#I've lived here for over two years now and have made zero new friends

[curious-dragon-hoarder]

I have been making cookies since before 11am. It is now 1am. I had expected this to take *at most* until 5pm. I still need to package everything up so that they won't disintegrate into crumbs in the mail, but I just sat down on the floor for the first time all day and was just demolished by a huge wave of exhaustion. I have to do this now bc they have to go in the mail before work tomorrow, but just.....I'm so tired 😭

[undertale-fic-librarby]

Hiya! I'm looking for any Sans or Papyrus X male reader fics. Don't really care if it's fluff or angst

Howdy, thanks for asking! Here are some fics that might fit what you're looking for!

What's Keeping You Here by MissSugarPink (Explicit, Incomplete)

Your name is unimportant. Your job is nonexistent, really. And your (ex)roommate just kicked you out in the middle of a surprisingly cold November night. But whatever. You don't care. You'll be fine. Keep telling yourself that as you freeze to death, idiot. But you'll be fine, for one reason! Two, actually. Two people - monsters really - who just so happen to have the same names as some fonts you know of? You stay with them instead, just to get back on your feet, and a single question rises to your mind. What the hell is keeping you here? (Explicit chapters marked with ***. Explicit chapter count: 2) Book One: The Answer (Chapters 1 to 60) Book Two: The Question (Chapters 61 to Present)

Dirty Laundry (Menswear Edition) by popatochisp (Teen And Up, Complete)

You're new around here and just trying to get by. You really should've known better. *A SWAPFELL FIC* This time, with he/him pronouns! (Includes some content from The Hamper where the Reader was gendered)

Cold and Warmth by ThiefofStealth (Explicit, Incomplete)

You're just a plain adult that never care about what other people thinking and doesn't give a shit with. Or a stoic, as other people said. And because of that, you have only a few to zero friends. Ever since the barrier broke and the Monsters were freed, Humans are anxious and cautious to them, even though a few years had passed. Now, you live by yourself--oh wait, you have a pet rabbit!--and work at the nearest convenience store with so-so salary. But somehow, you met with some monsters as you live your life normally. Or so you thought. And who knows? Maybe these Monsters are not the cruel monsters we usually know about.

A Skeleton's Connection (Sans/Male Reader) by ComicalFont (Teen And Up, Complete)

As a human that's recently moved to the Underground, you've had a lot on your plate. The scenery's amazing, and you couldn't ask for a more thoughtful society to be in, but only a simple job's landed so far, and there aren't any close friends around yet. With all that going on, there's a lot for you to get used to... until, that is, you choose a comedy show over noodles one fateful night. On that night, you meet a dorky set of bones that just so happens to change everything. Features artwork throughout the story by Tumblr artist lennyclover! Check out more of their fantastic work here! https://lennyclover.tumblr.com/

Bone Broth 'Male Reader' by Willowwind101 (Mature, Incomplete)

I've always been like this. Stuck in the dark only ever seeing inches of the light. Until I'm snatched away from it time and time again. After all I was born like this. Needing the blood and magic of other to stay alive. I do my very best to only take what I need. That being said I don't know what came over me when I saw the bright blue skeleton. He... He just smelled so good to the point it made my brain fuzzy. I swear I didn't mean to claim him.

[voskhozhdeniye]

So @bobbyhillrealness is doing a zine on artists among their friends and family, and has sent us questions to answer about our art. One of the questions is, "Three songs that would describe your work?"

I figured I'd share my answer on here too. I'll do three songs that have been/are influential to my music, and three of my own that I look at as moments where it felt like things clicked for me.

Nine Inch Nails - Vessel: Year Zero was my first NIN album. Trent and Radiohead are probably the two groups that after being raised on major label top 40s as a child, and well into my teens, really made me pay attention to aspects of being an artist that I had never considered. There's a Thom York quote about Radiohead opening for R.E.M., and how while musically R.E.M. aren't a huge influence on Radiohead, being around R.E.M. showed them how to carry themselves as a band. Both NIN and Radiohead have had nasty battles with record labels in the past. Trent has been trying to put out a live DVD since 2008. His ex record label, which he hasn't been on since 2007, has blocked each attempt. In 2008, he "helped" fans sneak cameras into multiple shows. He then "leaked" his personal audio recordings of those shows online. The fans made and distributed their own DVD. Both bands, in different ways, taught me to value the creative process. As for the song in general, I had never heard anything like that at the time. That song, and the album in general, really made me pay attention to what I was listening to. I started questioning what I was listening to, and wondering how it was made. After years of listening to Trent's music, the thing I've noticed is that he is very good at fitting noisy, experimental sounds, tones and ideas into compact pop music structure. Closer sounds like a children's merry go round in hell. My Movement modular synth was built to sound like Vessel.

DJ Shadow - Stem/Long Stem: Every song on this album is made up of samples from other songs. So the drums might be from one song, the bass from another, a guitar sample from one place, a piano sample from another, and so on. Earlier, I'm referencing an answer to another question not mentioned in this post, I spoke about how I gather scraps from everyday life for my art, particularly for my writing. Shadow is the musical equivalent, gathering samples from all over the musical spectrum to build new compositions. I think of art like papier-mâché. You take small pieces and build towards a grander piece. Trent and Miles Davis, when he was alive, worked in a similar way to Shadow, except instead of using other people's samples. They record their bands playing, and then chop up, sample, and rearrange their own recordings. That's where I'm at with my music now.

Yellow Swans - Going Places & Pan Sonic - Teurastamo: Yellow Swans and Pan Sonic are groups I've learned about in recent years. Both have influenced my music in different ways. Yellow Swans are noisy, walls of sound. When I first started building the modular, the goal was to build a drone machine. As I built it, the Daft Punk fan in me also wanted a say in its construction. There was a point where I found these two influences to be conflicting. I have always loved Daft Punk's Rollin' & Scratchin'. While that song is a good example of that combination, I imagined noise damaged dance music, equally indebted to both styles. Pan Sonic made dance music, but they were equally interested in harsh noise. Early Yellow Swans incorporates drums and at times sounds like really aggressive '90s Busta Rhymes beats. I haven't really looked up what either band's creative process was, but through listening, I've picked up things that I've attempted to try with the tools and knowledge available to me.

As for my own music.

December: There's a joke among modular synth users. There are multiple formats of modular. The version I use is named Eurorack. It's been nicknamed by some as Eurocrack. This is from 2017. It was the first of my now monthly State of the Artist patch. I was less than a year into everything at that point, and was spending money on modules unsure if I actually had talent, or if it was the money hiding deficiencies. Looking back, that was a very simple patch, but my inexperience made it a good teaching moment. I think that was the first thing I made that made me feel like it wasn't the money. Honestly, at times it has been money holding me back, but a lot of times it's just been inexperience, which is resolved with time, and the lack of ability to transfer thoughts into tangible art. I feel like your creative process is learning how to overcome that hurdle.

The Future: This was April 2020. I had just gotten the music computer right before Christmas and was still learning my way around. I had formed an early process when working on the computer, and was working at getting more comfortable with it. This is a very simple track. It's just a short sequence repeating over and over while I manipulate the filter type and filter cutoff. I'm very interested in catharsis through art. This was an attempt at something like Nils Frahm's Says.

Nature Walk Daydream: This is longer than it needs to be, but oh well. This is from April, and it really conveys the DJ Shadow everything goes in the pot thinking I spoke about earlier. This starts with multiple loops of birds I recorded early one morning. Eventually, a synth that resembles the bird calls joins in. As the song slowly unfolds, drums come in and the bird calls become a part of a beat. The idea for the song is that you're taking a walk through the woods and begin to daydream. When it goes back to just the birds, it's you being snapped out of the daydream.

[witchhatproductions]

Witch Hat News #4 - Lessons from the Archives

by Tata Calthrop

This is an archived version of our microfiction newsletter! You can read along on our tumblr, or subscribe here.

Which archive, you may ask? Well, it's quite simple.

Our own one.

Yes, like many twenty-somethings in the creative field now, I was forged in a rather specific fire – the classic Internet pipeline of Neopets, Deviantart, Tumblr, Twitter, usually interspaced at some point with either a gender crisis or a formal diagnosis of mental illness.

You see, for a young nerdy preteen in 2010, you have two sexy choices made available to you, neither of which you will perceive until it's too late. You will choose either the path of solitude (voraciously consuming and creating content in incredible loneliness and feeling like the only person in the world who does so), or the path of the internet, where you will learn at an incredibly young age how to receive and handle a death threat. I was raised on a raw, unfiltered diet of fandom. (Sonic the Hedgehog. The world has not been kind to me.)

The fans and the hermits have a lot to teach each other. In fact, as easy as it is to make fun of – well – most people on the internet, there is something valuable to be learned from every subculture of creativity, including the horny ones. 

So let me make a confession to you: I'm a fanfiction writer. I have a shameful record of 155,821 words, none of which will ever give me a scrap of credibility with anyone, including other fanfiction writers. (Heavy is the head that wears the dunce hat of Adventure/Comedy.) Hell, I've spent over a year picking away at a fancomic project. For zero dollars and no publication accolades, I have written at least five full completed novellas, which will never be published, be recognised, or prove anything except my big, fat crush on the uncle from Encanto.

My god, was it freeing.

The social pressure to monetize your art is insane. I took my first art commission before I even had my first bank account. It was my teenage dream: to be paid is to obtain credibility. The label will hang over your head like an execution hood: PROFESSIONAL. Of course, the loop never really stops; start making money and suddenly your eyes are open to how many opportunities you're missing, and how little you make compared to others, and how wide the chasm is between you and full-time creation. 

(That's not to say the money and recognition aren't nice! That part I do recommend.)

But making fan content, and making friends who also make fan content, and building up a small audience of people who just want to be there for fun is incredibly liberating when you're not used to it. Get a bunch of friends who create together, join a community that makes its own memes and creates a bubble of mutual feedback and appreciation, and you start to realise: this is how they made the old tales, the oral ones before the printing press.

Here's two lessons from the archives.

Love characters. Fall in love with their vulnerable moments, their jokes, their relationship dynamics, the little unseen parts of them that you can never put in a real story because there's simply no point. Linger on the details. Develop a little crush. Project all your issues and obsess over nothing. Love your own characters, and you'll find suddenly that creating art about them changes from a chore to an act of affection. Learn what makes you fall in love with other stories, and look for the same aspects in your own.

Making art to impress a large audience will disappoint you; making art to impress a social circle of about ten interested people is how life is supposed to be lived. The early humans who painted mammoths on cave walls had no audience except themselves.

Here's a quote I like, from Prof. Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California: "Contemporary Web culture is the traditional folk process working at lightning speed on a global scale. The difference is that our core myths now belong to corporations, rather than the folk.”

Here's another quote I like, from twitter user @FarfinFarfin: "the fastest way to improve your art is to become some sort of pervert, doesn't really matter what kind, whatever you're comfortable with". 

Reviews

The Northern Caves by @nostalgebraist. The Northern Caves is a cosmic horror story about unwary scholars who delved too deep into the ancient texts, except the scholars are a group of hardcore nerds on an early 2000s fan forum for a mediocre fantasy series, and the ancient texts are fan theories about the author's baffling final novel. I know almost nothing about original fiction on Archive of Our Own, but I recognise a wonderfully online scary story when I see one. Psychological, terrifying, and twistedly fascinating reading for anyone who's ever watched an online community implode.

Songs for Girls in Love by @phemiec. PhemieC was one of my favourite musicians as a teenager, and when I got into my first relationship I rushed into the familiar arms of their love songs. They also were making, at the time, Homestuck fansongs. But when I was 15, this music made more of an impact on me than any classic musician ever could. Songs for Girls In Love has a number of fansongs mixed in, largely for things I've never consumed, but you'd never know it from their lyrical subtlety and I'm still a huge fan. 

Digital Land Grab: Media corporations are stealing our cultural heritage. Can we take it back? By Henry Jenkins. Okay, okay, this one's not exactly micro or fiction of any sort. But it is the article that I quoted earlier, and Prof. Jenkins could be described as the grandfather of fanwork studies in academia. A good read about the history and creative validity of fanwork, and the ways in which corporations suppress it. I highly recommend it, even if you know nothing about fanfiction.

Your project here. Do you make art of any kind - visual, written, performed? Are you starting a project or recruiting co-creators? We want to hear from you! Email us at contact@witchhatproductions.com.

That's it for June. See you next month!

[rubyleaf]

Went through my blog again for the funsies and discovered an old, old tag game from 2016. And boy, am I shaking my head at it. Not only is 17-year-old me hilariously and stubbornly convinced she's straight, she's also very self-deprecating and generally not in a good place.

So I thought: why not answer these questions again, over seven years later, just to see how things have changed?

So here goes. The update.

MOST RECENT:

Drink: Water! I have a glass next to me right now and I'm staying nice and hydrated :) Phone call: Mom, earlier this afternoon, to make sure I'm still healthy and haven't died from acute Moved Out And Living Unsupervised Disease. Shockingly, I'm alive and well. Text: Dad, joking about the Berlin lioness boar thing. I still refuse to believe it was a boar BTW. I don't know what it was, but those pictures do NOT look like a boar.

Song you listened to: Saosin – "You're Not Alone" Time you cried: You know, I genuinely don't remember. Might've been weeks ago. I barely cry anymore these days, except from laughter or the occasional tearing up over a heartwarming scene in a show.

Dated someone twice: No, and unless the circumstances were very special, I wouldn't. If the ship has sailed, it has sailed for a reason. Been cheated on: Single, thriving, in my lane, cannot be cheated on if I don't have a partner. Peace and love on Planet Earth. Lost someone special: Lost touch with many friends over the years. Staying in touch is still hard. But honestly, some of them turned out to not be that special after all in the first place and a lot have stayed too, so really, it's fine. Been depressed: Nah. Been drunk and thrown up: Still don't like alcohol, still don't drink ✌️ Your three favourite colours: Purple! And pink, and the third one…maybe red!

IN THE LAST YEAR, HAVE YOU:

Made a new friend: So many. So so many. Fallen out of love: Yep! Laughed until you cried: Just this week alone! Met someone who changed you: I think so! Found out who your true friends are: Yes. And to the people who turned out not to be—thanks for making it easier to watch you leave right now. Found out someone’s talking about you: In the "bringing up my existence" way? Yes. Badly? No—someone probably did, but not my problem.

EXTRAS

How many people from your fb list do you know irl: What Facebook? Do you have any pets: Not at the moment. Hard to keep any in a dorm room. I'd like to maybe get a small dog someday though! Do you want to change your name: Not anymore. When I was little I used to hate my name because everyone kept misspelling or mispronouncing it, but now I like it even if people still get it wrong all the time. Sometimes it still feels weird and othering, in an irrational sort of way, but I can't imagine myself being called anything else. What did you do for your last birthday: Had drinks with some people from my orientation group in one guy's dorm apartment. Casually came out as bi over a game of Never Have I Ever. Wound up at a party even though I had an 8:30 AM class the next morning. Zero regrets. What were you doing last night at midnight? Sitting on my bed and hitting play on the brand-new Meet Me @ the Altar song that dropped last night!!! Name something you can’t wait for: MM@TA EU tour in October! I've been obsessed with them for two years and finally they come here to play some shows and the first time I saw the announcement I legit busted a lip in my excitement. Unfortunately not a hyperbole.

Last time you saw your mum: Last time I visited home—early May I think? What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: Better executive functions so I struggle less with getting stuff done, especially uni stuff and household chores. Currently trying to do something about that, actually! If I'm really lucky I might get an ADHD diagnosis in the foreseeable future and maybe meds…? What are you listening to rn: Fall Out Boy – "We Didn't Start the Fire" Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Often. It's quite a common name where I live! What’s getting on your nerves rn: One word: THESIS. Which I for some reason struggle to do anything about. Blood type: Still unknown! Nickname: Several shorter forms of my civilian name. On here, Ruby. Zodiac Sign: Aquarius Pronouns: she/her Favourite tv show: At the moment: ATLA (and Legend of Korra), Ted Lasso, Good Omens. Probably more I'm forgetting. High school: Graduated in 2016! College: In my Masters! I have an undergraduate degree in law now :D Long or short hair: Long, down to my hips. I used to have short hair as a kid, but I’ve always wanted long hair. Height: 159 cm or 5′2.5′’. Do you have a crush on someone: I try to tell myself that no, I'm just very fond of the person. Platonically. What do you like about yourself: I'm creative and adaptable! I'm good at winging it when the situation requires it, and I usually get things figured out one way or another. I'm a hype woman for my friends, and I like the way I can find joy and excitement in all corners of life. Also, not to toot my own horn but I'm really proud of my style right now! Right or left handed: Right-handed. First surgery: None. Piercing: None. First best friend: Probably Rebecca, in first grade. It’s a shame I moved away, I wonder what she’s doing now. First sport you joined: Ballet, when I was five or six. Kept doing it until early fifth grade, then changed to horseback riding. First vacation: Probably to my grandparents’ vacation home somewhere at the North Sea. Don’t remember a thing though, I was one or something.

RIGHT NOW:

Eating: Nothing. Drinking: Water, still! I’m about to: Hopefully write a bit more for the mystery project 👀 Listening to: Meet Me @ the Altar – "Give It Up"

WANT:

Kids: Yes, eventually. I'd like a stable partner first (although if push comes to shove I wouldn't mind raising my kids solo), and most importantly I'd like to be my own person for a couple of years and not be bound by duty to everyone else. Travel, explore the world and myself, get all that out of my system so I can truly go into motherhood with no regrets. Get married: Yes, if I find the right person to do it with. Career: Study law and work for the EU or an NGO.

WHICH IS BETTER:

Lips or eyes: Eyes. I don't pay much attention to lips outside of someone having a cute smile! Hugs or kisses: Kisses are nice, but I still prefer hugs! Taller or shorter: IDGAF. I still love my tall lanky noodle men, but I'm not picky. With women, even less so. Girl is taller than me? Awesome, great for being held. Shorter than me? CUTE. Older or younger: Around my age, rest doesn't matter. I'm at an age where anything between 20-30 is fair game, but any younger or older and it gets creepy. Romantic or spontaneous: A mixture of both. Nice stomach or nice arms: If the person is nice, their body will be nice too. It's an automatic process. I don't make the rules. Sensitive or loud: A combination of both! Troublemaker or hesitant: Secret third thing where they're chaotic but also too shy to really make a move.

HAVE YOU EVER

Kissed a stranger: Does "someone I talked to all evening but didn't know before that and didn't meet again afterwards" count? Drank liquor: Tried a bit, same as everybody. Found it nasty. Didn't try again. Lost glasses/contacts: Don't have any to lose. (Given the way I've been treating my eyes: yet?) Had sex on the first date: I'm asexual and I refuse. Broke someone’s heart: Yes, and let's leave it at that. Turned someone down: I'm a woman existing in public. Having to turn down random men is a recurring part of my experience. Cried when someone died: Not really—I seem to shut down and go blank more than anything else. I used to feel guilty about it, but now I've learned that everyone processes grief and loss differently and it doesn't mean I care less. Fallen for a friend: Yes, repeatedly, it has yet to end well, and it will probably happen again.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

Yourself: Mostly yes. There are some things I need help with before I can unlock my full potential, but one thing I've learned is that I always manage in the end. And once I get proper help, I have no doubt I'll be just fine. Miracles: I don't like to rely on them, but I do believe that unlikely good things can and do happen. Love at first sight: Not for myself, I need to get to know a person before I fall for them. I do believe in attraction at first sight though. Heaven: It's a nice thought, but whether or not it exists doesn't matter to me. Our task in life is the same regardless: try to be kind and treat others well and hopefully leave the world a slightly better place. Santa Claus: No, and never really have. My parents never claimed he was real; my Christmas presents always came from the family that visited on Christmas Eve. Kissing on a first date: Did it once, it was okay. I think it's one of those "take it or leave it" things—if the chemistry is right, sure, go for it, but it's definitely not for everyone in every situation.

[annieintheaair]

I'm not scared of dying lonely, it's the living part that gets me.

So I'm running through airports getting lost, going somewhere I can turn it off, all my baggage in a carry-on.

I eliminated some people from my life last week due to a lack of boundaries. My therapist and I have been working on re-establishing boundaries in my life and I know she didn’t mean for me to remove people but it felt like a painful, yet obvious step.

My mom said I should be flattered that so many guys want to date me. Sure, it’s flattering, but it’s also exhausting trying to maintain friendships with people who don’t seem to understand that you have zero interest in ever dating them. Part of it is specific-- I really don't want to date those people, but part of it is also general-- I can't see myself dating anyone right now. My mom said something on the phone yesterday that made me feel like I'm broken in some way because she said that most people want a relationship. It's not that I don't want one but that I can't put myself back out there again and allow others to hurt me. I honestly don't think my heart could take it even one more time.

When I was younger, back in my 20s, when Dan did stupid things and cheated and hurt me, of course, all of it broke me and of course, all of it had lasting effects on me. My mom told me once that she thought Dan had ruined me because, for a long time, I was so unwilling to even consider dating (and here I am, again). The truth is, nothing really broke me until Dan died. When he passed away two years ago, it made it feel like nothing else mattered. All of the pain I felt over the years was gone, and a new kind of pain arrived. This time, it was a hollowing kind of pain where nothing ever felt like it would fill the void.

Just over two years later, it's still hard. The void still can't be filled and I don't think it ever will. I tried to fill the void with a relationship for months only to realize that I was wasting my time on someone who didn't actually love me. I wanted someone to love me the way that Dan loved me-- endlessly and effortlessly. I wanted someone to know me on all of my good days and bad and still love me anyway.

When I walked away from a relationship in March, it was painful. I felt like there had been so much good there and losing another person in my life was obviously far from ideal. I thought we had a lot of fun together and the good days outweighed the bad. At the end of the day though, I knew, I needed to be with someone who was not only my best friend but someone who loved me unconditionally. I wanted to be with someone who would fight for us. When I walked away and he let me, it confirmed all of the worst feelings, knowing that he didn't actually love me. Someone who loves you will chase you and want to work things out and he didn't.

I feel like the last few years have been filled with so much heartbreak. I swore after Dan died that I would never love someone again but then I met Todd and even though he didn't love me, I know I loved him. Love should always be reciprocated.

I've been trying to stay busy and get more involved in things. I've stuck to yoga for the last year but I'm going back to pilates next week, which I think will be good for me. I recently joined a women's Bible study on Thursday mornings and this morning went to meet a new community group at a local coffee shop. Of course, so far, I'm the youngest one in the group and the only single one. It's okay though because not being married and not having kids should never make me feel disqualified from enjoying life and getting involved. I want to find community.

I've become a "regular" in a lot of things and places I go here again, which has been really nice. I like having routines and feeling a sense of belonging. I've been so busy and so happy to be back that last night, one of my only Friday nights off from work, I was home and had literally nothing to do but watch TV and pass out on my couch until I dragged myself upstairs at 5am. It was lonely and when my neighbor texted me that she and her husband were having a night in watching movies, I was a little jealous. I miss having someone to stay in with, not just go out with. I think that's actually what keeps me away from dating -- having to go through the process again of going out and meeting people when I really just want someone to stay in with me.

Anyway, I'm about to head out with my neighbors for the night so it's time to sign off here.

xoxo

Annie

[bg12sofia]

Day 30: Free Choice Day

Since today is the Free Choice Day and From Zero release day, I'd like to go off the rules here and leave a few words, 30 days of challenge, one Linkin Park show and one listening party later:

This is our second chance.

Linkin Park has been all about second chances for a while now, even if not directly initially. It's not the first time I mention Hybrid Theory the Portuguese tribute and it probably it won't be the last. They changed my life, got me a community, a family even among their fans. They were my second chance. A second chance to hear Linkin Park music on a concert setting, at a time when the OG band wasn't playing. Also, as someone who barely made and kept friends for the previous almost twenty years, they were my second chance to learn how to make them again, as an insecure thirty-something.

I know Hybrid Theory also represented a second chance for other people. For the members themselves, I'm pretty sure it was a second chance for making a living in music, after a few failed attempts. Also for other HT fans. The band gave a few forty-somethings or fifty-somethings a chance to go out, to have fun at shows, meet people, be young again. For two friends of mine, a married couple, the band gave them opportunities to do more stuff together as a couple, after the birth of their son. And I know of at least one couple that met through Hybrid Theory.

And now Linkin Park themselves are getting their second chance. A chance to create and put out music, to play shows, to be a band again. Emily is getting a second go at music, a second band, at 38. Many fans who didn't get to see Linkin Park live before Chester died, but now the band is back on the road and those fans have new chances. And I'm getting a second chance to see my favorite band being a band again – when there were times over the last seven years where I thought it would never happen again. No wonder Mike hasn't stopped grinning for the last two months.

Not that I've fully moved on from Chester. I'll never forget him, no one will, and it still hurts that he isn't there. In fact, he's the only one who didn't get his second chance and it's not fair. However, Linkin Park is his legacy and it lives on. I know he's happy for Mike and the rest of the band, I know he's proud of us and of how much Linkin Park does for all of us.

Ever since Linkin Park came back, fans have been talking about feeling like teenagers again, when they first met the band and Linkin Park was their entire world. I'd be lying if I said I haven't felt eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-three again. But those versions of me hadn't lost as much as I have. They hadn't seen Mike barely keeping it together during a tribute concert for his best friend. They hadn't cried themselves to sleep thinking how Chester and Mike wouldn't share a stage again. They hadn't been to a Hybrid Theory show and felt terribly guilty for enjoying live Linkin Park music sans Linkin Park, wondering if Mike and the others knew how Linkin Park music still brought people together, even if they weren't playing it themselves. Hell, those versions of me hadn't really understood properly half of Linkin Park lyrics.

Present me has been through it all, though. Present me knows how much she owes Linkin Park. She knows how bless she is to have her favorite band back and she won't ever take Linkin Park for granted again. And, if everything goes well, we get to keep them for the rest of our lives (even if they take a few years off here and there).

Thank you for this challenge, this was a lot of fun. Happy From Zero release day! I'll leave you with Two Faced because I can't get over how dorky these guys are on this video. Here's to Linkin Park!

30 Days of Linkin Park Challenge

In light of my favorite band's epic reunion, I’d like to start a challenge. 1 day = 1 post. 

Inspired by this music challenge

I would love to see other LP fans joining! Let's fill the tag with something wholesome as we are waiting for the new album Nov 15.

Day 1: A song that was your introduction to Linkin Park

Day 2: A favorite Linkin Park song that needs to be played LOUD

Day 3: A song that feels overlooked/underrated by Linkin Park fans

Day 4: A favorite Linkin Park music video

Day 5: A Linkin Park song that hasn’t got a music video but you wish it had

Day 6: A Linkin Park song that makes you happy

Day 7: A Linkin Park song that makes you sad

Day 8: A Linkin Park song that makes you want to dance

Day 9: A Linkin Park song you know all the lyrics to

Day 10: A Linkin Park song that you think everybody should listen to, even if they're not into rock

Day 11: A Linkin Park song that you never get tired of

Day 12: A Linkin Park song that you’ve listened to lots of times recently

Day 13: A favorite cover of a Linkin Park song

Day 14: A favorite live performance of a Linkin Park song

Day 15: A favorite heavy Linkin Park song 

Day 16: A favorite Linkin Park song with rapping

Day 17: A favorite ballad or/and acoustic version of a Linkin Park song

Day 18: A favorite remix from Reanimation

Day 19: A favorite song with Chester singing

Day 20: A favorite song with Mike singing

Day 21: A favorite song with Emily singing

Day 22: A favorite Linkin Park song that isn't part of the main discography

Day 23: A favorite Linkin Park song with a featured musician/vocalist

Day 24: A favorite Linkin Park song from a soundtrack

Day 25: A Linkin Park song with the most beautiful/poetic lyrics

Day 26: A Linkin Park song with the most powerful message

Day 27: A Linkin Park song that reminds you of yourself

Day 28: A Linkin Park song that reminds you of a loved one

Day 29: A Linkin Park song that you love, but rarely listen to

Day 30: Free Choice Day

[whythewords]

Grinding for life EXP

I mentioned something in the last post about how I jump on here and complain when things are bad but occasionally celebrate the wins. Well, I got a fucking job! Decent-sized win there.

It's only been two weeks at it, just starting my third but it's going well. I'm feeling good about things so far. It's another step in the master plan, "the big reset" as I have been wont to call it. Did get a bit of a gut punch after looking at house prices in the area and realizing I had zero chance of affording anything, even on the pretty decent salary I was able to snag as someone new to this line of work....but I did my best to shake it off and resume the plan.

I'm gonna put in a year at this new gig, see where I'm at, see if there's any opportunity for growth. I'm going to check back in with the housing market, will it have gotten better or worse? Can I stay here and still attain the ultimate goal of reclaiming my independence after what has already been over a two year slog that somehow simultaneously felt like an eternity and the blink of an eye? And if the answer is no, we move to Plan B...

At some other point in this journal over the last couple of years I've made mention of the idea of moving out east, something I have romanticized for a little while. I've since wavered a little bit on my absolute commitment to that plan, citing the profoundly sad side-effect of being hundreds of miles away from my family and many of my friends...but the way things are now, it almost seems as if I'd need to do that out of necessity...

Nova Scotia has been calling to me for a while. I have great memories of visiting there as a kid in 2000 on a big road trip with my folks, but the real eastern bug bit me when I visited much later as an adult, visiting a friend who had moved out there. Something just felt right. The following year I was there again and just appreciated the slow pace of living even more. As it stands now, housing prices are a lot more reasonable out there...but naturally that could change in a year. In fact, this whole deal has several factors that need to be taken into account: I would be leaving my family and most of my friends, I would need to secure a job out there, things could be very different there in a year in terms of real estate and cost of living. But is it a bad plan? No, not at all. And the idea of ACTUALLY resetting and finding my place in an entirely new locale is once again equal parts scary and very exciting.

But what about sticking around? Is it doable? Perhaps on two incomes. Meaning I would have to find someone my age (many of which I'm finding are already living on their own) and somehow translate that situation into a long-term "let's live together" thing. That would kill off the whole part of the dream where I finally experience what it's like to live TRULY on my own. Not with a roommate, not with a partner, just me. Is it unrealistic to want to do that first? Kinda seems like it is in this economy, and hey guess what? I fucking hate that. I should be able to live that dream. In fact that SHOULDN'T BE a dream. It should just be a normal, societal thing that is easy to do if you have a decent job and a good head on your shoulders. but alas, it seems the last time anyone my age was able to afford to buy a place of their own, was....when I bought half of a place of my own...with my ex-wife. Fuck man.

But let me claw out of this depressing bullshit and back into the "win celebrating" part of this reflection. I AM through a lot of the tough stuff. I did feel myself slipping back into a lonely oblivion for a second there and the online dating thing is seemingly back to a place where it provides a somewhat healthy distraction from that. It is still a LITTLE bit exhausting though. I got to a point with it where, as per usual, I'm ready to call it quits again for a while. So, as always, I figured I'd try one last blitz where I actually USE the apps for a few weeks and fire off messages and likes and whatever other bullshit is available to me, just to play the numbers game and see what sticks. Actually got a couple of matches, started some conversations, they're attractive, they seem cool...the conversations could fizzle out and die at any moment like they often do....ya know, the usual! I think the important part is being prepare for it and being okay with it. Part of me obviously gets bummed out, but another part of me thinks "I dodged the bullet of having to tell these women I live with my parents, and THEN getting the rejection after that. I did drop the ex bomb on one of them already, so she knows I was previously married and it hasn't scared her away...yet.

That's the other thing man, I never know what the conduct is. Should I just put it in my fucking profile that I'm divorced and living with my folks? It shouldn't be a dealbreaker for a lot of people, it may not even be if they actually took the time to get to know me and understand why and how I got to this place...but it IS. It IS a dealbreaker for a lot of folks. And I just want to get the information out before even asking them on a date because I'd feel guilty about blindsiding them with that info...but should I feel guilty about that? I dunno. Each time I do a run of a few months on these apps I feel like I inch even closer to the acceptance that I just ought not bother even trying until I'm living on my own again. Yet another school of thought on this whole situation, and who's to say whether or not its right?

I do know one thing: Loneliness and hurt is a motherfucker. But it does fade. I am still fighting. The desperation demon does still poke at me every so often and has to catch these damn hands. But despite all this, I am levelling. I mean like...like balanced. Like levelling off, not levelling up....

Wait....

Yeah, you know what? Fuck it.

I'n levelling up.

Like a fucking video game character, I am levelling up. And once I've gathered enough EXPERIENCE points...I'll be stronger than ever.

I'll get there. It's like any game. It takes time to get good.

[mooifyourecows]

i am conversational in spanish and have been for a while! i’ve been learning spanish since i was like 12, so i’ve practiced a lot, which is why i’m considering what my next conquest should be. i just really want to continue to improve to the point of fluency. i know all the rules that i would need to function, just vocab is what i haven’t mastered. i don’t know nearly as many words as i need to. i do love spanish music and tv though, and i plan on going to mexico the summer between graduation and college starting to really improve!

also ASL is so cool, tbh i only really know silly stuff like cereal bath and toy and the alphabet, but i learned a bunch when my deaf cousin visited a couple years ago! she was like 4 so she wasn’t really thinking too complexly so it was super easy words but it was so fun! you should definitely try to learn. especially since it’s all physical, eventually it’s muscle memory. like i haven’t looked at the alphabet in so long but i can do almost all of it just because i did it so much when i was younger

In that case, I'd pick the language that you think would be most useful to you! Polish uses a similar alphabet, though with all those accents and what not, so it might be a little easier than Korean. Though I've heard that Korean is pretty difficult to learn for native English speakers, I also hear that Hangul is one of the best designed alphabets in the world. I also think that Korean might be more useful than Polish considering how big Korean media has become in the western world. Polish is probably a little less common, but if you have sentimental reason to learn it, maybe it would be more fun for you?

I think in terms of what would look impressive on a college application or job application, Korean would probably be the better of the two. Partially because learning an entirely new alphabet is super impressive and partially because there's probably a higher demand for Korean speakers vs Polish speakers.

Either way though, it'll be cool to know either of them! What matters most is what YOU want to do 👌

I had a friend who went to college to learn ASL, which was pretty cool but the way she talked about her class made it seem like HELL because it was a very intense learning environment. You know those types of teachers that are like "FROM NOW ON, WE WILL ONLY COMMUNICATE WITH ASL. IF YOU SPEAK, YOU LOSE POINTS FOR THE DAY" which is like... fucking stupid for a beginner class of people who know ZERO asl. like c'mon, save that teaching method for people who are intermediate at the language, ya know?

My dad had a similar teacher like that in high school but for French. She said that they were not allowed to speak english in the class but it was a beginners class and nobody knew any French so they'd just sit there and stare at her blankly as she spoke French at them. And then she'd get mad when they didn't know what she was saying lmao like WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? that'd they'd just learn through osmosis??? he said that went on for 2 weeks before she finally caved and allowed them to speak english but she had a bad attitude about it for the rest of the semester. it's like... just because you know the language doesn't mean you're qualified to teach it, you know? i'd never have the audacity to think that just because i'm a native English speaker, i could teach non native English speakers how to speak it. unless they were toddlers, i guess lol

one of my friends was an exchange student to Austria and had to learn German in like, less than a year. she said for the first few months living over there, she couldn't understand a THING. then suddenly, it all clicked. lucky for her, her host family was fluent in english so she could still communicate, but for school she said she was so lost, they'd write her up special tests that were in much more basic German. not that they care that much if you do the work. it's more for the experience of a different culture than doing school work. she'd already graduated here in America so they were like, ehh, just have fun

have you looked into an exchange program? i think there's money involved, like i believe my friend had to do some fundraising before she could go, but she said it was an amazing experience and she made so many friends in the program from all over the world! In fact, one of the other kids from my high school went to Poland for his exchange. He struggled with the language even more than my friend though because Polish is more difficult than German. At least for English speakers, since English IS a Germanic language and shares a lot of similarities with it.

but i digress

languages are interesting

[giorno-plays-piano]

Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Soldat!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, kidnapping, captivity, torture, brainwashing, delusional Bucky.

Words: 2535.

Summary: You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

P.S. I have to say it turned out darker than I expected. Attention! Bucky is free from his programming, but he does not heal as he should. 

__________________

“You look old.”

You decide to give him the pleasure of hearing your voice. It sounds dull from behind the glass when Bucky comes closer, looking at someone he recognizes too well, but you do not recognize a man he became, nothing reminding you of the one with whom you once shared your bed.

You know what the man looking at you through the glass thinks. You didn’t age a day since the last time he saw you, and while he knows why, it still surprises him to see a young woman watching him calmly as if all those years didn't pass.

“You miss your star.” You say, tilting your head to the side and narrowing your eyes at him when you see his new vibranium arm.

“It doesn't matter.” His answer is immediate, and Bucky isn't surprised to hear the raw anger in his own voice: he is no longer the Soldier you knew, and he is worried he won't find a way to interact with you. You don't seem too interested in Bucky Barnes and whoever he works for despite the fact you are hardly HYDRA's soldier yourself.

What he doesn't know is that you still stay the soldier you have been once, and nothing will ever change that regardless of whoever Bucky Barnes sends your way to cure you from HYDRA's conditioning.

"I'm glad you remember me."

You find it peculiar: a man who has been trying so hard to get rid of anything that ties him to the Winter Soldier has been looking for you for years, finally tracking you down, capturing you and bringing you here as if your pure existence didn't remind him of the worst years of his life. What did he expect to find? A comfort in someone who once had been paired with him just for the sake of research?

"Don't bother, Mr. Barnes. There's nothing there left for you."

You see he's taken aback because you have hit a nerve. Apparently, James Buchanan Barnes thought the connection between the two of you remained the same, and he could dig up the feelings that had long been buried. Stupid, you think, he's forgetting the most important part: he is not the man you formed the bond with. You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

It doesn't matter. After all those years you didn't believe in happy endings, and even if the man watching you through the glass think he is going to get one after getting out, he is clearly deluding himself.

Averting his eyes, Bucky clears his throat and changes the topic, trying to give himself a false hope he can mend things. “I will convince Shuri to treat you. She helped me break through the conditioning, and she will do the same to you."

You could raise your brow at him, but maintaining this facade is tiresome and doesn't make sense. "I see you have no idea how much my conditioning differs from yours. You can't break through it. It's embedded in me."

"I thought so, but I got rid of mine. You can do it too, I'm sure."

Although you see him trying to assure you, Bucky's getting agitated because he really has no idea what HYDRA did to you. He couldn't know it when he still was the Soldier, but now the lack of his knowledge leads you to the thought your former masters destroyed whatever info they still kept - they foresaw he would search for you.

"Your brainwashing was flimsy. I've always wondered how come you were considered HYDRA'S greatest assassin when you just needed to see your dear friend once to start getting your memories back." You snort, knowing Bucky would feel a slight hint of jealousy in your voice, but you don't care: you've never hid from him you only needed the Winter Soldier, and he was gone.

Bucky doesn't know what to say as a part of him wants to scream there was nothing flimsy about electroconvulsive therapy he went through over and over again, but he looks at you and sees how different you are from him, having no memories of your own, not knowing even your name or the place where you came from. It doesn't scare him, but the fact you had long merged with the Soldier you've become does. You don't separate yourself from her the way he did. In fact, the Soldier had completely absorbed your true persona, and Bucky doesn’t know the real you. He only knows RED, a Soldat who at one point was been created by HYDRA just like all of them were. Despite searching for the information about your past for years, he found nothing, not even the year when you became a part of the organization. Bucky doesn’t think you did it willingly judging by the fact how you reacted when he had been training you among the other Soldiers, but he can’t be sure.

You’re a ghost. None of the masters who had been giving you orders know anything about you except your specialization and things you can do. Bucky supposes there were once people who knew the truth, but all of them are probably dead since the ones he has captured were utterly useless. His only hope is Shuri who might bring whatever is left somewhere deep inside your mind to the surface, yet he isn’t sure she will take you: the more you talk, the more it becomes clear you will not ask her to do it willingly, and Shuri won’t like that. The redemption can only be granted to someone who asks and works for it.

You don’t seem the type.

“What do you want me to do?” He asks you quietly, his forehead almost touching the glass separating you two when Bucky watches you with that pathetic expression of his. “If I let you go, you will return to people you serve. If I bring you to police, you will end up in a lab in the hands of the government.”

You allow him to see your smile as you observe him, desperately hoping you will tell him you will come back to the good guys and stay with him, playing a role of his funny little girlfriend because Bucky Barnes cannot allow himself to form an adequate relationship with any woman who has not been tainted the way he was. It probably seems so tragic to him that he had to spent years trying to catch you.

Although the chair you’re bound to doesn’t let you stand and come over to him, you still lean closer to the window, wearing the same polite but welcoming smile you used to lure your targets closer to you.

“I want you back in that chair, going through the whole process of brainwashing again until you become the Soldat you’ve been. I want you standing with me and feeling as much pain as I did until your sensitivity goes down to zero, and you no longer remember those funny friends of yours. I know you won’t trade your freedom and whatever else you have after getting out, but I don’t need James Buchanan Barnes or White Wolf or whoever you have become. I am RED of HYDRA, and I have bonded with the Winter Soldier you buried, Bucky.”

When he leaves, the massive metal door getting locked ten times the least, you stare at the grey wall beside the glass. You wonder how getting the privilege of remembering his past made him so miserable, a pathetic, broken man who did not understand how lucky he had been, not only breaking free from HYDRA’s grip but gaining his true identity back. He probably pitied himself, poor little boy who had been broken by the big bad guys. He did not understand that all other soldiers who came after him, except the suicide squad made with Stark’s serum, had been turned into ashes. There was nothing left to break in them - and you either.

_______________________

Shuri wasn’t happy to hear your story just like he thought, but Bucky couldn’t lie to her, hoping she would understand. Of course, she didn’t, telling him outright it was impossible to treat somebody who didn’t want to be treated. While it was also inhuman, forcing you to do something against your will just like HYDRA has been doing all these years, it also erased the possibility to use the same methods she chose when she treated Bucky.

“You don’t understand,” she tells him, shaking her head, “it’s not that I don’t want to help, but without her cooperating it’s close to impossible. They didn’t use the same ways to program her just like they did to you.”

He isn’t satisfied with her answer even though he knows Shuri wants to help. He can’t leave it like that, leave you to your fate, return you where you belonged, and he keeps asking who or what may be able to help you until she finally tells him something about electrical stimulation of the brain that can awake memories that you have buried. Shuri immediately regrets it, seeing how Bucky’s face lights up.

“It is a very complicated process that requires an extensive medical knowledge. Worse, even if performed correctly, this technique can traumatize her even further. Please don’t do this. We don’t even know if this method will be effective.”

Bucky doesn’t promise her anything, though a part of him feels guilty he made her tell him this. He just has to do it: undoubtedly, HYDRA or whoever you work for now will force you to go through the brainwashing process again, and whatever treatment Shuri told him about can’t be worse than this. If Bucky does everything right, you might stand a chance to live like he does, away from the horrors of the war you had been a part of ever since the organization abducted you. Even if you don’t want it, clearly it is an effect of the memory suppressing machine: any sane human being wants to have a normal life, right?

It takes him months to find and steal the equipment he needs, leaving no traces - it reminds him of the days when he had been under HYDRA’s control, but he does what he has to. Learning how to use the machine is a much more complicated task, but Bucky is grateful for that serum-enhanced brain of his: he nearly swallows the information from the books in record time, reading about sending a burst of electrical energy into your cerebral cortex to stimulate your brain and finally retrieve your memories. Now he knows what Shuri meant by traumatizing, but this doesn’t stop him either. He does what he has to do.

“What is your name?” He repeats after listening to your screams for ten or maybe twenty minutes, your body going limp in the black, cold chair when you open your mouth, breathing heavily, your face stained with tears and sweat.

“Dolores.” You say immediately, knowing he will repeat the procedure if you keep silent, your heat beating wildly. “I grew up... on a small farm in Iowa... I had an older sister... and slept with a big teddy bear with a red ribbon...”

“You are lying.” He says simply, and a jolt of electricity cuts through your head, nearly electrocuting you while you scream again and again.

For some reason he always feels it when you say what he wants to hear instead of the truth. What he doesn’t understand is that the truth he wants has been told months ago: you did not remember and you were not going to remember anything from your past. It was stupid to try. There was nothing left of you, and while he thought he was resurrecting a human in you, he was simply destroying your body that was regenerating every night after the therapy.

When you receive a new jolt, shaking and screaming, tears streaming down your face until they fall down onto your already wet t-shirt, you whisper through gritted teeth, “Either I will have you as my Soldat, or I will not have you at all.”

Bucky presses the button.

__________________________

When he is finished he takes you to a bath in the room next to your cell. You almost lose the ability to move for an hour or two, giving him time to prepare you: Bucky undresses you and slowly lowers your body in the tub filled with warm water, watching that you take a comfortable position and don’t slip, effectively suffocating. Today he had almost gone too far, risking to fry your brain: you still refused to give up even after two months of therapy you have gone through, and Bucky isn’t too happy.

Pouring a strawberry-scented shampoo on his palm, Bucky starts to carefully wash your hair that grew longer in the months of captivity, watching that neither shampoo nor the foam gets in your eyes. You are nearly breathless: the serum they gave you made you less stronger than him, but your regeneration abilities are on a whole different level, and soon your body will adjust and erase the damage made.

He asks himself whether keep using the machine makes sense since he didn’t make much progress, the programming still very much in you even after all those incredibly painful sessions. What if you were right from the start? What if there was nothing to remember, and all he could do was to leave you in the state you were in before he destroyed whatever was left of you?

No, he can’t do it. Leaving you means taking away your chance to ever get back to normal life, and he can’t force himself to do that.

Never in his life Bucky Barnes will admit letting you go meant never getting his own happy ending the way he wants it.

“Why reinventing the wheel when you can make it so much easier?” All of a sudden, your hoarse voice whimpers in his ear when you look at him, tiredly moving your head up. “Do what they’ve always done. Use the programming to give me an order.”

A part of him is shocked with the revelation: he wanted to be neither the Soldier nor the one giving him commands. But the other part makes him realize how much easier it would be if he just used what has already been done to you instead of relying on an obviously ineffective method that damaged your mind and body. Of course, he has nothing in common with Karpov sending him on the assassination missions. Bucky only wants you to learn how to become human again, free you from HYDRA once and for all, give you the life you undoubtedly wanted. Even if he uses the same method the organization did until he finds a better way to undo the programming, it is still for your own good.

___________

Tags: @finleyjayne​ @alexakeyloveloki​ @helenaeisenhower​ @villanellevi​ @hurricanerin​ @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @brattycherubwrites @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @buckybarnesplumwhore @jaysayey @megzdoodle @gotnofucks @lux-ravenwolf @iheartsebandchris @ximebebx @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @sourpatchspinster

[ms-demeanor]

Like. Okay. There IS good advice from the minimalism side of the internet and it breaks down to:

"Own the things you own on purpose."

You don't have to hang onto stuff you don't like, even it if was a gift.

You don't have to hang onto stuff that's taking up space just because it might be useful someday (to an extent; even if you haven't used your claw hammer recently I don't think you should get rid of it, but maybe if you haven't pulled that mini food processor out of the cabinet in five years it can safely be donated).

Don't buy bullshit for the sake of buying bullshit.

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

I'm going to make this an aside here; shopping can be a really fun leisure activity, I have plans to go thrifting with a friend next weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. But because I've known I'm going to do this, I've been avoiding any other kind of shopping for a while. I, personally, have had some weird problems shopping and impulsive shopping isn't good for me.

I'm not a compulsive shopper, I'm a thoughtless shopper. There was a period in college when I was working two jobs and going to school and living in the basement of a house that was thirty miles from school, ten miles from one job, and twenty miles from the other, and sometimes I'd run out of laundry and because laundromats were closed at midnight I'd buy clothes from the walmart clearance section because I didn't have anything else clean to wear to work. I ended up with a lot of ugly, bullshit clothes because I didn't do laundry frequently. I'll go into a thrift store sometimes and I'll see something and I won't think of where it's going to go, or if it will look good in my house, or if I might already have something similar, this thing is inexpensive and I like it and suddenly I have six water glasses that have a teal *film* on them that is flaking away instead of six water glasses I like and that take up room in the cabinet next to my six nice water glasses.

This is stressful for me, so I try to avoid it. The way I broke the habit of the clothes buying in college was to make a new year's resolution not to buy anything other than food for six months. It worked great, and permanently changed how I acquired things. I fell back into the habit of getting random shit because I needed a bunch of stuff for the house when we moved in (we owned zero lamps, we needed many lamps, then I over-bought lamps) and now I'm trying to get out of it.

But you know what sometimes it's good for your brain to go buy something shiny that you like just for the sake of having something shiny that you like. Sometimes getting a new sketchbook - even though you already have ten - can help you get excited enough about drawing to break you out of artist's block. Sometimes buying a new mug can help you stop thinking about the mug you left at your ex's place. Sometimes buying shit is good for you.

Like, there's that post about the person who bought fancy candles when they were homeless in order to have something to dream about. There's that post about the person who wants to be able to just buy a nice new mug, what buying a nice new mug would represent in terms of their relationship to themself and their space and their income. When I first moved to vegas after living with my abusive mother in law (before I had to move back) I bought myself a fiestaware pie plate in mulberry and I made myself so many pies. When i had to move back, I cried as I was wrapping that plate up and putting it into storage because it meant going back to the house where I couldn't be in the kitchen and couldn't be in the living room and had to be aware that there were always cameras on me when I wasn't in my bedroom or the bathroom. If you're wondering why I was so weird in 2021 part of it was Large Bastard's time in the hospital and part of it was living in a single room because going outside of that room meant dealing with her and her cameras. So the pie plate *MEANT* something, it wasn't just a pie plate. And unwrapping it when I got to this house was huge, and decorating this house because I haven't had a space of my own to decorate since 2004 has been huge.

So I'm not saying not to buy things because buying things is bad, I'm saying that buying things *intentionally* is less likely to end up causing problems with things like your finances and storage situation.

Buy things on purpose, basically, and if you find yourself buying stuff to make yourself happy all the time perhaps consider that the stuff isn't working and you need to take a second to figure out why.

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

"Know where your shit is"

Having a landing zone when you get home is great. Having a place where you know your keys hang and where your wallet sits is great. Knowing where the vacuum cleaner and the drill is fucking rules.

The thing is, it's possible to do this while having a lot of shit and while having "cluttered" open storage that might be a great way of organizing for people with ADHD but might not fit a minimalist aesthetic.

"You are not your stuff"

It's okay if things break or if they get lost. It can cause problems, yes, and it can be stressful, but you'll be okay if all the stuff goes away.

(Though you are also not your lack of stuff; possessions are not personality and they are not memories and they are not a curse - it is useful to examine your relationship to the things you have trouble giving away as well as to examine your relationship to an uncluttered space).

I will not invest energy in yelling at the youtube video. Yelling at the youtube video is the mindkiller.

[soulnottainted]

HI

back at the hotel now and I'll spew out details of the concert I remembered on the spot. It won't be all that happened of but what's in my memory as of now

Waited at general admission for four hours. The whole GA location was confusing because workers kept telling us one thing and then another. All worked out in the end but damn it caused me a lot of anxiety

I got lost from the two friends I was with so I found myself on he right side of the barrier and I moved to the front, making friends with a nice couple beside me. They offered to take video and pictures for me because my phone camera is absolute shit. Also we talked a lot and had a great time together.

Twin Temple was great. Love their style of music. Their set was way too short.

Voltbeat was a blast, had cool interactions with them. I hadn't listened to many of their songs but I now have ones I have to listen to because of their set.

Finally...the thing you've waited me to gush about...

GHOST.

Hi, I tried not to cry when I heard the music they normally put on while the stage is set but it was so hard for me not to. It's been two and a half years since I had been to a concert, and I believe it was Ghost the last one I saw.

Like last time I saw Ghost, the church choir music mentioned above, it calmed me right the heck down. Like eerily calm. I knew who I was about to see, and my body just went into relax mode.

The intro before Kaisarion? My jaw DROPPED at how gorgeous that instrumental was. Like I literally audibly said "oh my GOD, THIS IS GORGEOUS, WHAT!"

Kaisarion! Slaps! Hard! It's upbeat but ofc the lyrics aren't!

The curtain pulled down to reveal the ghouls to us and my mind instantly went "GHOUL FAMILY IS HERE!!! GHOUL FAMILY I MISSED YOU!!"

fuck those loud pyro bangs. They are cool but they scared the shit out of me every single time

During Mary on a Cross, Copia acknowledged me and oF COURSE HE DID. I might've cried at those lyrics I've told others made me cry before.

I headbanged with the ghouls! Although they didn't really stop in front of me, it was situated weird.

The Ghoulette mom doing the keytar solo!! I did a heart at her.

During year zero Copia did the "ancient deceiver" move at me. If you know what that is, you know.

Hunters Moon was great live.

Copia kept checking in and asking us how we were doing and he would reply with "Good. Very good."

He thanked us from the bottom of his and the ghouls hearts that we all could be there together. 🥺

Aether ain't taking Dew's shit no more and fucked up his guitar strings and they both got fed up resulting in both their picks being thrown.

I saw the new Ghoulette! She was great.

Cirice started and I just went "oh fuck" as in "oh fuck I'm doomed" because I just saw Copia in his wings outfit and I felt threatened

I forgot what conversation copia was having with the audience but he stopped in front of me and said something like "you don't know what I'm talking about do you?" aND I JUST DID AN IDK MOTION AT HIM AND SHOOK MY HEAD

Copia made us upset that the show was almost over so he was like "no! You go home!" I put my thumbs down and yelled "no!" back at him and he replied with "do you know how fucking negative you sound right now?" It was directed at the audience but I felt threatened

During bows, Copia came over and blew kisses at me!!! And I said thank you to him, and he out a hand over his heart and I did mine and 🥺

I did a heart at one of the Ghoulettes and she smiled so brightly at me!! I believe it was Cirrus!

Anyway that's all I can remember as of right now. Once I get photos and videos, I'll remember more...because my brain is absolute mush.

But tonight was fucking amazing.

[stardomthenightwing]

For anyone wondering why I was off the internet a lot lately, let me explain. @istanstardom gave me advice, and rather than being stubborn like usual and not taking it, I actually took it (Probably because it wasn't parental advice). I actually took time for myself, even though I wanted to be on the internet, and have realized the beauty of the world around me! Ok, just kidding, no, I didn't go outside, I started watching a new show; like what do you take me for, a jock? I'm a total nerd, I haven't seen the sun in years...

Anyways, so I've been watching those cartoon critics lately, and they all say the same thing, "STEVEN UNIVERSE IS GaRbAgE". And usually, the following line pops up, "MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC IS A MUCH BETTER SHOW".

I've been an avid cartoon watcher since I was born, so on my journey of self-discovery, I mean break, I decided to see if MLP was better than SU. Yes, I am a boy, but that doesn't affect my "professional" opinion of this show. Yes, I am also a huge action fan, but that doesn't affect my opinion of this show's genre.

For all my fellow boy followers and SU fans, I watched MLP so you don't have to, and here are my thoughts:

I've only seen four seasons, so I'll only be covering four seasons.

1. The characters are really well-done, and their development is realistic:

- Despite being a kid's show, this show doesn't really seem like it's for kids sometimes. MLP tackles lessons about friendship that I don't think many of us as kids are yet to resolve in our adult lives. In the episode, "Lesson Zero", a problem that I still struggle with is expressed and resolved. It's an episode about overworking yourself and stressing over not getting the perfect grade; a little side lesson about listening to your friend's problems, even if they're strange, is included as well. I still struggle with this overworking yourself problem, and it made me smile to watch Twilight Sparkle understand that she doesn't always have to be perfect with her work. This show does a good job of making sure you clear up all your common flaws before adulthood.

- The Mane Six are given an equal share of character development episodes and are very relatable. I can see a bit of myself in every single one of these characters. I'm a nerd like Twilight Sparkle. I'm a perfectionist like Rarity. I'm an introvert like Fluttershy. I'm an optimist like Rainbow Dash, who likes to read about adventures. I'm surprisingly physically talented like Applejack. And then there's Pinky Pie; I was exactly like her when I was a little kid, but now, not so much.

- One problem with having a lot of filler episodes about character development is that when it’s overdone, it’s not very entertaining. The show introduces that there is a storyline in the first episode, and then, that storyline is ignored for an entire season until we see Princess Luna get a redemption arc in "Luna Eclipsed". Because this is a kid's show that wasn't aiming high at the story element at first with its first season, I can see why the story was structured this way. It is a little weird how Discord showed up out of nowhere in the second season. I've noticed that the only real problems with character development in this show lies with the villains. They kind of just show up, are given a backstory and then are defeated in a two-part episode. There were no mentions of changelings up until the season 2 final, and King Sombra just existed in season 3's first two-part episode. You can defend King Sombra with the argument that little was known about the Crystal Empire, but seriously, that whole kingdom just showed up in season 3's first two-part episode with no warning. Maybe a little mention in the season 2 final from Cadance that she's the princess of the fallen Crystal Empire; that was much needed. We're getting off topic here, but I think this show needs to hint at its story in episodes prior to the season final; that's about it for complaints.

- I really recommend that you watch this show if you can handle a lot of filler episodes. The experience of the story episodes feel more rewarding when you watch them because the filler episodes tie in with the storyline pretty well.

2. This show has really good continuation:

- All I have to say for this section is that things in previous episodes are not forgotten often. This show has incredible continuation, some of it even ties into development. Fluttershy is taught the simple phrase "hop, skip and jump" in the episode "Dragonfly", and this phrase is then repeated in the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen" to demonstrate how far Fluttershy has come with her anxiety; she's literally the first to hop the rocks, like aren't you proud of her watching that? Honestly, when I watched that scene, it blew my mind! For a kid's show, the writers do pay attention to detail alright!

3. The animation:

- Personally, this show has helped me understand a lot about four-legged anatomy, which is something I'm struggling to draw.

- I like how the characters aren't all outlined in black, they're each given a unique color.

4. The characters:

- Let’s talk about the Mane Six first. My personal favorite is either Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash. I can relate to both a lot, but that’s not the point. As I mentioned earlier, each of these characters are given a balanced amount of development episodes throughout the show.

. Twilight Sparkle starts out as a pony with no friends who isn’t looking for any either and learns the magic of friendship throughout the show. They did her introverted smartness very well and handled her stress and overworking qualities beautifully.

. Rainbow Dash is such a girlboss; she’s the perfect kind of character for a show like this. She’s funny, optimistic and has realistic aspirations. I love characters with big dreams and determination to reach them.

. Fluttershy is probably like the most well-developed character in the show. She starts off not even being able to speak to Twilight (Wow, just like me in real life) and goes all the way to learning to be assertive and just. There’s so much I can say about this character, I could probably even make a whole post talking about her development, but we don’t have time for that.

. Rarity is definitely the inspiration for Pearl in Steven Universe. They are both perfectionist hard workers who make weird noises when in distress. I don’t care what you say, Rebecca has definitely seen MLP. Anyways, Rarity presents herself as a total Karen at first who doesn’t like children. Like, you see how she treats her sister right? But then she learns how to be a good sibling through the power of learning that you have to do things for people sometimes that you don’t want to do. Honestly, great character to add in this show. Rarity helps us older siblings understand how to treat our younger siblings.

. Applejack is another one of those hardworking characters. Her character arc mostly consisted of unhealthy stubbornness in refusal to ask for help, getting over failure, and that’s about it. Applejack didn’t really seem like a character who needed much development, but I feel like her episodes do express some interesting themes.

. Pinky Pie is a party animal who doesn’t really seem like a character in need of development on the surface, but deep below, she actually has a great development arc. It’s very interesting how the writers of the show properly addressed Pinky Pie’s reactions to her responsibilities. Pinky Pie learns how to handle freaking children, that’s a crazy lesson for a character to learn in a kid’s show. She learns betrayal and abandonment and accepts the fact that not everyone needs to like her. For a generally silly character, she shows amazing growth. Almost makes me wonder if she was Spinel inspiration for Rebecca. I mean, Pinky Pie does have a dark side…

- The side characters in the show are done pretty interestingly from minor villains like Trixie to a zebra that speaks in AB rhyme scheme. To be honest, as strange as the world of MLP is, I love it! It has that Earthbound vibe! I only really have a problem with The Cutie Mark Crusaders. For some reason, I just find them annoying at times.

- The villains in this show are kind of, eh. We barely ever see villains appear in filler episodes, and the villains we have in the show don't get enough screen time. I mean, Discord was due for a redemption arc way earlier than when he got it; a season and a half with no mentions or appearances, like seriously, that's long enough for the audience to forget his existence. I kind of also wish we got a Princess Luna song. That moment in "Luna Eclipsed" where Luna goes away from town, thinking that the ponies will never accept her, could have made the perfect moment for a "Drift Away" type song. Oh yeah, King Sombra was also just shoved into season 3 to depict slavery in the show; that villain was just, why?

5. The nostalgia:

- The thing that draws me to this show so much is how nostalgic it makes me feel. I took a break from the internet to go back in time and reflect on how I've changed; I haven't always been an internet guy. This show hits hard because it has that Steven Universe season 1 humor; I felt like I was watching a show again as an adult because I understood all the jokes and references, even though I never watched this show as a kid. MLP is a great show to watch with the family because its content aims for all ages to my surprise.

6. Final Thoughts:

This is a really good show. I kind of wish I watched it when I was just a little bit younger. I've only seen half the show, so I'm not sure if it gets any better (It probably does). It's a great show for anyone to watch, but it lacks things like action and can be a bit girly. The songs in the show are nowhere near as good as Steven Universe though.

Overall, I can't say the show isn't better than Steven Universe because I haven't seen all of it, but so far, Steven Universe is better. SU has some things that MLP doesn't have, and MLP has some things that SU doesn't have. In the end, it comes down to personal preference. And man do I enjoy those SU fight scenes and fusion moments!

Also, I've never said bro so much in my life while watching something. Some of the things that happen in MLP are just... what? And then I'm like, "bro, why did that just happen?"

I'm writing a 1,000-word argument on why MLP is a good show to make myself not look crazy to my followers, what has my life come to? I feel way too passionate about things that really don't matter.

Feel free to reblog this analysis on this show to defend your liking of it!

[sariahsue]

I just saw your take one Lilo&Stitch's approach to child protection and I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to write realistic stuff in this matter? I've been meaning to write a foster care/adoption fic and I do know the system in France must be at least a little different - and I will get down the research hole once I have a bit more time - but do you have any advice on how to write the kids reactions, the way parents deal with everything, the bonding part... things like this, so I can avoid clichés.

You don't have to answer though, feel free to ignore all this akdjwja I just figured there's no harm in asking XD

Yeah, sure! (To anyone else reading this who has a fic, feel free to send me a message if you have questions!) I’m definitely not the most knowledgeable person, but I know quite a bit. And I’m sure things are a bit different in France (hopefully their court system is better - yikes!) but I think the human element would be pretty similar, so here we go. 

First off, know that everyone is foster care is having a rough time constantly. Foster kids, workers, parents, foster parents, foster siblings. And no one knows what’s going on long term. There’s always a lot of uncertainty. Will the kids go home soon? Are parental rights going to be terminated at the next court date? Who knows???

The birth parents, at best, are going through a really tough time in their life, made worse because their kids were taken away from them. Some care about their kids, but they’re extremely self-centered and have zero parents skills. Some are manipulative and see foster care as free babysitting, and as long as they get to see their kid for an hour or so a week, this arrangement is fantastic for them! At worst, they’re just horrible human beings who abuse children. In general, most parents are clueless and selfish and pretty manipulative. They say they’re good parents and have no clue why their kids were taken away, even though their kid has cigarette burn marks on their back, or had to eat out of the garbage to survive because the were left alone for hours at a time when they were four, or worse. They have no clue at all what their behavior does to their kids, and they refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain it to them.

No matter what type of parents they were, their kids ALWAYS love them and want to go home. Every single one of them. No matter the age. No matter what their home life put them through. Some of them aren’t old enough to understand why they can’t go home. Some have been in foster care for years and hardly remember living at home but still want to go home.  

It makes for complicated foster relationships sometimes because the kid will be attached to both birth and foster parents and feel guilty or conflicted or disloyal, or they’ll try really hard not to be attached to the foster parents in the first place. (I can think of only one exception to this. Two sisters who had been put into another home and liked the foster family and decided that they were going to be adopted by this family and were very excited about it... except the foster family had no plans to adopt them. I never learned what happened there.) 

And this is before accounting for the mental health struggles that often accompany the trauma most of them have been through. Some kids come in with anxiety that makes it difficult to trust new people. Some kids’ behavior is so extreme that it’s difficult for foster parents to take care of them, and so the kid moves around constantly. (If their behavior is too bad, they can sometimes be put into either a group home or residential, either temporarily or permanently.)

Parents are also entitled to visits, usually either weekly or every other week, at least while the goal is reunification (which is always starts out as). Before the pandemic, these usually took place in the DCF (Department of Children and Families is what it’s called in my state) office or in a visitation center. Sometimes the court orders that the visits be supervised so they don’t start promising their kids that they’re coming to get them next week. Often the workers think that sitting down the hallway not listening counts as supervision. 🙄 

With the pandemic, kids have been meeting over Zoom. That’s being phased out pretty soon here. Kids are almost always triggered by these visits. I mean, they look forward to them usually. Some kids are mad at their parents and don’t want to talk to them, but almost always, they want to see their parents. And almost always whatever behavior problems they had before is extremely worse for the next 2-5 days. (Which is terrible if you get a visit every week.) Some parents bail on these visits regularly. Some consistently bail on only birthdays and Christmas. We’ve learned not to tell the kid that they have a visit coming up until we know it’s definitely happening, or sometimes only right before we’re planning on leaving to go, because the anticipation of a visit is triggering or because getting stood up by your own mother is traumatizing. Sometimes you can get the kid’s therapist to write a note asking for the visits to be less frequent for the kid’s sake, but often that just means every other week instead of every week.

For foster families welcoming kids into their home, it’s a little different. They’re often more stable, and their whole life isn’t shifting around them. They’re just getting one or two kids into the family. The home dynamic is going to be a little different. Nothing huge, compared to what the foster kids are going through. It often depends on the kid how fast you get attached. Sometimes you know kids are only going to be there for a month because their normal foster family had to deal with an emergency, but the plan is to take them back soon. Sometimes they’re adorable babies and you get super attached really, really fast. Sometimes they’re so unhappy and scared that they make your home life completely miserable. Sometimes you’ve seen so many kids come and go over the years, and they’ve all left eventually, and your heart becomes guarded to protect you from that pain. But you get attached eventually anyway. 

And sometimes your parents are given a newborn whose goal is reunification and it’s love at first sight even though you don’t know if you can keep him, and then he’s put up for adoption when he’s two and you adopt him SO HARD. And then you make future foster kids upset because you can’t adopt them too. :( And even though they get adopted by friends of yours, they still feel conflicted over it four years later. 

You would think that a kid raised completely in their adoptive home from birth would have no problems, and sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes they still get upset about the adoption when they’re older because the foundational belief they have about themselves is that their mother didn’t want them, even though it’s not true. 

(This is the real-life story of my brother. We are the only family he’s ever known, and he’s 13 now, but he still has issues over being adopted. The other boy is 16 and is doing much better with his new family now, though he still has some issues. We had him for a very long time, and we were all happy that we know his adoptive family well because we stayed it contact with him, which almost never happens when a foster kid leaves.)

Oh, I forgot one thing. Usually when kids first get to your house, they are perfect little angels for a while. Depending on the kid, it’s either a couple days or maybe even three months. It’s called the “honeymoon period.” Once their subconscious realizes that this is a safe place to work on their issues and they aren’t in physical danger, they start to process what they’ve been through. It comes out in a variety of ways. Behavioral issues, bedwetting, explosive anger, nightmares, etc.

A note about social workers: All the workers (at least in my state) constantly have too many cases. Like, double what they’re legally supposed to have. Most of them try hard to keep up. Some DO NOT CARE. Some are fantastic and put extra time in to go to the kid’s end-of-the-school-year recitals and build a relationship with them. They’re in charge of organizing visits and making sure the kids have everything set up and are generally important in the kid’s life. They’re required to visit once a month and make sure foster parents have all the right paperwork and arrange dentist visits and bring them to all their therapy appointments. (FYI, You get a piece of paper that says you’re the legal guardian. You have to show it to schools and doctors when you make arrangements for the kids. My mom also keeps a copy in her purse, just in case a kid starts screaming “HELP! SHE’S NOT MY MOM” in the middle of the store or something. It’s never happened, but you know, just in case.)

Also, you would think that they’re the constant in the kid’s life, but if the birth parents move, the case gets transferred to another office in the state, and so the social workers switch. I sincerely hope that’s not how things are done in France because it’s garbage for a lot of reasons.

Okay, I’ve written you an essay, but I hope it was a useful essay! Let me know if you have any more questions!

[monscastle]

"you're still eating out of y/n's hands you know."

he choked, the only thought in his mind being 'no wonder this tastes familiar.'

pairing ; lee felix x gn! reader

for ; @writearctic 's chronicles!!

genre ; angst & fluff

warnings ; mild cursing, smoking

words ; 1.6k

author's note ; not today! just enjoy and feel free to give feedback!! sorry for any mistakes!! 

"hey, let's go eat." chan smiled while pressing up against the other australian.

felix hummed, not really listening as he gripped the remote in his hands and flickered the buttons with his thumbs. "where?"

"uh, that one restaurant that's like, thirty minutes away from here-"

felix glanced a glare at chan before turning back to the screen of the tv. "any reason?"

"they have a special." chan then proceeded to put he flyer in front of felix's line of sight, making the younger grunt.

felix paused his game, sighing and glaring at his friend. "alright, fine. but you're paying." 

chan grinned, "fine by me. get dressed and look decent, don't pull a jisung." 

"...i'm right here." 

______

"hello! table for three?" the host asked as soon as they walked inside. 

chan nodded, following the host with his two friends. as soon as they sat down they were handed menu's. 

"would you like to order drinks right now or when you order your food?" 

felix scanned the options, not seeing the special that chan had mentioned. he was gonna question the older until said man asked the host about it. 

"uh, i saw that y'all have a special on a flyer…" 

"oh! yes we do! we got the word out this morning, that's why it's still not on the menu. the special lasts until next friday. would you like to order that?"

"do you guys want it?" chan turned to them. 

"what's the special?" jisung rose a brow. 

the host smiled, "fettuccine alfredo pasta." 

felix hummed, thinking about it. "yeah i'd like that."

"me too." 

chan nodded, turning to the host who took out a notepad and pen. although she wasn't a waiter, she could take down orders and hand them over to the cooks. 

"great. any drinks?" she asked while tapping her notepad with the tip of the pen.

jisung nodded, "peach tea for me." 

"i'll take lemonade." 

"sprite if you have that." 

she nodded and scribbled it down before repeating their order to make sure she didn't make any mistakes. once everything was confirmed and settled,  she excused herself to order their assigned waiter to fetch their drinks. 

jisung followed her trail until she opened the kitchen doors, noticing something- more like someone, for a split second. 

"well, while we wait, let's catch up." chan sighed while staring at his friends.

"on what?" jisung asked while turning to him. 

the older thought for a second before shrugging, "i don't know, what have you guys been up to lately?"

felix propped his elbow on the table,  resting his chin on his palm. "nothing, i'm enjoying my break to the fullest."

"by being locked up and playing video games?" chan rose a brow, obviously disappointed. 

"at least he's doing something, i've been sleeping most of the time." 

"he only gets up when he needs to pee or eat." felix chuckled. 

chan frowned, "that explains a lot…" 

"anyway, what about you? changbin-hyung told me someone had the hots for you and vice versa." 

the older sputtered, "th-that's not true. and maybe it's just a new friend." 

jisung and felix rose a brow, sharing a glance before sighing. they had the habit of being synchronized without wanting to, which many found scary and or amusing. 

"you're bad at lying, you know that?" jisung chuckled, glancing at the kitchen doors that opened as a waiter came out with a tray with drinks. he smirked at his confirmation,  it's been a while since he's been this entertained. 

chan blushed, avoiding eye contact. "i know…" 

felix laughed, jisung was known for reading others. changbin was known for it too, and it was always funny when someone got exposed or confronted. 

the waiter walked up to them, placing down their drinks. "your food is ready and i'll bring it right now, i'm sorry the sudden delay in your drinks, we had a minor...issue." 

"no it's fine! thank you!" chan smiled as he took his drink and sipped from it. 

jisung stared at the kitchen doors, once they were opened he tried to find the familiar face, and he smirked to himself when he saw it. he wasn't going to say anything yet, he liked waiting it out. 

"so, who is it?" felix jabbed at chan, wanting answers.

"i- you don't know him, he's not in your major." chan nibbled at the straw. 

"and? i still wanna know." 

"it's probably someone older than him, maybe by a year? let me guess, he's also studying music production? and you met him in the cafeteria." jisung smiled when chan choked. 

felix stared at his roomate in awe, "holy fuck." 

chan gasped, staring at jisung with wide eyes. "you scare me. you're hanging out with minho aren't you?" 

"sure." 

"what do you mean sure-" 

felix grinned, "so he's right?" 

"...yeah… i'm amazed you even guessed the gender…" chan pouted, gnawing at the straw again. 

"thank you, i try." jisung sipped from his drink as the waiter returned with their food. once the waiter left he spoke again, "what's his name?" 

"why are you asking?" 

"cus it's about time you had a love life." felix rolled his eyes,  "you barely get sleep, and now you have the hots for someone? you need to go out and live a little. " 

chan scoffed, the tips of his ears still red. "yeah, look who's talking. you're probably staying inside the dorms and not going out cus you're still upset about the y/n situation." 

jisung gaped, amazed chan could strike like that. "not wrong-" 

felix growled, "y/n has nothing to do with how i'm spending my break. we broke up, that's it. nothing more nothing less to it. no hard feelings." he frowned and stuffed his mouth with some pasta, the taste making him pause and ponder.

jisung stared at the young australian, "you're still eating out of y/n's hands you know." 

and he choked, the only thought in his mind being  'no wonder this tastes familiar.' 

chan gave felix's back a few pats, " jisung stop joking around." 

said male frowned, "i'm not. y/n's in the kitchen, pretty sure y/n is the one who cooked the food." 

felix heaved, "it...does taste familiar…

"and to think you were over y/n.." 

"i am!" 

"are not, but we'll talk about this later. chan, you never told me the guys name-" 

"yah! i'm not telling." 

________ 

"you're not going back with us?" jisung asked as they exited the restaurant.  

the fact y/n was one of the chefs was forgotten once they went back to chan's possible love life topic. felix didn't really think anything of it until they got up to leave. 

"no i wanna check out that store. i'll go back on the bus." felix waved them off. 

chan frowned, "sure, ok… call if you need anything." 

"will do." 

jisung rolled his eyes, following chan to the older's car for the ride home. felix walked inside the store that was across the restaurant they had eaten at, he looked around, heart racing. 

he saw a small penguin plushie, smiling at it's fluffiness once he grabbed it. he made sure he had money before going to the register, paying and walking out. just as he did, he glanced at the restaurant and saw you. 

you stood there, lighting up a cigarette. when you glanced at him, you froze, both of you did. 

felix gripped the bag in his hand. it's been a month since the two of you broke up, quite a small amount of time considering everything. 

the reason the two of you ended things was no mystery to eithers friend group. you had suddenly gotten distant, claiming to focus on exams, which wasn't a lie. felix grew upset with the absence of you, and whenever he tried to reach out, you sounded uninterested.  

and it wasn't that you weren't,  you were just going through things. felix took it the wrong way, and the tip of the iceberg was when he saw you all touchy with someone else at a party you had said you wouldn't attend. 

instead of facing you, he played fire with fire. 

"hi…" your voice was soft, and you stared across from you, not wanting to face him. 

"hi." felix now stood next to you, staring across the street as well. 

there was a silence, and felix then glanced at the puff of smoke you let out. he was questioning himself, maybe he should go and wait for the last bus. maybe he should have gone back home with his friends. maybe-

"i'm sorry." 

felix snapped his head towards you, staring at you like a lost puppy. you were still facing across the street, cigarette in hand. 

"i'm sorry i didn't face you like i should have. i'm sorry i didn't talk things through with you… i really have no justifications for anything i did. maybe i was just confused, we were both just trying to pass our classes..you were just trying to make our relationship work… and i...i… " 

"you gave up." felix finished your sentence, now staring at the bag in his hands. 

you finally turned to look at him, "no... i got bored of trying. i got bored of us. of you."

each word made felix stagger, and you took a second to grab his hand, holding it gently. he blushed, staring down at your hand on his. 

"but i didn't want to let go of you." 

he swallowed, "then why did you…" 

"that's…a good question." you let go of his hand, and he was quick to take it again. 

"i'm sorry too. i think...we lacked communication." 

you smiled a bit, taking the cigarette in your mouth again.  "obviously...”

felix squeezed you hand, “do you think...we could try again?”

“you don’t hate me?”

he shook his head, “we were both at fault, do you hate me?”

“no....”

“so...wanna start from zero?”

you sighed, the puff of smoke intoxicating his nostrils. you didn’t pick up on smoking until after the two of you broke up, “yeah...i’d like that.”

“me too...and...jisung said you cooked our food, that true?”

“felix, i have no idea who comes into the restaurant. i just do my job.” you laughed softly, shaking your head, “but i’m the only cook today, so yeah, i guess i did. you enjoy it?”

he nodded, “i always enjoyed your food, still do.”

you tugged at his hand, “want a ride home?”

“yeah...”

[runningdownthatroad]

I just have to get this off my chest after seeing some very disturbing posts about 9/11 floating around on my dash as well as some truly crude commentary. A lot probably won't agree with my sentiments but I feel like this needs to be said.

I've seen a lot of things on Tumblr in the past that maybe I consider to be in poor taste or don't agree with but I usually just scroll past, sometimes block for curating sake, but today is the first time I truly was shell-shocked. To see the memes and blasé jokes people are making about this day are just absolutely horrific and appalling.

I get that a lot of people on this site now may not remember what happened that day and only learned second hand through school or media or other people telling them. I get that a lot occurred after this that wasn't right which we definitely should be learning from. I also get that there is a lot of anti-American and anti-white sentiments going around currently, especially on this site.

But here's the thing:

Not only Americans died that day. Not only white people died that day. That's the thing about terrorists and what these hijackers did: they don't care about your skin color, your culture, your religious preference, your sexual orientation, your gender orientation, your age, your economic status, your personality, whether you support them or not, your political persuasion, your job, or any of it. Everyone is fair game to them. For crying out loud, look at what the Afghani people are currently going through and how the Taliban are treating their own country's people, women especially. If you think this is bad (which it truly is), have you seen how things went under their rule before 9/11 even happened? Do you know their terrifyingly violent and brutal history? Women had acid thrown in their faces if they didn't wear a full hijab. People were mutilated or executed if they didn't fall in line with the law of the Taliban. And this doesn't even begin to go into Al-Qaeda or Isis. But I'm not here to talk about that or delve into that topic too much.

My point in mentioning all of this is that white Americans weren't the only ones that were killed that day. People of all faiths, of all colors, of different countries, died that day, too. And the unity that is consistently discussed every 9/11 anniversary is in regards to us being aware of that fact, us mourning all of their losses together, and the collective desire to come together and help once the planes hit and after the towers collapsed.

So when people say "why am I supposed to cry over white Americans getting killed that day" think about that. Not only white Americans died that day. And regardless of their color, their nationality, their culture, their religion, etc. anyone dying is always sad. Whether it be a jetliner being used as a weapon that crashed into their floor or someone dying of cancer or someone being killed in a mudslide or someone dying in a car accident -- it is always sad. And empathy should always be shown in response, even if it doesn't impact you personally. Let's not forget these people have loved ones that got left behind, that are still here.

So when people say "if something knocks into a cow and knocks it over, I'm not expected to care, but if something knocks into a building and knocks it over, suddenly I'm supposed to care?" think about that. People aren't grieving two large pieces of steel architecture. People aren't saying "always remember those two towers". The WTC Towers were a symbol (yes, for American wealth, I get it) but became so much more of a multi-faceted powerful symbol after 9/11. The towers represent a way of life before 9/11 happened, but more importantly they represent the people lost that day, who were in the towers when they collapsed. For all of the first responders who were stuck on those floors still trying to help evacuate people to safety when the buildings finally gave. The two footprints and two blue lights aren't a symbol of American wealth or a naivete and simpler way of life pre-9/11 - they are a symbol of memorialization for that day. The Freedom Tower was erected to show that despite the loss of that day, we stood united (even if there seems to be more and more division these days). It's a message to the world that yes, destruction and death happened that day in NYC, but so did rebuilding and life carrying on. It's a symbol of strength, resilience, and unity - something that was everywhere you looked days after this event occurred. The two towers (aka NYC) may have gotten knocked down but the city got back up. They weren't kept down - that's the point of the Freedom Tower.

When people say "I don't understand, what is it that I shouldn't be forgetting since I can't remember it anyway" here is what we all should be remembering despite our age or our connection (or lack thereof) with this event:

2,997 innocent civilians died that day. Among them were 343 firefighters, 37 police officers, 23 Port Authority police officers, 8 EMS workers, and 4 other first responders. Also among them were 246 people on the four planes that crashed.

The passengers of United Flight 93 made a choice to fight back against the hijackers and saved lives that day by sacrificing their own.

Many children lost parents. Many parents lost children. Many brothers lost sisters, and many sisters lost brothers. Many spouses lost their significant others. Many lost friends, family, and loved ones.

For those who want a better connection to this day who didn't experience it and/or don't remember it, and for those others who are seriously lacking in empathy: yes, it was a highly publicized event due to the hundreds of cameras (including media outlets) watching that day, but if the horrific images aren't enough to garner some of your empathy, then there are plenty of other resources at your disposal. Documentaries like 9/11 by James Hanlon and the Naudet brothers, 102 Minutes That Changed America (which shows you not only all of the first-hand eyewitness accounts that day but also lets you hear 911 calls, radio transmissions between firefighters, and people's reactions to the event and each other who were there), 9/11 Firefighters (on Discovery Plus) and even more recently, 9/11: The Turning Point (on Netflix) which provides a 360 degree view of the events that led up to 9/11, 9/11 itself, and what came after, displaying all different viewpoints. You can read the 9/11 Commission Report or there are several books and memoirs out there like Wake-Up Call by Kristen Breitweiser, or even historical accounts in books, newspaper articles, and online. But most importantly, listen to people's stories. The ones who were there, the ones who saw it happen, the ones who ran in to help, the ones who lost loved ones. That is the most important part and the most powerful. On Hulu, ABC News ran segments of 9/11 Twenty Years Later, "Women Of Resilience" being especially powerful. It's hard not to feel a human connection to these stories or any kind of empathy.

For those who are making these jokes and memes, if you like shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire, etc, imagine those first responder characters rushing into those buildings to save lives and losing theirs in the process. If you don't remember 9/11 or feel any connection or empathy, imagine hundreds of Bucks or Eddies or Bobbys or Hens or Chimneys dying that day as they worked to save so many. Sorry to be so blunt because I love those characters too, but do you get a little bit of the connection now? Do you feel any empathy? I'm not trying to equate real life heroes and sheroes with fictional characters of course, but if it helps you to understand a little better in some way, well...I'm throwing it out there.

I myself lived in the Tri-State area at the time of the attacks. I remember seeing the second plane seconds before it crashed into the second building. I remember the devastation I felt watching the first tower collapse knowing that a loved one was most likely inside and how hard I cried thinking he was dead. (thankfully, he had been late to work that day and he got out of the area before the towers came down) I remember the relief and gratefulness we all felt hearing from him to assure us that he was alive when he finally was able to get to a phone, stating he was covered in dust and ash from the buildings. I remember the panic and fear we all felt, thinking the world was ending and we were all going to die, that this was it, this was World War III, after it was confirmed that the Pentagon had also been hit and there was also a downed plane in Pennsylvania. I remember the grief another loved one suffered because she lost her entire floor (she had been out sick that day) and every single one of her co-workers. I remember the race to pick up children from school and get them home as soon as possible. I remember the rage that coursed through us seeing the footage of some people in certain countries celebrating the attacks in the streets, enjoying the deaths of so many Americans, a couple of these countries who lost citizens themselves in these attacks. I remember the camping out in front of the televisions night after night for a week straight afterwards, watching the news 24/7, worrying that there might be more attacks. I remember the feeling of sheer terror anytime a plane was heard overhead or seen appearing low enough in the sky that you could practically make out which airline it was for months afterwards. I remember seeing the lights the first time they were lit from our home. I remember feeling pure fear not only for what happened that day but also what came afterwards (not yet understanding that these weren't practitioners of Islam that did this but radical extremists who had literally hijacked the religion). I remember seeing the devastation at Ground Zero through a tear in the fabric over a fence as we walked through the city months afterwards. I remember not wanting to fly for years. I remember the anger I felt that our government had failed us due to political bs between agencies and countless others (which we found out especially when the 9/11 Commission Report came out) and that because of this horrific and absurd failure, thousands of innocent people had died. I remember seeing the crushed ladder truck, and the toy of the little girl who was on one of the planes at the 9/11 Memorial Museum and all of the pictures in that room that just floored me. (I also remember being pissed off that many were treating it as a selfie op where they were allowed to take pictures, completely missing the point of the museum's existence) But most of all, I remember feeling that life would never be the same for any of us ever again, and that the feeling of safety we had naively enjoyed on September 10, 2001 would never return.

But I also remember the compassion and unity we saw rising in the country after those attacks. I remember the gratitude for all of our first responders, those we lost that day and those who were still with us, actively working to recover those lost and to clear Ground Zero. I remember the feeling of collectiveness, that we all shared grief and showed support to one another in those days afterwards. I remember the fallen heroes and sheroes who ran into those buildings, who were off duty but raced from wherever they were that day to come and help. I remember The Man In the Red Bandana aka Welles Crowther (and many like him who worked to save others) who has become another important symbol of that day. I remember hearing all of the stories of people helping one another before and after the towers collapsed. I remember the good that this day represents. That while we may have seen some of the worst of humanity that day in the form of violence, death, weaponized airplanes, and devastation, we also saw the very best of humanity in the form of our first responders and people helping one another.

Look, did Islamophobia happen? Yes. Was it right? No, absolutely not. As I stated above, I myself feared the idea of the religion until I was educated by a friend of mine about the difference between the religion and extremism. This form of hijacking ideology can be seen in examples like the Westboro Baptist Church or even Hitler. Terrorists do not represent the true spirit of Islam no matter what the former tries to force people to believe. Just as the WBC is not the true spirit of Christianity, and so on and so forth. But even during the time I had feared the religion before gaining understanding and clarity, I never confronted or mistreated any practicing Muslim or Arab-American. Ever. I never posted hate or spewed vitriol against them. Just like with the current pandemic, I still cannot believe there are people out there attack Asian-Americans as if this whole thing is their fault. That's still mind boggling to me and it is absolutely 100% WRONG. It should not be happening. Same with Islamophobia. And it breaks my heart to read that many Arab-Americans and practicing Muslims still worry when this anniversary comes around that they may be attacked. It might not mean much, but I just want to say I am truly sorry for that and you have my full support. Always.

Did we go to war and was it just? Yes we did go to war. Was it just? Afghanistan? I need more information in order to have a fully-formed opinion but there are plenty who say yes and plenty who say no. Plenty who say we made things better over there (before we exited and the Taliban advanced) and plenty who say we didn't and only made it worse. I truly cannot say which assertion is correct and I think it would be narrow-minded and completely moronic (and possibly arrogant and presumptuous?) of me to speak on a subject I know so little about, one way or the other. Iraq? No, I don't think it was just and I honestly wish we could go back and do things differently.

But coming back to 9/11 and what this day means for so many, the people who died, the people who rushed headfirst into danger, the people who lost their loved ones. We saw incredible bravery, selflessness, and compassion for your fellow human that day despite what happened. We saw the strength within ourselves despite the fear and anger. We saw resilience. That is what the anniversary is meant to be a reminder of. The sacrifices, the loss, the courage, and the strength. Black, White, Gay, Straight, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Young, Old -- it didn't matter. We all came together.

So regardless of whether it's the cool thing to do right now on this site (or elsewhere) to hate on America or 9/11 or white Americans or the anniversary itself on the very anniversary of these attacks, I ask that you please consider when posting these hurtful (and frankly harmful) words of hatred and vitriol such as referenced above that there are people out there who lost their loved ones on 9/11, that yes some of them may be on this very site and going through the 9/11 tag, and that some of them may have even lost a loved one in either war and are again on this site reading your words. Regardless of what you think or feel, please consider them and tag appropriately if you're going to post. Please consider that some of these people are currently losing their loved ones due to 9/11-related illnesses because of the cleanup at Ground Zero. Please consider that there are children who lost a parent or loved one, or who were orphaned that day (yes, they exist, we had some in our school district) who are also on this site reading your words. Basically, please just consider and be considerate. Please stop spreading hatred on a day that happened due to hatred; please stop perpetuating that cycle.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

TLDR: Love and light, my friends. Love and light. ✌️❤️