#Love Me Just a Little

[chichirichick]

Big Feelings, Big Update

Love Me Just a Little

... gets another chapter. Check it out on AO3 or ff.net

Summary: It's Christmas at the Albarn's! Soul gets an offer he can't refuse (or can he?). We meet an old friend.

Below the cut are my blabberings about the trigger warning for this chapter and my own bullshit:

Today's trigger warning takes some explaining, but I'm not exactly sure how to do it myself. Anyone who says that fanfics aren't complex is fooling themselves because yikes did I ever have some feelings in this one. I hope y'all get that everything I write is a labor of love. I appreciate the kudos and comments, but at the end of the day all of these pages are for me. The issues I cover are usually just ways for me to process things and this chapter was no different.

You're probably not doing the math, but I'm almost 8 months postpartum now. You've probably noticed my ability to write has significantly decreased, and while I knew it was going to happen, I guess I wasn't ready for the feelings that came along with it. It's not even that I've transitioned to personal projects (oh, how I wish I could finish you, In the Land of Nightingales). Between work and my family, I rarely have any gas left in the tank.

I don't regret any of it. I love being a mother. I love my son. It's just a complex grey area that I live in now. I'm not exactly a person anymore but a parent. My little dude relies on me and my wants/needs have to come second. So my exploration of that with Soul/Spirit in this fic is just that -- feelings I've had, feelings I get. I don't want anyone to misinterpret this as a diss of parenthood, but just an examination of the difficulty.

Ugh, I don't know. I still feel like I have no idea what to label this as. It's just my useless drivel, I guess. Please forgive me if I've offended.

[happyheidi]

𝖠𝗋𝗍 𝖻𝗒 𝖠𝗇𝗇𝖺-𝖫𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺 𝖲𝗎𝗅𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖺𝗇 | 𝖨𝖦: 𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺𝗅𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺_𝖺𝗋𝗍

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[hansoeii]

It was affection.

[mydairpercabeth]

just saw the most heartbreaking annabeth take from ep 3

[albinogel]

[palarien]

sketched this out at jury duty actually

[botanicalbasilly]

I hate being a person who loves bugs, I can't say anything without the person I'm talking to reacting with disgust. Today I had to literally beg a coworker for the life of a spider, and then after I put it in a nook outside she thought it'd be funny to show me a video she took of her killing one. Like idk man. Birds scare the shit out of me but I still get why people love them. They come in pretty colors and they sound nice and they're interesting to observe. I don't understand why people don't feel the same about bugs. The rich amber color of a cockroach, the iridescent glow of a fly, the intricate hydraulics that power their little legs, the chirp of a beetle, the art of the spider's web... It's all so beautiful. Why is it the habit of so many to destroy?

[badarchitectrecords]

Listen to this new fantastic track ‘ Love Me Just a Little’ by John Conlin!

[possamble]

hiii everybody are you normal about Falin showing Laios the same little spell that Marcille showed her? are you normal about Falin remembering it fondly enough that it was one of the first things she showed her brother while trying to teach him magic?

[soulmvtes]

sunday nights are for reflecting on your entire life and the fragile state of your present moment and what the future may look like

[chichirichick]

A Day Delay

Love Me Just a Little

got an update yesterday on AO3, but only this morning on ff.net because it was being a butt yesterday. Sorry.

Summary: Liz attempts to set Soul straight. Soul examines was grief really means. Blair and Maka have a heart-to-heart.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[inkskinned]

having good & true friends will literally save and protect you in a million unfathomable ways. like okay we have written so many times about lovers. but the way a platonic friend laughs and cries with you. the way they hold your hand at 14 years old and at 34. the way they keep a little silver tie to you, touching base over and over and over. how you can go years without talking, only to re-meet and discover: oh shit! you're still cool!

there are people who have been in my life for more than half of it, and i have loved every version of them. do you know how fucking beautiful that is. yeah love will save the world. but the way friends love you is gonna save the you.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[kaptainandy]

herbert west playing yugioh if you even care 🙄