#I know I was not posting many of those lately but here we are!

[frou-frou-deserved-better]

[Image: screenshot of a Reddit post from r/parenting reads "6:30 AM conversions with an ADHD kid (before meds kick in)

Her: mom, do you think there are sniffing cats? Me, who hasn't had the fucking chance to pour a cup of coffee yet: uh? Her: yeah, like you know how there are sniffing dogs at the airports, do they have sniffing cats? Me: I have no clue but i don't think so. Her: ok.

20 secs later Her: mom, do adults loose their teeth? Me (screaming in my head and glancing at the bottle of vodka "it's always 5 o'clock somewhere"): no, Sof, only children loose their baby teeth. Her: why? Me: cause they are temporary. Her: why? Me: i dunno, cause that's what happens Her: ok.

Another 20 secs later Her: mom? Me (" omfg, kill me now!): we have to go NOW, or we are gonna miss the bus!

Is it 5 o'clock yet (here in Michigan)?" /End ID]

I have watched my late diagnosed ADHDer partner dissociate for days on end because he forgot to fold a towel the way I like. When we first started dating, he thought I would break up with him because he spilled something on the floor.

He is one of the kindest, smartest, coolest people I know and I love seeing when his brain sparks. He has supported me through recovery from being hit by a car, a toxic workplace taking away all my joy, and the symptoms of multiple severe disabilities, but I know he still worries deep down that I'll stop loving him if he leaves a cup out one too many times.

Reading these posts makes me disgusted and devastated. Every one of those kids deserves better, and the way those parents speak is not blowing off steam. Talking shit about our disabilities is a love language in many of my friendships, but I couldn't imagine thinking the way those parents do about my loved ones even on my worst days.

Also, this kind of trauma is insidious. You are communicating to your child how much you hate them, but they don't have the social of emotional maturity to recognize it. There's no need to weigh and compare childhood trauma, but this self loathing is a belief that will be reinforced silently for the rest of their lives. Every breakup, every friend that stops texting, every job they don't get will be framed through this.

To parents like this: please get help. You are quite literally traumatizing your children in a way they will struggle to even explain.

To the kids: you deserve so much love. You are valuable to the world (there's literally research backing up how ND people make groups better). There are people who will absolutely adore you. It can be so much better, and no one should treat you this way.

I ended up on r/ADHDparenting (a subreddit about parenting kids with ADHD, not about being a parent with ADHD) and Jesus fuck.

[error-dream-was-found]

Y'know ... it's been a while since I actually posted a snipped ... let's change it ;)

smiling masks and golden crowns ch. 32:

“Dream!”

“Get him! Get him! Get him!”

His friends’ shouts just barely reached his ears, drowned out by the roar of the dragon. They were not going to reach him in time, he just needed one last hit. Just one last- a sharp pain erupted from his leg, catching him by surprise. He was used to being shot. It happened often enough in their chases but he still couldn’t fight the instinct that told him to look down at the arrow poking out of his leg. It hurt like hell, but he could still win. 

He looked up, about to deliver the final blow but instead of black scales he saw two violet eyes. Immediately, Dream averted his eyes but it was too late. The enderman screeched as it charged at him and the blonde instinctively moved to dodge only for his wounded leg to flare up with pain and give out under him. 

The enderman hit him full force and sent him flying. His head spun when it hit the ground but there was no time to rest, the enderman was right back on him. He avoided it just barely and he was certain he would not be so lucky the next time. The hunters were almost there too … Behind the enderman he noticed the dragon preparing to take off. It was now or never. 

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I think someone put the brain of a mouse or maybe a squirrel inside my head at some point because all winter I was like “I crave nuts and seeds” and now that it’s getting warmer and brighter out my brain keeps going “it’s fruit time”

Like, modern transportation has made it possible to move many fruits all over the world (in theory) all the time! But the primal early plesiadapiform part of my brain is like “you must eat what is available this season”

[caruliaa]

me realizing that i have been ruined for the rest of my life now i will never be able to be in any situation were the songs riptide or formation are playing without it awakening a media studies sleeper agent within me

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[arolesbianism]

Y'know I know I've said like a billion times I don't want to know shit abt Jackie's past but erm. Hi klei. Please just tell me if Josephine and Alan are her parents or some miscellaneous relative this is so important. Did Jackie seriously come from a household with a colonel and another person with a doctorate or does she just happen to be related to them this is so important for how I decide to move forward with my Jackie hcs and with my aus in general I need to know so bad tell me right fucking now

[coridallasmultipass]

Personal vent and ugly mental illness symptom talk

So, I should unpack this with my therapist, but shit's embarrassing, so I'm just gonna vent it out on the public internet lmao.

I was typing out a whole thing about how I KNOW I'm aromantic, and despite that, still have moments where my brain gaslights me into believing I'm in fairytale love.

I should preface by saying I have not officially been diagnosed with either additional mental illnesses I believe that I have (B.P//D and AD//HD [which lol being on AD//HD meds since antidepressants didn't do anything has given me some notable improvement, but I'm still without a diagnosis], nor Au//tism) DESPITE repeatedly asking multiple therapists multiple times and a psych like 100 times to give me a definitive yes or a no.

But holy shit. So I'm typing about how I've 'Favourite Person'-ed multiple people at multiple points in my life across all ages, and I'm like, okay, it's been a hot minute since I refreshed my definition of that, I should make sure that's still a thing and not something I just made up or has been dropped from the symptoms or whatever the case. I wanna make sure I'm using it right in this rant about how falling into Favourite Personing people in the past has made me believe 'wait, maybe I'm not aro, this HAS to be like the deepest truest love in existence, despite my years of knowing I'm aro.' Like, I'm so aro I once calculated out the date, months in advance, I was gonna tell someone I was dating that I loved them, only because it seemed like a socially acceptable amount of time to say it. I wasn't thinking about what I actually felt lmao. (And that was probably not a FP relationship, too, so I know that was absolutely an aro incident.)

Anyways, so I'm reading a couple articles to make sure I articulate my points about how it's conflicted with being aro, and I read about how people falling into having a FP will even hate that person for the slightest perceived wrongs. (I knew this, I just was thinking about the love incidents since that's what was related to my point about being aro.)

And holy shit. That just. Unlocked a memory I have about when I was an older kid, like probably 9ish (and older), I HATED my best friend of many years and who would continue being my bff for more years. Who was my everything. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I hated them. I would lie awake at night (insomnia too tho) thinking about how much I hated them and I couldn't understand why I didn't just stop being their friend and start hanging out with old friends more instead. I just couldn't do it, I wanted to hang out with THEM. I was so sick and feeling jealous of them whenever I found out they'd been hanging out with someone else one-on-one and I wasn't invited. Even when it was their own family. One time they brought me a plate of cookies by surprise for (before) a holiday that they'd just made with their cousin or something. And I felt so sick about how I wasn't there for that, it felt like an insult. I couldn't have put this into words, unless I just now read that point in an article and made a connection. It was so confusing, because usually the people who hated their 'best friend' was like, the mean girl kinda character who intentionally does it to hurt the innocent main character or something, but I was the one who felt wronged every time those feelings would come up. And this wasn't just a 'man it's so annoying when they do this specific thing.' This was active stewing, in a slow cooker, all day and all night kinda thing.

I was never romantically or sexually attracted to that person, but I probably wrote all this off as either unrelated sexuality or gender bullshit when I figured that out later. But knowing now that there was definitely someone (actually, I'm thinking of WAY more people as I'm typing this, and just realized why I stopped loving a band and started hating them 'for no reason' wow lmao) that I FP'ed who I definitely WASN'T attracted to, suddenly convinces me that I was probably right in suspecting B.P//D. (Or, y'know, maybe I don't have that specifically, and it's the symptom from a different facet of mental illness or whatever.) I've been so hung up over how I'm aro, sometimes ace, and then this 'only' happens towards people I am attracted to. Like, 'maybe it was love and I'm just terrible at it.' (No! It's not! Aro is correct! That's just the brain manipulating me to get another hit of dopamine off a FP! It's just easier to happen to someone I'm attracted to!)

It's no fucking wonder why I always worried about people hating me in secret, and it's because I was absolutely making myself insufferable because of that worry. I know for a fact that some people definitely did hate (or. Lmao. Shut up. Like, 'resented' maybe fits better) me for demanding constant attention that was never reciprocated by anyone I've ever met in my entire life.

I probably wrote-off so many symptoms as 'I was a moody teen and kind of an asshole.' Except it happened before and after I was a teen, too. I would have excused everything that happened during and before high school, when I should have been looking for these patterns I kept following for years after. It doesn't help that my first relationship was wildly toxic (mostly against me in this one case), and while I didn't feel particularly bothered by it after I got over the nightmare breakup, I just kept going 'What if it was the sole cause of all of this and I'm just repressing that?' Well, phew! No, it's not, that was thankfully just a toxic embarrassment, and not the source of all my problems. I was already on the shitstorm trajectory. That's a major relief. If you can call it that. I really don't like discussing that one, but not in a trauma way, more like a, you don't really wanna discuss pissing your pants on accident kinda way. Unpleasant to remember, wildly embarrassing to talk about, but ultimately not a life-altering event.

Ughhhhh. Maybe I should bring this (the mental illness not the relationship) up to the therapist. But like, I haven't been close friends with anyone in like 6 years or so, so I don't have any current or even recent examples about how being in friendships has always turned out Russian Roulette for me. My therapist doesn't seem to believe how bad it was for me to be in friendships where I was unintentionally FP'ing someone. Because besides the depression and anxiety (and mild OCD), I'm a totally normal person to her who's just dealing with shit health problems and grief (and frustration from being trans and not in a safe place to transition). Y'know, normal life problems most people will feel at some point, just chronic in my case. I may be weird, but I'm obviously far from the worst she's seen. I'm not uniquely mentally ill.

((Except the whole 'treatment resistant depression' diagnosis bullshit from the psych, but I'm learning it's not just mental issues I have that are treatment resistant lol.))

I tried talking to her about a small part of all this before, but IDK what I did wrong, she took it 100% as me being the one unintentionally wronged and not setting MY own boundaries (lmao), so like I don't know how to word this in a way she'd understand that most of my problems in this area were my own fault. (I mean that both negatively and neutrally, because it's an ugly side of mental illness, but not one I chose or know how to help.)

Not being in close friendships with anyone has had an understandably sane-ifying effect on me (barring the, y'know, depression/anxiety/OCD and baseline weirdness), which has gotten me trapped for the 5th time in 6 years of making my therapists believe I'm better off than I actually am. (I've done this to every therapist I've ever had before that, too.) But like, again, at least for the past 3 therapists and the latest psych, I AM actually better for not having close friends lmao. Only one therapist ever had one visit of me wanting to address these concerns specifically while they were currently active, and by the next visit, we had to shift exclusively to sudden new grief lol. (What a shitshow. It somehow always ends up that whenever I wanna treat an illness, it's like opening a can of worms, except the worms are firecrackers and I didn't set the can down and step back a few feet.)

Like, it obviously feels safer to not have close friends at all because there's no fear of abandonment if I have no one to begin with. And, genuinely, I operate better when I'm alone. But now that I've known safety, it's hard to imagine throwing myself back into the roulette wheel, hoping I don't land on red OR black. But fuck, man. It is lonely.

And being aro? It's freeing, and validating too, to have a word for it, but I'm not gonna mince words here, I hate it. I wish I could feel romantic love. Like normal, not mentally ill ""love."" I feel platonic love all the time, like for friends (not FP) always. I love saying 'I love you' to friends and meaning it. But I want to feel romantic love. I just don't. I just feel friendship, Favoriting, and/or sexual attraction sometimes. Probably why I'm so into shipping and fanfics. I got a lot more "probably why's" but I don't wanna go down that in this already vulnerable post lol. (I already made a whole post about one of the why's back in like 2013 or 14 lmao, without connecting it to this.)

Anyway, I put this whole mental illness and relationships deal into ugly imagery in a current fic WIP I'm working on, since recognizing I was aro took living through FP'ing a few 'romantic' relationships, before I even first heard the term FP. I only saw my experiences as 'I don't think I've been experiencing love' and that by itself felt like it fit. I didn't realize there was anything wrong, even as I outwardly said shit like 'I don't think I'm fit for being in a relationship' to the few people who asked me out, even when I wanted to say yes.

And then I kept trying to make relationships work lmao. I don't know why I even bothered. I just wanted to be wrong about being aro, especially when it was a point of contention (aro and ace separately) with some of the relationships.

I'd probably have to meet another aro person of the exact same flavour of aromanticism to make it work, but even then the mental illness would just be a ticking time bomb. No one wants to be the recipient of FP 'affection', except maybe sometimes the fictional people in a certain fiction trope that winds up being fetishistic, even if it's not intended to insult real people (but sometimes it is). And it's just a reminder of how I was probably a big source of toxicity for probably half the people who have ever been close with me, if it's even half of how fiction portrays people with this symptom.

I dunno where I wanted to end this vent, so here's probably a good place. Just wanted to get this off my chest, because it just now felt like a pretty big revelation that my problems weren't related to romanticism, I've had purely platonic instances of this dating back to being an older kid, and more during high school, and I just never connected the two before now.

[sweetmodel]

How I became a master shifter (+ why methods aren't working for you)

Hello! I’ve been seeing a lot of disinformation lately, and I’ve noticed that some people might need help, so I wanted to chime in. I can shift whenever I want, and I see a LOT of limiting beliefs—but I understand because I was once on the other side.

Disclaimer: This is all based on my personal experience with how I became a master shifter. You’ll want to read everything—it’s important.

I first shifted around March 2022. I would always use methods. I would affirm, tell myself I was detached from this reality, and so on. During my very first shift, I literally affirmed all night long (if this sounds familiar, it’s because I used to have another blog here, lol). You know, really complicated stuff. Then... things changed. I couldn’t shift anymore. I kept using the same methods, but they didn’t work!

That’s when I started questioning everything about shifting and consciousness. Why was it that I could be in another reality where things like magic exist, but then suddenly I couldn’t shift anymore? Why were the methods, like lucid dreaming or the void, seemingly more powerful than the act of switching realities itself? Why, when I shifted from my Desired Reality to my Current Reality, all I needed to do think of my CR to shift back—but it didn’t work the other way around?

None of it made sense! And I’m sure many others have asked themselves these same questions.

I came up with two theories:

This reality has something unique compared to the infinite other realities. To shift from here, you need something extra, like a method.

There’s something else at play, something unrelated to the realities themselves.

I dismissed the first option. There’s nothing inherently special about this reality. So why do we use methods here but not in our DRs?

Then, I thought back to how I used to shift... detaching from my body, affirming until I shifted. It all aligned with my subconscious beliefs. The method didn’t work because that’s how shifting works, but because it made sense to my subconscious. Of course I would shift if I did these things—because that’s what I believed shifting required.

Well... kind of. As I said, it made sense because it aligned with my beliefs. So when the method failed, I wasn’t letting myself shift.

Did you catch that? I didn’t let myself shift. Of course, it wasn’t the method. At what point do you actually shift? Is it when you affirm? Do you really think the universe is just waiting for you to say the right thing enough times before it switches you to your DR?

No. It’s you.

So, you have two choices:

Find a method that truly aligns with your beliefs, or

Change your subconscious beliefs.

Changing your beliefs might seem hard, but I’m going to explain why it’s not as difficult as it feels.

All your life, you’ve had certain beliefs, but those beliefs came from somewhere. You weren’t born thinking you need methods to shift—it’s something that developed over time. Which means it’s not set in stone. It can be changed.

I realized that every reality holds the same weight. There’s NOTHING you can do in this one—no intrusive thoughts or negative emotions—that can stop you. Why? Because those thoughts and emotions are products of this reality. Shifting is simply changing what you’re aware of. That’s literally it. Anything outside of that can’t stop you.

Yes, we’ve all seen those posts saying things like, "Oh, you’re not focused enough" or "You spend too much time on X, Y, Z" or even "You don’t go outside enough" (I legit read this on here—y'all are wildin’). Are you in your DR thinking "Oh, I thought about failing to shift, it means I won't :("? Of course you aren't! But nothing can stop you from shifting. Nothing can stop you from being aware that you are a master shifter.

So, how do you become aware of that?

I started affirming throughout the day. I would tell myself these things:

I’m pure consciousness. I create my reality, and everything around me is just what I choose to perceive.

I’m a master shifter. I don’t need methods. All I need to do is choose to shift, think of my DR, and it happens.

Nothing in the 3D can stop me from shifting, because I’m in the 4D and pure consciousness.

I told myself these things constantly, and I truly understood what I was affirming. What being pure consciousness and being a master shifter actually meant. I stopped using methods. I stopped acting like this reality was special compared to the ones I wanted to be in. And then... it happened.

I shifted. During the day. I simply thought of my DR, told myself, I want to shift, and there I was—in my DR. It happened because, as I said, my subconscious beliefs changed and then manifested in my reality. The same way they did when I believed I needed methods.

Naturally, I stopped using methods. I stopped trying to shift. I no longer thought, Okay, tonight I’m going to shift, and I'm going to use X method. Because that’s not how you think or act when you’re a master shifter. I let go—why would I bother using a method before sleeping when I could just stand up, think about my DR, and be there? Why would I bother doing a method before falling asleep when I knew I'm a master shifter?

I allowed myself to shift. It was me! When people ask, What method did you use? What did you do to shift?—do you really, truly believe it’s the method that makes you shift? Of course you do, because you live in a reality that seems logical, and you apply that logic to shifting. But shifting isn’t logical! It just happens! I have no idea why—it’s literally just magic to me—but that’s how it works.

So, you need to understand: You make it happen. That’s a good thing, right? It means you don’t need methods, and you don’t need to keep searching for “the key.”

Anyway, I hope this helps someone. (Also yes, before you tell me, I know this is basically Law Of Assumption. But I wanted to explain it in more of shifting terms)

(Also if someone wants to post this to another social you have my permission- especially reddit since I was active in that community but I deleted my acc lol)

Edit: Hey guys there are some additional notes in the comments that might be useful!

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Folk were really into the post I made about Tandie, the zoo lion with a (then) undergrown mane due a period of time on testosterone blockers. He's having quite the glow up this summer.

But!

Did you know that manes are hormone dependent in both sexes of lion?

Let's talk about maned lionesses!

To recap the previous post quickly: the existence of a mane, and it's color, appear to be pretty heavily androgen-dependent. Neutered males or males put on testosterone blockers, like Tandie was, will drop their manes - but like Tandie, if taken off the meds, it will generally grow it back. Darker manes are indicative of higher testosterone levels, and long/lush manes are generally a good signal of a male's fitness and mate quality. Females seem to show a preference for males with longer, darker manes and other males will preferentially avoid scuffles with them. (Yes, as many comments have pointed out, that means Scar was actually a hunk. Do with that as you will.)

The fascinating thing about androgens being linked to manes in lions is that it goes both ways - females with higher levels will also grow manes!

Mane growth in females lions is most commonly seen with elderly animals who have stopped cycling and are basically in lion menopause. And they have to get pretty old for it to happen - captive lions generally only live into their late teens and early second decade, and most of the maned ladies I know about started growing manes around like, seventeen.

Not all old female lions grow manes, but some of the career cat people I've talked to said it happened to about a quarter of the females they've worked with over the years. Which... is an interesting contrast to the news articles about Zuri, who we'll meet in a bit, that breathlessly reported in 2022 that her mane growth "left scientists baffled."

Old lady lion manes are just... precious. They grow in first at the chest and then around the sides or on the back of the head, but they don’t normally get the length, density, and connectivity seen in the mane of an adult male. It leaves the lionesses manes kind of awkward, in the way I associate with very young males, and they're absolutely adorable. Prepare yourself for the photo spam.

I have to start with Daisy, because she's the only maned lioness I've had the privilege to meet in person.

I don't know exactly when she started growing her mane, but she was over 20 years old when she passed in 2019 with these luscious locks.

Here's another female at the same facility, named Adeena. On the left is a photo of her from 2021, on the right is from this spring (I think she's mid-sneeze in the photo). She turns 20 in October.

If you've heard about maned lionesses before, it’s probably because of Zuri, at Topeka. She’s the most recent one to get media coverage and she went a little viral.

(Just a side note here, but I have some strong feelings about knowledge loss in the exotic animal management world due to political/philosophical schisms. This is one of those topics where it's clear: Topeka told a reporter that the zoo had “never" heard of this happening before, but it's common enough to be well known as a thing in other sectors of the exotic cat world. There's so much expertise and knowledge being lost due to infighting between accrediting groups, and it drives me up a wall).

Anyway. Zuri had one of the best manes I've seen on an elderly lioness. It grew long and lush and she totally could have done shampoo commercials. I mean, look at this.

Zuri lived with her sister, who didn't grow a mane in her old age. Here's the two of them together, Zuri on the left, Asante on the right.

We don't completely know what's going on with these golden girls to cause them to grow manes. It's theorized to be related to the end of estrus and higher levels of androgenic hormones, although it's not clear if that's just due to lower levels of other hormones during "meownopause" or if there's something else also going on.

There was some speculation with Zuri's mane growth that it was caused by the death of the male she lived with, in some biological need to "take over the role." The zoo dismissed that idea pretty quickly, and it makes sense, although there is one other instance where I've heard of that happening before.

The cat people I've talked to say that older lionesses who grow manes don't tend to act differently - they're not taking over new social roles in their prides or anything. Sometimes they can be less active, or be a little more nervous around males, and want to be left alone more, but it was emphasized to me that those behaviors could also just be associated with the fact that manes tends to develop in elderly lionesses.

The mane growth can happen pretty quickly, as we saw in the photos I've posted of Tandie over the last year. Here's Bridget, from the Oklahoma Zoo. The left photo was taken in March of 2017 and the right in November - look how much hair she gained over six months!

The zoo did some research into what might have cause Bridget's mane growth, and found that she had elevated levels of androstenedione, which is a hormone that can be converted by the body into either testosterone or estrogen, depending. In AFAB people, it's known to have a masculinizing effect. The zoo theorized that this was the cause of her mane growth, and that the elevated levels might have been caused by a benign tumor. Fascinatingly, though, blood draws revealed that her testosterone levels were the same as her mane-less sister, Tia.

Tia is on the left in the photo below, Bridget and the beginnings of her mane are on the right. Bridget was 17 when her mane started growing in.

I don't think there's any formal hypothesis that there might be a genetic component to lionesses growing manes in old age, but it's interesting to note that one of Tia's daughters, Zari, also grew a mane. (And she grew it young! It started around age 13, interestingly, also right after their male died). She's on the left in the photo below.

And to circle back around to where we began: Tandie is related to a number of maned ladies! His father, Xerxes, was Bridget's son; Zari was Xerxes' half-sister.

Here's a few more beautiful maned ladies to leave you with. In order, Ngala, Pepper, Skye, and Dandy Lion.

Next up, and last in this lion mane series, is the story of five younger lionesses in Botswana who not only have manes but also express a range of masculine behaviors.

.

.

.

A huge thanks to all the folk who shared photos of and stories about their golden girls for this post: M. Townsen, S.W. Simpson, E. Day, S. Cook, M. Stinner, M. Paul, K. Vanaman, D. O'Halloran, R. Simpson, D. Souffrant.

[icemankazansky]

A Simple Guide to Not Being Afraid to Write Comments to Fic You Read

I've seen a lot of posts about the current state of fanfiction comments. Writers, especially writers who have been in fandom for a decade or more, are frustrated by the lack of comments, and have noticed a definite decline in comments (and all other forms of reader interaction) in the past ten years or so. Many readers feel daunted by the expectation of leaving comments, afraid they'll do something wrong. As a fandom old maid, the latter confused me for a while, until I realized that most of the people who feel that way probably have not been taught this form of communication.

But your loving fandom elders are here for you. Come along as your auntie tumblr user icemankazansky makes this shit easy.

The easiest way to think of fanfiction comment etiquette is to compare it to something you likely already know: Gift Receiving Etiquette.

Fanfiction began as largely a gift economy. And a lot of it still is! You'll see authors participate in exchanges like Yuletide and Id Pro Quo; those are ficswaps in which authors write for a specific person to specific prompts. And even outside that, fanfiction is not written for money; authors write and post it simply for the joy of creation and community with fellow fans. Fic is posted free for anyone to enjoy. Is that not a gift?

So. When you as a reader finish the chapter or story you're reading and you are faced with the comment box, try to follow the same etiquette you would when receiving a gift. (And even if you didn't love this gift and it's not your favorite gift ever, we already know that it's more useful than the products from your cousin's MLM that they're passing off as gifts, because you read the story. At the very least, it entertained you for the time you took to read it.)

The big rule of gift receiving etiquette is not to insult the person who gave you the gift, either directly or indirectly. That's it. Full stop.

I've been seeing a lot of comments lately that are just along the lines of, "Thank you for writing this story and sharing it with us." A+, top of the class, full marks, you're doing amazing. If you don't feel comfortable commenting on the story itself, that is perfect feedback. And that's the most basic way you respond to a gift, yes? Thank you for the gift. Thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for sharing.

Does this rule mean that you cannot say anything at all that might be negative about anything? No, absolutely not. What you want to avoid is saying something that is, at its core, a negative evaluation of the author or their work. Let's do some examples.

Character A's obliviousness about Character B's MASSIVE crush on them made me so frustrated! I was tearing my hair out internally screaming, "JUST LET HIM LOVE YOU."

✔️ Excellent comment! You're allowed to have all sorts of feelings about things that happen in the story, and in fact authors LOVE to hear about any emotions they made you feel. Yes, frustration is not a positive emotion, but the thing you are expressing frustration about is not the author themselves or their shortcomings.

Contrast that to:

I was really frustrated that it took you so long to post this chapter. The cliffhanger at the end of the previous chapter had me tearing my hair out, and then you just left us hanging FOREVER!

❌ Nope! Here what you are expressing is frustration with the author and how fast they come out with new chapters. Imagine your sister buys you a gift for your birthday, but she isn't able to give it to you until the next week, and you respond with: "What took you so long?" I think Emily Post would frown on that.

Reframing

The way you say something and the point of view from which you give feedback can have a HUGE impact on the message you're sending. Let's take the last comment (the one about wanting an update) and see what happens when we reframe the same sentiment as a positive:

I was SO EXCITED to see that you updated this story! I have really been looking forward to seeing what happened after the cliffhanger in the last chapter.

✔️ Now it's not an insult. The author will be happy to know that you are happy to see new work from them.

This idea extends beyond the story itself: to the fandom, the characters, the pairing, the tropes, etc. Let's do some examples.

I looooove reading about these sexy boys SO IN LOVE even though the movie you're writing about is SOOOOO problematic.

❌ Nope! Assume that the author enjoys the canon, characters, pairing, etc. in the stories they write. This comment is insulting to the author because it basically says, "That thing you love is not great, and you should probably feel bad for liking it." Imagine your aunt gifts you a sweater from a popular retailer, and you respond with, "This is so cute, I love it! It's a shame that it was made in a sweatshop." Do you have a valid point about the canon or the retailer's business practices? You very well might. Is this the proper time and place to talk about it? Absolutely not.

Let's do a reframing exercise. You should be very careful about how you approach commenting negatively on anything in the story that appears in the tags list, but you can make it a compliment and good feedback if you have the right perspective. See the difference with these two approaches:

I kind of think frottage is disgusting, but I liked it in this story.

❌ Nope! You just told the author you think their kink is disgusting. That's like telling your poor aunt who is just trying to keep you warm this winter that she has awful taste in knitwear. Try again.

Frottage normally isn't my kink, but I love your other stories with this pairing, so I decided to give it a try, and I'm SOOOOO GLAD that I did! This story was 🔥🔥🔥

✔️ "This normally isn't my thing, but you made me expand my horizons!" Authors love to hear that. That's like telling your aunt, "I never thought this color looked good on me, but I look so cute in this sweater! I'm so glad you helped me step outside my comfort zone, because I'm the better for it."

thank u, next

The last thing I want to address is this new trend I've seen in commenting lately: placing an order. If your mom surprises you with new headphones, you don't respond with, "I wanted the white ones 🙁," or, "You should get me a new phone, too." It's easy to see why that isn't appropriate in a gifting situation, and it's also not appropriate when commenting on fanfiction.

Let's do some examples:

This fic was soooo cute, but it would have been a million times better if Character A had been with Character C instead of Character B.

❌ There are a few things going on here. Number one, you're telling your mom you wanted the white headphones, not the ones she actually bought you. You're also disparaging the A/B pairing that the author chose to write about, and as we discussed, we can assume that the author wrote the pairing because they liked it. Even if it's not their favorite and/or they also write A/C, they made a choice for this story to be A/B, and the comments section of a fic is not the place to question choices the author made in their own work.

You should write a story where Character Z who is not even in this story does [thing that is vaguely referenced in the B plot].

❌ "You should get me a new phone, too."

I want a sequel. 😞

❌ "Thank you, next!"

You can reframe this kind of sentiment if you are careful about it, and it's not all you say.

I really loved this story. I would be so interested to see these ideas explored further if you ever decide to write more in this universe.

✔️ Not "gimme." Not "more." This is, "If you build it, I will come." It is a HUGE difference.

You already know how to do this. You know how to graciously accept a gift; just use that same etiquette, and boom! Now you know how to fearlessly write a comment to fic you read. You're doing amazing. Go forth and comment.

[rqnarok]

old man!logan obsessing over his pregnant wifey

headcanons - cws/tags: smut! mdni. breeding kink. lactation kink. pregnant sex. dom/sub dynamics.

a/n: okie a lot of u asked for a part two of this blurb, here ya’ go my loves! <3

Logan Howlett used to think he wouldn’t be a good father. Hell, with that temper and attitude? He was sure he’d be the worst one. 

But you don’t seem to agree with him on many things—especially his self-destructive thoughts. I mean, that’s why you let him knock you up in the first place. You’d grin seeing your belly round and full of his babe, tits plump and leaking.

You are too beautiful to behold, “My pretty fuckin’ wife.” A sight that has Logan’s libido reaching its peak, the ones he thought he was not capable of anymore as an old man. 

Yet here he is, dick hard and balls full each time he sees you. 

Shit. You look so soft, walking around the house barefoot and swollen with his offspring. A sick and possessive side of him loves knowing that when you are out in public, it’s apparent that you’re taken by him, carrying his child. 

Pregnancy grants you a restless glow that makes it harder for him to say no to you. “W-wan’ you, please, Lo—” When you beg him to stuff you up full, who is he to deny his wife? Deny the mother of his child? 

He turns into a madman at how your leaking tits bounce up and down when you ride his girth, at how your breasts seem to look when you wear those tight tops, at how your nipples are poking all the damn time, and at how you are hornier than ever.

Yeah, he caught you hiding under the sheets rubbing your swollen clit and fingers deep in your own dripping cunt with his name rolling off your tongue — thinking he’s still doing his late night shift. 

He fucks you as much as he can, the positions getting more and more adapted as your stomach grows, sometimes filthier than ever, “Put your legs up here, baby. Can’t have ya’ sore now, can we?”

His favorite position is still you on your back, thighs spread apart, and belly full on display. “Ya’ got me so fuckin’ hard, pretty.” He doesn’t give a damn that his aging body feels aching—he could watch this for hours. Your face contorted with pleasure as his fat cock thrusts in and out. 

Oh, Logan’s nasty. He says he tries to ‘relieve’ your pain by sucking at your sensitive, leaking nipples while plunging his cock inside of you. “Mhm, such a sweet wife for your old man.” Pumping your full womb while he laps at your milk. 

The almost 200-year-old man believes he has gained stamina—now that he has more responsibility. He’s always ready to load you up for days on end. And that’s exactly what he’ll do for the next few weeks. Molding his cock inside you before sex starts to get all too much for his pregnant wifey. 

Logan’s a natural caretaker. It shows when you’re hitting the post-orgasm soreness and barely do anything except breathe heavily. He never forgets to show his affection, scratching his scruffy grey beard on your neck before softly kneading sensitive parts of your body. 

“Let’s get ya’ cleaned up, mama.”

A bad father? Logan Howlett buried all of his dictionaries and named you his language. 

[polyamorouspunk]

“Why Don’t You Just Move?”

A look at rural queerness and the hardcore scene.

With the recent and still on-going tragedy left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, a lot of light is being shed on southern states that make up Appalachia.

There’s a lot of misconceptions about Appalachia and the southern United States as a whole. There are a lot of good users on this website that have put a lot of effort into combating these harmful stereotypes and clearing up misconceptions.

But there’s more than just Appalachia in the south. There’s a lot of middle ground. Places that aren’t as rural as Appalachia, but places that aren’t as populated as cities like Raleigh, Richmond, Memphis, etc.

Places where people gather surrounded by other agricultural hubs.

There are queer people everywhere. In every culture, every religion, every country, in all of history, we have existed. We cannot and we will not be erased.

A common narrative that’s floated around for many years is “if red states are passing laws that are constructive to the LGBT+ community, then why don’t those people just move?”

So why don’t we just move?

I’m sure you can find a lot of well-written posts on here explaining many reasons why queer people not just in the southern states, but all over the world don’t “just move”, and one reason I’ve seen echoed over and over again is that “we have thriving communities here too”. We exist too.

How does one “be punk”?

It’s a question my mutuals and I get a lot, and a lot of us are tired of hearing it.

What does it mean to be punk?

Is it about the music? The clothes? The politics? Can you be punk if? Is it punk if you? Who? What? Where? When?

One common beginner tip to “being punk” is to find and join the local scene. This can lead to a lot of other questions, though. What is a scene? Where does one find the scene? How does one participate in the scene? Is there a minimum requirement?

Rest assured, literally no one is asking this offline.

A hardcore scene is so much more than just hardcore. A scene is a group of people where music is a common thread that builds the basis of other connections. A hardcore scene isn’t necessarily even hardcore.

“You have to listen to punk music to be punk”. Sure. But here’s the thing. In your local hardcore scene you will find: metal musicians, rappers, and more. You will attend shows with blues music, orchestras, and more.

Sometimes it’s not even music at all! Sometimes there is drag! Sometimes there are movie nights! Sometimes there are group outings!

It’s almost like… it’s just a social construct.

What is the local scene? The local scene is loud music. It’s smoking and drinking. It’s stopping by the corner store and the smoke and vape. It’s carpooling. It’s movie nights. It’s text chains. It’s group chats. It’s he-said-she-said. It’s they said. It’s AMAB enbies. It’s people who don’t care about “passing”. It’s DIY HRT. It’s she was a lesbian until she met him. It’s situationships. It’s hooking up and coming down. It’s bouncing from place to place to meet up with each other. It’s showing up someplace and seeing who’s there and waiting around to see who’s coming. It’s late nights spent partying on the weekends and back to school and work come the weekdays. It’s knowing someone by looks or name even if you haven’t put the two together yet. It’s trading socials. It’s Instagram stories and comments. It’s “DM for Address”. It’s “are you going tonight?” It’s “do you need a ride?” It’s “who else is going?”. It’s going somewhere and asking who’s coming. It’s sitting around on broken chairs and lawn furniture passing around a blunt, sharing a 24 pack of beer that 4 of you ran out to get with money you all pooled together, it’s “should we order pizza?” It’s “I brought donuts”. It’s hanging out in each other’s houses and rooms. It’s respecting the businesses that offer to house you. It’s generational friendships. It’s listening to your friends as they joke about their heritage and talk about their cultures. It’s the dog you pet when you’re sitting on the curb in ripped fishnets taking drunk selfies with your friends. It’s the man playing you the harmonica as you sit outside the THC drink bar on a Saturday night. It’s sitting out in the yard listening to someone play an acoustic set where they talk about the war and poverty and politics while you slowly get high surrounded by your friends. It’s sitting on a dock in the middle of the night fishing listening to emo music huddled together with your friends. It’s autistic people showing each other the bugs they’ve found in the dirt. It’s talking about your disabilities together. It’s shoving your friends in the pit and then holding their hands. It’s seeing the cos guys in their 40s and 50s who tend the bar and work the register calling you by whatever name and pronouns you give them. It’s all of this and so much more, and it cannot be conceptualized by one single fashion style, one single music style, one single belief system. It’s not someone calling you out because you went to Chick-Fil-A and don’t you know that’s bad, it’s not someone telling you that you’re a poser because you like Chappell Roan too or your clothes were bought at Forever 21 not thrifted and DIYed.

Everyone likes to talk about folk punk and other genres that bands like Dayz and Daze have popularized- or according to some, commodified and commercialized- but if you’re going to talk about music like folk punk, you’re going to have to respect the areas that it originated in.

Everyone want’s to talk about “local punk bands” when half the bands you’re seeing don’t even fall under the genre of punk.

Your local scene isn’t always going to be skate parks and thrash music.

Sometimes it’s the mom cooking you and all your queer friends dinner on a Friday night in her kitchen with crosses and a picture frame of her family with the quote “live, laugh, love”.

Sometimes it’s sitting around and listening to men who are old enough to be your grandfather with Vietnam Veteran hats play the blues while a pig roasts in a backyard BBQ, even though you’re in your 20s and you have blue hair and pronouns.

It’s sitting around and listening to your elders talk about how the scene used to be “back in the day”. Talk about the shows they’ve been to, the bands they’ve seen in their prime.

It’s asking what you do for work, where do you live, what brought you down here, what’s your college major?

It’s people. It’s people connecting to people. Regardless of the color of their skin. Regardless of gender or sexuality. It’s people of all ages coming together to listen to music with the idea that what you all have in common is living here and now, hating politicians, and thinking that someone should do something about the shitty state the world is in. It’s not a conglomerate. It’s individuality, and there’s no real wrong way of doing it unless you’re a Trump Supporter or a Nazi, and even then, they still have their own factions of the punk scene that are going to overlap with yours on occasion. The best you can do then is stand up for what you believe in and stay safe.

There are scenes just like mine all over this country. In southern states, in rural areas, in places that other, mainly white queers have “written off”.

So why don’t we just move?

Because this is our scene, and it’s what we make it, and in the heart of the south in the Bible Belt, we’re making it a queer-inclusive space despite what’s happening around us.

[giannaln4]

Lucky Bracelet

lando norris x fem reader

summary: Making friendship bracelets was one of your favourite things to keep you entertained during race weeks, and you just had to make a special one for your boyfriend.  (1.5k words)

warnings: fluff, established relationship, a couple sexual innuendos

a/n: guys look at me! two posts in one week? crazy. i'm honestly trying to clean up my inbox since i still have a few requests from before my break 😭 so if you sent one, i'm getting there, i promise! now, this is a little bit cheesy and there are a few weird time skips so I apologise for that, but i really hope you like it! pls let me know what you think 🫶🏻

check out the original request here!

↺ back to navigation — send me a request!

Being constantly surrounded by hundreds of people and the double amount of cameras was not something you liked, but it’s something you had to put up with given the amount of attention your boyfriend got; it was something you have learnt to deal with. Not that you were fully used to it now, but at least it didn’t make you as anxious as it used to when you first started dating.

At least now you found something that helped you get your mind off the intense atmosphere that surrounded you during race weeks: making friendship bracelets. You made a few when you went to see Taylor Swift in concert late last year, and it stuck with you since then.

You travelled with all the materials you needed: colourful beads and cotton threads, tape, scissors — the whole deal. It wasn’t like you made an insane amount of bracelets every time you accompanied Lando to a race, but if you were bored or overwhelmed, you knew you had something to do.

Today was one of those days; Lando was specially busy today, and given your shy and quiet personality, you didn’t know that many people around, so you decided to lock yourself in Lando’s drivers room and get to it, carefully picking the letters and colours you would use.

Lando hated to leave you alone. He was aware of the many things he had to do, but he didn’t expect them to take that long, so as soon as he got a little bit of free time to catch lunch, he went looking for you. 

“Hey,” he greeted one of the mechanics. 

“Hi mate, how is it going?”

“All good, thanks. It’s a bit hot outside but still nice.”

“And yet, you are wearing a hoodie.” He teased him.

Lando let out a laugh, well aware of his reputation. "Well, I still have to keep it in style, don’t I?”

“You do, we know.”

“Anyway, have you seen Y/N?” 

“She must be in your room. I haven’t seen her since the two of you got here this morning.”

He smiled, knowing exactly what you were up to if you hadn’t left the small space all day. “Thanks.”

Lando made his way to his room, carefully knocking on the door before coming in. He didn’t want to scare you and make you drop all your beads, which has happened more times than he would like to admit.

“Come in,” he heard you yell from inside.

He opened the door and gave you the sweetest smile you have ever seen. “Hey, I’m back.”

“Hey, what took you so long?” You dropped everything you were doing to direct your attention at him. 

“Sorry, I didn’t know we would have to be there all morning, but I’m back for lunch.”

“It’s okay, and thank God, I’m starving.” You took a piece of tape to hold your bracelet in place and started to get up.

“What are you making here?” He asked you as he got closer to the small table, analysing what you had on display as the bright-coloured beads caught his eye.

“No, it’s a surprise.” You responded, quickly hiding your unfinished creation with your hands. 

“A surprise you say?” He came behind you to wrap his arms around you, softly kissing your head. 

You melted into his embrace and hummed in response, using one of your bags to hide it instead so you could hug your boyfriend back. “You can’t see it until you win this race.”

“Mhm, I see. What if I don’t win? When do I get to see it?” He questioned, not wanting to jinx his weekend, but he was still curious. 

“The next race you win.” You said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Got it. In that case, I’m gonna have to win this race.” He grabbed your hips to turn you around, kissing you on the lips once you were facing him.

You went to eat your lunch together as you normally did, enjoying each other’s company as you talked about anything you could come up with. Before you knew it, he had to go back to his duties, and even though you tried hard to act normal about being left alone so he wouldn’t feel guilty, he still noticed. He knew you better than you knew yourself, anyway.

“You can come with me if you want, that way you don’t have to be alone.”

“No, it’s okay. I know there are millions of people and cameras when you do these things."

He couldn’t help but feel guilty; he knew you were there to support him, so he hated to be apart from you when you did. “I’m sorry, love. I know you don’t feel comfortable when there are a lot of people around. You know you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to, you could always stay home.”

“If you don’t want me to come, just say that,” you joked.

“No, it’s not that,” Lando replied immediately. “I do want you here, I always do, but I hate that you feel like you have to hide.”

“Lan, I’m not hiding. Sure, I do prefer to stay inside, but it’s not because I want to hide from the world. Besides, that’s why I always bring something to entertain myself with. I’ll be fine, I promise,” you reassure him.

“Okay,” he nods, smiling at you. “But if you want to go back to the hotel, that’s okay.”

The rest of the weekend went on a lot quicker, even though he was just as busy. Qualifying and race days were a lot less boring since you got to see the cars from the garage, enjoying the full wag experience. 

As the race went on, you couldn’t help but feel anxious and excited at the same time. Lando started from pole (which made you assure him the night before he would get to see the bracelet after the race), but you still had the need to crack your fingers every once in a while. There were only a few laps left, and he had led the entire race so far, and with the gap becoming bigger, you couldn’t contain your excitement.

Once he finally crossed that finish line with a 21-second margin, everyone in the garage cheered and jumped, celebrating Lando’s achievement. A lot of people gathered outside to see him get off the car and celebrate his third win himself, shouting his name and patting him in the helmet to congratulate him.

When it was time for the podium, you decided to go get the finished bracelet you kept in your purse and held it close to your heart, feeling extremely proud of Lando for the amazing race he just had. You couldn't stop the few tears that left your eyes; it made you so happy to see him accomplish his dreams. 

The whole thing was finally over, and you waited for him right there so you could finally express how proud of him you were. 

“Congrats, baby,” you said, hugging him as if you hadn’t seen him in months. “You did amazing.”

“Thank you.” Lando couldn’t erase the big smile off his face as he hugged you back. 

“That’s a cool trophy you got back there.”

“Yeah, I don’t really care about that.” He said, puling away and looking down at you. 

“You don’t?” You asked confused.

“No, I’m still waiting for my real reward.”

“Oh… we can go back to the hotel-”

“No!” He interrupted you, laughing loudly at the fact that your mind went there. “I mean my bracelet, didn’t you say I would get it if I won this race? Well, I did, and now I’m claiming it.”

You laughed, your cheeks burning a bit from embarrassment. “Right, uh- it’s not that great compared to your trophy.”

“I’m sure it’s better than any trophy I could ever get.”

Man, he really knew how to be the sweetest boyfriend in the entire world. You pulled the bracelet out of your pocket, hiding it in your fist before dropping it in his hands. 

The colours were the first thing that caught his attention. Fluoro green and black beads. He inspected these first, until he got to the little letters that read ‘MY WINNER’. He almost couldn’t contain his tears; he was so endeared by you and how much you supported his passion.

“I love it,” he whispered, lifting you up and kissing you emotionally before putting you back down and sliding the bracelet in his wrist, admiring the way it looked there. “Thank you.”

“See? I told you you would get to see it today.”

“It must be a lucky bracelet, then. I’m never taking it off.”

You giggled at this, loving how Lando reacted to the bracelet you made with much love, but you still thought he was just messing with you. “You must be tired.” You teased him.

“Mhm. Now, about my other reward-”

“Oh my God.” You rolled your eyes as you let out a loud laugh, holding his hand as you made your way to the car.

[afterglowsainz]

yes, and? | max verstappen

summary: max’s impossible crush finally notice him, but he’s stuck in a pr relationship

fc: simone ashley

a/n: so i try something a bit different with this one and made it on the longer side (if you’ve listened to ariana’s song you know this is gonna be messy for sure) (also, simone ashley??? or the prettiest woman ever??? i’m obsessed with her)

—

liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris and others

maxverstappen1 life off track

view all comments

username i screamed cried and fainted

username second pic should be illegal

megan.galanis 🥰

username not the pr girlfriend 🙄

username omg let them live!

username they’re dating, get over it

username the third pic pls he’s so POOKIE

username number 1 stan of max’s thighs

username thirsting on main???

username PLS because how can you not ??

liked by maxverstappen1, bffusername and others

ynusername bridgerton press tour at it’s finest 💍

view all comments

username MOTHER

username you’re the prettiest woman alive😩

username yn just one chance please !

bffusername slayyyy

yourusername 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

jbayleaf viscountess activities😎

yourusername 🐝🐝🐝

username im in love with a woman i’ve never met

tiktok comments

username never took max for a bridgerton guy???

username not complaining tho

username max in his regency romance era🤭

username now i get why he’s always in y/n’s likes like damn i too would be obsessed after watching her on that show

ynusername thank you! <3

liked by scuderiaferrari, maxverstappen1 and others

ynusername it’s the monaco grand prix! i never miss the grand prix🏁

view all comments

username yn and f1 my two passions❤️

username the way yn always serves cunt MUST be studied

bffusername is it? who’s playing?

username ohhh the reference i love them!

username gorgeous! 😍

username i’m in awe

maxverstappen1 🤣

liked by schecoperez, landonorris and others

maxverstappen1 P1 in Monaco🏆🇲🇨

view all comments

username the icon, the legend, the moment

username max verstappen, the only man ever🫶🏽

charles_leclerc nice one mate, congrats! 👊🏽

username no megan appearance, no like, no comment… are we out of the woods?

username oh wow, she didn’t go to 1 race, they obviously must have broken up 🙄

username no but seriously, did her contract ended or something?

username girl why are you so obsessed with their relationship? just leave them alone srsly

liked by megan.galantis, bffusername and others

f1gossippofficial max verstappen has been seen lately on multiple dates with actress y/n y/l/n around monaco

view all comments

username he’s been seen on WHAT

username with WHOM

username but… what about megan…

username what about her?

username never thought of y/n as a homewrecker

username never thought of max as a CHEATER!

username im not mad about this pairing tbh🤔

username megan liking this post and unliking it???

username and y/n’s best friend liking it also

username she’s so unserious

liked by bffusername, maxverstappen1 and others

ynusername moments📷

view all comments

username bestie who took the pics?👀

username don’t be shy you can tell us🤭

username THE PEOPLE’S PRINCESS

bffusername the most beautiful and pretty and talented and funny and smart and

ynusername i’ll marry you rn😩

username after those pics with max i can’t see her the same

username HOMEWRECKER

username haters gonna hate fr y/n i love you if you see this! 💕

maxverstappen1 🥰 (liked by ynusername)

username oh that’s not…

username this is so wrong in so many levels😭

liked by carlossainz55, ynusername and others

maxverstappen1 another successful weekend for the team, hopefully many more to come! 🇨🇦

view all comments

username “hopefully many more to come” as if we don’t know he’s gonna win all the races already

username being a red bull fan is sooo easy and fun i love it here

username i miss seeing megan in the paddock :(

username jesus christ who understands you, when she was there you hated on her and when she isn’t you miss her

username also, she just missed two races, like😭

username let’s goooo super max

redbullracing many more to come👊🏽

ynusername 🏎🏎 (liked by maxverstappen1)

username she really has no shame huh?

liked by landonorris, maxverstappen1 and others

ynusername yes, and?

tagged maxverstappen1

view all comments

username this was the last thing i expected when i open instagram

username pls the caption😭

username she’s NOT a serious person and i love her for it

username welcome back ariana grande😍

landonorris and my credits for the last picture?

ynusername props to you🙄

username hottest couple imo

username this post single handedly convinced me to watch her show

username it’s so good honestly!!

username yesss y/n and max bringing back messy celebrity couples we love to see it!

maxverstappen1 my one and only girlfriend you’re everything❤️

ynusername you’re too much love!💘

username not the “one and only girlfriend” !!

[caffeinewitchcraft]

AITA for being proud of my job as a regional Nightmare?

My sister told me she’s making her own post and that if I was so sure I wasn’t TA then I should make my own so here I am.

I’m a regional Nightmare. I’m very proud of how hard I worked to get here. Not many terrors in their 20s get this high up and it’s because I do the work. I get up at 8pm and I’m out in the woods grinding out those quotas until dawn. Sometimes I sleep out there in my uniform just so I can be the first on scene for the multi-part jobs. I’m efficient, I’m punctual, and I’m committed. My goal is to be a Cyptid by the time I’m 30 and, to do that, I have to stay on at all times.

As a result, I work a lot. I’m often not home for days at a time. I have a very strict training regimen and my time for friends and family is virtually nonexistent. That’s why when I do get the time to hang out, I prefer to spend my time intentionally. What I mean by that is that I don’t want to sit on a couch when I could be lifting weights. I don’t want to chill in the pool when I could be volunteering for new scares. I especially don’t want to gossip over tea when I could be getting overtime.

Last Saturday, my sister invited a bunch of family over to her house. My job in the Virginia woods fell through, so I decided to go. Silly (her childhood nickname) said she had something important to tell the family so I thought it wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

Key word: thought.

When I got to Silly’s house, I was surprised to see so many cars out front. Our parents were there and our older brother. The house was packed. There were cousins, aunts, uncles and a ton of people I didn’t know.

At first the event was fine. Silly’s always been a good cook (see, I know you’re reading this, Silly, and see? I do compliment you when do something actually good) and everyone was really enjoying the flank steak (though I did have to save it before she cooked it medium well). But as the day wore on, I could tell people were getting bored. Silly and Mom were focused on cleaning up and said that dessert would have to wait until her fiance got home. Which was kind of rude to be late and I felt really bad for Silly. It seems like my soon to be brother-in-law (BIL for short) is never around when she needs him.

In an effort to help, I engaged some of the people I didn’t know in conversation because the party was getting a little dead and I didn’t want one of my sister’s parties to fail. I was trying hard not to think about the time I was wasting waiting for my future BIL so it also served as a distraction.

It turns out one of the guys was a fellow terror. He worked a corporate job and we talked for a while about the pros of being freelance like me. He asked me a lot of questions and I was happy to mentor another terror.  Corporate can suck the art out of what we do. My clients only care if the quota for their mission is met and don’t enforce such strict timelines. They come to me for quality. Poor guy barely had time to mend his uniform between scares (his cloak was tattered and his hook hand was rusty) so I recommended my tailor and blacksmith.

The guy and I exchanged information. I gave him my business card and he looked for one of his. While he looked, I felt nature calling so I headed upstairs to use my sister’s bathroom (like hell I was going to use the same one as my Uncle Joe). From up there, I saw my future BIL pull into the driveway.

 Being a regional Nightmare is a tough job. Like I said, I have to train a lot to keep my certification. So I thought it’d be a good idea to get a scare on my BIL both to punish him for being late and to make up for all the time I’d already wasted at the party.

So I waited for him to come upstairs to change and, when he did, I pulled out the works. I darkened the room and fell back into the shadows. Then, while he groped for the light switch, I stretched out my leg (I have an extra joint in them) and tried to nudge him. I honestly didn’t expect for him to trip and I DEFINITELY didn’t expect for him to fall backwards. I’ve been practicing this skill on my family since I was sixteen and got the leg extension mod and none of them ever fell like that.

My future BIL fell down the stairs. I panicked and raced over to look over the banister. He was fine! He wasn’t bleeding or anything and, when I saw that, I started to laugh.

Everyone freaked out though. They all said I was being immature and bullying my BIL. I told them it wasn’t bullying, it was my actual job. I said that I was just joking and didn’t know my BIL, a former “Cryptid”, would take it so hard.

My mom jumped in and backed me up, but my sister has always been the Queen of the castle. Silly and Dad kicked me out ( I mean, I let them, I’ve got enhanced strength and I didn’t want to hurt them). Dad called me a disgrace and to not come back home.

I asked him if he was really kicking me out just because I wanted to show off my skills a little? And he said yes. And Silly said I had it coming to me for a long time.

I don’t even know what went wrong.

 So AITA for taking pride in my work?

---.

SillyCreeper says: Oh my god, you actually made this post? You’re an actual idiot. For anyone who believes this story, read mine before you vote. My brother left out a few details like how the party was my GENDER REVEAL PARTY and that he’s not a regional Nightmare, he’s a  Slasher for hire.

OP replies: I am TRAINED to operate as a regional Nightmare. That makes me an independent regional Nightmare.

SillyCreeper replies: Regional Nightmares don’t steal failed missions from corporate Slashers

OP replies: Get your own post, Silly

SillyCreeper: Oh, I already did. Have fun being torn apart on yours, dumbass.

-----

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to read Silly's AITA post a week early, please consider becoming a patron (X)!

Aita for going no contact with my brother after he pulled a Scare on my husband?

I'm working on this anthology during November and I'm having a blast with this story in particular! The family drama keeps going on and on

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

🎉 Thank You for 10k+ Followers!! 🎉

A big thank you goes out to @cozymochi for this beautiful celebratory commissioned artwork for this major milestone ✨ It really captures the scope of all the content that had been put out in the last 4+ years—both in terms of official Twst materials and on this blog! I think it’s very fitting that we hit this milestone in the month of Halloween too (I just held off on posting this til the month after); it’s Twst’s biggest holiday of the year, so it’s twice the cause for celebration!!

A lot has happened over the course of my time in this fandom. I’ve written many things of course, but I’ve also had many other exciting opportunities! I’ve been interviewed for a paper, met many cool people from all over the world, attended Twst meetups + events, collaborated with other talented creators, received kind gifts, contributed to various fandom projects, and finished telling the origins of my Twst OC. This blog has been with me through a lot of major changes and difficult hurdles in my life too—it’s really been an anchor for me, a comforting and safe space for me to be creative or analytical whenever I want to be.

When I first started this blog as a very casual hobby in summer of 2020, I never even considered that it would balloon to this extent. It still doesn’t feel totally real to me 😭 I don’t usually fixate on numbers (they make me anxious), but looking back on it, 10k is a LOT, and 4 years is a long time. To put that in perspective, if we were in Twisted Wonderland for 4 years then all of the students we’ve come to know and love would have graduated by now. That’s crazy to me. We’ve come so far as a group.

I feel that a large part of fandom is the community that comes with it. I would have found it so challenging to stick with Twst had I not had so many great people keeping me engaged with it. I’d now like to take a moment to thank those folks. Keeping in line with the idea of “4 years”, think of these as little messages scrawled in a yearbook. I also have a blog event planned to celebrate! More on that later.

Please note that I’ve used pseudonyms for most of the following people, as I’d like to respect their privacy (I’m very private myself) + not all of them are comfortable with being explicitly named or tagged to a large crowd. You’ll know who you are if you see yourself on here.

Without further ado:

MSS — Thank you for being the first Twst space I felt truly a part of. It’s still the place I consider my fandom “home” beyond this blog.

April — Thank you for making MSS as a place for us to share! We’re tsunderes in solidarity.

Drinking Knight — The banners wouldn’t exist without your help. Thanks for getting the ball rolling on those; I’d like to think that I’m a little more confident in designing new ones myself now, but you were the start of it all. Your endless enthusiasm for the most insane otome boys, drinks, and bullying (positive) others is truly an inspiration.

Q. Opinionated — Can’t count the number of times you ran tech support for me 💀 Thanks so much for being patient and willing to laugh at a stupid situation. I WILL grip you (escape is not an option) 🤲

Dad with his Printer — Why are you so cheeky My unofficial proofreader and fact checker. Still treasure the teeny J word and coffin magnets you sent, and, even more valuable than those, the bad dad jokes/puns advice and wisdom you give. Wishing you luck on your art adventure.

A. Cider — An unexpected friend I met very late into the fandom and happened to run into irl by total coincidence. Funny how life works. Your shitposts are great, and I appreciate having a like-minded person to talk with about the J words and story critiques. I’d also like to thank you for the many little doodles you’ve made; I know you’re very busy and have a wife to tend to at home but I appreciate that you still make time for friends.

Hana — Extroverted pink-haired magical girl representation. Your bubbly love for Disney, Diasomnia, singing, and (yes) angst lights up the entire room. Maybe you’re not too confident with yourself are right now, but I know you’ll find your way.

Swan — For being quick on the uptake and giving me the heads up about various things! We may not talk much one-on-one, but I’m thinking of you and enjoy seeing you pitch into the conversation. You’re still banned for L*ona posting though/j

Ly — My secret French twin/j Thanks for being my cultural + equine advisor and a voice of (salty) reason. Never shut up about your hyperfixations! You’re a real one.

Oys — Enabler + encourager of my Yan!Sil delusions. Sorry for making your blood pressure spike every time we talk about our food takes. But hey, at least we get a good laugh out of it :))

Mac and Bean — For being my inspirations. Bean, you have such atmospheric writing. I hope my writing style can be just as magical as yours. Mac, it was your blog that first got me into starting my own Twst writing. You never stop being so, so funny also I blame you 120% for the L*ona rot.

Peaches and Cream — To my local Twst friends, thanks for keeping me company even through the hard times. Peaches, happy to be your local Twst dealer anytime. Cream, thanks for hooking me up with new books.

Salt and Flora — I don’t know where you vanished to, but the sea brought you back to me on its tides. I’m so happy we could meet again. Salt, you’re so talented at crochet and design work; get your coin 😂 Flora, you’re the sweetest person ever. Literally cottagecore personified, even in your art.

Piano — We don’t always see eye to eye, but thank you for being my serial debater and showing me new perspectives. Your open-minded theories and analyses are such fun. And, of course, it’s always hilarious to think about how we accidentally (?) swapped oshis 🤡 You’re a star.

The Anklebiter — For having the most unhinged jokes and ideas. Seriously, THE most unhinged. I never do any of the crazy things you suggest but I’m always really entertained from just hearing them.

Te, Mi, and Ro — Thanks for organizing local events and giving me an excuse to touch grass. It’s a lot of hard work and you guys manage to pull it off every time! Mi, I was flattered to have you reach out to me to help a little with the Tweel cupsleeve event. Happy to help anytime! Te, I remember you were cosplaying as Kalim when we first met and I kept thinking about how perfectly suited you are for the role. You were very friendly and made such an effort to include everyone in the event even when I was Idia-ing in the corner. To this day, you continue to spontaneously introduce me to new people 😂 Thanks for getting me put of my comfort zone. Ro, I didn’t think we’d meet again like this. Small world! You’re learning and improving the big events. Here’s hoping to many more!

Vic — For being Ace Trappola when very few others would. It’s refreshing to have someone tell it like it is. I wish I could be as bold and as honest as you are sometimes. You have such a big heart when it comes to the characters you love; it makes me want to adore them like you do too 🫶

Kana — For being so sweet and patient. You helped me through so many rough patches and have also contributed a lot to the look of the blog. It’s so fun gushing with you about magical girls and pretty boys, sharing our favorite shows and movies… I feel as though I’ve made a lifelong friend.

Zari — Thank you for charms and art book, big fan of your stuff 😭 So honored to have worked with you on projects too. I hope to see a lot more of your Yuu and other OCs around, I love following them ^^

Lala — You understand, encourage, and validate my weird tastes in fictional men 💕 Really admire your sense of fashion and stylish nails too. Whenever I have my shrimp apron on, I think of you.

Arisu — No longer in the Twst fandom but integral in the earliest days. Wherever you are now, I wish you nothing but happiness.

P-san — You’re a lifesaver!! Thank you so much for helping me find cute little outfits and accessories for my plushies… They are forever grateful to be properly clothed.

V, Fa, Fe, Ray, Rea, Sonny, Glimmer Group, and Incognito Crew — Thanks for being so supportive of my hyperfixation on Disney villain anime boys, even if you guys have NO clue what I’m rambling about half of the time. To V specifically 🫵 I am NOT a cat boy kisser

Mango — I didn’t know I wanted you in my life until you showed up uninvited one day and chewed your way into my heart.

Azul Ashengrotto — For being the character that first convinced me into giving this game a shot. The Little Mermaid was something I always held so dear to me, so it almost seems like destiny that you’d be the one to drag me down into Twst. You’ll always hold a special place in my heart for that, even if my feelings have changed since then.

Rook Hunt — For being there when I needed to laugh a little. It’s scary to glance over my shoulder sometimes, but you make it easier to smile as I look back.

Rollo Flamme — For letting me know that having negative feelings is normal and human, even if we don’t always cope with them in the healthiest of ways. Let’s reflect and be better together!

Leona Kingscholar — For showing me that change and personal growth is, in fact, possible. Th-This doesn’t mean I like you or anything though, so get off your high horse—

Jade Leech — For taking my hand and guiding me back on the path when I got lost in the dark. Whatever crimes you may commit in your free time, I forgive you/j

Miss Raven Crowley — The little black bird who could, the blog muse. I made you on a whim and look at where you are now… You went from a background character to the main character of your own story. So proud of you, my child 😭

Asset compilers, fan artists, fanfic writers, fan translators, cosplayers, merch makers, editors, plushie pic takers, video essayists, theorizers, etc. — You’re all so important to keeping the fandom alive, especially during periods of official content drought. It wouldn’t be feasible for me to list out all of the content creators I enjoy (chjsbsksks and it honestly might be awkward since I haven’t directly interacted with most of them), but I hope that this message still reaches you and finds you well. Keep doing your thing; I love seeing the work you put out ^^

Anyone and everyone that I’ve ever commissioned and/or received fan works from — I appreciate that you took time and energy out of your day to create something for me. There’s so much talent in the Twst fandom and I’m honored that you would dedicate some of that to a silly little birb.

You, the Readers — For supporting this blog and and what I do here! You’re an important part of my journey too.

Thank you!! Here’s to a future unknown and a page unwritten.

- The Writing Raven