "Oh, no, I'm nobody important," he said. "All I do is organize files, as I said before."

       "Oh, come on, organizing files is just as important as writing the lyrics."

       Murdoc chuckled, taking another sip of his coffee. "I guess it can be," he gave in. "What about you? How long have you worked here?"

       "Not long, actually. I've had quite a few jobs before the ones I have now. I've only worked here for about a year."

       Murdoc nodded and it became quiet between us. "Ever thought of getting out of here?" he asked.

       "A lot . . . a lot, a lot, a lot . . . Never had the money to, though." I didn't consider where the question came from, so out of the blue like that. All I could think of was how strong of an answer I had. Nearly every second - morning, noon, night - I would contemplate the day I'd finally leave London, England and start over somewhere else; somewhere fresh and new and away from all the poor memories I made in that Hell hole. "What about you?"

       "Plenty . . . I've actually been quite a few places," Murdoc answered.

       "Really?" I replied with interest. "Where?"

       "All over Europe, America . . . Even visited Canada and Asia a few times . . . It was a job thing."

       "I never knew you had a travelling job," I said. I began to daydream, wondering what it was like for him to get around so much. It must've been amazing checking out different landscapes and cultures, meeting new people everywhere you went.

       "Yep, I've even spent months overseas . . . far away from here. Though travelling gets a little bothersome nowadays." I snapped out of my daze, confused at how bored he could get hopping from one country to another that much. "I-I mean, I'm grateful, of course, but there's the packing and airports and bumpy roads and difficult weather . . ." he rambled.

       "Damn . . ." I sighed. "I don't think I could ever not be excited to leave and voyage all over the world."

       "Maybe I'll bring you with me eventually and you can see for yourself how stressful touring can be," Murdoc chuckled.

       I laughed back, shaking my head. "I've never been on a plane before . . . and I don't remember the last time I went on a boat," I said, biting my lip with a sudden nervous whole in my stomach.

       "It may seem scary at first, but it's actually pretty fun. It's pretty luxurious," he smirked. "Y'know, people bring you appetizers and beverages, you can listen to music, watch a movie . . . And if you're brave, you can look out the window and look at the breathtaking view," he expressed.

       I smiled at his appreciation of nature, trying to picture all the recollections he was remembering. I couldn't help but feel a strong urge to be apart of his journey. "How long have you been home?"

       Murdoc took a second to think about it, "A few years. Um . . . The band I mainly worked with took a little hiatus so I haven't been working a lot lately. They've gotten around to seeing each other, however, so I'm beginning to help them more and more with songs . . . It'll be a bummer when I leave again, though."

       "What, you're not ready to take a lavish cruise around the world again?"

       Murdoc chuckled to me, "It's not that . . . Touring isn't even all it's cracked up to be." His smirked faded, "I'm just not ready to . . . I don't know . . . Leave what's comfortable, I suppose."

       My smile dropped the slightest, but I still tried to remain bright. "What'll you be missing when you're gone?"

       "As much as I hate to admit it . . . you know me," he added, ". . . but therapy . . . It's more helpful and not as stupid of an idea as I always imagined . . . It's actually pretty eye-opening to listen to others who go through what you go through, y'know?" I nodded, remembering back to last night. Murdoc had expressed a lot about himself, including his self-aware stubbornness, ignorance and tendencies to lack cooperation; and therapy was no exception. "I'd also miss you . . ."

       "M-me?" I questioned with surprise. Murdoc looked up with a rather nervous expression but quickly smirked at my response. "I-I mean . . ."

       He laughed, holding up his mug, "I honestly don't think I've met somebody who understands me more . . . It's nice having friends that listen to you, of course, but bonding with somebody who really gets it hits differently." I sat in near awe, trying to blink the surreal feeling out of my head. "Thanks for that," he concluded. This was very hard for me to process - somebody like Murdoc acting so out of character he felt like a totally new person. "I may be a reserved man, but I know how to show gratitude and thanks," he said, catching onto my bewilderedness. "Though, I barely tell anybody that cheesy bullshit about therapy and friendship, let alone act so soft, so don't think this corny stuff is staying." That would explain a lot, I told myself.

        We were startled by a sudden bell ringing, started both me and Murdoc. Conditioned stimulus rose my head to the door, causing me to shoot up from my spot in alarm. "I-I'm sorry, I've gotta . . ." I said, pointing to my next costumer. Murdoc excused me with a shrug and I quickly made my way over to the cash register, apologizing for my absence and serving the consumer before they left. I looked back at Murdoc who had risen from his seat and made his way over to me.

       "I should probably head out," he said, leaning towards the exit. "I'll see you soon though, I hope," he smiled.

       "Yeah, sure," I smiled back.

       He gave me a small wave and I couldn't help but laugh. "Farewell," he said, leaving through the door.

       I walked home after my shift completely exhausted and a disgusting sweaty mess. I entered my apartment, proceeding to make myself supper in time for Cassidy to be home as well.

       "I saw a recipe for chicken with a red wine sauce," she texted me.

       I gave in, "Sure thing :)." I'd just have chicken without the sauce, it's as simple as that. Although pulling out wine from under the sink was tempting, to say the least, I knew it wasn't worth it. I ignored my shaking bones and swallowed my drool, preparing our dinner.

       Ever since I met Cassidy I always pondered if she knew about my addiction. Even if there was never any closure, there were definitely signs and hints towards my unhealthy relationship with drinking, and I knew she wasn't dumb enough to ignore red flags, right?

       The front door abruptly opened, disturbing my peace as I spun around with panic. "Hey, (N/N)," Cassidy smiled from the entrance.

       I calmed myself down, wondering how deep in thought I was to not hear the door unlock in the first place. "Hey," I responded with a smile.

       I looked back down at the pan in front of me, Cassidy catching a whiff of her meal. Both of our stomachs growled, mine craving more than just the chicken. "Smells good," she complimented. I know, I thought.

       "Well, it's done," I concluded, turning off the stove and grabbing two plates from the cabinets.

       Cassidy walked over and took her portions, leaving me with the rest. As I put my plate together she addressed me, "You're not gonna have any of the sauce?"

       I looked up at her, "Nah . . . Not that hungry."

       "If you say so," Cassidy shrugged. She sat at the dining table, but I felt my heart sink in my chest, as well as lightheadedness from the scent of my demons in the air. I left her alone in the kitchen and quickly escorted myself to my bedroom where I closed the door and rubbed my eyes.

       Rehabilitation was never easy. It looks so effortless when you're standing on the outside, but I didn't know what I was in for when I started taking therapy. If I wanted to, I could've gone into the kitchen then and there and drank until I choked on my vomit before blacking out. It was always easier to give up, but I didn't get as far as I did by falling back into my routine again, did I?

       I distracted myself with dinner and my laundry, cleaning up after myself for the first time in another long week. However, when you're picking up the pieces of your distressing life, it's hard to find a reason not to ignore it and let it destroy you more and more. At that point, I felt like anything and everything I did, no matter where I turned, I would always find a reason to drink rather than find a reason to live anymore. Nothing felt worth staying for that night . . .

       Except for Murdoc.

[comicteaparty]

December 25th-December 31st, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 25th, 2019 to December 31st, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

While being respectful, what’s a comic you think is objectively great but is just not to your subjective tastes?

carcarchu

the first one that comes to mind is purple hyacinth https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/purple-hyacinth/list?title_no=1621&page=1 by all means i should love this series. i think the art and premise are great but for some intangible reason it just doesn't jive with me for some reason. i still recommend it to others and it's not like i don't read it but personally it just didn't make it feel anything

snuffysam

Honestly? Most of the comics I've read as part of #week_long_bookclub and #comment_storm fall under that umbrella. The vast majority of comics I've been introduced to through the CTP activities are really quite good (there's been exactly one in the book club that I couldn't stomach, and it was because of content/writing i personally found overly edgy & distasteful) - but for one reason or another, they're just not the type of comic I want to keep up with regularly. Too slice-of-life-y, too sad, i couldn't visually distinguish the characters that well, a super-sporadic update schedule/is on hiatus/is getting rebooted, the parts of the story I liked are clearly not things the author wants to focus on moving forward, a non-functional/poorly organized website, etc. All very good in their own right, but for one reason or another is not something I'd want to read one page at a time.

Eightfish

@snuffysam I feel similarly that most of the comics in the book club are not my cup of tea (haha). I wonder if it would be different if some of the comics there were reader suggested instead of author suggested?

keii4ii

I think CTP should remain author-submitted. Readers could suggest to the authors to submit their comic, though.

the majority of comics I encounter everywhere aren't my bag of tea, TBH. And that's probably a big part of the reason why I'm making my own. Gotta feed my inner reader's needs, one way or another

A lot of Western-written comedy, specifically, are lost on me for cultural reasons. Often they seem to be referencing something that I'm not aware of. Or they have to be read in a specific tone that's lost on me, and probably would make a bit more sense to me if voice-acted. Things like that.

Cronaj

For me it's usually art style. I'm pretty picky about art style, and I know for a fact that I'm missing out on a lot of good comics simply because the art styles are not to my tastes. Any style that's too cutesy, simplistic, or "generic" anime just doesn't call to me. There have been outliers that have managed to draw me in anyway, despite the art style, but not a lot. I also just tend to not like gag-a-day comics or slice-of-life. If there isn't a larger story, I get kind of bored. That being said, I also don't tend to enjoy most superhero/ strictly action comics, simply because I can recognize the tropes from a mile away. Not that they're bad, just... outdated? In fact, I LOVE superhero movies, but most superhero movies have adapted the tropes into a new form for the big screen. Here's an example of a comic that I've seen around, laughed at a few of the jokes, and then never felt the desire to consistently read it, just because it's not my style. Brutally Honest: (https://tapas.io/series/Brutally-Honest)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I find myself having the same problem with webcomics that I do with other media - I like to feel like I’m escaping reality. Stories set in our world are hard for me to sit through comfortably. That automatically makes general slice-of-life and romance stories hard for me to get into, unless there’s a strong fantasy/supernatural/sci-fi element to them. That already puts a lot of webcomics out of my range. Because there are SO MANY high school slice of life romance drama webcomics out there. Some of which I know are very highly rated and probably great. They’re just not what my brain craves

Tuyetnhi

strangely enough anything with western high fantasy elements I usually don't read as much compared to romance or slice of life comics lmao

kinda in the same spot to what keii said: a lot of western themes get lost for me and I feel like I need to put my own spin on things if that make sense

Nutty (Court of Roses)

To be fair and honest... I don't really have comics I don't enjoy, or I guess fall too far outside my tastes? Out of the ones I've read, anyways! My reasoning is that I just don't have TIME to read too many comics out there, so when I decide for myself that yes, I'm going to sit down and commit myself to this comic, I look for and find things to enjoy about it, even if it's not normally my cup of tea. The story, the art, the style, the jokes... I try to keep an open mind and enjoy whatever I have the chance to get into, because as an artist I think about the person behind the comic and what kind of story they're trying to tell. I just... really like comics ahahah I wish I had more time to read more!!!!(edited)

FeatherNotes

I agree with @LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) on the 'set in our world ' bit! I find it difficult as well to immerse myself im stories that are in our world with exceptions of an alternate reality or large enough twist that would really differ from what the setting is. Slice of life doesn't really appeal to me, mainly because many comics don't have very stand out designs/personalities for characters that i would gravitate to. To be more specific to the question however, there are certainly quite a few amazing looking comics that don't really float my boat simply bc of style or execution of story or whatnot! Ive been reading one recently that hasn't really stuck to me or left any impact character/story wise, but.....im still reading it! so there def must be something!

Octoflamingo

There are a lot of comics I like but I find myself not reading them after I get to where they last update. I just rarely check in afterwards and usually by the time I do I’ve forgot the plot. I feel that every time I go back to a comic I have to read it all over again to get back to where I was. That can be really time consuming the longer the series is. I also try not to pick up long story oriented series if they aren’t finished because I know I’ll never get to the end of them.

Bear

I say this as a person in the LGBT+ community: I’ve become very tired of comics that centre around a person coming out. Which sucks because they’re super important! But I’ve lived the struggle, everyone close to me has lived the struggle. It’s tiring. What I want is genre stories where the characters are LGBT+, but that’s not necessarily the focus. Luckily in webcomics that’s easier to find. I still have to dig through coming out stories to find them though.

Deo101

Gotta say, super agree with that one Bear.

Eightfish

Same. I like stories where characters are just casually LGBT. Even to the point where they won't even mention that they're gay or lesbian and instead just show up in a gay relationship or naturally bring up their attraction to the same sex. Steven Universe does this really well, I think.

Oh and speaking of suggesting authors to sign up their comics, I think I could have a lot to say about @LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) 's Phantomarine (: Maybe in a few months when the comic gets a little more ahead in the plot?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

@Eightfish I may submit it after this chapter is done around the beginning of February! I do wish I were further ahead, but there will still be plenty to say after this one wraps up. Thank you for the encouragement!

RebelVampire

If I'm just speaking in general, usually comedy and slice-of-life comics will fall into this category for me even if they're fantastic. I am very, very particular about comedy and slice-of-life. Especially comedy, as I'm usually very specific about the sort of stuff that actually makes me laugh and entertains me. So honestly, a lot of comedy in comics is just not my jam. In a more specific comic sense, Kamikaze to name just one of many: https://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/ The art in the comic is fantastic, the characters really fleshed out and interesting, and even some of the comedy I like. Objectively, I think this is a fantastic comic with a ton of effort put behind it and one everyone should give a chance. That being said, for me personally, I just can't get into the pacing. It's a bit too slow for me even if I think objectively it works fine. So while it's a comic I might enjoy in bulk reads, as a page-by-page thing I just can't do it.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To be honest, I can’t really name any comics? I tend to like just about any comic that’s really well done. Obviously I have my preferred genres, but I simply don’t seek out comics that aren’t my thing. If I do read past the first few pages of an objectively well-made comic, chances are I’m going to stick around snd keep reading.

Eightfish

Maybe my own comic? Not that I think it's objectively great, but it is of course more completely to my own taste than any other comic out there. Yet if I try to read my own comic I can't glean any enjoyment out of it over the overwhelming feeling of hearing my own recorded voice played back to me. Anyone else?

keii4ii

That's an interesting answer! I can't say I feel 100% the same, but I can relate to perhaps a facet or two of it.

I don't really read my comic either, after all, even though it's an honest reflection of what I want to read.

Eightfish

Thing is I have another short comic from about 6 years ago that I am now far removed from enough to read objectively. And I notice things I think are well done that I didn't notice before and big flaws that I haven't considered 6 years ago. So I'm worried since I can't read my current comic objectively I don't know what I need to improve on

keii4ii

That's definitely a struggle for me as well. It's what constructive critiques are for, BUT it's not easy finding someone willing, able and well suited to critique your work.

I used to actively solicit concrit on my comic. While I appreciate that every critic spent their time and effort genuinely trying to be helpful, the actual critiques weren't always helpful. You have to be a good critic (it takes skills), and you have to be the right critic for that specific story.

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I totally agree on that keii, a lot of people see concrit as the solution for every issue, but that's just bound for trouble. There are a lot more bad and mediocre critiques than well stated and usable ones

keii4ii

Yeah. There's a reason why the services of a good editor are so highly valued!

Cronaj

I think the problem is that most people who offer critiques are trying to shape the story in a way that they themselves would enjoy more, and not necessarily an objective improvement to the existing story. Offering a critique that also preserves the essence and heart of a story is extremely difficult.(edited)

Eightfish

Also when critique is contradictory- " I love how your comic gets right into the interesting part" vs. " I was really confused by the intro " But I don't know what side I would be on if I was a reader because as the author I would never be confused by my own story.(edited)

keii4ii

Yeah, and even when you get two crits on the same "side" it's possible that it's just skewed data due to small sample size. Like, maybe both of the critics are simply not your target audience. I've found that it helps a LOT if you ask specific questions, instead of just asking for a concrit. Coming up with good questions can be very difficult, though! One I've asked in the past is "did you lose interest while reading the comic? If so, at what point(s)?" and I got helpful answers from that, even from people who weren't the target audience.

Kelsey (Kurio)

I admit, I’m not the best at critiquing, like trying to bring to mind things other than “art looks nice” or “I like that joke” or whatnot

Though I guess it gets easier the more I read and mull over something

🌈ERROR404 🌈

it's sometimes hard to find something good and worthwhile to critique LOL

Kelsey (Kurio)

And of course, how does one define “objective improvement” with works of art/media? Outside of things like improving grammar, but what about in cases where it’s like that on purpose? It’s real hard to be totally objective with criticism when you think about it, even when you try to be objective

keii4ii

This might be getting off topic for the channel, but I think it's better to think of it as "effective for the goals of this work" rather than "objective." If you do X in your work on purpose, but X is not appealing to your target demographic, that's not effective. You need to either not do X, or re-define your target demographic. (Not necessarily the only options in that situation, but you get the point.)

Cronaj

I definitely think that "effective" is a better word for what I meant. It's all about intent. For example, most people generally agree that art style should be consistent in a comic, BUT in some cases (especially in comedy) switching up the art style for a scene or a panel to emphasize a point or subvert expectations (thus making the scene potentially funnier) is a very "effective" inconsistency. Basically, if something is effective for telling the story or instilling a mood, the objective view basically becomes null.

DanitheCarutor

I can get into almost anything, there are very few stories I have trouble with, even if it's a genre I wouldn't normally like. Although there are a couple that I'm really picky with, and that's gag-a-day comics or general comedy. The only ones I can think I've actively read off the top of my head are Oglaf, Perry Bible Fellowship and more recently, Woman World. Other than those few the genres never catch my interest, I'm more for story/character driven comics, with plot and stuff like that. Sometimes a comic doesn't click regardless of genre, for example: Homestuck I tried sooo hard to read this one to see what the hype was about, but the farthest I've ever gotten was maybe 50 pages after several attempts, and that's not because it's bad! The comic just didn't click, and regardless of my taste I probably would recommend it to someone who likes those types of comics.

[hope-for-olicity]

Revelations

Upon reading of Felicity with another man, Oliver has a revelation that he may have waited too long to make his intentions clear.

So this is my first submission for the Olicity Hiatus Fic-a-Thon 2018 organized by @thebookjumper - the prompt was Revelation. Also available on AO3.

This story is set early in Season 6 with a few changes from canon. Curtis dies, on the island, Thea is fine and Felicity has her own business.

Oliver sat down at his desk in the Mayor’s office. He rubbed his hands over his face, let out a sigh. He did it. William was at school, he was at work, everything was under control.

He couldn’t lie, being a single father to a boy who just lost his mother, while being the Mayor and the Green Arrow was taking a toll on him. He felt like he was treading water. He worried if he stopped for just a moment, he would drown.

Enough self-pity. He turned to look at the mail his assistant left of on his desk. He began picking up the envelopes when a familiar face caught his eye. There was Felicity Smoak in all her glory on the front of Starling City Business magazine. She got the cover. It made him so proud.

He quickly flipped open the magazine to read the profile on the love of his life. She looked beautiful in a fuchsia dress with bright pink lipstick. God, he missed her. Yes, he’d seen her last night in the bunker but he felt like that was only in passing. He was burning the candle at both ends, that left no time to spend on his personal life. Felicity said she understood that he had to focus on William but how long would a woman as wonderful as she is willing to wait.

He glanced back down at the article. Felicity talked about the tragic loss of her partner in her first business, Curtis. He knew Curtis’ death was not something she nor the rest of them were anywhere near over. It hurt him to think of her grieving alone. Thea had checked in on her, a girl’s night, she said Felicity was withdrawn and wasn’t open to talking about it even with her constant pestering.

The rest of the article talked about Felicity’s newly launched Smoak Technologies and the spinal chip which she now had the legal right to mass produce after taking her other company Palmer Technologies to court for the patent. The headlines were amusing when she won, Smoak Sues Herself and Wins. Another moment, where Oliver was very proud but watching from a distance instead of by her side.

He knew Felicity had thrown herself into her work to help deal with the loss of Curtis. He was glad she was making such strides but he could see the sadness in her eyes. He looked down at the end of the interview where the reporter began inquiring about her personal life, her love life to be precise. The reporter asked if there was any truth to rumours that she was dating actor Chris Pine. Felicity said you know I don’t comment on my personal life but suffice it to say I’m happy.

I’m happy?! Oliver sat up straighter in his chair. Was she really dating Chris Pine?? He knew she had a long-standing crush on the actor but he wasn’t aware that they’d actually met. Had she moved on? It suddenly dawned him there was no reason for her not to move on. It’s not as though he’d given her any hints that a future with him was possible.

Upon their return from the island, they agreed that Oliver would focus on William. But since then, he quickly looked at his calendar, six months passed. If he knew Felicity, which he did, he knew she would never push him. She would put William’s well being above all else. She was emphatic about William needing his father so he knew he was making the right decision. But now….

William was doing so much better, he was still going to therapy but he was in school and making friends. He talked more, even joked with Raisa. Getting Raisa to come help out was one of the best decisions he’d made. Oliver remembered growing up how Raisa just got him and now she got William too. Things with William and him were improving but still on shaky ground.

It suddenly dawned on him that William would probably really like Felicity, well everyone liked Felicity but William liked Felicity things - comic books, computers, video games and he was really smart. Maybe it was time for them to meet again.

Oliver’s phone rang. He saw his receptionists number. “Yes, Mary.”

“Mayor Queen, your 10 o’clock meeting is in five minutes in the boardroom, Mr. Lance is in there now greeting the board members as they arrive.”

“Thanks, Mary, I’ll head in now.”

*****

Felicity was currently running her business out of her loft. She met with clients in restaurants so she decided to save on overhead until she actually had more than one employee. Currently, it was just Alena and her, she was hoping to add Thea Queen very soon.

In fact, Thea was due to arrive with lunch any minute. She wanted to lure Thea away from the Mayor’s office, she wasn’t sure how that would go over with Oliver. So, she decided to take the bull by the horns and ask Thea if she would even be interested in such a position.

Thea had such potential, she whipped the Mayor’s office into shape when she was Chief of Staff, the girl had people skills and manners ingrained in her by Moira Queen, she would be an asset wherever she worked. Felicity wanted that to be Smoak Technologies.

Felicity just finished tidying up her workplace when she heard the knock on the door. She opened the door to see Thea holding a tray of Big Belly Burger drinks in one hand and food in the other.

“Oh, let me take that from you!” Felicity quickly grabbed the drinks from Thea, she put them on the table.

Thea closed the door, followed behind Felicity. “Thanks!” Once she put the food down she quickly pulled Felicity in for a hug.

Thea released her. “So, sister-in-law what can I do for you?”

“Haha, very funny, Thea. Let’s eat the food while it’s hot. I’ll tell you my proposition.” Felicity took a seat, began taking the food out of the bag Thea brought.

“Oooh, consider me intrigued.” Thea dipped a french fry in ketchup. “I’m all ears.”

“Well, first I’d like to say if you are not interested, just say so. No hard feelings. All cool.” Felicity was starting to feel nervous.

Thea reached across the table to touch Felicity’s hand. “Hey, it’s okay. Just ask me. You are starting to worry me.”

“I was just going to say I’ve always admired you, Thea. You as a woman and as a professional. What you did with Verdant all those years ago and all the work you have done at City Hall. You impress the hell out of me.” Felicity smiled at Thea, she could see Thea was surprised by her words.

“Wow, Felicity, thanks. I mean thank you. I had no idea you saw me that way. It means a lot as I really respect you as a professional and you are the smartest person I know. That you would think so highly of me…” Thea smiled.

“Now, for my pitch. I’d like you to come work for Smoak Technologies. I believe you have a lot to offer. I really need the best when setting up my business. You know my core product is the chip stimulant that Curtis created. It costs a lot to re-create per each patient’s specifications and most people with spinal cord injuries don’t have that kind of money. So I need someone to help with fundraising. Both holding events and finding private donors to help aid in this process. Once we have established ourselves with the chip, I will begin introducing other products which will hopefully help improve the lives of others. You know, I want to work on that shiny beacon of hope we talked about before. So, what do you think?” Felicity began to fidget, she really wanted Thea to say yes.

“I think hell yes! Where do I sign? Seriously though, Felicity, you are giving me the opportunity of a lifetime. To use my skills to help you, help people. This would be a dream come true.” Thea jumped up, then stopped. “Can I hug you? Would that be unprofessional?”

“Not unprofessional at all. Come here!” Felicity held Thea tight they weren’t sisters-in-law yet but she would always consider Thea a part of her family. “I’m so so glad you are interested. Now, we can talk about the issue at hand. Do you think Oliver will be okay with me stealing you away from the Mayor’s office?”

“Are you kidding? Ollie will love it! He loves you! He’s so incredibly proud of what you are doing. I think he’d be thrilled for me to come work for you. Quentin is doing a great job as Chief of Staff, they no longer need me over there as a consultant. The only question is when can I tell him?” Thea laughed.

******

Oliver heard the knock on his office door. He finished signing his last document for the day as he looked up. “You’re not Mary.” He smiled.

“Nope,” Thea smiled back. “Mary stepped away, just wondering if you have a moment for your sister.”

“Always.” Oliver got up, greeted his sister with a hug. “What brings you by?”

“I have news!” Thea smiled brightly.

“Good news from the look on your face. So sit,” Oliver gestured toward the couch, he followed. “Tell me your news.”

“Felicity has asked me to come work for her at Smoak Technologies! She has big plans and she explained how my skills would help make that happen. She thinks I’m great!” Thea was practically bouncing in her chair.

“That’s fantastic, Thea! I agree with Felicity you would be an asset to Smoak Technologies. Good on her for stealing my overqualified staff.” Oliver joked, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. Of course, he wanted Thea to go work for Felicity. They would compliment each other greatly. It was a marvelous opportunity for Thea but he would miss her. Truthfully, the only time he saw her nowadays was at work. Perhaps, it was time for a family dinner. William met Thea once, he knew Thea was dying to see her nephew again.

“Oliver? Did you stop listening? Are you okay? Are you mad that I’m leaving? Felicity was concerned but I told her you would be okay. Was I wrong?” Worry was creeping into Thea’s voice.

Oliver patted Thea’s hand. “Hey, sorry. Momentarily distracted. Not mad at all. So happy for you and Felicity. I was just thinking I would never see you if you leave City Hall, then I thought how it would be nice to have you over for dinner. William is doing better. It would be nice for him to see his aunt again.”

“Really? I can see William? That would be amazing! When do you want me to be there? Can I bring a gift? I mean, I missed so many birthdays so I’ve been buying things...can I give him something, PLEASE?!” Thea batted her eyelashes at her big brother.

“Of course you can bring him a present.” Oliver smiled, he really should have done this earlier. “How about tonight? I was going to make pasta. We can celebrate your new job. I miss you, Thea.”

“Tonight it is! Why don’t you swing by my office on your way out, I’ll head out with you?”

“Sounds perfect. How about a half hour? I just need to check some emails. The rest I can bring home.”

“Great! I’m going to let Quentin know about my new job. I’ll start packing up my desk.”

Oliver watched Thea walk away with a bounce in her step. He was still grateful she was alive, she was unconscious when he found her on the island. Luckily, she woke up shortly after. She had given him quite the fright.

*****

Thea: I told Ollie! He’s happy for me

Thea: When do you want me to start?

Felicity: That’s so good! Welcome to Smoak Tech!!!

Felicity: I understand you may need to tie things up at the Mayor’s office

Felicity: But I’d like you to start ASAP, I’m trying to put this event together for next weekend

Felicity: Could really use your expertise

Thea: I can be there tomorrow at 9

Felicity: Wow that would be AMAZING

Felicity: We can talk salary tomorrow...I promise I will pay you

Thea: No worries, I know where you sleep :)

Felicity: Hahaha

Felicity: See you tomorrow

Thea: Can’t wait

“Aunt Thea, who are you texting?” William wandered over to sit on the couch with Thea.

“I was texted my new boss, Felicity. I let her know I would start tomorrow. She seemed happy.” Thea smiled.

“Is this the same Felicity who was on the island?” William picked up the TV remote like he didn’t care about the answer.

Thea watched as William turned on the TV. “Yes, she is the same Felicity from the island. William, have you seen Felicity since the island?”

“No, but I guess she’s been busy. She seems really nice. Look she’s on the front of the magazine Dad brought home.” William got up, he brought the magazine to show his aunt Thea.

“Well how about that. Well done, Felicity.” Thea chuckled as she looked at the magazine.

“She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Oliver stood looking down at his sister. “Dinner is ready.”

“I’ll go wash my hands.” William darted from the room.

Thea followed Oliver into the kitchen area. “William hasn’t seen Felicity since the island? What’s going on Oliver? I knew you were busy but I had no idea. Is this why you keep asking me questions about her? Do you ever see the woman you are in love with?”

As if he didn’t feel guilty enough, now he had his little sister pointing out his flaws. “Thea, I saw Felicity last night.” Yes, he’s defensive.

“Seeing her in the bunker before and after you change doesn’t count, big brother. You better be careful or she might move on to someone knew.” Thea teased.

Oliver’s faced grimaced before he could stop himself.

“What? Is there someone new? I’m shocked I can’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Who do you think she’s seeing??” Thea’s voice was rising as she became more excited.

“Who are we talking about?” William came into the kitchen.

Thea and Oliver responded at the same time, “Nobody, Felicity!”

“Oh, maybe now that Aunt Thea is working for Felicity we can see her again?” William looked hopefully at his father.

“Of course, we can see her again. She asks about you, buddy, I just wasn’t sure you were up for visitors.” Oliver said softly.

“Well, I’m not up for visitors but Felicity would be nice. Unless you don’t want to hang out with her.” William spoke the last words quickly as though embarrassed.

“Ha!” Thea couldn’t help herself. “Your father always wants to hang out with Felicity. Don’t ever let him tell you different. Now, back to the other topic, who do you think she’s seeing?” Thea began twirling her spaghetti around her fork.

“I didn’t say she was seeing anyone. It’s just the magazine reporter asked about Chris Pine.” Oliver looked down at his plate in disgrace. He’d never be able to compete with a gorgeous actor.

“Chris Pine? As in the actor? Now, I’m intrigued. Maybe she can set him up with me.” Thea smiled.

“Weren’t you listening, Thea? I just said Felicity might be dating him herself, she’s not going to set you up.” Oliver could feel his anger increasing the longer this conversation continued. He had to admit when it came to Felicity he became rather caveman like - Felicity mine - summed up his feelings.

“Ollie, Felicity is not dating Chris Pine,” Thea spoke with a serious tone.

“You don’t know that, Thea. Besides, there is no reason she couldn’t be. Chris Pine would be lucky to date her.” Great, now Thea knew he was defensive.

“Oliver Queen,” Thea put down her fork, waited until he looked at her before continuing. “Felicity Smoak loves you. She will always love you. She’s not dating Chris Pine or anyone else. Hell, I think she’d turn down Chris Hemsworth for you!”

Oliver was puzzled. “Who is Chris Hemsworth?”

William took the opportunity to jump into the conversation. “Dad, Chris Hemsworth plays Thor.”

“Oh,” was all Oliver could think to say.

“My point, dear brother, is Felicity doesn’t want anyone else ever. You are her always, she is just waiting for you to give her a sign. If you ask me, she’s been pretty damn patient. Time for you to step it up.”

Thea used a tone that made her sound like their mother, not that Oliver would say that out loud, somehow he knew it wouldn’t go over well.

“In fact, why don’t you drop over now. I can hang with William until you get back. He hasn’t had enough Thea influence in his life yet.” Thea winked.

“But…” Oliver wasn’t sure what to say. “The dishes…”

William got up, began collecting the plates and silverware. “I can load the dishwasher, Dad. Aunt Thea’s right you should go see Felicity. Maybe you could invite her over here sometime.”

“It’s settled. Go.” Thea’s tone brooked no insolence.

“Okay, I’m just going to change.” Oliver began walking toward his room.

“Wear a blue shirt - Felicity likes you blue shirts,” Thea called after him.

*****

Oliver knocked on the loft door carrying flowers. He was suddenly having second thoughts about the flowers, were they too much?

Felicity opened the door. “Oliver? It’s nice to see you.”

Oliver held out the flowers.

Felicity took the flowers. “Wow, for me? Thanks. Come in. Can I ask why you brought me flowers? Not, that I don’t love them. I do...it’s just that we haven’t really spent much time on our own. Not that I’m mad. I understand you have responsibilities. It’s just I missed you a lot so the flowers are nice...I’m going to stop talking now.”

Oliver shuffled his feet, giving away his nerves. “Please don’t. I love listening to you talk.”

“Wow, flowers and compliments. Oliver, you are killing me.” Felicity blushed.

Oliver stepped forward cupped Felicity’s cheek. “I’ve really missed you too.”

Felicity stepped forward so they were as close as possible. “Do you think kissing, might help with that?”

Oliver nodded before quickly capturing Felicity’s lips. Felicity sank into Oliver. She just gave into the feeling of being in his arm again. One of Oliver’s hand remained on her cheek but his other hand moved down her side and back to cup her butt, pulled her closer still.

“God, Felicity,” Oliver broke the kiss for a moment.

“I hope that’s a good God?” She looked up at him nervously.

“Felicity, I’ve missed you every second. I love you. I needed to say that because I had a revelation today that I might not have been clear about that.”

Felicity pressed a quick peck on his lips. “No, you were clear. I knew you had to take care of William. I agreed, remember?”

They were still a breathe apart, Oliver growled, “I remember but that was months ago, then Chris Pine.”

Felicity was confused. Then it dawned on her. “The article. Oliver, I met Chris Pine at a party recently. I totally fangirled it was embarrassing for him and me. You know about my celebrity crush but that’s all it is. I love only one man, named Oliver Queen.”

Oliver kissed her again more passionately. Felicity really wanted this continue so she pulled back for a moment. “Oliver, how long do you have?” She was a little out of breath, quite frankly dazzled. “I mean, where is William?”

“William is home with Thea. Both encouraged me to come spend some time with you. So, I’m in no rush. Do you have something you need to do tonight?” Oliver asked suddenly realizing she might. He looked down at her, noticing for the first time she was in pajama pants and a tank top.

“Just you, Mr. Queen.” She hopped in his arms. “So you had a realization that you needed to make it clear you loved me, how about you show me?”

Hope you liked :) I’m tagging some people but let me know if you would like to be tagged or untagged.

@memcjo @wherethereissmoak @green-arrows-of-karamel @mel-loves-all @spaztronautwriter @charlinert @tdgal1 @oliverfel4 @vaelisamaza @coal000 @miriam1779 @laurabelle2930 @onceuponarrow @cruzrogue @lageniuswannabe

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Lovely! I was wondering how you first became a part of the fandom? When did you start watching the show, at what point did you feel John and Sherlock might be(come) a thing, what made you start a blog on these two? I just want to know it all ^^ Hope you don't mind sharing a bit :) Thank you for everything you do for this fandom, love you lots!

Hi Lovely!

Oh gosh, what a nice question! I think I’ve talked about this in snippets in various posts, this post being the one talking the most about it, but never as a whole! Apologies if this turns into a long ramble, hah hah!

So I remember exactly when I got into the show SO CLEARLY. It was July of 2013, just a few months before S3 was to air in January 2014. I was over at my friends’ place, and they suggested the show to watch, since we always watch movies together whenever I visit. I remember asking, “Is that the show with Martin Freeman and that Khan actor from Star Trek 2?”. We finished Season one all in one go, and immediately fell in love with Ben and Martin’s portrayals and their chemistry. And then I had to head back home. I was ANGRY because OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and my friends just laughed.

So as soon as I got home, I downloaded S1 and S2 and watched them ALL the way through. I needed more. So, because I already had a Tumblr and knew it was for fandoms, I decided to see what it had to offer. 

Oh boy what did I get into???

So I lurked for a bit, and then I discovered something called “meta”, back when the TRF theories were the prominent meta in the fandom. So while I was getting deep into meta, I started switching my fanart from Ninja Turtles to Sherlock, because I was warming up to Ben’s ethereal face and I wanted to draw it. And I wanted to be a Sherlock fanartist. I briefly shipped Sher1011ie for a week or so, until I rewatched the series again and it just didn’t jive like it did the first few watch-throughs. I was too invested in John and Sherlock’s friendship – I saw them as bestest friends ever, too devoted to each other.

Now, at this point, y’all need to remember this: I was naïve, have never been exposed at length nor ever heard of subtext, was and am not part of the LGBT community (I grew up in a different time and in a conservative city, so being “gay” just wasn’t a thing), had a very heteronormative view on my life, and I just had always just insisted that in all of my fandoms, when I liked two male characters together, it was because “bestest friends ever!!”. I didn’t know I was ace and I’d never read smut up until 3 years ago (yes hi hello I’m so old and so innocent LOL).

Okay, so I was just lurking for a bit, learning my way around fandom, reading meta and just generally dipping my toes quietly into the fandom.

Then came Season 3. 

As many of my followers know, a lot of my fondness for season 3 stems from this being the season that LITERALLY opened my eyes to EVERYTHING: subtext, Johnlock, my own sexuality, and my meta-writing career. 

So, season 3 aired and I decided to dip my toes into “reviewing” the episodes as my first “meta”. They were posted onto my multi-fandom blog here, here and here. I was so proud of them, because it reinvigorated my love for writing (I used to be a pretty prominent Sonic fan-fic author back in the 90′s… I never finished my stories because my interest in the fandom died before I finished them), despite how laughably bad they were, haha. I got a couple compliments on them, but nothing beyond that, especially since I sat down and wrote them for HOURS after each episode aired.

Sometime between TSo3 and HLV, I discovered loudest-subtext-in-television (aka LSiT) and deducingbbcsherlock completely by accident and I was FASCINATED. I ate up everything they wrote. The first time I watched TSo3, something was niggling at my brain but I couldn’t quite place it. It was one of LSiT’s meta that twigged at it. That’s when I learned about subtext, heteronormativity and the queer community. And suddenly, just like that, something in my brain clicked.

Oh. My god. This show is gay, and I actually SHIP these idiots like I did in the Mother Ship (ie. The X-Files Mulder / Scully). That’s why I was SO ANNOYED with Irene. Why Molly was slowly grating on me. Why Mary’s introduction kind of annoyed me but okay I guess I can deal with it. Why everything seemed really romantic but it just couldn’t be, could it? 

I rewatched the series. And it was gay. Y’all, those rainbow-coloured glasses were suddenly GLUED to my head, and I saw gay EVERYWHERE.

So, after HLV, I discovered The Johnlock Conspiracy and I was eating up all the meta about Johnlock I could. Around this time, I also was learning a lot about the LGBT community, its history and sexual fluidity from wsswatson. It was also around this time I discovered asexuality, and I started reading a lot about it. 

In February of 2014, I started this blog because I wanted a place to reblog Johnlock meta. This was the first post I made on this blog, and looking back at it now, I am DYING because wow I never imagined I was going to be this deep into the fandom the day I wrote that. I don’t even remember writing it, to be very honest. I just shake my head, HAH. I think I really started understanding Johnlock because of this post here. It’s still one of my favourites and is one of the ones I credit for helping me understand what I was watching was actually a romance, not a “crime show”. 

Anyway, after learning how to read subtext from mostly LSiT (they wrote a meta about how to read subtext and it was super informative) and other Johnlock bloggers, I wanted to try my hand at my own little Johnlock meta. It was more of an observational post, as my way of trying to interact with the fandom. I am a terribly nervous and shy person, so I never tagged anyone in anything. It was an overwhelming fandom, and it was terrifying to interact. A few bigger bloggers noticed me and were nice enough to comment on a couple of my posts, but I mostly stayed in my little corner, and interacted with my small little group of other smaller fans. I dabbled in both fanart and writing, just plopping my thoughts and art into the aether, hoping something would interest someone enough to start a discussion. 

I started getting braver, and I was “moderating” some of my favourite posts that weren’t mine, but had my additions to it. Mostly, the Phones and Hearts post. I didn’t want to impede, but it was one of my favourite posts, so I went and copied all of the comments in the notes and put them onto one post. I don’t honestly remember HOW I ended up moderating it, but I just did because I was FASCINATED with symbolism, and I was excited because I could finally read subtext and understand it. I still had a small following, and a few people I regularly interacted with on my blog.

So, during the hiatus between S3 and TAB, somewhere along the way I suddenly had a sexuality crisis, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t broken and there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and damn it, there’s such thing as split attraction model and asexuality?? Mind was BLOWN. I was also slowly becoming obsessed with Mary’s character, and at the time I couldn’t understand why (inevitably, it was because of events happening in my own life and me trying to understand them), but I really enjoyed just psychoanalyzing her. It’s something I’ve ALWAYS loved doing – character studies; I’ve done it in EVERY fandom I’ve been in – and I was doing it for her, Sherlock and John’s characters. 

So yeah, nothing much really happened to me during the S3 hiatus, except my entire world view flipped on its head and I was completely Johnlocked beyond repair. I became known for some painful posts and some lovely revelations and writing a lot of character study posts on both John and Sherlock. I’m very proud of some of my earlier meta, just sad they never really got seen (some of my earliest meta can be seen on my Ao3).

Then came the announcement for TAB in 2015, and the start of my “Tumblr Career”. I put a lot of my energy into my fandom life. I was OBSESSED with TAB, and became known for it. I put my moderation skills to use and created the TAB Starter Pack, which started gaining me some followers because OMG some loser is taking the time out of their day to compile all the news about this new series! AWESOME. I remember, it was around this time I was excited because I got to 1895 followers and it was one of those milestones all Johnlockers like having, hahah. 

In October of 2015, I lost my job and was unemployed. Conveniently, this is also the time when the promo season for TAB started, because we now had a name and airdate. I devoted a LOT of my time, when I wasn’t job hunting, to working on this blog. I was just writing a lot, and obsessing about the upcoming episode.

Then the trailer aired.

And immediately after that trailer dropped on October 24, 2015, I made this post here, which, some would probably say, was the beginning of everything for me. As I was writing that post, with a cracking headache, something clicked in my head, and several hours later, I had written and posted the original Mind Palace Theories of TAB at 2AM-ish, and went to bed.

When I woke up, my post had suddenly gone viral and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it just kept expanding from there, and I made sure to include everything I could onto it, because WOW something I wrote was gaining traction, and interaction, and I just wanted us all to have a good time with it. And as the time for TAB drew closer, suddenly I was gaining followers, and more people interested in what I had to write. I welcomed everyone to continue to predict the outcome with me.

January 1st. Was a complete and total mind fuck. I was liveblogging the episode, and inadvertently created another viral post with my Mycroft’s Death post because FUCK ARE THEY KILLING MYCROFT OFF?? kind of freaked people out (sorry loves!), which gained me some more followers, and at the time, my top post was my December 31st reblog of my Mind Palace Theories post, so anyone who came to my blog, it would have been on the first page of it.

After the episode aired, suddenly, EVERYONE had questions for me, about EVERYTHING, but mostly to scream at me that I was a mind reader, LOL. No, I’m not, I was just a sad, unemployed twat with too much time on my hands and was avoiding job hunting. But good god, all DAY on Jan 1, I was replying to asks, gaining followers like crazy, and pretty much just stating my opinion on anything that someone wanted to know. 

I became known as the unofficial TAB blog, and the one to come to with questions about my interpretation of the episode. I was SO obsessed with TAB, studied every nuance and narrative structure I could. 2016 was “my heyday”, and it was fun. I found my niche, and meta-writing is what I became known for. And until I got a job in April of that year, I was a pretty solid presence in the fandom, if I understand some of what I’ve been told correctly. I still ran my blog as full-time as I could having a full-time job, and still do in some ways, but yeah, 2016 is when I produced a LOT of meta, mostly Mary meta because, as I said above, I was and am obsessed with her character arc. I was learning about myself a lot more by writing meta, and my “original” meta turned into “asks” meta, which was fine by me, because I do like a good prompt to get me going.

Somewhere in there I also somehow became the blog new bloggers came to, which I didn’t and don’t mind at all, because being new in a fandom is scary and I wanted to be a friendly face because I like meeting new people. 

Then we got an announcement for S4, and like TAB I also kept track of anything and everything S4-related, so once again I was sort of the “go-to” place for everything S4 because I compiled all the stuff from setlock bloggers and listed them all for easy-access. I kept track of everything promotional, and I reblogged some of my favourite pre-S4 meta here.

Essentially, I LOVE organizing things, and people liked that I LOVED doing it, so that’s sort of how I kept my following when I wasn’t posting as much new meta. I did make a few original meta before S4, and I made a 68 day video countdown to the series which is cringy AF and I’m not linking it (lol you can find it if you look hard enough). 

We all know what happened in S4. I took a bit of heat after S4 aired, because I got people’s hopes up. I was discouraged for a bit, but then I started receiving asks that weren’t really asks, but “I need advice” and “I need support”. 

And I started answering life questions, and realized people LIKED my responses, liked my little personal anecdotes in each of my replies, and felt comforted by it. So, after S4 aired, I became an eclectic mix of life advice, meta, fics, music and TJLC / tinhatting blog. I have a “no judgement” approach to my blogging, and I think that’s why I’m still gaining a steady dozen or so followers every couple weeks, rather than losing. The only time I took a big hit was the Tumblr Feedpocalypse, where they fucked up the algorithm and I’m not getting nearly as many hits on my posts as I used to, but that could also be because we lost so many people to S4, especially after Jan 1, 2018 when people were hoping for another episode.

I personally don’t think I’m popular, but I suppose I am by Tumblr standards. I dunno, I think we all have that “starry eyed” view of popular bloggers, and I just can’t picture myself as someone anyone would fawn over. I’m just me, and you can take it or leave it.

I think where I’m at now and what I’m known for is a good place to be, to be honest, despite how S4 turned out. I’m not certain, but I FEEL like I have a positive reputation here, but don’t quote me. I know I have people in this fandom who hate me, and quite frankly it saddens me that they feel they need to expel energy on me that way when they deserve to just be happy and forget about me. 

ANYWAY, sorry that got long and rambly, but it’s something I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile, but I was waiting for the prompt to come because *shrugs* I dunno, self esteem thing, makes me think no one REALLY cares until someone actually asks, hah.

And if you made it all the way to the end here, Love ya Nonny, and thank you for asking and thank you for being a follower of my blog

[horistans]

hello friends uwu it’s been some time!

Been filling up the queue every once in awhile and I’ve updated the blog’s theme! Please feel free to take a look at it! I am using a glenthemes theme.

I am still in the process of updating everything (such as adding announcements, properly making a change log, etc)

It’s quite an unceremonious return, but I can’t wait to share stuff with you all again!! 

I might be asking for feedback on this blog (specifically in regards to tagging) if that’s okay. If you have any suggestions for me, I’d love to hear them! The interface hasn’t seemed to change TOO much since I left, but with the new characters, I’m wondering if I should change the tags again...

If you’re interested, keep reading to get details on what I have done so far and what I’ve been up to during my hiatus!

On the desktop theme, I’m planning on keeping a similar format! With links on the side to where you can read GSNK, the taglist, and my fanfics. I intend on updating the announcements page for important dates (when gsnk ch are released on GanGan, when the most recent CMC chapter was released, character birthdays, etc). The News container will later be updated to contain blog changes (so, a change log) at some point.

I removed the submissions feature on this blog, since it was never used!

I’ve already updated the About page and was surprised to be reminded of the original intent of this blog! It won’t be happening anytime soon, but if we can host more events in the future, I think it would be very fun.

When I read the old About, I was reminded the original purpose of horisexual was actually to host fanfic competitions! Your love and engagement with my old fics made me really nostalgic, and a few on the GSNK discord convinced me to jump back into tumblr. I am glad that everyone is still so friendly and nice!

Re: the submissions feature (mentioned above), if we ever get to a point where we host a fanfic contest, I will likely be using the submissions as the way to submit.

(Speaking of events, will you be participating in GSNK Week? I’ve planned out what I want to draw already and I’m super excited~~)

I have also updated my Fanfics page using code from namjooneh but will continue to work on it so it fits horisexual better. I might have implemented this new format, but the filters don’t seem to work, so I’ve already found a backup that I just need to enter the fic information into.

You may also note that none of the long chapter fics are in there (except for one) because I’ve only decided to rewrite one of them (for now! We’ll see where that motivation goes, haha)

That being said, are there any ways you would like the fics to be filtered? I don’t believe the new format has a filter system, but it would be nice to know what information you would like me to add to the blurbs and previews!

As for an explanation for my hiatus:

I was receiving a lot of hate on my personal blog around mid-2016. A lot of the attacks were about information I overshared, which as a minor, I should have been more mindful of. I am ashamed of how I acted back then (refusing to simply ignore/block and instead kept responding && the information that I was freely giving out), but I’d like to think I’ve healed a lot since then. I have since went in, deleted all my posts on my personal blog from 2016, deleted the few remaining hate messages still in my inbox from that time, and am ready to start again.

What I’ve been up to:

In the past 4 years, I’ve been attending university within my state! Our GameDev program is apparently one of the best programs nationally, but no one seems to know that outside of our university (we were told to put it on our resume and bring it up in cover letters haha) so it’s a bit weird to talk about. I have made some games! This is a link to my portfolio if you want to know a little about them.

I’ve also started a ko-fi page! I used to be a dual major until recently, so I am taking an extra semester (plus this summer semester) to finish up my credits as I graduate. Graduating later than 4 years isn’t a big deal, but it’s very hard financially. Student loans are no longer willing to help support me, I will be a part-time student in the fall (little to no financial aid), and I’ve been barely been able to support myself as of late since my job assigned me on a project with a $2 pay cut from my regular rate.

I also got accepted into an internship program in Japan! As mentioned before, financing the rest of my tuition is hard enough, and now I need to be able to afford my plane ticket, the program fees and living expenses. I am currently studying Japanese for the N3 certification, but we’ll see how that goes (I’m going to stay hopeful!! I still have time!!)

If you want to know more about Ko-fi and the program I’m doing, I made a YT video a month ago. It also briefly explains why I find this internship so important to my professional development. If you have the time, resources, and would like to support me, I would greatly appreciate it! I even have a sticker club reward for monthly supporters, and a portion of those sales goes to Project COVID-19, a fundraising project by a few of my colleagues who are raising money to purchase PPE for health facilities nationwide (US). 

I would like to explain more, but covering the past 4 years is a long time (haha)... and you’re here for the GSNK content! I am sure there will be loads of more opportunities to talk about myself (apologies if I do so...) so I will end it here. 

Thank you for being a follower of horisexual for so long. And if you’re new here, welcome!

I am currently taking summer courses and working (remotely), so I do not know how active I will be, but I will definitely return to fill up the queue a few times a week- if not every day. I have a few asks from before I left/received during hiatus. You can still submit prompts to me via ask and I will try to get to them!

If you want to talk I am also on discord ( JamKats#9424) and twitter @/jamkataclysms (note my twitter is mostly art & games). I also have a ko-fi account where I post GSNK fanart sometimes! https://ko-fi.com/jamkats

I hope you have a great day! As a reward for reaching the end of this long post, here’s a recent redraw of one of the gsnk omakes! (from vol 10)

If you’re in the GSNK server, you’ve probably seen it already, so I guess it’s not that good of an award...The other (the first) redraw I did has been queued so it will go up sometime this week!

I spent all night studying, so I’ll probably go to sleep now <3 thank you again :)

[erindarroch]

i love all yr stories, yr own and the cowritten ones too. How did you start to write with someone else and will you ever do your own again like another remain in light?

Aw, thank you Anon. You’re so kind to message me and tell me this. It really makes my day. 

While I was writing Remain in Light, I was searching my mind for a suitable location for Han and Leia’s long-awaited reunion, which occurred at the end of Chapter 10 (and carried on for a few more chapters...they missed each other..a LOT... haha). I wanted the location of their reunion to be a place that meant something to them both, and I thought of Ord Mantell (where, according to my head canon, their budding romance had hit a snag and they’d fallen out with each other big-time, not long before the Battle of Hoth, all those years ago). 

I really liked the version of Ord Mantell that was conceived by Sue Zahn in her story Mergers and Acquisitions, so I messaged her to ask if she would mind me borrowing her unique concept of Ord Mantell for my story. She very graciously gave the nod, and then (after I’d published Remain in Light), she got in touch with me to tell me how much she’d enjoyed reading it, and to ask if I would be interested in collaborating with her. Of course, I was deeply flattered that someone as talented as Sue would think my writing on par with her own, and I was delighted to accept. 

She had four specific fics in mind, which she was hoping to finish in time to include them in a ‘zine she was publishing. We worked rather intensely together for about five months and got all of those written in time (phew), and then Sue decided to go on hiatus again, having been on extended hiatus for about 7-8 years prior to that. (Psst! Rumour has it that she might have another story or two to tell before long, though, so this hiatus may not be as long as the last one.) 

So I went back to writing on my own for a while. In that time, I produced just two stories, iirc. One of those was Louder Than Words, and the other was Cargo Handler (I think I also wrote a couple of 100-word drabbles). I also wrote a couple of brief follow-ups to Remain in Light, just to round off the story a bit, as I was pretty much done with Disney canon by that point. Those two solo fics were Recursion and The Double Edge. I was still struggling to finish The Double Edge when I got a series of reviews from Justine Graham, and we struck up a correspondence. She then emailed me with a suggestion for a follow-up to Cargo Handler, which I thought was an adorable idea. It involved Han performing a pseudo “inspection” of Leia, and I thought it was just too good an idea to snatch and grab, and take it for my own. So I invited @jhgraham to write it with me. We asked Sue to beta, and Sue came back saying that it was good, but it just wasn’t long enough, and not satisfying the way that we had originally constructed it, and it should be longer and more fully developed. We took her suggestions and ran with them, and the result was our first collaboration The Only Constant. We’ve now written around 15 fics together, with more on the way. 

As to whether I will ever go back to writing on my own, uhhhh, I doubt it very much. I’d never say never, because you never know when an idea for a drabble will strike (indeed, I think I have written a couple more on my own since we started collaborating), and JG may likewise have fics she’d like to do on her own. 

But on the whole I much prefer working with JG to working on my own. It’s just too much fun! Once we got over our nervousness (it is SCARY to write in front of someone else, let me tell you), we became really good friends. We chat pretty much every day and we’re always working on something. It’s a very enjoyable pastime, made even more enjoyable by the camaraderie between us. And now we’re both super excited because we actually get to meet in person next month. How cool is that!? 

Thanks for getting in touch, Anon, and I hope my ridiculously long and detailed answer doesn’t put you (or others) off asking me questions! =D 

[elle-stevens]

The Break Up Blog - Day Thirty Six

I woke up like this - crappy. 

Haha, putting a morbid twist on Beyonce doesn’t work that well, huh? In all seriousness, my rising wasn’t that bad. I actually got close to 9 hours of sleep and only woke up twice to have a delightful coughing fit. 

My throat still felt pretty hoarse even after drinking water when I woke up in the middle of the night. The joys of having gastritis: the stomach acid seeping through my ruined esophagus and into my throat sucks up all the moisture in my mouth. 

And I thought having ‘dry mouth’ while I was still on antidepressants was hard to live with...

On the plus side, I didn’t have a single sneezing fit while I was at work. Maybe whatever illness I picked up two weeks ago is finally losing traction. I’m sneezing right now after coming home, but I will enjoy the small victories. 

Work was fine, pretty chilled in parts. I let three of my classes have ‘juice parties’ since they finished their first assessment last week while my fourth class had theirs yesterday. I even bought each of my students candy and chocolate. It feels nice having enough money again to splurge on other people, especially my students. Almost all of my monthly pay cheques in the past 6 months had gone to X and her ridiculous whims; I felt so trapped for the longest time. I can’t believe I let someone I loved use and abuse me so much. 

My students were pretty noisy and annoying all day and I finally snapped with my sixth graders when they would shut up after I repeatedly tried to get them to calm down and listen to me. So I dragged them outside into the hallway twice: once to do Jumping Jacks and then to hold their hands above their heads for a minute the second time for one minute. I made them re-start whenever they didn’t listen or follow my instructions to show them that I meant business. 

And after that - blissful silence for 10 minutes before the bell rang while I let them watch ‘Shazam’. 

It feels to get my way, even in these small situations. As dumb as it sounds, it makes me think that just maybe, I can take control of my life again after all the turmoil I’ve experienced in recent times. 

I’ve been re-reading a lot of my old fanfictions that I wrote years ago, all the way up last year. I took a hiatus from creative writing after X got ‘sick’; my heart just wasn’t in it during that time. A part of me is itching to get back into it; I seem to do my best work when I’m broken-hearted and miserable. But I don’t have any tangible ideas, only a desperate urge to write about something and everything. 

Anyway, I often re-read the comments that people have left on my stories to give me an ego boost and I came across a few from X. We first met online when she read some of my fanfics about random K-pop idols. 

Yes, I know, I like Korean pop music and it’s kinda embarassing. In my defence, the music is catchy and the idols are hot af. What else would’ve inspired me to write? 

But back to me and X. 

She was what you might call a ‘fanfic groupie’ of mine minus the sex. She liked my stories and she commented on lots of them over the years. But I didn’t notice her at first since I was still licking my wounds over my break-up with KA, who I had met in similar fashion. 

Yes, that’s right, I dated two of my fanfic groupies and both relationships fell apart. I’m beginning to see a pattern here. 

Anyway, I read through some of X’s old comments and they almost made me smile. This is mainly because I felt like I was reading a different person’s comments and not that of my ex-girlfriend. Some of her comments were before we dated and some of them were after we started dating. But all of them are the same: sweet, adoring and kind. I don’t care so much about the ‘adoration’ part, but I do miss X’s kindness and her sincerity. 

I miss everything I had before, especially the writing part. I always dreamed that I would one day became a world famous novelist like J.K. Rowling. Reading Harry Potter in my teens got me through some dark days and I always wanted my writing to do the same for other people. But that ‘million dollar idea’ that will land me a Hollywood movie deal as well is eluding me so far. Writing’s one of the few gifts that I have which makes me feel special and the spark is just gone these days. 

I hope I can write again soon, it might lift me out of this depressing hole that I’ve dug for myself lately. 

I started typing my blog entry while waiting for some bread that I ordered to arrive. Did you know that you can order some food items from online stores in China that will deliver to your home within an hour? I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but China is kind of fucking cool that way! I’m so addicted to online shopping. Maybe I could making shopping my new significant other instead of an actual person...

Alright, no more talking nonsense. I need to go to the gym and hate every bit of exercise I’m about to engage in. I haven’t binged Netflix in a while, maybe I’ll do that tonight. There are a couple of shows with new seasons I’d like to catch on. Plus, there’s a new Chinese drama that C recommended to me I’d like to check out. 

I have plans with D tomorrow to celebrate her birthday in the evening. I hope the present I ordered for her gets delivered to my work tomorrow. Since I’m gonna meet her, I might not have time to exercise tomorrow evening. So I’ll put my gym clothes into my work bag and take it to school tomorrow. I’m only teaching two classes anyway, so I have time to slip away for 20-30 minutes to exercise and then do the rest of my work at my desk. 

When I felt down last night about X, I texted K and told her about it. She told me to try and take it one day at a time. She’s right, I need to give myself time to heal. No one who’s ever had a broken heart in the history of broken hearts has ever recovered from that hot mess in record time. 

I’ll only know I can breathe easily again after I’ve come up for air and swum back to shore. 

I’ve thought of a few stages of post break-ups that I’ve summarised into the 5 D’s which I seem to have gone through so far: 

Stage 1 - Disbelief

Stage 2 - Distraction

Stage 3 - Debauchery

Stage 4 - Depression

Stage 5 - Departure

I feel certain that I’ll amend the names of some of the stages or switch the stages around at a later time. But for right now, these seem to fit my situation well, especially stage 4. 

I wonder when I’ll finally get to stage 5. 

[helmes-deep]

Quickie LONG UPDATE!! (on my life lol)

I FINALLY GOT THE RESULTS BACK FROM A $300 teachers’ test and I PASSED WOOOOOOOOOOT HAHAHA I’M SO HAPPY $300 NOT WASTED LOL *CRIES*

Well, at least for my state. Who knows if I’ll ever have to take that horrendous thing again should I ever choose to move to another state or get back into the teaching profession after having left for a bit... Granted, I didn’t get the score I think I was truly capable of (I totally last-minuted this whole thing and stayed up for 72+ hours finishing it lol PLEASE PLEASE DON’T EVER BE LIKE ME AND PUT YOURSELF IN A POSITION WHERE YOU HAVE TO STAY AWAKE FOR 3 DAYS STRAIGHT TO FINISH A FINAL THAT IS MY LIFE ADVICE), but I did pass it based on the score required by my state, so I honestly couldn’t be any happier. All that’s standing between me and getting a real job now is waiting for my university to finally award me my degree in a few weeks so that I can apply for a teacher’s certificate and finally get to do what I can’t wait to start doing again – teaching!! 🌠 💖 😄

In other news, I actually survived! and completed!! my student teaching; it all actually officially ended in the middle of last month. After my student teaching ended, I focused on finishing up final tests/projects (including that $300 test) before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English Education from my uni about 2 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been applying for jobs and hoping for an offer soon, hopefully at a high school!! Thinking back over my college experience, I wouldn’t say it’s been a really “crazy” four years (except for this year LOL. Man, these past two semesters were WILD and took SO MUCH out of me. I still get super-exhausted thinking about how I got through my student teaching N E V E R  A G A I N HAHA :V). I’ve never been the group’s social butterfly, even though I highly crave social interaction and approval/feedback (not in a desperate sense, but I know I’m the type of person that needs social interaction in order to thrive, even if I might not be the one to initiate it). I have, however, learned a little about a lot of things, especially during this past year and semester LOL AGAIN: N E V E R  A G A I N HAHA :VVV and especially, I think, in regard to myself. As a teacher, I’ve learned that I suck at classroom management. I’m just way too laissez faire, which comes off as “too nice” and therefore just allows any group of your regular hormonal and rebellious-leaning teenagers to go bonkers and take over my class lawl. Hopefully that changes *very* soon once I get my own classroom (and I’m working on it!!), but looking back, I suppose I could have been a bit more firm about keeping my presence (it also doesn’t help that I’m like 5′3″ lol!!). As a general person, I have also learned that I SUCK at making and keeping social discourse lol. Like, not just suck at it, but suckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk haha. First, not having a phone really makes it hard to make or keep in touch with any friends that a person intends to make. With a lack of a personal device or one of your basic social media accounts, I realized how hard it was to maintain a social network within a very digitally-connected world. Second, I realized that I’m probably a lot more cautious, super-conscious, introverted, and a bit inexperienced than I perhaps originally thought I was. Like, if I was in high school, I recognized that I would probably have been the super-quiet kid who would have had a lot of trouble making friends in class. I then realized that a lot of these previously mentioned personality quirks were probably a part of what was keeping me from fostering more intimate relationships or developing a more leader-driven personality, which sometimes heavily affected my classroom management. I’m not saying I necessarily need to change as a person, but I do believe I need to find ways in which I can become more involved and confident. Ironically, I thought it was interesting to note that a lot of my personality was – though not intentionally – perhaps keeping me from finding that deeper social interaction that I previously mentioned craving.

All that being said, I am fairly proud of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve accomplished this year as a student teacher, especially considering this was my first time taking over a class (3, actually!!) after having never really been inside a high school since I was homeschooled from 7th to 12th grade. I am, however, really proud of how I tried as much as I could to put the students with whom I was working with first, including incorporating their interests and academic needs/desires. I know my experience as a student teacher was not perfect, but I am very glad I got to work through all the challenges that came with and almost die doing it. I’ve also definitely found a bit of who I want to be as a future teacher. I know I want to be someone who is able to successfully make the classroom a place where my students can experience relevant life issues through writing or reading, and if nothing else, that had made this entire experience totally worth it.

... Which brings me to the future of this blog haha. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be as active on Tumblr as I was before :c For one thing, I realized over the course of this year that Tumblr was definitely taking up way too much of my life lol (literally took me hours to get through 24+ hours’ worth of posts, and I was only following like 300 blogs). Being a bit OCD, I don’t like breaking my Tumblr cycle and only shuffling through a random number posts, despite the fact that I can’t be up 24/7 lol; I just don’t like not getting the full picture on everything and acting on/reblogging things without all of the complete info. As a result, I would rather not break my 24/7+ Tumblr cycle than to start it again at all :c Secondly, I’m kind of sad to say that, as of recently, I haven’t been keeping up with K-pop as much as I used to. It’s not that I’ve necessarily lost interest in it (K-pop is still like 85% of what I listen to lol), but I certainly haven’t been keeping up with it as closely as I used to. For instance, I have no idea what’s going on with B1A4 right now, haven’t watched BTS’s new self-made MV for “Spine Breaker,” and haven’t gotten around to watching the last teaser for SEVENTEEN’s upcoming ALONE?? comeback (featuring our wonderful leader S.Coups :p). It’s not that I’ve completely dropped everything K-pop or have become totally disinterested; I still very much keep up with the latest comebacks and listen to whatever piques my interest. It’s just that I don’t know if I want to get so re-invested with all of the details surrounding K-pop again (tbh Tumblr gave me so much info on my favorite K-pop groups; I seriously regret missing all of the amazing shots of my biases’ beautiful faces that I’ve probably missed leol), or maybe I just need a good break from it all before starting again. Most likely, I’d say my small distance from my favorite pastime has mostly happened because I now have more things to do or think about atm haha, and just don’t really have any time right now to enjoy all of the K-dynamics that are happening behind the music. I don’t think I’ll ever give up listening to K-pop anytime soon though; like I’ve said before, I’m still very much keeping up with and enjoying whatever’s coming out right now.

Sooooo at this point, I’m not sure if I want to say I’m on a complete permanent indefinite hiatus yet. I still check Tumblr and my blog everyday – every now and then my dash – so it’s not like I feel like I’ve completely left Tumblr and the K-pop community on here as a whole... just yet :3 I have, however, thought about starting a side-blog that focuses solely on teaching, including my student teaching experience. I’ve also thought about writing some K-pop articles for this blog again... (I still really want to write that “Best K-pop Songs of 2016,” a review of B1A4′s third full LP, and/or similar pieces). Whether either of those musings will come into fruition over this passing summer, I don’t know yet, but I’ll keep you updated on either if I ever do, especially my educationally-focused blog. Aside from those thoughts, I’ve been planning on doing some extensive reading over the summer – with a goal to read a book a week! If any of you are interested and would like to check out what I’m currently reading and/or think about it, you can take a look at my Goodreads account here. Other than that, I’ve just been up to the usual: still practicing driving (hopefully I’ll get my license this summer!!), looking for a job, and chilling by watching some TV/movies :p (literally, when you become a teacher, EVERYTHING YOU WATCH BECOMES A POSSIBLE TEACHING TOOL WHERE YOU WONDER IF/HOW YOU COULD USE IT IN A CLASS HAHA. I’VE BEEN SPENDING MY BREAK WATCHING THE HARRY POTTER MOVIES AND I NOW PAY MORE ATTENTION TO HOW THE TEACHERS REACT TO ALL OF THE KIDS’ SHENANIGANS VS. HOW I WOULD PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THE MAIN CHARACTERS AS A KID LOL. I’d really love to be a Professor McGonagall or Snape someday :p). So as far as the current activity of this blog goes, I think I’m going to keep it at “temporary-hiatus-because-I’m-currently-in-a-heavy-transition-period-and-still-am-very-unsure-of-how-this-will-all-pan-out??” That sounds like it’ll do for now. I definitely don’t think I want to distance myself from Tumblr just yet, but at the same time, I don’t believe I’ll be able to be as involved with everything on it as I once was :ccc

Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone who’s stayed with me and this blog so far. With this current announcement, feel free to unfollow this blog if it is no longer what you require in your daily re-bloggin’ life; I completely understand and only wish you the very best~ 🌸 :3 I don’t have a lot of followers as a whole, but I do have a handful of very lovely and precious people that I’ve met on this site; you know who you are~  💖🌠🦄✨👌 Sorry for not keeping in more constant touch; I hope all of you and your beyond-wonderful blogs are doing well~ 💎🌟😊 For those of you who have just joined my blog – WELCOME, and I hope you enjoy your stay~  ❤️ On another note, I should probably get to all those things I was tagged in... if it’s not too late haha. I love y’all and hope nothing but the BEST awaits your future!!~

Snap that was really A LOT more than just a “quickie” update haha. I know that I probably should have updated on everything that’s been happening in my life much sooner, but honestly, I didn’t feel like anything merited me getting too excited about getting through this school year unless I had 100% confirmation that I had passed the $300 test lol (it’s called the edTPA btw, for anyone who might be curious :p). Without passing that test, I probably would have had to spend at least another $100 to re-take some parts of the test, which would have delayed my being able to apply for an eligible teacher’s certificate in my state, which would have dangerously hindered me from being able to teach at all. So thanks for your patience – both for reading this post and sticking around this blog long enough to see me write it :p Hopefully I’ll get a teaching position and figure this all out soon; until then, I’ll definitely keep y’all posted~!! ✨

[fsfantasy95]

Into words

Alright it’s September already. Haha Aug was probably the most happening month after my hiatus from excitement since i think Feb???

But anyway I really didn’t intend to fly two times to the same country within the same month lol. The first one was a genuine holiday trip already in place months ago, the second one popped out only one month before. Er I don’t know what made me decide to go for the second one, probably cos I was captivated by the thought of visiting Xitou, or ok lah maybe I was just being a senseless infatuated fangirl.

The holiday trip was good and all (well it is a holiday after all), i think travel companions matter a lot. So thankfully the friends were all easy-going suibian people who dont mind sleeping in on trips, doing nothing on various days, eating lame food etc etc. On the first day we got our hair done at in%, then I dumped the friends to get a photo with Kent Tsai my new obsession!!! He’s a very very cute derpy little boy. HAHAHA I missed one hour of Peici’s concert as a result of that but ok it wasnt too bad. Did i mention peici’s concert was the reason this trip existed in the first place - as weird as it sounds to have arose from jt LOL. Then I met tph’s tw fan to pass her some i-weekly magazines (lolol) and we spent the night roaming around raohe. LOL i think one memorable moment was getting a leg cramp the moment I sat down in the taxi after walking ages at the night market, I was trying to control myself from screaming in pain and attempting to give directions to the cabby at the same time lmao.

On the 2nd day we concurred to sleep in. Jalan-jalan around XMD, random shops and the arcade, went to my favourite GUANG NAN!, I found the camera streets to buy the battery which I very smartly forgot to bring, more jalan jalan and spent the night early at our accom stocked with beer and food. Shiok! Actually this is the perfect holiday itinerary.

3rd-4th was packed with the tour itinerary up to shei-pa. Ok this was suggested by me because I am a sucker for mountainous areas, I am going to conquer all the national parks in taiwan. Not too bad with nice chilly air, although not as chio as i expected hmms. Jt and I attempted one of the forest trekking paths ourselves and shit that was one scary 40mins of our lives HAHAHA. There was freaking not a single soul in the whole forest and the path was much longer than we expected. There was a point when I wondered if I would ever get out of that place. Then we missed some star-gazing guide at night because idk who remembered the timing wrongly wtf hahahahah then we forced the provision shop to sell us beer and cup noodles even though they were already closed.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the bendy roads up were one of the worst..even I felt a bit bad upon reaching the top (I am usually the one enjoying being thrown around the vehicle). Went up further to the national park area - more mountain views, and trekking paths!!! Ok lah my stamina still survivable. Wasted time visiting some boring museum-ish place along the way down and I was late for my Kent Tsai bubble tea shop event. Sucks! Hahaha literally opened my luggage along the streets of xmd to change my camera lens. We did supermarket shopping that night, the loots were a considerable lot hahaha. I remember sleeping around 3am trying to watch xmj’s live after all the packing and watching tv.

Last day was the epic shit having breakfast at the hotel and getting caught in a rat attack. LOL it was damn amusing cos people were screaming and some auntie was trembling in fear just because of one rat. But the rat ended up getting killed right beside our table (VIP zone for us) and I was recording it and we were screaming and laughing so hysterically HAHAHAHA. Shit the singaporean spirit, I was one of the only few whipping out my phone to record the commotion lolololol. We wanted to visit maokong for the last few hours but I think we ended up just roaming the taipei main station underground shops and spending money on arcade and gachapons.

Hahaha definitely an enjoyable trip. We hit 600 for our basketball machine!! and the stupid fruit vinegar drink I bought for kent tsai but had to use it as forfeit to finish the not-so-nice drink XD

Back to work for another two weeks and I was off again. This time for jaydaone only jaydaone. Haha another set of easy-going travel companions, so everything was gooddddd! We checked-in early to get some last minute buys for him (lol the TWG tea smelled funny honestly) and we thought we had much time to jalan jalan and ended up being the last few at the boarding gate.  Took our time to fly there, eat breakfast at the airport, slowly made our way to taichung, and after much walking around finally reached xitou. Shit the bus from taichung to xitou was damn awesome for catching up on sleep. Our minsu owners didnt let us go back to the accom and insisted we toured the monster village first before returning. Oh well never give laoniang here chance to put makeup.... haha we finished the whole village i think by 6+pm. Its not as big as I thought.... but there were some amusing things which we are still laughing over now LOL just some very vulgar packaging boxes useful for scolding people. Cant stop using the phrases after that. Hahahaha bought convenience store food (my mayday limited edition taiwan beer!!) and we were back in the accomm by early night. Idk how we still dragged until past 12midnight to sleep lol . Ate our food (without utensils!!! how can family mart do this to us), drank beer watch TV listened to jaydaone’s radio (and off-ed it halfway cos it was damn noisy) wrote some cards and nuasaied in the room. Shiok.

Up earlyyyyyyyyyyyy as planned but took longer than expected to get ready. So we were behind our own schedule hahaha sucks! We panicked when the minsu person told us it would require around 40mins to reach the event location from the main entrance. Had to forgo the minsu breakfast :c and we made our way direct to the event location. That was quite a climb, and wtf lyc reached even before us. We choped a good spot and yeah of course everybody else just conveniently slotted in without expressing any form of gratitude, ohwells hahahaha but doesnt matter la there is no fierce competition there and then. Lyc appears and sang 4 songs, I wasnt watching him most of the time cos I was busy taking photos. Errrrrr like lol I flew over there just to watch him but end up looking at the camera screen. But I think he was in a good mood c: Haha at the end of the performance we had a mini gathering nearby, it was longer than the performance time. I remember he emerged and was walking down the slope and we went up to say hi. MY PRINCE ON A WHITE HORSE *v* ahhhh hahaha please pardon me while I switch to xmm fangirl mode. I think the rest I should just leave it because I have already recorded it down somewhere and it is not easy to put into words without sounding like a freak. But he is nice nice nice very very nice and I am very very grateful he is who he is. I think I’ve seen him for >15 times but this is the first time(?) i held his hand properly HAHAHA shit this is going to sound erxin but when he was leaving he was saying thanks and he held out his hand so I reached out for it and at that moment I just had this thought that, Oh dear I don’t want to let go yet so I held on and he didnt let go too (!!) I think I had his right and stephy had his left. Hahahahahahaha. Then he gave the kind of look that goes through your eyes and said xiexie. Walao please please kill me please 为什么就是一股温暖满满的温暖我感觉支持你快10年了我青春有你什么都值得了

Lol okay enough hahahaha i think its hard for people to understand. Anyway right after he left we walked back to attempt some last minute sightseeing before rushing for the bus. I remember us scolding some shit while walking HAHAHAHA so much for putting on a fake demure front when the idol’s around. Back to taichung and met with mans the siao last-minute-decided-to-come girl, we created a tiny hoo-ha at uriko’s art exhibition cos they got to know that there were a few singaporeans there lol. But she is very pretty and talented. Now I understand why tintin went crazy over her hahahahaha. Our schedule for the night had two deleted items, one pan wei bo event and one dimdimsum trip, we ended up having dinner at yizhong and trying out the random 100dollar item vending machine. Watched kent tsai and the chi qing nan zi han at night. Freaking 3rd row in a huge cinema i think my neck is very unwell. Walked fengchia at night and found out our flight was delayed by freaking 8 hours!! Ded. Made plans to cancel our HSR tix.

Last day was spent on Kent Tsai at kaohsiung. Haha shit his face was sooooo grumpy that day. We had another round of the movie for the after-show qna and he actually asked us to shhh cos our cameras were so loud. Wtf hahaha this kid. But he is still very cute lah. Then we went to the adidas exhibits thingy and ruifeng night market (extra time cos of the flight delay zzz) and then we slowly took the bus back to taoyuan. Reached airport at 4+am I think. Haha last minute buys at 7-11 and beer. I think I was close to k.o. already, i need sleep!!!! Horrors of further flight delay by 2hrs. Lol kept thinking of how to kaopei the flight carrier. Ended up we didnt use the meal vouchers cos we thought they were for in-flight when they were actually for airport shops zzzzzzzzzzzz. But at the end they gave us flight vouchers and insurance is claimable so Ok lor I dont mind. Luckily I took extra day leave for work beforehand, if not jialat only.

Hahaha awesome awesome trips. Shit once the flying starts I think it is hard to stop. Oh dear. Sigh its back to reality for now... dont know how long I can survive without anymore excitement....... Argh I think i sound like a kid. But whatever lah gimme a break from all these adult life and societal cruelty (and SHITASS people) for once or twice. Bye back to the mundane mundane shitty life.

[ddrkirbyisq]

Things have become...."interesting".  I feel a bit like Kaguya-hime. I think I'm beginning to come to the realization that having a sort of faith/hope is really important to keep me going at the present moment.  Believing in that things will be alright, that I really can hold onto things forever, that I really am getting somewhere -- I'm not going to say it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because it isn't, but it certainly helps. I finally bit the bullet and -- like I should have done quite a while ago, traded in both my old iphone 6s and 5s for a brand spankin new iphone SE.  Of course, I had to fork over some cash as well, but I decided recently after just being more annoyed at the shape and size of the 6s that enough was enough and that it was time to reclaim at least =this= part of my past.  So I'm happily using one of my old 5s Little Twin Stars cases now, and finally I can actually hold my phone properly again.  Yes, it's silly, but after complaining about the size for basically a year and being jealous of everyone who still had their 5s, and even considering doing the even worse downgrade back to my old 5s (for real), I had had enough.  Man. A neighborhood cat whom I like to call Fluffy has been stopping over to visit every once in a while and he (she?) is really the best >///<.  I think he stole my heart the other night when he came over to hang out.  Pretty sure he belongs to someone since he looks pretty healthy, well fed, and is super friendly.  Fluffy~ It's been a pretty slow month for my music.  I tried to make a Vocaloid rearrangement of Egoist - Planetes, which as I could have predicted, feel sort of flat...=but= it was a good effort I think.  That ended up going out to my patrons on Patreon (you can support me too at http://ift.tt/2fHTyNd) and will probably go on my Vocaloid mishmash album of random Vocaloid experiments.  This past weekend I also started on another This Binary Universe-inspired song which was pretty nice!  Hoping to finish that off in the next few days before the end of the month -- probably just needs one more session and it'll be done. A-zu-ra is working on his 5th and final Sevensongs of Springbreak album this week, which is pretty exciting.  His The Bed of Diverse Flowers is still one of my favorite albums, which was the 3rd in the spring break series.  He's posted some previews of what he's got so far, if you'd like to take a listen and get hype. Dance continues to be pretty exciting these days.  I'm still on a short hiatus from WCS, but working on a ton of new waltz stuff still, every time I go to FNW.  In addition I reached out to some people who said they would actually be willing to get something started in terms of a weekly waltz practice / workshop session, so =maybe= that will actually happen ??? Last Friday me and a friend did our first trial run of playing Melee on the caltrain on the way back from work and it was pretty darn glorious.  I installed a Windows partition onto my macbook air as well (finally found a reason to), we had the controllers, the adapter, smooth 60fps gameplay, and I even brought a headphone splitter.  Like i said, it was glorious.  We'll definitely have to do it again. I've also been making significant progress through Earthbound during the train ride home from work on other days -- I've just gotten Poo in my party and am now inside the Pyramid. About to get my hair dyed later today, which I'm pretty excited about :)  It's important to take some time to treat yourself to things, I think, when the goings are getting a little rough.  Haha, I think it's also during these times that it becomes even more important than usual to try and stick to things like blogging and writing my letters that are at risk of being dropped. I can't say that things are necessarily good right now.  But there are good things, and that's pretty important.