#and February is a tough month for me because for some reason some of the worst moments of my life always occurred in February

[bluewaterlily]

My birthday is one week away and I’m still losing my shit over the fact that I’m gonna be alone all day.

[clairifys]

Prolonged love - Joseph Liebgott x Fem!Reader

Summary: Sometimes the best things in life take a long time, and sometimes life throws you for a loop. It sure threw (Y/n) for a loop when grabbing German POWs in Hagenau turns into her having to babysit a young Dutch girl.

Tw: Swearing, death, reader being trilingual, mentions of war, mentions of concentration camps, mentions of abuse, killing, slightly dirty? not full on smut, reader is female, slight misogyny due to the time period, she/her pronouns

Word count: 6.5k

I do not own Band of Brothers, nor do I own any of the characters. I am not intending to be disrespectful towards any of the people on this show

The Dutch name is pronounced like (Tina-ka) Tineke, and the nickname Tine is pronounced as (Teeny)

I was born in Chicago. My mother was born in Groningen, Netherlands, and my father in Antwerp, Belgium. I was the oldest child, and after me, my parents had five others. Despite having six kids, we were all taught Dutch and German from a young age. The sole reason I was accepted into the military was because of me being trilingual, I’ll forever be grateful to my parents for teaching me their languages. 

February 9, 1945 

Easy Company was on its way to France. We were stationed in Haguenau, which had been taken by the Allies in December. Honestly speaking, I didn’t really know what to expect when we got there. I was sitting in the back of a truck, squished between Babe and Liebgott. Joe had become a close friend way back in Toccoa when he’d fallen running up Currahee, and I stopped and helped him up. We both had our 48-hour weekend passes revoked, but we made the most of it that weekend together. After that, we’d spend our weekend passes together and hang out.

I was leaning against Joe as I’d been almost the whole ride, his arm slung around my shoulders as I read a book that I had found when we invaded Foy. It seemed the Krauts enjoyed good literature as I was reading For Whom the Bell Tolls in German. I was a translator for Easy Company, being able to speak English, German and Dutch, I was a heavy asset to the team. It was a beautifully told story about the Civil War that had some romance aspects while also being brutal. I finished the book twice, and now I was reading it a third time.

���Jesus doll, I think I’ve seen you read that damn book about forty times now. How good can it be?” Joe said when he noticed my attention had strayed.

“Oh it’s a beautifully told story, Joe. Although, I don’t think you could read anything that didn’t have pictures.” I replied jokingly to him, looking up at him from where I was leaning against him. I could hear Babe and Malarkey laughing, and a young soldier, Jackson watching intently. 

“How can you read that, (L/n)?” A quiet voice asked in front of me. It’d been from Jackson. He lied on his documents so that made him 20 right now while I, at 23, was considered young. 

“I can speak and read German. Although my mother is a Dutch immigrant, my father was a Belgium immigrant.” I spoke honestly. Picking up languages was a bit of a gift for me. I’d always been good at remembering and learning languages, probably since I was taught three languages at once from a young age.

“(Y/n)! I’ve read that book! It’s so beautifully written.” A new voice spoke from the opening in the back of the truck, I quickly jolted from Joe’s shoulder, as he groaned from lack of contact, to see who the familiar voice belonged to.

“David Webster? Where the hell have you been?” I interrogated, while simultaneously giving him a toothy smile. He blushed slightly while asking Jackson for a hand to get up on the truck and suddenly Joe spoke up sharply, 

“The hospital. Must’ve liked that hospital Webster, cause uh, we left Holland four months ago.” After saying that he gave Web a dismissive look while tightening his hold on my shoulders. Suddenly, I felt very awkward, and slightly bad for Web - the war was tough and it was understandable to be afraid, it just wasn’t fair that some men snuck out only to get killed or injured more severely than the first time. They started going back and forth, jabbing at Webster passively, although it didn’t seem to be because they didn’t like him, they were just tired and upset. I gave Web a smile before getting off the truck, following Joe close behind.

“Y’know, you didn’t have to be so mean to Web.” I said calmly, making sure to not seem mad at Joe as to not have him get defensive.

“I guess, but it’s bullshit that we had men come back just to get killed.” He said quickly. When he said that, I saw Lieutenant Lipton sluggishly walking towards a building. The poor man had a bad case of Pneumonia, so I ran over and put his arm under my shoulders to help him. As I did that, explosions rang over our head and fell a little farther than we were. He gave me a smile and I helped him into the building he was walking towards. It was pretty on the inside, Luz and Captain Speirs were in the room along with Webster walking in. 

“Hey look who it is. Nice digs, huh, Lip? (Y/n)?” Luz said to me and Lipton as I helped Lipton situate himself on the couch.

“Yeah.” Lipton called back, unenthusiastically and coughed slightly after.

George came over with a blanket and put it on Lipton. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth, so I took it out and took a long drag from it.

“Hey what gives (Y/n). Just ‘cause you’re a pretty dame with a nice rack doesn’t mean you can steal my cigs.” He said while laughing, only partly joking. I gave him a look and replied,

“You’re just mad, this is all you get to see of my ‘nice’ rack.” 

He laughed and replied with a ‘you bet’. As he said that, a new voice spoke up, mock confident.

“Ahem. Is this the company CP for Easy?” He asked, looking at me and Luz weirdly before I went to get Lip a cup of hot coffee. 

From the kitchen, I could vaguely hear that he called himself Lieutenant Jones and that he was asking for Captain Speirs. I came out with a coffee for Lipton as Speirs was drilling him about going to the back to sack out and rest. I noticed Jones had stood up when Speirs walked in.

“Christ Captain, give him a break. He’s got Pneumonia!” I told Speirs as I handed Lipton his coffee and gave him a squeeze on his shoulder. Lipton thanked me with a small smile as the new guy looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher.

“Hello to you Ms. (L/n). If he doesn’t rest up though, that Pneumonia won’t go away.” He said pointedly at Lipton.

“I’m sorry, are you a field nurse? I didn’t think they let field nurses come this close to action.” Jones asked me, even though he wasn’t asking with any malicious intent, and it was all curiosity, I still got upset.

“Why d’ya think I’m a field nurse? I’m literally in uniform.” I deadpanned at him while giving him a little attitude for automatically assuming I’d be a field nurse just because I was a woman.

“Oh. I’m sorry, truly I was just curious. I didn't mean any offense, I just didn’t know they let women become paratroopers.” He said quickly, face turning slightly red.

“They don’t. (Y/n) here has some insane stamina, and she’s a helluva shot!” Webster spoke up for me, and I threw him a smile.

“Oh gee, Shifty’s got a better shot than I’d ever dream of having.” I replied, giving credit to Shifty, as he did have a better shot and he was just the sweetest man alive. At that, Winters walked in and told us he’d need fifteen of us on a patrol tonight to capture prisoners. When he said he’d need a translator, I instantly knew it’d be me or Joe as we were the only two in Second Platoon who could speak German. Webster could as well, but we didn’t know which Platoon he’d be in. 

After Nixon and Winters left, Speirs began talking to Lipton about who should lead, and who he could take for the patrol. During this, Jones asked to be on the patrol, which Speirs answered quickly and easily with a no, that he hadn’t any experience. 

“Lipton, how many prisoners do you think there’ll be?” Speirs asked the man in question.

“Honestly, sir, I’m not quite sure, anywhere between three to forty it seems.” He said in reply.

“(L/n).” Speirs called for me as I was sitting in a chair reading.

“Ya want me to be a translator, that it?” I asked, knowing that’s what he was about to ask me.

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Alright.”

When Webster and Lieutenant Jones left for OP two, I decided to get going as well. I knew Liebgott would be there so that was a good enough reason for me.

“Web, I’m comin’ with. Joe’s probably there right now.” I said to David, although slightly talking to Jones as well, to let him know I’d be going to.

“Yeah, no problem. Say when you’re finished with that book, d’ya mind if I reread it?” He asked me as all three of us walked down the street.

“Awh hell Web, I’ve read this thing three times now, you can go ahead and read it now.” I said while throwing him the book, silently noting how quiet Lieutenant Jones was behind us. The two men were running around crouching behind a little garden wall as I stood up, not seeing why they were doing that. When I heard the door open, Sergeant Kiehn came out, greeting me and Web and telling us where OP two was at. Before anymore words could get exchanged, bombs and mortars started raining down on us and we started running and ducking to take cover. We sat against the wall of a building before a man shouted out that it was all clear. After that, we quickly got to the building where OP two was located. Once inside, I immediately went upstairs and sat down on Joe’s bunk and plopped my stuff down.

“Hey doll, where’d you run off to?” Joe asked while wrapping his arms around me as a way to annoy me.

“Went to help Lip, where’d you go?” I asked while laughing at him.

“Came here.” He replied while digging his face into my stomach and faking sleep. Web and Lieutenant Jones came up not too long after I had, and when Jones saw me and Liebgott he immediately stiffened and gave me and Joe a weird look.

“This spot taken?” Webster asked.

“Nah it’s all yours.” Joe said to him while turning his face away from my stomach, my hands went down to card through his hair and he took notice of Jones’ look.

“Fuck are you staring at?” Joe asked him while sitting up and giving him his own glare.

“I’m sorry?” The Lieutenant asked, offended.

“You got a starin’ problem? Why you lookin’ at me and (Y/n) like that?” He challenged him.

“Alright, alright. Quit fighting, we’ve got news.” Webster said, breaking up the fight.

“Dummer, zimperlicher Junge, der dich so ansieht. (Stupid, prissy boy, lookin at you like that)” Joe mumbled to me in German, only loud enough for only me to hear.

“Er ist einfach sauer, weil du mich berührst und nicht er. (He's just mad because you're touching me and not him)” I said back laughing.

Me and Joe got up to go talk to a bunch of men in the corner laughing and smoking, while Webster and Jones went to talk to Malark. When Joe heard them talk about the patrol he pulled Web aside and I went and sat next to Babe to listen to what he was going to say.

“What do you know about this patrol thing?” Joe asked Web quietly.

“Uh, nothing.” Web said while nodding his head.

“Oh, come on, Web. You gotta know something.” Ramirez interrogated.

“I don’t” He replied adamantly 

` “Bullshit.” 

Web and everyone went back and forth and soon more people sat down to listen. I knew Web wouldn’t give anything up, so I decided to. My head was starting to hurt and I wanted to lay down before the patrol knowing I’d be on it at 0100.

“Speirs is picking fifteen men, Jonesy boy wants to be one of ‘em.” I said while yawning. Joe looked down at me and said,

“I say let the kid go, he could use the experience.” He smiled then Ramirez perked up,

“And I bet they could find fourteen other replacements to help him out.” while smirking.

“Nope.” I said, popping the p. “Babe, McClung, Ramirez and I are going out there.” I said dismissively.

“(Y/n)!” Web hissed at me.

“What?” I asked, confused. Then proceeded with,

“Pssh, I’ll just say it was you who said it, Joe and Babe’ll back me up, won’t you boys.” I asked, smiling up at Joe then at Babe.

“Course we will, doll.” Joe replied and Babe grunted. Webster deadpanned me and sat down when Malarkey started telling us about the patrol. 

When the phone rang, and the PX supplies came in, I was ecstatic. New shoes and a shower? Felt like late Christmas. On our way out, the Krauts started to bomb us. We ran down the stairs and I threw myself under a table with Joe. When we had made it outside, we heard there was a casualty, Bill Kiehn. He was a Toccoa man. It was upsetting and it was unfair that he’d gotten through Bastogne only to die like this. I hadn’t known him too well, but the fact that I’d been talking to him 30 minutes prior made me feel like throwing up. Instead of staying to watch, me and the rest of the second platoon went over to the showers to pick up our new ODs. 

Arriving at the showers, we went to go pick up our new ODs, and anything else they’d dropped for us. Nixon was standing by the depot and was holding a box with my name on it. Being the only woman paratrooper here meant I’d need a different size uniform and boots. I thanked Nixon and grabbed the box, opening it. Inside there was a uniform my size, boots, and women’s sanitary needs, a new bra set, and a few new pairs of panties.

“Well ain’t you a lucky gal, getting new undergarments while we’re stuck with the same briefs.” A voice came from behind me. Getting ready to yell at whoever was looking over my shoulder, I turned and realized it was Joe.

“Aww, poor baby has to wear the same briefs.” I replied, feigning upset and then laughing when I saw his disgruntled expression.

 Before I could run off to take a much needed shower, Malarkey called for us to let us know who’d be going on the patrol.

Heffron, McClung, Ramirez, me, Liebgott, Grant, Wynn, Jackson, Shifty and Webster. When we heard how many second platoon men were going, you could practically feel the rage flowing from us. 

We’d all been pissed, wanting to complain but knowing it’d do us no good. Malarkey went off towards the showers and told us to as well. There were men standing at the entrance, undressing and some coming out wet. I didn’t want to undress, even if it was only down to my bra and panties. I’d been behind Joe when I took my first few layers of my tops off. Down to my black bra and army-issued pants was when Webster came up to talk to Joe, effectively, scaring the shit out of me.

“Jesus, Web, you came outta nowhere.” I said, holding my hand to my chest to calm down.

“Oops, sorry (Y/n).” He said while rubbing the back of his neck nervously. I’d noticed his face had turned a bright shade of red, but I thought it was because he was embarrassed that he’d scared me. A hand shot out to grab my arm and turn me around when I noticed it was Joe. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked curiously.

“Do you not see everyone lookin’ at you like they’re starving men looking at their last meal?” He asked bewildered. Suddenly, I became hyper aware of most of the men's eyes on me, waiting for me to finish undressing. Before I could respond Joe spoke up again.

“Nevermind that, just finish and we can go in together.” Quickly I went to undo my belt, and I realized Joe was already down to his briefs, waiting on me. I felt bad to make him wait, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. I took this time to really look at Joe. Sure he was cute, and I’d definitely thought about him like this before, but would he really want me? I tried not to let my hopes get up, and as I slipped my pants down my legs, I forced myself to look away from his bare chest.

Having a hot shower was probably the best thing I’d had in a long time. Quickly scrubbing my body and hair down and then rinsing off, I stepped outside in a towel and grabbed my new uniform, and new undergarments.

Joe had finished showering, so I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to a random building to change, and do my hair. When we got in, there was nobody there, probably all in the showers, so I took Joe to the first mirror I found in a bedroom and made him sit down. He had no obligations and I told him I’d be back after changing. Once I finished, I brought out my old undergarments and towel and hung them out to dry.

There was a vanity on the opposite side of a bed, with a little cushion seat, and some old, dusty hair products. I quickly got to work using them and braiding up my hair.

“Why’d you pull me away doll? Want me that bad huh?” He questioned while smirking at me and drawing a cigarette from his front pocket.

“Yeah, you wish. I wanted someone to talk to.” I joked back before replying honestly and looking at him through the mirror. I finished doing my last braid as Joe was telling me about one of his comics he found that he enjoyed. Standing up, I walked over to stand in front of him, looking down on him as he was sitting on the bed. He stopped talking and we made eye contact. He looked as handsome as ever sitting in his new ODs, with a fresh shower.

“Well don’t you look handsome in your new uniform with your hair combed.” I said to him in a sweet voice running my hands through his wet hair. His eyes darkened as his hands went to hold onto my hips.

“Jesus, (Y/n). We’ve been through hell and back and you’re still the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.” He said confidently. I could feel my face getting hot, he’d said things like this before, but this time, it felt different. Stronger almost. 

“Oh, Joe. You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met.” I whispered to him, and he looked up at my lips, silently asking me. I slowly closed my eyes and let my hands fall from his hair down to his face, I slowly leaned down as he looked up and closed my eyes. As our lips were less than a centimeter apart, someone awkwardly coughed.

We sprung away from each other, embarrassed that we got caught. Looking at who it was, some random replacement apologized and said he left something in here and it was his room.

When he left, I started laughing and grabbed Joe by the arm to pull him up.

“Come on, I bet everyone is wondering where we went.”

“Goddammit Johnny, you’re breaking my heart.” Luz said.

“Come on, George, just give me, I don’t know, ten, fifteen bars?” Martin pressured him

“Juicy fruit, happy?”

Johnny and Cobb had been pestering George to give them Hershey bars. I knew there wasn’t enough, and that it wasn’t fair so I just stayed quiet the whole time. Cobb began badgering George again and when George went to defend himself, a whole group of men walked in.

“Whoa, Hershey bars!” Joe exclaimed, coming up behind me to rest his hands on my shoulders from where I was sitting in front of the table of candy and treats.

“Jesus Christ.” Poor George just couldn’t catch a break.

“Wait your turn, Liebgott.” Cobb said, pissing me off. I never really liked Cobb and he didn’t like me.

“Yeah, who they for?” Liebgott asked George.

“Not you, Lieb.”

“Oh come on George, one bar!” Joe pestered, wanting to get that bar.

“Y’know who they’re for? People who don’t interrogate me. Here, (Y/n), have a bar!” George replied while looking Joe in the eye.

“Oh George! Thank you!” I exclaimed excitedly. I hadn’t known the last time I’d gotten chocolate.

“Christ, you’re only giving it to her because she’s a woman and you wanna get on her good side in case the opportunity arises to fuck her!” Cobb said angrily as I turned around, glaring, ready to hit him.

“That sounds more like something you’d do, knowing you couldn’t get a woman to sleep with you willingly if your life depended on it!” I yelled back at him which caused him to call me a slur of colorful words. After that, Joe yelled at him and I ignored him.

“Hey big mouth! Give Lieb a Hershey bar, huh?” Perconte asked.

When I heard his voice, I jumped up, running up to him to give him a hug.

“Perco! Your back!” I exclaimed as he hugged me back.

“You gotta be shittin’ me! Look who it is!” George laughed and said.

“How ya feeling?” Joe then asked him, smiling.

“As long as you keep your hands off my ass, I’ll be fine.” Perconte replied, laughing.

“Have a Hershey’s!” Luz threw one at Perconte.

“Hey he gets a fuckin Hershey bar?” Joe asked, offended as I came to sit down next to him, opening up my Hershey’s.

“Ask ya girlfriend to french ya when she’s done eating it.” George joked as I took a bite into my bar and broke it in half.

“I’ll do you one better, Joe.” I said after I swallowed and handed him the half I didn’t bite into. He took it with thanks.

“That’s not one better, he’d rather you kiss him (L/n)!” Luz said while laughing right after. Joe pushed him backwards while also laughing

At 1700, there was a briefing about the house we’d be going into. I was next to Shifty, talking with him. Every now and again me and Joe would make eye contact, until the other looked away. Winters, and Martin walked in which caused Joe to look away first. Winters explained Johnny would be going in Malarkey's place, and that made everyone slightly more comfortable. I was on Johnny’s team, along with Webster. I walked out and Liebgott was waiting for me, he left with me and as we passed Speirs, he told Joe he didn’t have to go on the patrol.

We’d been all stationed in the basement for now before the patrol. Having to eat slop and we couldn’t have our helmets. I sat with Shifty as I ate.

“Youse gonna be out there with a gun?” Shifty asked me in a sweet voice, I knew what he was talking about. He was asking if I’d be helping shoot.

“Nah, well obviously I’ll have a gun, but I’m mainly a translator.” I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“I don’ understand why they never let you shoot with me. You’re a helluva sniper.” Shifty told me, making me giggle at him.

“Oh Shift, you know how to make a woman feel good about herself.” I replied, happy that I got to talk to him before the patrol. He always knew how to make someone happy, even during nerve-wracking times.

At 0100, we were getting into those rubber boats, and setting sail on a short trip across the river. Before the fourth boat could even get far, it flipped and we were down three men. I wasn’t too nervous, knowing that I’d been through worse. When we got to the other side, Martin had someone cut the fence and me and Web, being translators, meant that we had to be up front in case we found any Germans. 

So far, we’d gotten up to the steps of the house we’d need to get prisoners from. Johnny had shot into the window, and Jackson went up to throw his grenade, except, instead of waiting for it to finish detonating, Jackson didn’t stop and immediately went into the house, getting hit straight in the face with his grenade. As we ran in, me and Web were yelling at the men in German. We started to split the three men up when I heard a small cry in the corner of the room. I stopped to turn to go towards the sound.

“(L/n)! What are you doing?” Johnny yelled at me.

“Sir! There’s a child!” I shouted, confused. When I got down eye level with the little girl, I noticed she was only in a thin, white nightgown, with no shoes. She looked malnourished, hurt and mostly scared. 

“Alsjeblieft! Alsjeblieft! (Please! Please!)” The little girl cried in Dutch, shrinking away from me when I went to get her.

“Het is goed schat! Rustig maar, ik ben hier om te helpen! (Its okay dear! Relax, I'm here to help!)” I replied to her in Dutch. What had a little Dutch girl been doing here? I didn’t have time to continue to calm the little girl before Johnny started yelling about getting on the boats and leaving.

“Klein meisje, ik ga je ophalen. (Little girl, I'm going to pick you up.)” I warned her before grabbing her bridal style and running with her out of the house and covering her eyes to make sure she didn’t see what was happening around her with Jackson. Pushing everyone into the boats, the girl I was holding onto kept crying and crying. The poor little girl couldn’t have been more than four years old. 

“Het is goed schat. Het is goed schat. (It’s alright baby. It’s alright baby.)” I kept repeating to the small frightened girl. When Webster jumped into the boat behind me, we started going back to our side. He had his head ducked, as the Krauts kept shooting at the back boat. He had his arms around me when he realized I was shielding a child.

“(Y/n)! What the hell? Why do you have a child?” He yelled out over the gun fire.

“I don’t know! She was in the corner, she’s Dutch!” I replied, still confused as to how she got here and why she wasn’t in the Netherlands. We all ran downstairs, I was still holding onto the little girl, she had come from the Germans territory so I had to stay with her by the other prisoners. Nobody had come up to me about the girl yet so I took this as a time to try to get information so she wasn’t bombarded when adrenaline wore off.

“Wat is je naam? (What’s your name?)” I asked her calmly. She looked up at me with teary dark blue eyes. “Tineke.” She responded in a quiet voice. I was sitting on the floor and I held her so she was only facing me. I could feel someone watching me, but for now I didn’t care.

“Mooie naam! De mijne is (Y/n)! (Beautiful name! Mine is (Y/n)!)” I replied while smiling at her and gently carding my hand through her dark brown strands. Her skin was deathly pale and it was obvious she hadn’t drank or eaten anything in a long time. I gave her my canteen and she took it wearily. She wouldn’t drink it because she was scared of what could be in it. I took it back and took a small sip and gave it back. When she noticed I was okay, she started drinking out of it rapidly. 

When she finished drinking, I asked her more questions. 

“Spreek je Engels? (Can you speak English?)” I asked her. “Little bit.” She replied hesitantly.

“Very good, mijn liefje! (My love!)” She seemed to smile a little at the name I’d given her.

“Where is your mommy?” I asked slowly. She started to get upset at the mention of her mother but she replied anyway.

“She die. The Duits kill her. I am Joods. They take her and kill my mammie in de camps for Jodens. Then they keep me. (The Germans kill her. I am Jewish. My mommy. Camps for Jews.)” She told me in a somber tone. When she couldn’t think of the right word, she’d just say it in Dutch. I thought about bringing her to Joe later knowing he was Jewish, she might feel comfortable with him. 

“You’re safe now, liefje.” I told her while bringing her close to my chest. She ended up falling asleep not even ten minutes later. It gave me time to think about what she had said. She never mentioned a last name which made me believe she didn’t know it. The camp she was talking about was also weird. What did she mean by a camp for Jewish people?

Jackson had died. That boy who’d just turned twenty, had died. He had his whole life ahead and he died in a stupid war. I hadn’t even known him too well, but he just died in front of me, in front of everyone. I was thankful Tineke was asleep as she’d already seen enough. 

A day had passed since the patrol. The Germans were taken away and Tineke wouldn’t talk to anyone except me, and occasionally Joe. When Winters had found out about her, he had to ask her questions. I had come with because she couldn’t speak English very well and she refused to go anywhere if I wasn’t with her. The poor girl had been traumatized and it seemed like she’d been like that for a while.

While asking her questions, we found out her family was Jewish, and when the Germans found out, they took her and her family out of their homes to be sent to a camp. She didn’t know much, just that her mother and her got away and when they were found by the two Germans, her mother tried to fight against them resulting in her getting shot. Tineke was then taken as a hostage. 

Doc Roe came in to see how she was and it turned out she had been malnourished, and if I hadn’t found her when I did she would’ve been dead. Later that day I took her to the building where the second platoon was located to introduce her. 

I walked in and held onto Tine and went upstairs.

“Guys, this is Tineke. She was found in the house with the other POWs and she’s Dutch. She can speak some English, but don’t bombard her.” I spoke when I went upstairs and saw everyone. They all looked at us, and one by one I walked around with her and had her say hi to everyone. When I got to the last person, Joe, I sat down on the bunk with him and had her greet him.

“Tine, why don’t you tell Joe what you are.” I reminded her. I had told her to tell him she was Jewish before we went upstairs.

“Jewish.” Was all she said, nervous and not knowing too much English, she turned her face away into my chest. I rubbed my hand down her knotted, dirty hair realizing she needed a bath.

“Ain’t that cool! I’m Jewish too!” Joe responded in a sweet voice, smiling down at her when she slightly turned her head towards him. Before any more words could get exchanged, Webster came in to break the news that we were to go on another patrol that night and there would be another meeting at 1800. It was currently 1530 so I decided to bring Tineke down to the kitchen sink where I could give her a makeshift bath. I remembered how my mom would do that for me and my siblings when we were little and there were no baths in any of the houses.

I grabbed some soap and put it in her hair while I’d tell her stories to pass the time. 

“A long time ago, there were two moons. It was said one of them, named houden got too close to the sun, and out came thousands of dragons.” I told her a story my mother used to tell me all the time.

“Houden? To hold?” She asked as I began rinsing out her hair.

“That’s right. That’s how dragons were born.” I told her. As I finished saying that, another voice piped up from behind me.

“I didn’t know dragons were born from the moon.” Joe came up behind me and waved at Tineke, who brought her hand up slightly.

“That’s because I never told you that.” I said while smiling up at him. He moved to have his arms around my waist and laid his head on my shoulder. I finished rinsing Tine off then I grabbed a towel and wrapped her in it. Nixon had got clothes small enough to fit her from one of his sources. It was a small, black dress with a dark brown fluffy shawl. She also had stockings and tiny boots. When I finished dressing her, I braided up her hair and put on a hat.

At 1800 we all went down to the basement to await Winter’s meeting he called.

“Whatcha lookin’ at Webster.” A drunk Cobb said. I put one of my hands on Web’s shoulder, holding Tineke to my chest as she slept on me, and he turned to give me a smile.

“That’s what I thought, college boy.” Cobb said while swaying lightly on his feet. I gave Cobb a glare and squeezed the hand I had on Web’s shoulder.

“Are you drunk, trooper?” Lieutenant Jones asked him, angrily.

“Leave me alone.” Cobb replied, looking away.

“Answer the question.” Jones said firmly.

“Yes, sir, I am drunk, sir.” Cobb said sassily before adding, “Drunk, and sick and tired of fucking patrols. Taking orders-”

“Hey Cobb, shut up. It’s boring, okay.” Martin cut him off before he could finish what he was saying.

“Taking his side, Johnny?” “Yeah, I am.”

After that shit show I went and sat by Joe, wanting to make sure I wouldn’t be in Cobb’s line of fire in case he decided to throw something.

Winters came in to not only tell us that we didn’t have to go on that patrol, but that we’d also be off the line tomorrow. After he left, everyone started talking, which woke up Tine, who had no idea what was going on, but was happy because everyone else was. 

When I went upstairs, Winters was waiting for me.

“Hey, (Y/n).” He said, a bittersweet tone to his voice.

“Hello, sir. Anything I can help you with?” I asked, slightly nervous that he had waited for me.

“It turns out, we found one of Tineke’s family members. Her aunt and uncle. They’re set to come tonight.” He said quietly.

“Oh. Well that’s great!” I smiled slightly, feeling my heart get heavy at the fact that the young girl would be leaving.

“Tine, you hear that? Your aunt and uncle are coming to pick you up.” I told her, looking down at her. She perked up, looking between me and Winters and then she smiled. She smiled bigger than I’d ever seen her smile.

When her aunt and uncle arrived at 2100, Tineke ran up to them and they picked her up. They repeatedly thanked me and Winters and before they left, I gave Tineke a hug and kiss and turned around to walk away. As I did that, I noticed Joe was standing there waiting for me, smiling sweetly at me. We walked away, arm in arm to go back to the house together. The next day, we’d all been sent to the trucks to move to our new location. I was sitting next to Joe, my head on his shoulder as I slept. 

We had made it to Germany. The Krauts surrendered and Hitler shot himself. We were finally able to stay in an actual house, with actual baths and actual beds. To us, life couldn’t get any better. 

Me and Joe had been sharing a house with Perco and Luz. Frank and George went out to get eggs from a farmhouse a few blocks down so right now it was just me and Joe.

“You excited, doll?” He asked me from the table. I put down one of the wet dishes I was washing, and replied,

“For what Lieb?” “We got through the hard part!” Oh. I hadn’t really thought about that yet.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I’m just scared that I’ll have to go to the Pacific if this war finishes soon.” I replied genuinely.

“Oh don’t worry about that right now.” He said while standing up and coming behind me. I put down the last dish and pulled off the wet, yellow gloves I had on to wash the dishes in.

“Y’know, Perco and Luz just left.” 

“I know Liebgott, I’ve got eyes.” I replied, smiling up at him while turning around to face him. He put his hands on the sink behind me and smiled down on me.

“Well if your eyes are any good, then you’ll be able to see how much of a hold ya got on me.” He spoke before closing the distance between us and closing the gap.

I immediately closed my eyes and kissed him back. We slowly pulled apart, and without another word he slammed his mouth into mine. This time, he was much more passionate. His hands wandered down to my waist, and mine went up to his neck and hair. I gasped as he bit my bottom lip, and he snuck his tongue into my mouth. I kissed him back with as much fervor as I could, slightly pulling on his hair without realizing. He moaned into my mouth and the vibrations caused heat to pool in my stomach.

His hands started to roam down my body, causing me to moan as well. He pulled me flush against him and then pulled me up the stairs into one of the rooms I was occupying. I gently sat down on the bed and his fingers went to my uniform top, unbuttoning my shirt. 

Perconte and Luz were walking down the trail to the house they were sharing with (Y/n) and Joe, they had eggs to cook up for everyone. When they got inside, they expected to see (Y/n) and Joe downstairs, waiting for them like they had been before.

“Hey, where’d they go-”

“D’you hear that?” George cut Frank off when he heard what sounded like muffled banging from upstairs. The two men immediately smirked at each other, and Luz ran upstairs.

They stopped outside of the door getting ready to knock, when they heard moaning from the other side.

Before Frank could hold George back, he knocked on the door yelling, 

“You two better hurry up before me and Perco eat all the eggs!” It was quiet for a moment before Joe shouted out towards the two men,

“Go ahead! I’m eating something way better!”

IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG! If I missed any TWs lmk and I'll add them!

[nomaxart]

Hey everyone! It is that time of the year when we sit down for this! In a new look this time around, and I've ditched the "favourite of the year" for this year because it's just too much of a mess for it to really make sense.

This year has been completely different than the previous ones due to the main project of mine being the Conway Visual Novel, soooooo it ended up making it a bit tricky to really choose for this in the first place. That is not to even mention the lead times from painting it to it being released in the game and then to me posting it online (IF I even post it online outside of the game, which doesn't happen for everything). So it's less of a science this year and more of a suggestion. The two oil paintings for example are in their public release month, even though they were painted in january. Reason for it being that I wanted to free up January since I wanted to pad things, and avoid half of the months just being character sprites.

Also got a comparison from the first build in february and the same scene in the newest version, which is pretty fun to see them next to one another.

This year of course has been dominated by Conway for me, and that doesn't look like it's changing. I know it's probably something not everyone of your enjoys, which is fair enough, but it's just way too fun to make to set it aside for my old routine. It feels like it's garnering a nice little fanbase by now and yeah, as long as I can I'll be working on this game, and on other projects like it afterwards. Thank you to every one of you who made an effort to support it. It's been truly amazing to see the support I have for it and read about people enjoying it and all that good stuff that one absorbs along the way.

Some months were tough, of course, and it really scraped past me having to call quits on it by a hair's breadth there around May and June, so thank you to everyone of you who ends up making this stuff possible. I can't thank you all enough!

Onwards to 2024 then and let's see where this ship is going. :D

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not wanting to talk to my exes anymore? It's been two months and I'm still thinking about this. I (22nb) was in a semi-platonic/semi-romantic relationship with two people (both 20+) I thought were really genuinely lovely. There were communication issues but we're all three traumatized and have massive issues with confrontation so I sort of let a lot of it slide. A lot of it was them just... not telling me things? they'd go to each other for support when they were having bad times but never me. Nor would they ever tell me what was going on - both would just vanish and not respond for like 3 to 6 hours every evening with no warning. I did ask at one point if one of them could at least just... drop us a message and be like "talk later, having a hard time". Which I feel like isn't unreasonable? It apparently was though.

So February into March this year was really tough. I was in my final year (technically the final two months!!) of my undergrad and coping with some abuse in therapy, so I was a bit more all over the place. One of them started really just.... not talking to me and the other started being really off. Like if I spoke to them, it was in dms and never as a group until they wanted to call and play something in the evening.

In March, I had a massive mental health crisis personally and due to some really unfortunate circumstances, ended up unmedicated. This resulted in a psychotic episode (that I identified and informed them about). During this, one of them suggested that if I was having such a hard time with them, if breaking up would be better. And I sort of lost it? I wasn't mean, but I was really stressing that my paranoia and erraticness wasn't about them - I was having a psychotic episode and was incredibly mentally unwell.

It ended up with them both being angry at me and not speaking to me for a day. Everything proceeded far more awkwardly from there. I got back on my medication and somewhat recovered, but ended up needing to move back in with my parents during the exam season (I was a danger to myself). The night I got home, they broke up with me specifically. Because it "didn't feel like we were partners anymore" and I was "unhelpful and uncommunicative". They wanted to continue being friends though.

And I tried to be friends for the next month. I really tried. But it just felt... hollow. And then when I tried to inform one of them of something, they started lecturing me on my behavior.

So I decided... I didn't want to talk to them at that time. And I said as much, in private.

To which they took screenshots of personal conversations and posted them to a group server to prove they weren't the bad guys to mutual friends.

There were a lot of other little things. Like they'd talk to each other constantly but only one would talk to me consistently and this was framed as a "you're bad at communicating" thing to me. I tried consistently to reach out and show both I cared and ended up just.. being ignored or getting one word answers. Me expressing boundaries such as "can we have serious conversations when I'm level headed and not immediately (like not an hour after, I mean Directly, 2 seconds later "hey anon here's a boundary I never told you" after) after I've had a depressive breakdown or me asking to take ten minutes to settle my emotions when being told things were both sort of dismissed. Or even just... they always Expected I'd be there for group gaming sessions with their friends/did gaming sessions without me but got wildly upset when I spent an evening calling/gaming with a friend of mine who lives in a different country (to the point of being petty enough to make another server without me with a couple people and game/call Only There for like a week).

I just got... fed up with being treated like the bad guy? I wasn't always nice, but neither were they. I tried consistently to communicate/be as reasonable as I could and just felt like I was hitting brick walls. Communicating how I wanted the relationship to look always turned into me mimicking an abusive ex or something (seriously - one of them said that something I asked for was what their wildly abusive ex did and therefore wasn't okay).

I'll also note - I only ever shared parts of the breakup with close friends in DMs or in private conversation. Never publicly, and with minimal screenshots. Nothing I said was in a public space at all.

So Tumblr - AITA for not wanting to continue the friendship?

What are these acronyms?

[talkingtothetallman]

A lot of positives (with a few negatives along the way)

Well by golly, I did it! 365 days (well nearly... I'll get there later) of photos on my Sony a7iii, each day attempting to create an image that has some semblance of professionalism and artistry, in a twofold effort to create some beautiful pictures and give myself a reason to use my camera!

To say it was a big task to accomplish is both completely true, but also somehow and oxymoronically, false! I guess it's like what people say a dream job is... it's work, but in a fun and rewarding way.

But work is a four-letter word they say, so it's important to state that there were days aplenty that I did NOT want to take a photo, not because I no longer enjoyed photography or something, but because I didn't feel inspired. I think that's where I struggled the most this year... feeling truly inspired to go out and take a beautiful photo every day. The world that surrounds you daily can seem to be void of personality and charm, all the beauty that was once seemingly at every corner now gone with the normalcy of reality. Couple all that with a small world while on paternity leave during the winter months and it starts to become monotonous. Going back to work in mid-February was good for seeing different landscapes, but it still wasn't ideal for photography with the rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest in the winter.

Which is why I bought a small camera case for my lunchbox to take with me on route! Truly a game-changing moment! No longer did I have to wait until I got home to take a picture for the day or try to use my phone to get something of lesser quality. After all, if I wanted to come away with a lot of keepers this year, I was going to need to all the help I could get! And henceforth, the quest continued!

But with all that background now out of the way, let's talk about some of the things I learned.

I shoot vertical... a lot! I did the math, and I chose to shoot vertical around 25% more than landscape orientation. Pretty wild! My main speculation for this is because so much of the content we ravenously consume on our phones is centered around vertical images and video, due to how we hold them. I think it's a subconscious "rewiring" of the brain that makes portrait orientation photos/videos seem more normal or even preferred. But to defend it for a second, sometimes that just looks best for the subject! No shame in admitting it here ;)

2. My defacto subject when I don't know what shoot is... flowers. It seems like at least once or twice a week I wouldn't find anything interesting to capture, so I'd default to taking a picture of a flower. Not a bad thing because flowers are certainly beautiful, but since I've never fancied myself a flower guy it's a interesting observation that has yielded some good shots of those little colorful petals!

3. Slowing down for me is tough. My entire working career I've been with UPS, a company and industry known for working quickly. Add to that that I've always had a tendency to do things fast (speed cubing, sport stacking, talking fast, etc.) and the result is a lack of slowing down, even if for a minute or two, to take a photo. I probably missed some good shots this past year because I was in too much of a hurry to stop and smell the roses. I definitely want to be better about that this year!

4. Vintage lenses are fun! If you remember my last post, I talked about the fun and magic that come with vintage glass from yesteryear. It was fun to delve into researching them this year and getting to produce some stunning images with them! Not to mention, it's probably for the best that I brush up on my manual focusing skills! One of the best things about vintage lenses is that they are relatively affordable and can still hold up stupendously well despite some of them being over half a century old. But I'm taking a break from buying them for the next few months; it's definitely a great way to spend a lot of money without realizing it!

5. Didn't do a ton of astrophotography this year, but really want to in 2025! Part of what I wanted to do this year is shoot some more Milky Way photos this year, but alas I never made the time for it. It's definitely a commitment in the planning and shooting and editing departments, but it's also incredibly rewarding to look at the final shot! But even though I didn't capture any stunning Milky Way photos, I was able to get some of the aurora borealis! Thanks to my honeybee for dragging out the kids to go with me on a work night!

6. Tried some new things this year, namely shooting on 35mm film for the first time! Crazy how it sounds, but it's actually very rewarding not being instantly shown what you just photographed. My first was a some Kodak Portra 400, but I got some Fuji 400 for Christmas that I'm excited to shoot with and see the results! Definitely a neat experience that I was glad to take part in! What's old is new again, as the saying goes!

7. One thing that this challenge also contained was discipline. It's hard to commit to something, especially when you don't feel like doing it every day. But I'm pleased to say that I did use my Sony every day this past year, with the exception of the few days that I used my phone (which I did account for at the beginning the year) and one random day. It was 10:30 at night, the lights were off in the bedroom and all of sudden I realized, "I didn't take a picture today!" But since we were already in bed, I didn't get up and take a pic... consider it a cheat day ;)

I guess that about wraps it up! If you expected this blog post to go in-depth into incredulous stories that belong around the smoky campfire, filled with unbelievable twists and turns that cause you to sit there with your mouth gaping open like a toddler... yeah I got nothing for you. To my recollection there aren't any stories to tell, and that's okay; life isn't always the premise of a major motion picture that you see on the silver screen. Not every day has that, because often times it's truly a grind of normalcy and routine. I guess that's what I truly learned out of this whole deal: life isn't always exciting or flashy, and that's perfectly okay. It's good to slow down, take a deep breath and fill your lungs with the air that surrounds you, because it's another moment the Lord has let you live! How often do we forget each day, each hour, each minute... that those are truly gifts of God! I blogged several months ago about reflecting on the little things; that's kinda the crux of the matter. Reflecting on the small blessings in life and thanking the Lord for them. One way I want to better in 2025 is to complain less. Being in a mindset of thankfulness is the way to do that.

2025 is a big year for me in a lot of ways... turning 25, hitting top scale as a driver, five year anniversary. Lots of milestones and so much to be thankful for! This year, may the Lord help me to be thankful for all the moments no matter what the situation, to put the past in the rearview, and to be sold out for Him in all that I do!

Oh, and take some pretty dope pics.. yeah that would be pretty sweet too.

[mistressflorence32]

Christmas Presents in an FLR

As me and my slave spent Christmas in Malta we had to exchange presents later on. In this female led relationship, we both buy things for each other we think the other will like, and many kinky items as well. I think Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to use gifts to start introducing different kinks into your lives. I won’t make this a long winded introduction, you just want to know what I got for him and what he got for me. We’ll start off first with what I got him!

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS MY SLAVE RECEIVED

- Spiked ball stretcher (ballbusting training has been a very important aspect of my slave’s training so far, I see no reason why it can’t be brought to more of an extreme after so long)

- Sounding rod kit (as I have pointed out in previous essays, the final end goal for my slave is to be permanently locked in chastity with a sounding rod always down his dick. Others have been able to handle this, so I bought my slave a sounding kit so he can start breaking in his pisshole)

- New steel chastity cage (also for reasons previously stated, I feel in chastity his cock has somewhat shrunk and it’s time for his cage to be shrunk along with it. After all, he’s got a year of chastity awaiting him, it may as well fit)

- Secret VII Foreplay Game (of course the male options to this game were removed. I thought we’d be able to have some fun whilst reminding him that the pleasure is all for me)

- Sauvage (ever since he smelt it in a Selfridges my slave has been innocently trying to drop hints he wants this perfume, so I was happy to oblige)

- Dragons Dogma II (my slave is a massive fan of the original game so I got him this, something fun for him to be doing in his free time)

- Protein powder (naturally since I only expect the best from my slaves, he is in the gym every single day maintaining a beautiful body that most men who are into femdom don’t think is necessary. The reality is that you are here to please women, so if you can’t do that with how your body looks why do it at all? Anyway, as I was saying my slave is an absolute gym bunny and spends a fortune on protein powder, so this was one of his gifts)

- High heels (more than anything this was a symbolic present, as it instantly sparked the conversation about my plans for him during Fembruary, a month where the male of an FLR spends February getting emasculated and feminised. He was aware of its existence in my personal circle, but this was a full announcement and confirmation that he will be getting sissified for that month. And yes, getting high heels in his size was VERY tough)

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS I RECEIVED (FROM MY SLAVE)

These first three presents get a description, the others pretty much are self explanatory but still wonderful gifts.

- Sculpture of my body as a candle (using exact pictures of my nude body my slave commissioned a candle in the perfectly replicated shape to show how much he worships and adores my body. It was one of the most romantic gestures I have ever received from a slave and honestly made me feel slightly emotional. We may be an FLR but it is nice to have events like Christmas to remind us how we are soulmates)

- Adore Me Lingerie Subscription Box (I love a bit of lingerie, as you can imagine so does my slave! But to be fair I can have issues with sourcing the stuff I find beautiful so this was perfect for me, even better with my sub knowing he’d be in chastity this year, and that every month I’ll have something fun and new to tease him with)

- Demonias STACK-301 (such an important part of my slave’s training has been ballbusting training. For a total of three hours a week, whether it’s eighteen 10 minute sessions or all in one go. It depends on how I feel but these are the usual methods I use; Kicking, Punching, E-stim Shocking, Humbler, Ball Crusher, Ball Stretching, Ball Hammering. What you’ll notice is the usual technique of stomping is not here, and that’s because I haven’t had the appropriate boots for it. That’s why I was very happy when my slave bought me this pair of demonias. Just look them up and you’ll see how extreme they really are with a 7 inch platform powering them)

- Friars Chocolate Box

- Dior OUD ISPAHAN perfume

- Silk dressing gown

- iPad

- Afternoon tea experience

- Persian rug

Overall, this has been a brilliant Christmas and as far as gifts go I’m very happy. We’ve exchanged presents that are deeply emotional and romantic, but also some gifts which will keep us very entertained until next Christmas! Well I say Christmas, but in the mean time for me we have Valentine’s Day, Woman’s Day and my Birthday!

[defiledtomb]

Ouroboros: Progress

I haven't written one of these in forever, so it's slightly clunky, but I aim to have one of these out at least every quarter, if not monthly. Let's dive into it! Spoiler warning for the sneak peeks at the bottom.

What I got done since last month:

After the update drop, I took some time off the main story to prevent the budding burnout. I’m sure you are well aware of my malaise by now- it's a constant effort to stay on the tightrope.

I don't think I brought it up explicitly but when I started writing Ouroboros it was me riding the high of becoming a person again right after years long sick leave and battle with mental health, meaning that while I am absolutely thrilled that I'm getting so much out of life again, that fragile part of me still lives on and I have to take care not to let it get the best of me, and that means constant vigilance and self-compassion. Writing a project this big could easily be a full time job on its own, but I also have to account for going back to the workforce after being gone for so long. It's tough! irl work/life keeps amping up and will continue to eat my energy. Though, come summer, I might actually have some good news on my schedule and how my writing will fit into that. Fingers crossed.

Otherwise I have really enjoyed interacting and goofing around with you on tumblr again, and I’ve had a blast just reading and playing games. It was a very welcomed break. I still got a lot done regarding Ouroboros:

- Got started on all the short stories you voted on, and built the framework of code for how stories will be unlocked as you progress the story. 

- I got some much needed help with setting up a side-blog for writing content only; it’s getting there! Soon Ouro will have its own space.

- I added about 3k words to the next chunk of act 1. A drop in the ocean, but progress is progress. 

- I started sneak-writing on the next act and specifically, the underwater/caving chapter. I am so excited for it! Besides writing and hiking, diving and caving are core parts of my interests. (Didn't I once say that Ouro is disgustingly self indulgent? x] Because it sure is.) 

What’s next:

I am still taking it slow, since most of act 1 pt2 is already written  (60k words ish), and I have some responsibilities I’m gonna need to devote my time to. My goals for February are leading up to Ouro’s first anniversary, so I want to prepare something fun for us to enjoy! If it will be a chunk of update or something else remains to be decided. On the 8th of March we ride.

My priorities for February are:

-having fun with the short stories

-get the sideblog up and running with a new FAQ and character pages, and a new intro post.

-solidify the code and scene transitions for the next update 

- (stretch goal) edit/rewrite/add to the unhinged mess that the next update still is 

 Re: bug reports

Thankfully, last update was relatively bug free, but there are still a few reports sitting in my inbox waiting for changes, mainly

-the egregious oversight of having id's romance scenes appearing although the hunter is committed to L/not in the poly. More on that here.

-the questions with Iontif cutting off short in one path

-a section of the flashback with wrong pronouns + other pronoun variables not displaying correctly (the bane of my existence!!)

Thank you to those who reported these, I always note them down if I don't fix them directly. The reason why I am almost always tardy on bug fixes is because I'm treating this as a first draft that will be rewritten; it makes little sense to dedicate so much time to fixing things that will need to be fixed again. I do them when I have little else I want/have to do. I'm sorry! Triaging problem areas is essential to keeping this show going. I hope that it isn't too invasive to have a few errors in the scenes; rest assured that they will get fixed (eventually 🤡)

Re: save system

Something that has really bothered me lately, is thinking about CoG's obstinate refusal to implement save systems. I absolutely won't release Ouroboros without one, as with how much variation goes into the story (and knowing from first-hand experience playing large games, that one miss-click (or that horrendous bug that chooses options for you if you even look at it wrong) will have you go down a path you didn’t want, or you are faced with starting over, which sometimes leads to such fatigue that you just…stop playing.) it feels like shooting yourself in the foot to not have one. And worse, it feels plain cruel to subject the reader to that. There isn’t any possible way to fit every nuance of a choice into the box-text, or to imply a delayed outcome as a result of making a choice that seems very “innocent” at first glance.

So I stand before a really difficult decision; either code a save system from the bottom up, and I would have to do that sooner rather than later, or port the game to twine which brings its own bundle of problems. Right now I honestly no idea what I want to do, and I have to admit that it fuels a bit of writer's block as I feel locked in place until I come to a decision. Heurgh.

Now for the fun part. Sneak peeks!

I wont share the latter parts as they are still... Unhinged. But the next update isn't just romance, its weapons and insidious cults and fighting, too.  More on that, later.

Thanks for your support, your kind words and for sharing your journey in Ouro. It means the world to me. I’m serious!

[philosophical]

How long did the tattoos on your butt take? Like how many visits???

So I only did two sessions: one for each side! I got the entire thing done - all of the lines, colours and shading in one sitting for each. Each sitting was five hours, so 10 hours total. I did the first side back in January this year and then a month later (February) once it was healed, I went and did the other side. I’m a tough bitch 🫶🏻

From what I’ve seen, most people only do lines and then go back and do shading and colour in future sessions. The reason being is how sensitive and painful that area is to tattoo. But I have a high pain tolerance (the perks of being a lifetime recovering self harmer, I guess) and I sat like a rock on the table. I just laid there and read a book in my kindle lol. So to me, it’s weird when I see girls here who have butt pieces that aren’t finished. My artists and the other artists in the shop said I intimated them because they watched me throughout the session and I didn’t blink, twitch or move at all through any pain. And they’ve said other people who get their butts done are whining and twitching and can’t stay still… 🫠🫢

Meanwhile, I’m insane and pain doesn’t bother me like I said, so I did it from start to fully finished in one go 😌

Here are some progress photos from when I got the second side done. From stencil, to line progress, to packing and saturating colour and then the end result before wrapping it up✨

Oh, and the even more insane thing? I then drove three hours home the next morning, as I went to Edmonton to get it done and I’m from Calgary. 🤭

[selfmythologize]

hey y’all! i’m peyton [sh/th, 21+, cst—also the mun of mouse, dabin, dylan & hyeon] and here i am with little miss people-pleaser, selena palacio. you can view her stats here, her pinterest here & read all about her under the cut! ps please hit me up on discord for plotting @ #seamonkeydefender

born february 9, 2001 in buffalo, ny, usa to a blue collar father and a stay at home mom; both originally from mexico, but they had emigrated to america a few years prior.

selena is a product of love & it shows—her parents adored her entirely; as a kid, she never had any real reason to fuss because she had everything she ever could’ve wanted (minus a sibling, LOL). her family was far from rich, but she was spoiled rotten regardless, never ever ever had to go without.

in selena’s early childhood, her father temporarily moved to seoul to assist in opening a new branch for the company he was working for. this lasted about 4 months, things were fine, great even, and then a few years down the line, he’s invited to PERMANENTLY relocate to seoul to operate as the branch’s manager. it was a huuuuuge pay raise, so 🤷‍♂️ he took the offer and the lil’ family of three moved to korea. selena was about 7 at the time.

yada yada yada... tl;dr: with her brain still being nothing but a sponge, selena picked korean up quite quickly and adjusted to the move well (her mother, on the other hand, did not; more on this later) / @ the time of their move, s. korea was still pretty homogenous so naturally the three of them had to get used to getting weird ass looks which was tough but if there's one thing selena palacio knows how to do, it's Adapt! / hatches into a social butterfly, type of gal who can make a friend anywhere she goes; also speaks for her parents from a young age as her dad is still learning korean and her mama doesn't give enough of a damn to try / smart girl, does well in school and participates in the student govt and such in high school / graduates, doesn't know what she wants to do with her life rly so she gets on her (prospective) school's website and takes the 'Find Your Major!' quiz which gives her clinical pharmacology for some reason unbeknownst to her and it's as simple as that really... / now approaching the end of her bachelor's program at skku, working full-time at a pharmacy in jongno-gu and attending evening classes while also balancing her 500 blind dates a week like... This Is The Story Of A Girl.

as it stands, she's been in s. korea for about 15/16 years; she and her parents have acquired citizenship through naturalization and will likely carry out the rest of their lives here, despite both mom and dad actually wanting to go back to mexico to be with their families again </3

other info: 100% fluent in korean and views seoul as her home, but is used to being approached as if she's a tourist or "clueless foreigner"—it gets old, but what's she gonna do? not shit. grin and bear it, really / extremely compassionate, will give anything she has (even if it's the last of what she has) to someone in need / currently on "probation" @ her pharmacy job 'cause she keeps covering the copay costs for these old ass people who come in like... they shouldn't be paying in her opinion! / girl's girl, loves women and treasures friendships with other girlies / clingy, likes to be in the company of someone else at (almost) all times / unfortunately her anti-feminism mom instilled it into her head that she has to be "pretty" before going out and beauty is what earns respect so she Will Not Be Caught Slipping, does a full face and puts on nice clothes just to go run errands / not insecure except maybe she is / craves male validation like crazy which is not very girlboss of her but she's working on it!

[jorrmungandr]

(○｀ 3′○)

Uff-da fee-ta, I am exhausted.

Took a trip into Tacoma today to look at some apartments. I've been slowly winnowing down the places I'm interested in online, it's been tough, there are just so many available. And all pretty affordable, too.

Took the train in, that was fun. That'd be my new commute, streetcar to train, but I'd only do it like 2-3 times a week. I don't really need to be in the office as much as I am, I really only do it because it's so close so close that there's no reason not to.

First place I went was The Ruby, which is up in a quieter neighborhood right near a park, and a really nice grocery store. This is a brand new building, just opened last summer, and it's nice but a bit... small. Every place I looked at felt a bit claustrophobic. They're clearly trying to cram as many apartments in here as possible. But also it just feels kinda... shabby, somehow. Really nice views... from one side of the building, the other just looks over an alleyway (and the park).

The guy showing me around was nice, though. I dunno, it'd be the easiest choice. Very similar to where I am now, basically every floorplan is available, it'd be a painless process.

Went and got lunch at a place called the Art House Cafe, which is more of a sit-down-restaurant kind of cafe than the coffee shop I was hoping for. You just can't tell from google maps, sometimes. It was fine though, I got an eggnog latte and a tasty scramble.

Then I had some time to kill, and desperately needed to charge my phone. Went downtown, and found a little place to do so. There's like a weird open public common space in an old court building. A lot of Tacoma has this "preserved history" feel to it, honestly. I kinda like it.

Second place was The Astor, right in downtown Tacoma. Literally like across the street from a bunch of government offices. It's an old bank building, a skyscraper built in the '20s, just recently repurposed into apartments. They still have the vault in the basement, it's like a lounge now. Neat, but... a bit spooky.

The apartments were nice, but the one I was most interested in was taken literally hours earlier, someone else had a tour and applied on the spot that morning. I looked at another one-bedroom and a studio, which were nice but not the same.

The studio is probably what I'd go for... but it is a bit small, smaller than my current place. But I dunno, it would be nice and cozy, I could really fill the space.

I'm particularly tempted by this one because they're trying to fill it up, so they're doing a deal where you get two whole months of free rent if you move in in the next two weeks. My current lease isn't up until the end of February, but heck, I could just pay it and move, since I'd be living rent-free at the new place.

Went and got some of those Good Bagels at the Thriftway, then took the train back home. Much to think about. I'm definitely gonna sleep on it, at least. Maybe the floorplan I like would be available again in a couple months....

[faceglitchsworld]

It's the 28th of February and that means that it's Hweseung's birthday HOORAY 😭🥳

Which means that I can finally show you the collage I made for him 🥹

Guys, I'm so proud of this collage, really 🥹 Look at the squishy cheeks and the floofy hair 😭

I also wanted to cover his actor career since he made a wonderful job and I wanted to celebrate in a way.

The only thing I complain tho is the lack of memable moments 😔 But at least now I have an idea for every N.Flying collage I'll make in the future so, yeah, expect the "signature face" they make everytime when they do a group picture from now on.

Time for the letter for him now

Oh boy, how can I talk about Hweseung? Believe me when it's not so simple. It took a while choosing him as my bias. I'm pretty sure that he was one of the first artists who received his birthday queue here. At the time I didn't have an idea about the queue tho, I was just reblogging every post I found there and trying to celebrate his day.

Before searching some informations about him, the only thing I was pretty sure, by judging his face, is that he was the maknae of the group. My instinct was telling me that he had everything a maknae could have. And knowing my instinct, Hweseung could have become my bias because of this, it's not the first time where I fall in love with the maknaes. Then I checked the members' birthdays and I discovered that no, he wasn't the maknae. Oh well, actually he WAS the maknae until Dongsung came in (so my instinct was right, somehow) but whatever, we're not talking about N.Flying's history now.

Coming back to Hweseung, I can't talk about his voice and how he made N.Flying's songs even more iconic thanks to his talent. I can't listen to Flower Fantasy (one of my favourite songs made by them) without him starting the song or to The Night without his voice. He always adds that irreplaceable softness and sweetness that shines even more when N.Flying make more happy and upbeat songs thanks to the contrast between him and Seunghyub (I mean, I'm the biggest Oh Really fan and the main reason is because of the contrast 😆).

And how can I not talk about his Ha.Ma lives on his YouTube channel. I love how he uses them as an opportunity to talk with N.Fias. The entire atmosphere is so cozy and warm that it's like listening to a true podcast (not to mention that I found a YouTube channel who makes good BGM music thanks to him). I really hope that one day he'll have his own radio show, I think he could be a very good MC.

My dear Hweseung, thank you so much for what you did and you'll keep doing for N.Flying. I can't imagine the band without you. I'm glad that you restarted your actor career too. I couldn't attend at one of your plays since I live too much far away but I was thrilled just by watching some clips of yours.

The next months will be a little tough for me but I'm pretty sure that you'll find a way to keep us company while waiting for the next big comeback.

Hope you'll celebrate your day happily with both the members and your family ❤️

Happy birthday my (forever) little lover ❤️

[oldmanbayou]

getting through a cold spell with chickens

Wow, the discourse on chicken facebook has gotten heated this week! We're getting 2-day cold spell starting early tomorrow morning and the temperature is supposed to dip down to -15 degrees with a record breaking windchill of up to -50 degrees. YIKES. There's a mix of people, mostly newbies, who are unsure if they should bring their chickens inside or give them supplemental heat during this cold spell, and then there's the other extreme: the grizzly tough love old-timer types who say they've never lost a chicken to cold in their 800 years of chickenkeeping, they'll do just fine, and they have to go off on their lecture: "You stupid fools! You'll just kill them if you bring them inside! They can't survive the drastic temperature shifts! Rarrr!!" Seemingly few middle-ground folks, but I suppose that’s the internet. 

For my own personal flock, I've always taken the side of the second group with the old folks, and have found myself in many irritating arguments with people who don't even have chickens but feel a need to call me cruel for refusing to provide heat in the coop or refusing to bring them indoors during cold spells. My chickens are cold hardy as fuck, why on earth would I ever risk burning their coop down or pampering them to death with heat when they were bred specifically for the cold?! And truth be told, they've always done just dandy even on the coldest days. They cope far better with winter cold spells than they do with summer heat waves. (I would like to be perfectly clear though -- I do not judge or fault people who do use heat in their coop. People have their reasons and their own unique circumstances that differ from my own. The reason why this discussion gets so heated in the chicken community is because is NO correct one-size-fits-all answer to this dilemma.)

But this upcoming cold spell is exceptional...While it’s teetering on extreme even for Massachusetts and it might be a record for my birds, we do always get some freak cold spell like this every year and it’s not exactly new to them. And they are pretty well protected from the asinine windchill in their coop. Nonetheless, despite having a few winters now with the hens and having a decent enough understanding of the types of weather extremes they’re capable of enduring, I'm finding myself agreeing with the newbs this time around and vehemently disagreeing with the veterans. 

Do the old folks not know how to do math? Or maybe they haven't gone outside in few months and don't realize it's been fucking March? Cold hardy breeds first need to acclimate to winter before they achieve their cold hardiness points in the winter. They cannot just suddenly have a heavy dose of extreme winter and expect to be as hardy as ever. It was 45 degrees out this afternoon, and has been in the 40s for virtually this entire winter. My fucking hydrangeas have had leaves on them and my mother’s daffodils are blooming. Even people as old as time have NEVER experienced a winter quite like this. You would think the ladies would be well acclimated to winter by February, but no. Doubtful. This year they are acclimated to...40s. Spring. Would the old folks feel concerned if it dropped to -15 degrees in say, September? Just because they’ve survived harsh winter weather before? Let’s not make the mistake that so many chickenkeepers in the midwest made when it was -30 in late fall. My feed was just flooded with gnarly pictures of frostbite that week and grief over dead chickens. We've had a few days here and there where it was in the 30s. That's genuinely the coldest it's been. We've had more days in the 50s than the 30s this winter! It’s been so unseasonably warm that I’ve had a winter layer for the first time ever. Very few nights, possibly none even, have dropped below 20. Going from 45 degrees to say, hypothetically, a 65 degree home for a couple of days (and this is rather generous for a New England home, I think most of us suffer with the thermostat on 55 just to keep the pipes from bursting) -- That's a 20 degree difference. They're perfectly capable of coping with that. But going from 45 degrees to fucking -15?! 60 degree difference. Last I checked, 60 > 20. Shouldn't these old timers who are soooo concerned about other people killing their chickens with temperature shifts in their homes, shouldn’t they be concerned about their chickens dying of shock in this cold?!

So anyway, I’m probably not going to bring them inside, but I am swallowing my pride and resorting to a panel heater in their coop for the first time. JUST to get them through this wicked cold spell. The temperature is going to swing straight back up to 45 on Sunday and stay in the 40s again until the end of time. A panel heater is NOT like a heat lamp (another thing the olds like to wail about any time someone mentions heat for the coop) -- the fire risk is extremely minimal/almost nonexistent as it doesn’t get nearly hot enough to be a concern. It’s just designed to provide radiant heat. It will bring the coop up by 5-10 degrees depending on setting, and the hens need to be near it to even feel the heat so the risk of shocking them is pretty nonexistent even if the power were to go out suddenly.  It sort of feels like an electric blanket to touch. I would not spoil them with this throughout the winter as you really do need to give them some tough love so they can achieve winter hardiness. But, it being February...I’m not really concerned about prepping them for winter at this stage. They’re as prepped as they’re going to get, which unfortunately, I don’t imagine is very impressive...

Whatever happens, whomever is right or wrong, if that even matters....I just really hope my feed isn’t flooded with gross frostbite pictures again in a few days....

[zenkitsune]

Rambling on the Last Sunday of 2024 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

Brief mentions of otome, journaling, fav youtubers, and art commissions ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

There's nothing special about it being the last Sunday of 2024 other than I just now realized it :3

So far today, it has been very relaxing. I spent most of my morning prepping to open commissions for the first time soon! I've always been nervous about opening commissions for many common reasons, but now I gotta bite the bullet. Especially since student loans is gonna start kicking my butt next month- It's gonna be tough possibly doing commissions, working full time in retail, and pursuing other art related stuff, but I'm optimistic (as I am writing this 〒▽〒) that'll it'll work out. I honestly just gotta take care of myself properly and it'll me good!

Now for other fun stuff (imo) that I did this morning!

I started doing stuff in my journal again! This specific journal I have is one I have owned for many years, but I've finally been showing it more love this year. I might talk about it more in the future because it makes me happy to look at, but here's what I did today.

On the left side, I started planning out all the fanart stuff I wanna try next year, month by month. Fanart is something I have rarely done because I was afraid of not bringing justice to the characters, but I have been more open to doing it lately. I also really wanna share my love for the media I adore to everyone.

It's hard to see what is what because of the lighting, but I'm gonna be very flexible with this list. January will be Haikyu because I have been reading the manga lately and it's been a slight hyperfixation for a couple of months~

I also listed when I wanna work on volumes of my "Otome for my Sins" zine! Something else I might talk about later too, but I just finished volume 1 of the series recently (which is an introduction) and will continue with volume 2, which hopefully I can complete by February. I will be talking about one of my first otome games, Ikemen Revolution! Ray is my favorite I love him so much and miss him and I'm still salty at Cybird-

Also if any otome lovers see this, if you know of any otome related zines please send them my way, I would love to read them 🥺

On the right side of my journal, I pasted some sticky notes I got from the limited edition Sweat & Soap volume 6 <3 I learned a new Japanese work today! ふせん or fusen means sticky note! I mentioned that in a previous post I would be too afraid to use them, but now that I pasted them into my journal as an archive, I'm not as scared anymore! I got this idea of having an archive of your stationary from Emirichu from youtube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pqrHUPDxuU&t=313s

Speaking of youtube, a video and a youtuber that have given me comfort today is the strawberry jam dreams video from ymlovely! I love her videos because it's very retro, aesthetically pleasing, relatable, and comforting. Here's her channel <3

That's enough rambles for now :3

[multistanisms]

No one talks about how tough it is to go No Contact with someone and stand your ground on that choice because you're tired of giving a person chances.

Short Version: Around mid-February, I decided to go no contact with one of my younger sisters. This was not long after our youngest sibling got married, and the sister I chose to cut contact with made a huge deal out of what was apparently nothing. After years of the toxicity, this was where I finally said 'enough'.

Below the cut is just more insight/history into this decision, you don't have to read it, but it explains the build up to the decision I made. It is an extremely long post because as mentioned, it took literal years before I made this call simply because she was my sister. There may be some triggering content, although I'm not sure how bad it would be, so please take care if you choose to read.

Long Version: This sister, we'll call her R, was fine growing up, until the seventh grade, when she started this "camp". While at this camp she found religion [no big deal, right?], but it changed her very negatively. The woman who ran the camp convinced my sister that because she had found religion, she was superior to the rest of her family. That we owed her the lifestyle of a upper-middle class/upper class individual. That she had no reason to do anything that didn't come directly from or as a suggestion from this woman. I'm talking my sister no longer did homework until the last possible second to help at this place and then blamed my parents and I because we had jobs and couldn't call out of work to help her with things she had known about for at least a week, refused to do chores of any kind, etc.

In her freshman year, she started making tips for helping out at the camp, and increased how often she went, then demanded my parents and I pay all expenses to drive her back and forth to this camp every other weekend despite none of us being allowed to stay the weekend in the guest house where my sister stayed. This camp was a three hour drive from our home and we could not afford a hotel every other weekend in an attempt to save the gas, nor could we get/rotate every third weekend off at our jobs to take her. So we would have to drive her to the camp Friday after school, drive back home that night, then drive all the way back out to get her Sunday afternoon/evening so she could go to school. After about four months, we started asking her to at least use some of her tips [she was making at least $150-$200 every other weekend] to chip in on paying for some of the gas it took to constantly be making this trip for her. She argued about it, and I stepped in to remind her that we were not obligated to take her to this camp, how her grades were suffering because her entire focus was the camp and she needed to put her education as a priority over the camp and the woman who ran it.

She punched me. I fought back. My dad pulled us apart. Depite that, R continued to focus all on the camp, now claiming she was taking homework with her to work on during her downtime at the camp. Any time we told her we couldn't afford the gas to take her, she'd have the woman or her husband drive to our house to get her and they would bring her back. By the time she graduated, she was pissed because her twin, I'll call her S, (who had been behind her in class rank from the start of middle school) had not only managed to match her academically, but had surpassed her in class rank by a large margin, and it who did R blame? Our parents and I. We were the reason because we "refused" to help her with her studies, despite us saying she needed to cut down on the time spent at the camp so she could study and we could help her. She then announced that she would be moving into the guest house at the camp after graduation. We had a family talk about it, both my parents and I making sure this was what she wanted going forward. She said she was sure, and that the woman had connections to get her into a really good college. We agreed that if it was what she wanted to do, we would support her. The day after graduation, the woman and her husband showed up with a trailer and helped R take all of her stuff to the camp, wouldn't let us help her or anything. The woman's "really good college" was just a community college, but at least my sister could get her basics out of the way before trying for a college where she could specialize in teaching, which is what she wanted to do.

R has lived in that area since, the only one further than an hour from the rest of the family. When she started dating her now fiancé, things got much more tense between everyone. Rather than telling us herself, her boyfriend found our mother on facebook and proceeded to message her letting her know his name and that he had spent the weekend "fucking her daughter". When she called R, R saw nothing wrong in that being how her boyfriend introduced himself to her parents. She insisted we all meet up so he could meet everyone, we all made arrangements to have a family game night with pizza and soda at the apartment that S and I had. She arrived about an hour before her boyfriend, things were fine. Everyone was having a good time together.

Until my front door opened and her boyfriend just let himself inside.

I immediately was up, ready to fight an intruder, and asked who he thought he was. He proceeded to say we were expecting him, so he saw no problem with just walking in. I asked if it was his home, and he replied with "no, but you were expecting me." That particular exchange happened three times before R was finally like 'what do you do when you go to a stranger's house?' It seemed like only then did he realize. I told him he was going back outside and knocking like a person who at least wanted to attempt to make a good second chance first impression on his girlfriend's family. He didn't like that, but did as I said and according to R his mood was ruined for the night because I "treated him like a child". I told her I didn't care if his mood was ruined because he crossed a very obvious boundary and I stood my ground on making sure he knew he was to respect those boundaries moving forward. Then our youngest sister, let's call her F, went to spend a weekend with her, and this boyfriend really hit a red flag.

While my sister wen out to grab groceries, he went to her room, came back with a d*ldo, turned it on and proceeded to set it in my youngest sister's lap. Not only that, he manipulated F into faking a text message conversation where she acted like she was interested in him/wanted him to cheat on R with her...because he really liked and enjoyed seeing my sister jealous and angry. Even after he told R it was a joke, she was furious at F for months while he got a free pass despite it being his idea/manipulation. He then successfully came between her and every friend she had made through work and school in the area, isolating her from a support system that wasn't him. Even the woman who ran the camp didn't want my sister there if he was around. We did our best to be accepting of this guy, but the way he treated R was just so aggravating, it was hard for me to see all the red flags (having gone through it myself) and how willing she was to ignore them, but I kept my mouth shut because she was happy/

Not long after, she caught covid in its height, and instead of trying to work with her landlord about help during it, getting help from her boyfriend (he didn't live with her because "his grandparents wouldn't let him move out"), she did nothing to try and help herself. Even after calling and asking for the family advice - where we all told her to let her landlord, light company, etc. know she had covid and would need help because we couldn't afford to help her pay all her bills plus the bills we all had to take care of (S and I had a place, F had a place with her then gf, and our parents had a place - all of them with rent/lights/internet/food/water, plus my parents and I both had car payments). She finally made a decision to move back home when she found out she was about to be evicted for nonpayment of rent, and her twin and I offered to let her stay with us; we only gave three conditions.

1 - No animals (we were at max capacity for animals in my apartment with my ESA and her twin's two cats), 2 - she had to find work to help with bills, and 3 - she would have to be put on the lease. She agreed to these conditions, and we began preparing to have a third person in the apartment. But when she showed up, she had a dog - a stray she had taken in after agreeing to the conditions. She also wasn't trying to potty train the dog or anything. We let her know the dog would either have to go back with her boyfriend, or we would have to give him to a shelter. She argued with us over it, and in the end, we let the dog stay overnight so we could figure out what to do in the morning.

The dog tormented S' cats all day the day before when they arrived, as well as antagonizing my dog, and eventually one cat refused to come out from under the couch, not even to eat, because of this stray dog going after him. R also put my dog in his kennel as soon as I left for work that afternoon, so her stray could roam the apartment as he pleased, peeing and shitting wherever he liked. When I got home, I made a point of reminding her that my dog lived here, that the stray should not have even been brought, and that we needed to decide what to do with it. S said that the stray would have to be taken outside to go to the bathroom, her boyfriend literally laughed in our faces and said 'yeah, no, he doesn't go to the bathroom outside'. I looked him in the eye and told him that if that were the case, he was taking the dog back with him. My sister did not like how final I was about it, and started yelling at me.

I simply explained to her that we had already told her that she wasn't allowed to bring any animals as part of us allowing her to stay with us while she got back on her feet. Then she tried to say it wasn't fair because S' cat was tormenting her dog and that we were disrespecting her by not allowing her to keep the dog (again, she picked up this stray after agreeing to our condition of no animals). Her twin did not take kindly to that, and even though I tried to resolve the situation calmly, R kept going, eventually saying that she would have to be there if S and I had just given her money to fix her bank account and pay bills instead of our hobbies. S finally told her to get the fuck out, because if anyone was being disrespectful, it was R for blatantly ignoring the rules we put in place just because she felt she was entitled to whatever she wanted, on top of thinking we owed it to her to fix where she refused to help herself. When R began putting stuff back in her car, her boyfriend turned on a dime and was suddenly trying to be intimidating and cruel, getting into our personal space and being condescending as he told us he couldn't believe we were refusing to help his girlfriend in her time of need (as if he was doing anything for her himself besides egging on the arguments). As soon as she came back in for another box, the switch flipped and he was back to acting aloof and unintelligent, which only further made me concerned about him.

We didn't hear from them for months until close to this time of year, when my sister made a group chat for the family asking all of us to cook Thanksgiving dinner items and bring them with us to her place so she could host; that she would do the turkey, rolls and mashed potatoes and we could do the rest. Literally everyone was like 'you want us to cook and then bring the rest of the food to you? Three hours away? When you and your boyfriend are the only ones that far out?' She said it was only fair we make the food and bring it with us, since she "was only one person and couldn't cook everything day of". We tried to explain that while we understood she wanted to host, a big part of the responsibility of hosting a holiday was meal prep and cooking. We offered to send her money to make sure ingredients were gotten and even said a couple of us could go down a few days before to help set up and arrange the food as well as start the actual cooking with her. She refused to let anyone come before Thanksgiving day because her boyfriend would be there and she didn't trust us around him, which threw all of us off. Then her boyfriend chimed in saying how dare we purposely isolate R and make her feel unwelcome in the family just because we want to be lazy and not cook and take advantage of her kindness. I spoke up and merely stated 'if offering to come days in advance to help with shopping and cooking is being lazy and taking advantage, I can't imagine what being considerate is to you'.

Her boyfriend demanded an apology for my 'being disrespectful to him' in a group setting, and I promptly reminded him of his in person disrespect to not just me, but my entire family when we first met him. My sister said I should apologize cuz he was her boyfriend and a part of the family now. I outright said no, because S and I still had no apology from the incident where we went out of our way to help and got thoroughly disrespected and R and her bf attempted to use us as doormats. R then got angry, demanding to know what it was she had to apologize for because she had been at rock bottom at that point and we threw her out. S then reminded her why we asked them to leave; that R agreed to our very simple conditions, how she ignored them regardless, how she had demanded that we fix her situation for her because we were holding our ground on the conditions and she didn't like it. R's boyfriend then said he didn't want R around any of us, since clearly we were just abusive to her and only wanted to hurt her. R agreed and we haven't seen them for a holiday since then, and it's been about three years now. Which is fine, trying to be cheerful when R wants everything to center around her is more draining than working OT at a DMV.

Apparently R managed to patch things with F, to the point that F asked her to be in the wedding party in February of this year. Okay cool. My sister is getting married, I'm happy for her. F put me in the wedding and then took me out over and over again, and finally I didn't even know if I was or not, so I just assumed I wasn't and went on my way. Then a week before the wedding, I got TOLD, not asked, by F that since I'm the only one with a TABC license, I had to man the bar at the reception. Day of I did my best to stay for the entire reception, but between the loud music, lack of food (I had only eaten a small plate of snacks I managed to sneak from the food table) and the noise of so many people talking and laughing while I was literally by myself in a little room handing out the occasional alcoholic beverage, I ended up getting a migraine and started asking about last rounds. I let F know that I had a migraine and needed to go so I could make it home safely, and she told me to be safe and let her know I got home. I said my goodbyes, gave out a last round, and went home - let F I made it safe as promised. No big deal.

Until the next day, when R decided to yell and scream at our parents for being so disrespectful because they didn't only talk about F and her new spouse during the reception. She also let them know how disrespected and disgusted F was with me for not fulfilling my role of the wedding as bartender, and how ungrateful I clearly was to have been chosen to be in the wedding at all (not sure being a last minute bartender counts as being in the wedding, but whatever). That we obviously didn't care about making the wedding about F and her spouse, only about us. When I heard this, I talked to F, who was very confused, but told me that she wasn't upset with me at all. She asked who told me that but I wouldn't tell, saying I just wanted to make certain I hadn't been disrespectful by asking to leave early because of my migraine (which I was still fighting at that point). F also confirmed that she and her spouse didn't care that the reception hadn't been only about them; it was essentially a party after the fact and no one was solely focused on them anyway. Nor was anyone really drinking, so my leaving an hour and a half early was no issue. After this incident, I decided to cut contact with R and her boyfriend, all but one way of communicating with me is blocked. She can still message/call me through snapchat - which she does with F all the time - she just chooses not to.

~*~*~

This will be the first holiday where I am actually no contact with her, and while I know my other siblings are making plans to go see her and such, I'm not surprised in the slightest. I gave R so many chances simply because 'that's your sister' and 'she's family' but every time I've given that chance, she's stomped on it like a bug. She can't make our parents the villain because she's conned our mother into giving her and her boyfriend [now fiancé] free decor for their wedding and she needs that free stuff. She managed to get back into F's good graces (I guess S' as well since S is apparently also trying to go with F to see R), so they can't be the bad guys. So the villain in her fairytale world is me. If that's what she wants me to be to make herself feel better, then so be it. I'm not apologizing for prioritizing myself, not anymore.

Looking back just makes it depressing. Blood family really isn't anything if they act like this, and I regret all the chances I gave to be treated like a doormat.

[tallmantall]

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Stan Van Gundy reveals wife died by suicide in August: 'I just don't think I'll ever get over it'

Jack Baer Staff writer Stan Van Gundy has been dealing with an unimaginable loss over the past eight months Content Warning: This story contains discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours a day at 988 Former NBA head coach and current TNT broadcaster Stan Van Gundy's wife Kim died last August, with her obituary only saying she died "unexpectedly." Eight months later, Van Gundy has revealed that she died by suicide in an appearance on Dan Le Batard's "South Beach Sessions" podcast. The ensuing discussion was a remarkably forthright examination of how Van Gundy has been dealing with the grief, as well as Le Batard, who lost his brother David to cancer that same month. As Van Gundy explained it: “She took her own life, Dan. I’ll never — I don’t care how long it goes, I can’t imagine that I’ll ever get over that... It was devastating. We’d been married for 35 years and had been together for close to 40 years, since I was 24 years old ... my entire adult life, I trace everything, job changes, kids, everything, I was with her and she was by my side. "I never, ever, envisioned that I was gonna live another day in my life without Kim. Never envisioned that. I knew she was going through a tough time, but I still never envisioned that happening. Even now, it's been eight months and I struggle to come to grips with the fact that I'm never gonna see her again and I'm trying hard, you can relate to this I'm sure, to stay connected. I don't want to — my house is full of pictures of Kim. There's a montage of pictures above my bed that my kids did for me of Kim. I'm trying hard to remember her voice, to remember her smile, all of those things, but more than anything, to live her values, because her values were better than mine. "She taught me a lot and I want to live her values and a life that she would be proud of. And my kids at times over the last eight months, at times, not often, but I think genuinely from their point I'll do something and they'll say, 'Mom would have really been proud of you for that one.' That above anything else really makes me feel good, because my wife was an incredible person and the loss is huge." Van Gundy said he has been "doing as much therapy as I possibly can" and that he knows he will get better, but when it came to regret, he said "I just don't think I'll ever get over it." A larger topic was how death has become an unavoidable part of Van Gundy's life, revealing that his brother Jeff's best friend had died a week ago due to cancer. He said one thing he's working on in therapy is how to process what clearly comes across as depression: "I've had very little tragedy in my life until my wife died. Very little, I've just been blessed. But as you get older, man, it's just all around you and it becomes part of you life. It's one of the things I'm trying to deal with in therapy, besides the loss of my wife, how do I deal with this? Where's the joy in life? How do you go on day to day? How do you find stuff to do. I can function. I don't know about you but I can get up and function every day. I do what needs to be done. But I don't have much that I want to do right now and how do you have that when you're just seeing tragedy and death and sickness all around you? I know that's going to be a huge part of my life now." Van Gundy said his kids still make him happy, saying they were "mainly" what kept him going. He's also tried to be honest about his mental state, including with his former players: "For some reason in February, the six-month anniversary of my wife's death hit me. I don't know why, I'm not usually that much into the dates, but it hit me. I said that to my kids and I've had people willing to help me. I don't feel I'm hiding anything but at the same time, if you want people to be there for you — this is the way I feel anyway — and support you, you don't want to make that support be the most miserable damn thing in their life. #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space.  #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth If you'd like to follow and receive my daily blog in to your inbox, just click on it with Follow It. Here's the link https://follow.it/james-donaldson-s-standing-above-the-crowd-s-blog-a-view-from-above-on-things-that-make-the-world-go-round?action=followPub "I've had these players come down, which is one of the kindest acts for guys that I coached 40 years ago, to spend the weekend for me, and they all asked very genuinely 'How are you doing?' Well if I'm going to sit there and burden them the whole weekend, hell, I don't want it to be like that. I didn't lie to them, I said 'It's been rough, but you guys coming down here makes it a lit better.'" Van Gundy spent four decades as a coach, working his way up from Division III to the NBA, where he worked as head coach for the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons and New Orleans Pelicans. He last coached in 2021 with the Pelicans. He continued to work at TNT after his wife's death once the NBA season began in October and is currently on the network's team for the Western Conference finals. Read the full article

[trmcfarlin]

I started CrossFit on September 1. I was in a bad place and desperate for some stress relief.

I took pictures of myself every month to see if there was any body transformation. I had just competed in Triathlon Nationals and was feeling like I made it to the top in triathlon competition. Triathlons were no longer providing the same stress relief as they once did and I was tired of my shoulder having issues with the swim. Running was also becoming less and less fun. Lola wasn't able to run with me as much as she used to and I was tired of the pain from my bunion.

I tried 3 different CrossFit gyms and I loved all of them. My favorite was CrossFit Loop, 10 minutes from my home. The main reason I chose them is because of all of the class times they had available. They practically have a class every hour of the day.

This is what I looked like when I first tried to do a rope climb in September. It was so frustrating and I felt so weak. Everyone was trying to help me but I couldn't understand what I was supposed to do to get up there.

One of the reasons I keep going back to CrossFit is the huge gains that I get with the coaching and practice. I wasn't sure I was ever gonna learn to rope climb but I got good at it in 6 months.

It is scary to walk into a CrossFit gym for the first time. I felt inferior but the CrossFit culture is to welcome everyone. When you walk into a CrossFit facility, everyone has a smile and a nice thing to say to you. I walk into CrossFit gym after a long stressful day and am instantly greeted by friends. When I leave a CrossFit gym, I feel like I left all of the stresses in a sweat pile on the floor.

One thing I struggled with is the strength and flexibility to do lifts. I have been doing endurance sports my whole life and I realized I didn't have hip, shoulder, or ankle flexibility. Until I got the flexibility, I couldn't increase weight. I was finally able to do a back squat without falling over. It doesn't hurt my shoulder but I didn't have the balance to lock out my elbows and hold the bar over my head. I had to strengthen my back and core and work with some very patient coaches.

I started to notice muscle forming on my arms around October. I had been going to CrossFit about 5 times a week doing cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.

I have seen many people that have been going to CrossFit for years but there are always newbies coming in. I have seen a few of them get addicted like me but many of them fall off the routine of doing CrossFit 5-6 times a week. There is a euphemism “You drink the Kool-Aid” of CrossFit. Basically, this means you're hooked. It means CrossFit is your thing. It means you love coming to CrossFit and beating yourself up. I definitely fall into this category.

I haven't hurt myself too bad in CrossFit. I definitely have a ton of soreness but the gym is huge on stretching and I believe that has saved me. I have only tore up my hand doing pullups and gave myself rope burn coming down from a rope climb. I had my 1st CrossFit competition on February 16th. It was a 3 week competition held every Friday. Open an accessible competition for anyone, regardless of skill or ability.  Each week, you choose the version of the workout that’s right for your age and fitness level.

Some of the workouts are ridiculously hard but the coaches know how to break it down so that most people can complete them. I just did a workout where we had to do 100 burpee box jumpovers. That seemed impossible to me but the coach broke it down so that we do 40 seconds of jumping and 20 seconds of rest. There was one workout where I had to carry heavy sandbags back and forth through the parking lot. I was the only female in the group and one guy told me, "You are one tough chick! Most people don't show up for workouts like this." I was sore for a long time after that one.

On December 1, I hired a nutritionist. I felt like I needed help with the amount of nutrients I was taking in. With endurance sports, I needed a lot of carbohydrates, but CrossFit requires protein and fat too. I had a nutritionist for 4 months. I only lost about 8 pounds but I gained a ton of muscle. I was so happy when I was able to do a Split Jerk. The split jerk is the most difficult Olympic lift for most people. Out of the snatch, clean, and jerk, the split jerk is something that newer lifters have such a difficult time with. You actually have to split and move your feet forward and back, where as most of the times in Weightlifting the feet don’t move forward and much at all. Most lifters have a hard time transitioning from moving vertically in the dip and drive to splitting their feet forward and back. Keeping proper balance through this transition is extremely difficult.

I have been told that I picked up CrossFit very fast but I still feel doubtful of myself. I will sometimes be able to lift a ton of weight and then have to go back to a lower weight in the next week. There were a couple times that I had a partner and wasn't able to keep up with them, which was horribly embarrassing. No matter how good you get at something, someone is always better.

In March, right before we were supposed to go on our cruise, I signed up for CrossFit Festivus. Festivus is typically 4 WODs long with up to 1-2 hours between each WOD while you wait for the other divisions to finish their workouts. These breaks are just long enough to make your muscles cold, stiff, and tight between WODs, which can make each subsequent WOD increasingly difficult.

Festivus always happens twice a year at CrossFit Loop. It happens in October and April. I wasn't able to do it in October because it falls on the same weekend as Mountain Bike State. I felt like I needed to do it this time.

It wasn't looking like CrossFit Loop was going to get enough volunteers to hold the event. They were begging for more volunteers. Thankfully, a ton of volunteers showed up on the morning of Festivus so I was able to compete.

Camilla tried CrossFit with me and said she liked it. But, she has never been willing to go back and try it again. Carly and Lloyd have both come to watch me do CrossFit but neither of them have any interest in trying it.

One thing I really enjoy is talking to Connor about different weightlifting movements. We talk about the different movements and which ones are harder than others. I can't even come close to the amount of weight that he is lifting. Connor, Camilla, and Carly came to watch me at CrossFit Festivus. Connor helped me with the Deadlift. On a 3-minute Running Clock, we were to Establish a 3 Rep Max Bench Press. https://youtube.com/shorts/6YmQHl-O31A

The first workout was a 500 m Row, then as many reps of possible of 12 Kettlebell Deadlifts, 9 Russian Kettlebell Swings, 6 Kettlebell Thrusters in 6 minutes. I was proud of how fast I was able to row but the thrusters didn't go too well. I kept doing it wrong.

The next workout was a 7 minute time cap of 21-15-9 Wall Balls and Hang Power Snatch. I finished the workout in 6:57, only 3 seconds before the time cap. The power snatch was really difficult for me. I felt like I had no strength in my arms.

The last workout was 2 Rounds of 3 min every minute on the minute

Min 1 - :50 - Ring Rows Min 2 - :50 - Goblet Squats Min 3 - :50 - Line Facing Burpees 

I did the best on this one because my coach was screaming at me, "Go faster! Go faster!" I finished 10th overall and wasn't even close to the podium. I still have a long way to go with CrossFit if I ever want to win anything.