#and if not well then I've lost 50 bucks

[katboykirby]

Calling it right now that Simeon is gonna become a demon (or he's turned into a demon already)

Not for any particular reason, I just want to throw my guess down on the table and make a prediction before we actually find out what's going on. Putting all my money on demon! Simeon just on the off chance I end up being right.

Bookmark this post.

And if I do end up being right (even though it's unlikely) I can be all really fucking smug about it.

[billlydear]

pairing: billy hargrove x steve harrington / WC: 4501

summary: based on this post by @ariesbilly (i was anon), el shops rather creatively for billy's birthday and steve has some things to say about his new look

this will be crossposted on AO3 as soon as i've got the time to set up a new account there. i hope you enjoy, and please consider leaving some feedback! also, i've got a harringroveson spidey/venom au in the works, so please let me know if you'd like to see that :-)

Billy’s genuinely, truly concerned when Jim pulls him aside at his little birthday dinner, and not just because he’s still a tiny bit wary around the man. He hasn’t done anything awful yet, so far there’s not a bone in his body that resembles his dad’s, but Billy’s lived with Neil all his life, and Jim only a few months. He’s getting better, but he’s not there yet.

“Listen,” Jim murmurs, taking the hand he’d used to usher Billy into the kitchen off of his arm. Billy appreciates it, it’s like Jim knows he doesn’t like being grabbed; like he pays attention to Billy’s comfort.

“She’s come a long way,” Jim praises El, “-but gift giving for anyone but Max is… hard. She just shops for herself, it’s like-” Jim rubs an exasperated hand over the scruff on his chin, leaned up against the kitchen counter while Billy leans in slightly to hear his low voice, “It’s like she finds something she likes. And since she likes the person she’s giving it to, she equates the two. ‘Thinks that whatever she likes, they’ll like too. That’s why I drink out of that glittery cup every morning,” Jim gestures to the tumbler currently drying on the rack, ‘BFF’ written in white loopy letters on the plastic, “She’s got the spirit, just not the know-how. And I was really trying to get her to branch out for you, I took her to the mall but she beelined for Claire’s, and-” Jim sighs, shooting a cautious glance back to the living room where the girls are waiting with their gifts, “Just- please act like you like ‘em. If you want, I’ll give you the receipt, and you can return them for cash, just- humor her. Please.”

“Okay,” Is all Billy says, really all he can think of saying, and Jim reaches out to pat his bicep.

“Thanks,” His shoulders slump in relief, “Alright, birthday boy, let’s get going.”

Billy’s used to birthday gifts, but not nice ones. If he was lucky, he’d get gas money for the week from his dad, but that’s only because Susan insisted on acknowledging the day. Gifts have always been an obligation, never a gesture, so sitting on the couch in front of three tissue-paper-stuffed bags is a bit daunting for the man.

“Mine first,” Max demands, pushing her bag forward. Billy sends her what he hopes she perceives as a smile, a small twitch at the corners of his lips. They’ve gotten a lot better with each other now that Neil’s not goading Billy anymore, and Billy’s glad for it.

Inside there’s a gift card to a surf shop he’d worked at one summer back in California. He doesn’t even know if there’s anything on it - for all he knows, she found it in a box of his old stuff - but just seeing the logo of the place makes him nostalgic, and his barely-smile blooms into an unbridled one. The gift of memory is one he didn’t know he’d appreciate this much.

“Damn,” He huffs out a laugh, plucking the thin plastic out of the tissue, “Where’d you find this?”

“I wrote to my grandma,” Max confesses, “There’s 50 bucks on there, but for the record, all I sent her to put on there was 20.”

Billy remembers Max’s grandma; they’d visited her once. She was awesome, but the kind of awesome that made parents distrust her, and contact was lost after the move to Hawkins. The old lady had crammed Billy and Max into the back of her cluttered bug to get ice cream after Neil and Susan had gone to bed, and it was nice for Billy to hear she was still doing well.

“Thanks,” Billy laughs, almost a scoff as he reaches out to ruffle her hair. She pretends to hate it, maybe she does a little, but she lets him, which is like another birthday gift: Annoying Privileges.

He sees a flash of black as he puts the gift card back in the tissue, and it explains why the tiny plastic was wrapped so excessively.

Don’t show Hopper, the note reads, with an arrow down, so he discretely peels away the paper to find three cartons of cigarettes beneath it. He’ll worry about how she got them later, for now he shoots her a smirk that she returns.

“Alright, mine’s kinda-” Jim fumbles for his bag, “-tied into hers. Here, kid.”

The tissue crinkles under Billy’s fingers, and he peers down into the blue bag to see a paper.

He pulls it out, squinting at the fine print.

It’s a hotel booking. A hotel in California, shit, right by the beach.

“I already called you off of work,” Jim smiles at Billy, “It’s about a month from now. Only condition is you take the girls with you, they’ve got their own room and we’ll send ‘em with gas money.”

Max’s grin is bright, and Billy knows this is just as much of a gift for her as it is for him. His chest feels tight, like each word on the page had sucked air out of his lungs until there was none left, and now he’s struggling to breathe. He’s wanted to go back since the moment he left, but his dad never would have let him, and moving in with Jim and El then immediately fleeing the state seemed rude, so he’s grateful for the push. He doesn’t even know how to begin thanking Jim, so he starts with the words themselves.

“Thank you,” Billy croaks, trying not to let a gush of emotions overwhelm him. “Seriously, I-” His voice wavers and he clamps his mouth shut, looking down and pinching his fingers along the folded crease of the paper to thin it down even more, “Thank you, Jim.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jim reaches out again, gives him that little pat pat to the bicep instead of trying to hug him. Billy thinks just for that, he will let Jim hug him next time.

Once Billy’s regained his composure and only let one gruff sniffle slip, El is handing over her bag.

“Mine was not as much money as theirs,” She looks serious, like Billy’s going to backhand her for not renting them an RV for the trip, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Jim starts, ready to console her and teach her an etiquette lesson, but Billy lets out a weak chuckle.

“Don’t worry about it, El.” He tugs at the tissue paper, “One time I wrote I.O.U. on a piece of paper for Max’s birthday.”

El’s brows furrow at the unfamiliar phrase, and Max leans in, “It means I owe you, like, ‘I owe you one’. He didn’t get me anything.”

“I offered you something,” Billy gripes, pausing in his unwrapping efforts, “Not my fault you chucked it out.”

“Oh, no,” Max laughs, “I still have it. But I wasn’t gonna waste it on arcade tokens. I’m gonna make it count, you’re gonna bail me out of a bad party or lie to the cops about-”

She reconsiders, looking at Hopper who’s stiffened slightly, his eyes narrowed at her, “-Nothing. Lying to cops is bad.”

“Nice save,” Billy deadpans, ducking his head back down towards the bag. The tissue inside is messy, he can tell El did it herself. 

Beneath the first layer of tissue, the stuff crumpled up to give the present volume, there’s six individually wrapped packages. Billy’s stomach does a little flip; call it nerves, call it endearment, but whatever it is, he reaches for the first package without paying it any mind.

His fingers peel at the tape sticking it all together, and his strong grip rips the tissue. He goes with it, tearing into the gift, and a purple plastic card falls into his hand. It’s punched in two places near the middle, and inside each hole is an earring. They’re- not his style.

They’re studs, little balls of gel in rainbow colors with squishy spikes sticking out of them. They honestly look like something a kindergartener would make with a hot glue gun, but there’s an expectant smile on El’s face and Billy finds himself smiling back at her, genuinely so.

“Thanks, El,” He flips the package over, price tag ripped off messily and silver backings staring at him, “These are cool.”

“I know you like earrings. There’s more,” She prompts him, the section of her hair that she’s tied up bouncing as she leans forward enthusiastically, “Open them.”

“Okay,” He laughs, setting the earrings aside. The second package yields another pair, this time two pieces of bread with little smiley faces on them, one painted brown for peanut butter and the other purple for jelly.

“That’s cute,” Billy laughs breathily, “That’ll go good with my purple button up.”

“Mhm,” El nods, hair once again bouncing, “That’s what I thought.”

As Billy expects, each package contains a pair of earrings. He gets tiny springs, a gradient of pink to purple to blue covering the curved metal, and they look like they’d be permanently damaged if he stretched them out even once. Then a pair of jellyfish-inspired ones, a clay head with a smile on its face connected by metal rings to all of the tentacles dangling below. Next are lollipops, stiff sticks leading into plastic that’s swirled in design and shaped like a bear’s head with yet another smiley face. Each little black curve on the earrings’ faces only makes his own grow. The fifth pair are meant to look like goldfish, suspended in resin that fills the bowl to make it look like they’re swimming in water. It’s the most intricate pair of earrings he’s ever seen, he’ll give Claire that. The final pair is much bigger than the others, and when he unwraps it, a pom-pom sticks out.

They’re big puffballs, tie-dyed pink and purple, connected to a peace sign stud that goes through his ear. They’re obnoxious, something you’d only see on a child whose grandparents had bought the biggest pair of earrings they could find because their vision was too poor to appreciate any smaller designs. Nevertheless, Billy pops the squishy backing off of one of them, and sticks it between his teeth. He slips his own earring out of his ear, and tucks it into the breast pocket of the shirt he’s wearing. He sticks the puffball into his ear right then and there, and El’s grin is almost unbearably wide.

“It looks pretty,” She gushes, and Billy laughs.

“Thank you, El.” He gives her the obligatory brotherly hair ruffle as well, but she looks honored compared to Max’s exasperation. In leaning forwards to reach her, the metal point of the second earring digs into Billy’s palm where he’s holding the card still, and he glances down at it thoughtfully.

“Here,” He thinks fast, plucking the backing off of it and handing it to El, “Let’s match.”

She looks at it wide-eyed, caught off guard, “You want me to wear the other one?”

“Duh,” He nods, hand still outstretched, “How else are people gonna know who bought them for me?”

She’s more than happy to snatch the second earring from him, sliding it into her own pierced ear and shivering slightly at the feeling of the fluff brushing against her skin. 

“Alright,” Jim claps, a loud, striking sound, “You guys look great. Cake time?”

“Cake time,” Max agrees, already rising to her knees to stand and head for the kitchen, “Chocolate, Billy, your favorite.”

Billy’s all Thank you’d out. Not because he’s not thankful for this, because he’s more than that, but because he’s said it so many times today that the words are starting to lose their meaning, and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be insincere, so he’ll save the ‘Thank you’s for when they really count.

Max and El settle on the floor in front of the tv to watch the movie they’ve picked out, clearly one that Jim hadn’t seen until now.

“Oh, not Terminator,” He reaches for the television to shut it off, but both girls scramble to fight him off, “It’s rated R, girls!”

“It’s Billy’s favorite,” Max huffs, and that’s not true, but he knows nothing in the movie will shock her, and El grew up being bounced around dimensions, so she probably won’t lose any sleep over a bit of blood.

“It’s true,” Billy drawls settling back on the couch with his cake and his beer (that Jim only reluctantly handed him because it’s his birthday), “But it’s fine, Jim, we don’t have to watch what I want, they can turn on My Little Pony or some shit.”

Jim wonders briefly how he’s been outsmarted by two tweens and a teenager. If he says no, he’s the asshole that ruins Billy’s birthday. If he says yes, the girls are going to see gratuitous shots of naked Arnold Schwarzenegger that he’d rather them not witness.

“You cover your eyes for the first scene,” Jim finally concedes, narrowing his eyes at Max and El, “I mean it, no peeking or I’ll do it for you.”

“Okay,” They agree, already far too amused for Jim’s liking, and Max turns to grin mischievously at Billy. It’s nice, he thinks, to do dumb shit with her. Like real siblings.

The movie starts, and Jim’s a bit too preoccupied eagle-eyeing the girls to make sure they’re not seeing anything raunchy to notice that Billy’s paying more attention than he ought to be. But once the man straightens back up so does Billy, mentally so, and turns his attention to Jim when he leans over towards Billy.

“Hey,” Jim’s whisper is gruff, but El doesn’t hear, “Thanks for that. She’s really happy.”

“No problem,” Billy admits, “They’re… different, but they’re kinda cool.”

Jim laughs, and Billy gets the sense that Jim doesn’t think he’s being sincere, but really, he is. The earrings themselves aren’t kinda cool, a year ago he’d rather have pitched himself into the quarry than wear rainbow-colored springs dangling from his ears, or a smiley piece of peanut butter toast, but what’s kinda cool is that someone gave them to him because they thought he’d like them; because they like him. 

What’s kinda cool is love, Billy figures out that night, and his cake tastes a little sweeter because of it.

--

El doesn’t usually accompany Billy to work at the auto shop, but that’s only because he leaves too early for her to be awake yet. She’s recently discovered sleeping in, and sometimes she’s not awake before two in the afternoon. Now, though, she’s bursting with excitement for the California trip, even though it’s not for another month. Billy hadn’t slept with the puffball earring in, but he’d put it right back on this morning, and so had El. They’re sitting behind the counter now, planning an itinerary for the trip he’s not too stressed about, because he knows El will lose the paper before they leave in a month.

“And we have to go to In-n-Out,” She decides, “I know those are in California.”

“Yeah,” Billy laughs, “They’re not that good. I mean, I like ‘em, but there’s good burger places everywhere. They have these palm trees though,” He moves  his hands to cross over each other, “They cross like an ‘x’, it’s pretty cool. My friend tried to climb one once, we got kicked out.”

El giggles, and her eyes wrinkle at the corners with the expression. Billy likes it, he wonders if his own eyes scrunch when he laughs. But he doesn’t do it very often, and especially not in front of a mirror, so he might never know.

She excuses herself to go to the bathroom, so Billy turns his attention to their customer log instead. There’s a man coming by in two hours to pick up his car, but the repairs are complete, so Billy doesn’t have to do anything about it. And there’s another customer coming at five for an oil change, but it’s only eight in the morning. He hears the scrape of wheels on gravel, and he cranes his neck to see over the reception desk and out the door.

Fuck. It’s a red beemer, one he knows almost better than his own car because of how frequently he’d crammed his camaro in beside it in the high school parking lot. It’s Steve Harrington’s car, and that means Steve Harrington came with it.

Billy tugs on the hem of his tank, tightening the shirt over his chest. It’s not that he wants to look good for Steve, it’s just- well, no, that’s it. The banter he’d shared with Steve over their time at Hawkins High was the most tension he’d felt in his entire life, and it came at a time when he sought thrill and excitement the most; apparently being sweat-covered, shirtless opponents on the basketball court does things to a man’s head. He’s not naive enough to think he’s gonna be able to sweep the guy off of his feet with one suave remark, not when just last week Max had somehow convinced the man to give her a ride back home from Jim’s place after a sleepover, and Steve had seen Billy bleary-eyed, messy-haired, and pajama-clad. He’d tried to own it, leaned back on the couch with his legs spread, one arm up on the back of the couch and exposed by the shirt he was wearing as he nodded with a lazy grin at Steve, ‘Morning, Harrington’. If he’d squinted, he could see a bit of pink coloring Steve’s cheeks. But a success or not, the experience was embarrassing, and he’s glad that he’s a little more put together today. 

Billy forgets just how put together he is today. He feels the soft brush of the fuzzy earring against his neck right as Steve starts towards the store, and his stomach drops.

He has a very important choice to make.

He can take the earring out, giving him a better chance at this coy little game they have going, and subsequently insult his new sister, or, he could leave it in, puff up his chest with pride, and greet Steve with confidence, ultimately risking his win.

He almost tears his ear from how hard he rips the earring out.

“Harrington,” Billy drawls, “Car trouble?”

“Battery’s dead,” The man huffs, and there’s sweat beading at Steve’s hairline, “I had to push’er down the street, I was getting groceries.”

Billy feels like a cartoon character; he almost audibly gulps at the thought of Steve muscling his car down the road. He wonders if Steve could see his Adam’s apple bobbing if he really did dry swallow. He wonders if Steve would watch.

“Tough luck,” Billy sends Steve a lazy grin, passing the sign-in book over the counter with a pen, “Just fill that out, I’ll get your service started.”

“Thanks,” Steve mumbles, “Got an estimate?”

“Depends,” Billy shrugs, “I might do you a favor and replace those ugly seats you’ve got, too. That’ll cost extra.”

“Like your car’s hot shit,” Steve scoffs, but his tone isn’t demeaning, and Billy’s chest does that weird tight thing again when he realizes they’ve advanced to friendly banter, “Do you know how ugly that blue and yellow license plate looks against the blue of your car?”

He laughs, but before Billy can quip back, say that it’s California grade, that he’d rather die than replace it, the door to the back opens up, and El comes out.

“Steve!” She smiles sweetly, “Is your car broken?”

“Yeah,” He laments, eyeing her accessory, “Woah, crazy earring.”

“Billy has one, too.” She brags, then notices it’s missing from his ear. Billy’s stiffened where he’s rifling through the desk drawers for a form to give Steve, and before he can make any excuses, El spots the puffball where it’s fallen to the floor.

“Oh!” She lunges for it, handing it to Billy with a sweet smile, “It fell out. Here it is.”

Billy has another choice to make.

Scoff at her, say ‘nice one’, and tell her to put her earring back in. Or, take it from her and embarrass himself in front of Steve.

This time, he decides she’s ultimately more important.

“Thanks, El.” He grins at her, taking the puffball from her hand and hooking it expertly through his ear. It dangles against his neck, and he passes the form over to Steve who’s looking between the two of them with some sort of guarded amusement.

“Fill this out, too.” Billy instructs, “And I’ll start on your car.”

“O-kay,” Steve complies, more of that amusement painting his features as he ducks his head to fill out the form, “Pink looks good on you, Hargrove.”

Billy shuts the door to the back room as a response. He feels like punching the wall, because did that mean ‘good’ as in good? Or good as in ‘ridiculous’? He’s well aware Steve had a mean streak in high school, and Billy isn’t interested in being bullied.He’s never worried about being bullied by his peers before, he was always on top. Now it’s different, this isn’t high school and he doesn’t have backup boys to make his posse. It’s a one-on-one fight, and Steve’s got the advantage. And- and if it did mean good, what’s he supposed to do with that information? Wear a pink shirt the next time he sees Steve? Go as Pink Panther for halloween? He considers just about everything but dying his hair, mind swirling with possibilities.

He starts on Steve’s car to distract himself, and he barely manages to gather the courage to take his shirt off to push Steve’s beemer into the garage like he’d originally planned. He still does, of course. But it’s a hard decision to make.

--

“Steve,” El steps out from behind the counter, walking over to where Steve’s flipping through an old Highlights that Billy’s boss keeps there for kids, “What did you get Billy for his birthday?”

The man flounders, “Uh, when’s his birthday?”

El’s brows furrow, “It was yesterday. You didn’t get him anything?”

“No,” Steve shakes his head, “Sorry, El. I’m sure he didn’t expect me to, though, ‘probably didn’t hurt his feelings.”

“But friends give each other birthday presents.” She insists, “Why didn’t you?”

“He’s not my friend,” Steve grimaces slightly, but backtracks when El only gets more scandalized, “We- I… Ugh,’ He groans, rubbing a hand down his face, “We, like, hated each other in high school or something. I think he’s only nice to me now ‘cause he has to be, we’re all friendly, y’know?”

“Billy likes you,” El promises, “That’s why he comes out of his room when he knows you’re coming over. And why he always takes us to get ice cream. He likes seeing you.”

“Uh, I think-” Steve stammers, heart pounding so viciously he can hear it, “That’s probably… not what that means. Hey, um, do you have any water I could have? I’m really thirsty from pushing my car.”

He’s out from under her scrutinous gaze for long enough to compose himself, tamping down any hope she might have given him. It doesn’t help that he’s first heard Billy’s genuine laugh today, and the vision of the man’s bright eyes, scrunched and wrinkled at the corners have been plaguing him ever since. Things need to stop piling up, he decides.

When she gets back she sits in the chair beside him, one leg bent beneath her and the other firmly planted on the floor, “You should get him a birthday present.”

Steve hums, bringing the cup she hands him to his lips to buy him time to respond. Eventually, he settles on, “I’ll try to find something,” and she seems to like that answer, so she lets it go.

“I got him earrings,” She explains, and pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place in Steve’s head, “The ones that he’s wearing now. And five other pairs.”

“Wow,” Steve nods, feigning awe even though he knows Jim probably paid for them himself, “That was nice of you. He liked ‘em?”

“Yes,” She nods, “He likes earrings. And he said he’s going to wear them with me when we go to California.”

“California,” Steve echoes, brows raised, “That’s nice. When are you going?”

“In a month,” El recites, “Billy’s from California.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods, eyes drawn to Billy’s framed employee picture on the wall, noticing the tan adorning the smooth skin of his handsome face, “I know.”

--

“Okay,” Billy turns to look at the girls in his backseat, bright smiles on both of their faces, “Gas money?” 

“Check,” Max slides him a wad of cash, and so does El.

“Snacks?” Billy pulls his wallet out, stuffing the bills inside.

“Check!” El takes over this time, a plastic bag in her hand that’s filled with enough ziploc bags of goldfish to last them halfway through the road trip. 

“Bags?” 

“Check,” Max jabs a thumb towards the camaro’s trunk, “We didn’t forget our suitcases, Billy.”

“If you did, and I hadn’t asked, you would have blamed me,” Billy narrows his eyes at his stepsister, “Don’t make me push you out of the moving car.”

What can he say: things are better, they’re not perfect. She knows he’s joking, though, she sticks out her tongue in response.

“I have one more thing,” El calls, effectively breaking up Billy and Max’s banter. The two look curiously at her, and she passes Billy an envelope, thick towards the bottom left corner.

“It’s a late birthday present.” She informs him, “Open it. It’s for the trip.”

“El,” Billy tears at the envelope with a confused furrow in his brow, “You got me stuff for my birthday. Why more?”

“It’s not from me,” She admits, “Just open it.”

The envelope was sealed well, by whoever sealed it. Billy all but mangles the paper to remove its contents, and when he does, a pair of earrings falls out, mounted on a purple plastic card. Claire’s.

There’s a pink and white striped surfboard on the left side, and a glitter-covered palm tree on the left. There’s a note inside too, and Billy peels it apart much more cautiously than he had the envelope.

Billy,

Happy birthday. Enjoy California.

- Steve

P.S: I wasn’t kidding. You look good in pink.

Billy nearly rips the earring card trying to wrench the surfboard off. Once he gets it out, he slides it into his ear, passing the palm tree back to El and grinning at the girls through his rear-view mirror. He admires the way that the earring looks against his tanned skin, and- oh, look at that; his eyes do scrunch when he smiles.

“Ready?” He raises a brow, sunglasses perched on his head and lost in his curls  in wait of the California sun.

“Ready,” They confirm, and El’s nod sends the palm tree earring swinging beside her face.

Billy revs the engine, and it’s never been a happier sound, “California, here we come.”

[bomberqueen17]

a lil mini sew-along

So @sassaffrassa and I and a couple of friends decided to do an informal kinda sewalong just to get ourselves moving on I'm Gonna Sew Stuff One Day I Promise.

Sew Liberated was having a sale, so we decided to try the Matcha Top, which at the time was like eleven bucks. Why not. So we got the PDFs and each went through our various travails of printing them out and whatnot. And I'm just gonna talk about the process here, in case anybody else was thinking about getting into sewing, and kind of a review of the pattern. Day 1: Prepare the pattern, and look up other reviews, and figure out what the heck you're getting yourself into.

So, the Matcha Top. it's one of S-L's older offerings, and it only goes up to a size 24. Which is a 48.5" bust, by the measurement table. But it also says there's twelve inches of ease at the bust in the finished garment. Okay so yeah no, this will fit my 50" bust then, no worries. It goes on to say that the only real important measurement is your shoulder measurement. So I measure my shoulder, from where I'd want one sleevehead to be to the other, around the back of my neck, and I get 16", which puts me in a size 10. Uhhh.....

I read a bunch of reviews, which all agreed this thing fits real boxy so you can size down pretty freely, and then I looked at the pattern pieces. Well, the only thing that really matters is that shoulder fit, and the collar. I draped the collar piece around my neck and decided I did want the biggest size there, so I just. Went ahead and cut a straight size 24, and I figure I will take in excess in my toile. I am making a nice wearable toile though, with nice fabric, it's just not expensive fabric. Because I figure, it's a boxy top in flowy fabric, whatever size it ends up being will probably be fine.

Looking at the pattern pieces I am slightly skeptical of the grading. I'm used to seeing like... contours, but these are just straight-up every single pattern piece is expanded in size the same amount from one size to the next, regardless of things like... a plus-size person's skeleton is not larger than a straight-size person's, so it is bonkers to scale up the shoulder at the same rate as you scale up the squishy areas like the bust. So the pattern direction to just cut the size that fits the shoulders is probably correct. The size 24 shoulder is not actually knowledgeably scaled to fit a human being. Somebody "graded" this with a rolling ruler. Ah well. Reviews suggest the more recent patterns by this company are better, so I won't get too mad. But do keep that in mind, as you look at this.

Well, so I marked on my shoulder detail piece where the size 14 line would be, and expect I will trim it down, and use that to place the sleeve, and there'll just be a lot of excess fabric at the armscye that I'll have to trim off. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or I'll, idk, put some pleats in under that shoulder detail. It has you attach it pretty early. I might be prepared to unpick this thing a few times.

I fondled my fabric stash, decided on a drapey rayon-cotton(?) mystery challis, and the collar and shoulder details in a contrasting cotton-poly solid. Got that cut out one evening when nobody was around. (It does say in the pattern instructions to use something with good drape. I looked at pattern reviews and yeah anyone who used linen or a stiff quilting cotton got a boxy fit out of it. You really want drape here.)

Then I lost my mind due to the stress of house remodeling, and after I'd ironed interfacing onto the collar and shoulder details, I embroidered on them. Why? IDK but it gave me something to fixate on for a couple of hours while there was demolition happening in my house and I couldn't get to my sewing machine.

[image: two stiff black pieces of fabric with blue swirls embroidered on them, and chalk marks visible where I've futzed with sizing and the embroidery design. yeah they're wildly different sizes but whatever it's handmade charm *jazz hands*]

So anyway.

That's where I'm at, and I'm hoping this afternoon/evening I'll have time to do some sewing.

[spin-linn]

A Small Snippet from a story I'm writing

Heroes United [Working Title]: a Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons novel

Hiccup’s POV:

The trail we followed to Old Corona was littered with a few too many tree roots and chuck holes for my taste. It was like a war zone, and the battle was being waged against my lack of agility. I tripped and teetered over so many times I lost count. I would have smashed my face against a sunken boulder had it not been for Jack, who quickly yanked me upright by the shirt collar just as I began to topple over a huge crack in the obliterated cobblestone road.

“Jings, you're as wobbly as a newborn foal,” Merida chortled after watching my clumsiness take over for the umpteenth time.

I gave her an irritated glare. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, shrugging her delightful personality off. “I get it, I'm a klutz. Tell me a new one.”

“As you wish,” she took my sarcasm as a challenge. “You're also as stubborn as a buckin’ cuddy.”

“Whoa! Watch your mouth, Mer!” Jack cackled, taking her words to be off-color.

“She wasn't cursing,” I chuckled, realizing Jack wasn't as well-versed in Scottish lingo as I was. As much as the Vikings hated them, my dad and a lot of the other adults sure enjoyed borrowing a lot of their slang and vernacular. I grew up hearing it a lot, so one could say I was fluent. I knew what a cuddy was. “She just called me a horse,” I explained. “Like, a wild one that someone's trying to ride for the first time. That's why she said I was like a bucking cuddy.”

“Oh, okay,” he seemed to understand, “like a bucking bronco, then? I know rodeos.”

“What the heck's a bronco?” I gave him a confused glance. “Or a rodeo?”

“Seriously? It's another word for a horse.”

“Innae no horse I've ever heard of,” Merida scoffed.

“Jeez Louise! It's an unbroken horse!” Jack enunciated, holding back laughter. He seemed to be reaping as much fun out of the strange conversation as he could. “And a rodeo is like a big show where people do horseback tricks and try to ride broncos or bulls.”

“Show riding, huh?” That got my attention. “We do that with our dragons from time to time back on Berk! Toothless and I have gotten pretty good at air tricks.”

“I can hit a bullseye from 50 paces on horseback,” Merida interjected, bragging to herself. “Been practicing for months.”

“That's impressive, Mer, but I would say barrel racing and lassoing cattle isn't exactly like that,” Jack chuckled, shaking his head. “You've clearly never seen a cowboy movie.”

“Now we're talking about cows?” My confusion only grew. “What even is this conversation?” I threw my hands up in defeat, beginning to laugh in spite of myself. “Now I'm lost.”

“I guess you could also call him a ‘brumby’, Mer,” mused Jack, still preoccupied with the whole “cuddy” confusion. “Picked that one up from a friend 'down undah',” he said with a funny accent.

“I have absolutely no idea what's going on back there,” Rapunzel called back to us as she led the path, studying Cassandra's notebook. “But I am enjoying the chaos.”

“Join the club, Punz!” I started to laugh.

_______________

If you've stuck around this long, thanks for reading! The story this is from has been a passion project for almost 10 years. I'm writing it as a form of therapy, and I'm not planning to post the finished product anywhere as of now.

I've been working on this story for several months now, and I'm just really proud of this dialogue exchange. I wanted to share it, even though I don't intend to share the whole story. Thanks for bearing with me, and I hope you enjoyed it!

[sugarywishes]

Going in the post FNAF6 events, is there any other notable changes of note in this AU? Like changes to the games before Security Breach, different animatronics, etc, or is it pretty much one to one otherwise?

Okay, so this is where my rewrite starts to become a little...weirder than usual since I changed a LOT about post FNAF 6, (although believe me the security breach part will need its own post!) Reminder that this is still very much a work in progress, I haven't fully finished thinking the whole thing out yet, so as time goes on there is a possibility of lore updates or changes, answers below as usual!

Well for FNAF UCN, I know there's people who think that Andrew (i don't actually know who this is, but it's some kid from the books) is 'The One You Should Not Have Killed'/TOYSNHK, but lowkey i think that's stupid and I have decided to not include him. As I've said plenty of times before this rewrite does not include ANYTHING from the books (okay I lied there's a handful of things from the books that I've altered to fit into my story because I like the idea of it, but I'll list ALL the changes of the rewrite in another post if people are interested!)

Cassidy is TOYSNHK. Old Man Consequences is Henry, I guess. And yes, UCN is Afton's afterlife prison created by Cassidy, but it's not his real afterlife destination. He probably could've been able to escape sooner it had it not been for Cassidy constantly torturing him. And also Afton comes back I guess. Besides that everything is the same! (Mostly because, does this game really matter? It's basically just a spin off)

Anyways onto Help Wanted, I guess the only changes are just handfuls!

As we know in canon, Fazbear Ent. hired Silver Parasol Games to create a game trivializing and mocking the company's past to make a quick buck and probably to get people off their back about it. However an incident involving a beta tester named Jeremy (I'll get back to that in a sec) caused production of the game to halt, and development of the game was sent to another unknown company (presumably Fazbear Ent. Maybe?) But I'm altering some of that.

Silver Parasol Games does not exist in my rewrite. Instead the development company working on the game is a branch of the Fazbear Ent. Company, mostly because I feel like it makes sense for this moronic business to employ their own workers to do stuff for them at a cheaper rate than actually pay another studio more money to get things done. While the incident with Jeremy still occurred, the game halted production because Fazbear Ent. had to deal with the legal issues cause yk...one of your employees disfigured himself and probably a few people saw that. And after that was dealt with (rather swiftly, they probably bribed a few people here and there) the game production continued.

As for tape girl in this rewrite, uh...idk, I made her Vanessa/Vanny. I know there's probably some evidence out there that is like "but they're two different people you idiot !!" And yeah I'm sure they probably are but whatever, this rewrite has way too many characters and I'm not dealing with that. I felt like it didn't make sense for Tape Girl to not deal with Glitchtrap herself instead of getting the player to do it themselves. Like you said you knew a way to get rid of him, so...why didn't you do it earlier?? Anyways the way I'm changing Tape Girl and her lore is gonna be weird to explain, but that's for me to refine later in life!

Anyways, back to Jeremy, I made the choice to not make him Jeremy Fitzgerald, because 1. I feel bad for the poor dude already, he already lost half his head, does he need to lose his whole face too?? 2. Jeremy in HW isn't too important anyway, so no point in bringing Jeremy back just to kill him off (I mean J. Fitzgerald isn't that important either, but 🤷🤷) and 3. He would be too fucking old for this! During 1983 he was about 15-16 years old, and presuming HW takes place around modern time, he'd probably be in his 40s or 50s I think (maybe 60s idk, there's a reason it's my least favorite subject 💀💀) and like what the hell would he be doing there? Senior citizen ass go to the retirement home bro. And also who the hell would work AGAIN for the company who covered up the time you got your BRAIN BIT OFF by one of their robots??

And yeah Glitchtrap = William Afton. However, he STILL doesn't have any memories of his life as William (and now, he only barely remembers Mike and Henry, his strongest memories are when he was Springtrap and Scraptrap) when he escaped the UCN afterlife prison created by Cassidy, he managed to find out how much things have changed in the company, and more importantly he found out about the game they were developing.

He still wanted to have an immortal life (cause he also vaguely remembers wanting to live longer from when he was still working on reviving Evan, and his 'brain' scrambled it into him wanting to live FOREVER, no dead son here!) And he was like, "well, I guess coming back as a digital entity would be awesome!" But remember there's still a chance of him being fully deleted forever as explained by Tape Girl, so his plan is to infect people with his virus to use them as vessels to live in the real world again (and maybe collect remnant? Idk, this is still an idea I'm debating on keeping in this part, will likely get dropped though.)

(Also, I guess Special Delivery can stay the same in my re-imagining, not much to change about it and I like the Vanny lore!)

Again, I'm still working out the kinks here. This will probably be subjected to change if it calls for it! Any questions, let me know!

[thegoldenshi-shi]

So, I have been busy making poor monetary choices again, in which I now own two different types of tablets specifically for art (ONE WAS VERY MUCH ON SALE, THE OTHER HAD A 50 BUCK COUPON, BOTH GOOD REVIEWS), and the first tablet I bought, that's honestly just a way of adding a touchscreen to a computer to me, cause like. It's a sensor pad? Well, it's proving that I can't mentally make myself apply a lot of pressure to technology, which my younger self with a ruined dsi touch screen would gape at. I have also gotten all my shelving units up! Not sure if they're staying where they are, or if I'm gonna move them around again, but I do know two that are staying where they are, mainly cause I am /not/ lifting that shelf all the way back up to chest level to take it back down again. Nuh uh, no ma'am, it will not be done. It's also gotten all my collectibles on it already, which has proven that I need to devote more of my budget to the Twins than Screamer. My frenemesis would be delighted to see my failure to my simpees.

Work has been better! Still hot, but we've slowed /way/ down, which means my supervisor has been letting me goof off on my phone or writing, cause we physically can't work too hard in the heat, but we also have no orders anyway, so... And because we've been able to get paid Not Working, I have gotten back into a werewolf story I started writing months ago! I'm setting it up one shot style rn, and posting the chapters as my brain accepts my pleading for their creation, but I also intend to make it a full and proper story once I've worked all the one shots out. I will openly admit to it being complete self service, cause I want a best friend who's 8 feet tall, fluffy, and has a crappy sense of humor. And is a cuddle monster, though that one is mainly cause I love glomming full force onto my people and displaying my awkward affection. I'm like a peacock, but instead of flaring tail feathers, I hug people in front of other people, whilst not actually really knowing socially accepted norms for hugging friends, tbh.

I also went through and completely reorganized my phones gallery, and got a very stupid laugh outta it. I have 461 transformers related pictures, and almost 400 writing prompts. Just. Saved on my phone. If I ever lose this sim card my writing career that i don't actually have will be over. On another other note semi related, I have been asked to design a friends tattoo! I don't know if I mentioned that in my last ask. He asked me to draw him a dragon to get tattooed, which, to be fair, dragons are among one of the very scant things I can draw well reliably, but also, dragon proportions curled into a ball sleeping are kicking my ass, and I am debating getting out my giant sketchpad to be able to completely control every tiny eetsy beetsy detail, cause my close friend wants me to do this thing that will permanently be on his body, and I really desperately don't wanna mess it up... Cause like. No one has ever asked me to ///draw/// for them before. I've gotten asked to paint, or do some small stuff with watercolors, but never /drawing/. And he knows I love dragons, it's part of why he asked. I just. It's a thing that happened that made me really happy, like hide in my pillow crying happy tears happy.

And then, on the fifth, I found an exactly 8 year old video of my childhood dog that we had to put down... it was from the summer before he was put down, which happened during the school year. He had been all that I'd had growing up, so, it hit kinda hard seeing something of him that moved. Even after 8 years, I still cry every time I think about him. He was the best dog any little kid could've ever been raised with, and probably helped boost my immune system against my allergies to boot, hehe. I cried for like, two hours, cause it was a video taken 7/5/2015. And, I thought I had lost all my images of him. It was a happy thing, just. A very sad type of happy. I wish I could tell him that I did love him, even if I didn't wanna lay on the ground and cuddle like he preferred. He was a dog that was born old, haha, never wanted to play or bark, he just wanted to lay on you and be loved. I was always running around on imaginary adventures though, but I did love him. If I was upset, he was my safe place. I promise this is a happy thing, it's just that I'm gonna be legally allowed to drink soon, and sometimes I forget that it's been so long since I got to see him. Especially cause sometimes, I still have dreams about playing with him in our backyard, right next to a giant pine tree covered in cicada sheds, laughing as he dug a little groove to lay in under the old rusted out trampoline. He was the most patient, tolerant dog, and it's because of him and the cat he raised with me that I'm not afraid of so much anymore. Ma and dad weren't there when we had him, but... I'll admit to giving them up forever if it meant I got to have him back

~Smooch

Hello there Smooch~

Sleeping babee dragon sounds so cute! I've never designed a tattoo, so I can only imagine the pressure (and of course the touching part of him asking you to draw his tattoo design).

Interestingly enough I too spent a loooong period of time where drawing was a dragon-only zone. I think it was back in like middle school? If you're struggling with a traditional four-legged two winged dragon, have you considered another type? There's Asian Lung dragons, Wyverns, Wyrms, or even a Quetzalcoatl style dragon that can all be very cool and might be easier for you to draw as a sleepy loaf. If your friend doesn't have a strong preference of course.

How exciting, on sale art supplies. It's kinda hard to decide sometimes between art supplies and if you're new to it, it's not a BAD idea to try multiple different types and/or brand names until you find what you like. I own two different art devices, one Wacom Intuos bought in High School and a Huion art monitor bought like four years ago. I was a traditional artist at the time I bought the Intuos tablet, so I quickly found that I prefer drawing on an actual screen I can look at instead of drawing on a tablet, BUT I had to try the tablet first to know that. What that all amounts up to is I hope you like one if not both of them ^J^ It's good to hear that your job is calming down. I'm sure that you're enjoying having the down time to work on your creative pursuits. At the risk of sounding too much like a hippie art teacher, I say it's very important to have some sort of creative outlet in your life. So it's wonderful to hear that you're getting to write on your werewolf story. I send you my best wishes that your muse stays nice and cooperative for the whole process hehe.

And lastly: The bittersweet memory of a good pet that has passed is something that I feel blessed to have as well. I hope that you can continue to enjoy your memories of a good animal without being bogged down in the sadness of their passing.

It's good to hear from you again Smooch, glad to hear you are doing well~

[lordofparadoxes]

|| Connection established . . . playing . . . ||

|| loading . . . . . ||

|| loading . . . . ||

|| loading . . . ||

-ot working?! [ There's a loud bang. ] Fuck, that'll teach me to- wait- [ A rustling noise, close to the speaker. ] Oh, yes! It's working! Finally, I was starting to think that guy scammed me. He's damn lucky I figured this thing out, tsk. [ Ineligible muttering. ]

[ A big black and white creature that resembles a mix of a squirrel and a rabbit comes into view, buck teeth and tusks poking out from their lips, eyes focused on something off-screen. Their eyes dart to the camera, widening comically as if they just realized they were being recorded. ]

Ah- sorry! You're probably wondering who I am. [ The creature chuckles, looking sheepish and rubbing the back of their neck with a spotted paw. ] Well, the name's Paradox, and I'm a Time Lord. [ They pause, face scrunching up as if realizing something. ] Not The Doctor's kind, though I have met them. No, I originate from a time branch of what my superiors have named the Rise Universe, the newest tree for the TMNT garden. For people who don't follow: I am a yokai that was born in a Hidden City, which one I can't remember. My universe of origin's ending code is 2018, though I've since moved. [ They offer the camera a small grin, their long ears flicking back, the big bushy tail behind them twitching a bit. ]

Normally this kind of thing would get one fired... but considering Tumblr has consistently broken the laws of reality by having multiple versions of the same person on it at any given point and allowing them to interact without consequence... well, my superiors have made an exception. [ They laugh nervously, nose twitching. ]

I'm technically retired from field work, but reality decided I was done with that and dragged me back kicking and screaming. So, here I am! Making a blog, haha. [ They wince, and their head falls into their paws with a muffled groan. ] Ugh... I'm out of practice.

[ They tilt their head a bit to glare half-heartedly at the camera. ] In my defense, it's been a couple thousand years since I've had a social media account. And technically this is a transcript, so cut me some slack alright? [ They straighten up with a sigh, leaning back in their chair. ]

You'll probably be seeing more of me, though no guarantee. The signal here is shit, and everything I send through has a 50/50 chance of actually being received. [ They grimace. ] Most of the time though everything gets lost to the void or fractured. Ugh, which just means more paperwork for me. [ They close their eyes, expression pained. ] So much paperwork...

|| Connection terminated , redirecting . . . ||

|| Pulling up file . . . || || Opening file name "Employee 325" ||

Designation : Paradox Real name : [ REDACTED ] Age : [ REDACTED ] Species : Yokai; hybrid / mutt Universe of Origin : TMNT-R-CTEV-S1-C10GOL-002018 Occupation : Time Lord; Rank Watcher Former Ranks : Civilian; Refugee, Consultant (Brief), Scout; Junior, Senior, Agent; Lieutenant, Captain, General Magic : Hammer space, [ REDACTED ] Misc : Retired, unique magic; nonreplicated, doesn't age, omnivore, founj!(DU918!*@&9*!S*(JS!*1Y(S(*!wS)K!()IW!(JS!U&@Y!H!7HG^SH!*(!I9jS!sH!*YW()SJ!!M)W1 JIW : 56gu!T^&!SU!*H17YS!&*ySG!*YG^SO(!)(h!( G : SJ2!*!(shJ!*w!ys!(!* || . . . ||

|| File corrupted . . . | |

|| Closing . . . | |

|| Ending program . . . ||

|| Thank you for using Pandora's Box! ||

[rain-fluff]

Journal Nine

Have you ever discovered music you wished you had discovered earlier in your life? I have always had an affinity towards Indie Japanese Rock due to consuming a lot of anime, manga or JRPGs during my adolescence but sometimes I wish I had dug deeper and consumed more than I already do. Buck-Tick was not a band that I was remotely interested in listening except until last year where news of their vocalist passing started to circulate in my social media feeds. I only decided to listen to them sometime in mid January because I was simply curious about what it was that made them so special to many.

Kiss Me Good-bye was the first song that was recommended to me by an online friend and I genuinely did not expect to fall in love with the song as much I did. It only took me a few seconds for it to instantly click and made me think about how strong my grunge and indie sounds could actually impact me as a person. I wouldn't say I'm the most musically gifted person in the room or anything but after listening to a few tracks from their discography, I couldn't help but feel so quickly saddened by a musical talent lost.

And call me an old soul or whatever but I do feel sad knowing that rock music in general has unfortunately lost it's popularity with time. Not to say I don't listen to pop music ever but I feel like there's just no place for rock music as much as it used to be because many in the current generation are just not brought up to appreciate it as much. I also wonder how the band is like after Atsushi Sakurai's passing? Do you think they can go on? I remember Linkin Park still making music today despite Chester Bennington's passing but I think it's fair to say that there will always be a big hole that these bands can fill unlike when their vocalists were still there.

Speaking of music, I remember briefly mentioning that I auditioned for a musical performance but I never really elaborated on what happened. Well for starters, I genuinely thought I could pull of Torn by Natalie Imbruglia, only to be critiqued that I was using my second voice too much, I wasn't great with pacing my energy or breathing and I simply lacked confidence. Cool (not the judges fault by the way, I'm just dissapointed in myself looking back and their critiques we're a good way of learning what I could improve).

At some point, they suggested I try singing Back to Black by Amy Winehouse and I was surprised by myself that despite the last minute adjustment, I had a smoother experience singing said song moreso than the initial. Colour me surprised when I found out that I made the auditions to boot! Now I have to worry about the actual performance and make time for practicing a song I only remember 50% of the lyrics of but overalI think I'll do okay. (probably)

Also surprise! My beloved doll is finally here! The doll's quality is really well-made and I only wish I could get more clothes for her but this hoodie would have to do for now. I may or may not have also splurged on some Spy x Family plushies of Anya but considering they we're roughly 7 ringgit each, I had to snatch them before they sold considering cheap official merch like that is pretty rare to come by. I really need to journal in between the days of the week just to fill up these entries again. I've just been letting myself be consumed by the stress of built-up assignments. I really need to get a grip where I can.

-rain

[the-firebird69]

Somebody put my parents in the hospital and my parents started putting me in the hospital and it's really for mental stuff and they had no real good reason to and it was really because my mom put my dad in and decided that I should go in and she's affected meaning someone did a transplant and they're not going to undo it they said I think and we have some problems with it these things are happening because of that and people are not addressing it and people have that that happen and they are a bit non-savvy they don't understand if you put my mom in the hospital like what happened you end up having a problem if you put me in afterwards you end up having more problems and The Rock should understand but I don't think he knows that it just keeps on getting worse and worse as these two bother me they're getting worse situations and the empire is still flying high nobody's actually touched their places except I think 10 small teeny tiny caverns which I don't know if they're theres or not probably not

Zues Hera

So he said I don't want to hear a word one from you about anything and I said John because I have money but he wasn't talking about that and the guy had already exploded and I didn't say anything the point is he wants to hear about it and yeah they went after a caverns and they're like 20 of them I think we lost all 20 and they're not the max these people are dumb s*** so we don't have too many left we only have like 20 left the good size but we can't have this s*** so we pointed out Trump stuff and somebody found out they have 50 to 60% of what the empire has which is if you took like 30% of it or 25% you can take over Earth and the other portion would be for Saturn now we are looking into it we have found out that it's at least 50% and the numbers are right it is a huge amount giant forces are going after them and they're going to all be gone probably in a few days which is great Stan did a good job and my grand nephew. He's laughing over there like the predator and they don't even listen really it's because I'm calling him my grand nephew and it's going to be really big and I might get him thousands and really thousands of millions which is nothing but he will be big. He's trying to think of what the name of that was and he thinks it's a hundred thousand dollar bar and I think it's $1,000 bar he wants to make like a healthy one like a million bucks big huge like health bar candy bar and they make them like that anyways and they charged too much he charge like three bucks the thing was way like a pound and it'll be some carbs in it and protein they say 20 g of protein in those little dinky things and we checked and it's about 18 g no it's like 20 g there's a lot of protein. It's not too healthy because an average chicken breast has about 20 g and you're eating more than just protein and if you're not careful it's going to be a problem and he eats carbs with it and it makes himself I can see him forcing himself and people in his way and a lot of you idiots are stupid we're tired of this you're threatening to get rid of yourselves and you're doing the job make a choice and he says this guy Tommy f is out of control and there's some others that are out of control like they are we had a schedule and we have a problem and it's Tommy f is a problem he's influenced by the max Trump is a problem is influenced by the max where in foods by the max to fight each other so I'm starting to get this this is starting to really really blow and nobody's listening to anyone he says what are they doing are they looking at these things cuz they're attacking us and our bunkers well this is going on and you're saying that they're going to clean house afterwards who you say is they have gotten nowhere then we can be screwed cuz they're taking all the form of stuff when they lose now I've had it here this is I've had it with this they could be building a massive robot army with all that stuff that goes in there I'm calling for an end of it and someone was mentioning it today this is recycled materials are easier we made a lot of machines and they have the designs and I heard them yelling at me so we going to put this out there

Mac Daddy

[boyakishan]

There's that new Mr beast philanthropy video. People are going "stop giving food to people."

Dude. How much do you think food is.

Like, let's say you can survive on ten bucks. A homeless person can work, beg or whatever and they can live on ten bucks. It costs. Idk, 5 bucks for the homeless shelter so that's the house security so they're not overtly stressed and whatever. And then...

It's like 5 bucks just for bread.

It's twenty bucks more or less for a sandwich, that's 50 bucks of ingredients from the store.

Just top of my head. 50 bucks.

Now, there's places that sell food for five bucks. Oh hey, look. That's the ten bucks for this bullshit scenario.

Now, let's say they're undergoing training. Learning how to work in retail.

They're not getting paid and they're living off 50 bucks they managed to save up during the weekends by not eating. Eating lunch in the staff room on weekdays. By Sunday they've either found a way to make cash, or they're sleeping on the streets.

Like. Think about that scenario. It's not a bad situation to be in, but food needs to be stored.

Food'll spoil, and etc etc.

Like, top of my head. Food's 70% of poor families budgets. A homeless person has a job and a place to clean up a bit, 3/10 of your weekly wage isn't a lot to live off of, and if your job is lost because of some clean looking smuck...

Well, it's not easy being homeless, and I can't really do much.

But what would I know, I've only read through a couple research papers, talked to a few homeless shelter people and volunteers and homeless people around my city.

I've only given what I can, advice. Idk.

[lovenaturelovepurpleblog]

Bob Dylan speech after he accepted the Nobel peace prize, Nobel Prize

Bob Dylan:

Good evening, everyone. I extend my warmest greetings

to the members of the Swedish Academy and to all of

the other distinguished guests in attendance tonight.

I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but please know

that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored

to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded

the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could

have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I've

been familiar with and reading and absorbing the works

of those who were deemed worthy of such a distinction:

Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus,

Hemingway. These giants of literature whose works are

taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries around the

world and spoken of in reverent tones have always

made a deep impression. That I now join the names on

such a list is truly beyond words.

I don't know if these men and women ever thought of

the Nobel honor for themselves, but I suppose that

anyone writing a book, or a poem, or a play anywhere in

the world might harbor that secret dream deep down

inside. It's probably buried so deep that they don't even

know it's there.

If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest

chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think

that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the

moon. In fact, during the year I was born and for a few

years after, there wasn't anyone in the world who was

considered good enough to win this Nobel Prize. So, I

recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the

least.

I was out on the road when I received this surprising

news, and it took me more than a few minutes to

properly process it. I began to think about William

Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he

thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he

was writing literature couldn't have entered his head.

His words were written for the stage. Meant to be

spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure

he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're

the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be

staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His

creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the

forefront of his mind, but there were also more

mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the

financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for

my patrons?"

' "Where am I going to get a human skull?" I

would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's

mind was the question "Is this literature?"

When I started writing songs as a teenager, and even as

I started to achieve some renown for my abilities, my

aspirations for these songs only went so far. I thought

they could be heard in coffee houses or bars, maybe

later in places like Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium.

If I was really dreaming big, maybe I could imagine

getting to make a record and then hearing my songs on

the radio. That was really the big prize in my mind.

Making records and hearing your songs on the radio

meant that you were reaching a big audience and that

you might get to keep doing what you had set out to do.

Well, I've been doing what I set out to do for a long time,

now. I've made dozens of records and played thousands

of concerts all around the world. But it's my songs that

are at the vital center of almost everything I do. They

seemed to have found a place in the lives of many

people throughout many different cultures and I'm

grateful for that.

But there's one thing I must say. As a performer I've

played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people

and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people.

50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50.

Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world

unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly.

Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your

talent is tried. The fact that the Nobel committee is so

small is not lost on me.

But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the

pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all

aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best

musicians for these songs?"

" "Am I recording in the right

studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things

never change, even in 400 years.

Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my

songs literature?"

So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the

time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for

Providing such a wonderful answer,

Yours Truly

Bob Dylan,

[lowtaxsa]

My Quarantine Adventures: From Riches to Boiler Room

Greetings, fellow Ogsters! It's your old pal Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka here, broadcasting live from the boiler room of a Thai nail salon. You might be asking yourself how I, a once-proud captain of industry, wound up in such a peculiar living situation during the great quarantine. Well, buckle up, because it's been a rollercoaster of a journey, filled with twists, turns, and, of course, a healthy dose of Lowtaxian shenanigans! And let me tell you, if you thought living in a boiler room was a low point, just wait until you see what else I've been up to.

The beginning of my descent into boiler room living started when I lost the last of my money in a high-stakes online poker game. I had what I thought was an unbeatable hand—a full house, the kind of hand that would make a gambler's heart swell with pride. Unfortunately, my opponent somehow managed to pull a royal flush out of thin air. Now, I'm not saying they were cheating, but I've always been a bit suspicious of their avatar, which was a cat playing poker while wearing sunglasses. Regardless, I had to accept defeat, and with it, the departure of the last remnants of my fortune. I guess I should have known better than to trust a cat in sunglasses.

With no money to my name, I suddenly found myself in a precarious situation. Despite the nationwide renter protections in place, I was unceremoniously kicked out of my home. In retrospect, perhaps using my landlord's car as a makeshift barbecue pit wasn't the best idea, but hey, what's life without a few mistakes? I can't help but feel that the rules should have protected me, but I suppose they don't apply to guys like me who have a penchant for unintentionally wreaking havoc on other people's property. It's not like I was robbing banks or anything – just a little property damage for flavor.

Homeless and penniless, I found myself wandering the streets, my spirit unbowed despite my seemingly dire circumstances. I eventually stumbled upon a strip mall's Thai nail salon, where the kind-hearted owner, Mrs. Sukjai, took pity on me and allowed me to stay in her establishment's boiler room. In exchange for her generosity, I agreed to help out with odd jobs around the salon and promised not to scare away customers with my desperate attempts to make a quick buck. Easier said than done, as you'll soon see. I mean, a guy's gotta eat, right?

During my time at the strip mall, I tried my hand at various schemes, each more harebrained than the last, in an effort to con the local business owners. My first venture involved convincing the pet store owner that I had a rare breed of invisible dogs to sell. I was so close to sealing the deal when one of the "dogs" started "barking," revealing itself to be nothing more than a recording on my phone. The owner was far from amused, but I couldn't help but chuckle at my own ingenuity. You have to admit, invisible dogs would be pretty cool.

Refusing to be deterred by my initial failure, I moved on to my next scheme: selling "magic beans" to the owner of the organic grocery store. With a silver tongue, I promised that these beans would grow a beanstalk that would lead straight to a land filled with golden eggs. Of course, the beans were just ordinary legumes I had scavenged from a dumpster behind the store. The owner, unimpressed and clearly agitated by my ruse, threatened to call the police if I ever tried anything like that again. But I was undaunted, and my mischievous spirit remained unbroken. I mean, who wouldn't want a shot at some golden eggs? I thought it was a pretty good sales pitch, if I do say so myself.

It was then that I hatched my most ambitious plan yet: posing as a psychic and offering to read palms for the low, low price of $50 a pop. I had a small booth set up outside the nail salon, and business was booming! People lined up, eager to learn their futures from the mysterious and enigmatic "Lowtax the Mystic." I made up fortunes on the fly, weaving tales of fame, fortune, and true love. The more outlandish my predictions, the more my customers ate them up. I felt like the king of the strip mall, my financial woes a distant memory. That is, until a real psychic set up shop just a few doors down, offering free readings to anyone who would listen. Talk about a buzzkill.

As the crowds flocked to my competition, I was left to wallow in the bitter taste of defeat. But I wasn't about to go down without a fight! In a last-ditch effort to regain my clientele, I tried to sabotage the real psychic by dressing up as a ghost and "haunting" their booth. Unfortunately, my makeshift costume, which consisted of a bedsheet with crudely cut eyeholes, failed to convince anyone of my spectral status. To add insult to injury, the real psychic saw right through my ruse and publicly denounced me as a fraud. I slunk back to the boiler room, my dreams of psychic greatness dashed. Apparently, even the spirit world has standards.

Despite my many misadventures, I've learned quite a bit during my time in quarantine. While I may no longer possess the wealth and prestige I once did, I've gained something far more valuable: a newfound appreciation for the simple pleasures of life. Whether it's the warmth of a boiler room on a cold night or the camaraderie of my fellow strip mall denizens, I've discovered that sometimes it's the little things that make life worth living. Who knew a warm boiler and a cramped space could feel like home?

Well folks, the nightly seizures are starting - and I don't mean mine, I mean the entire strip mall collectively "seizing" up, by which I mean all the storefronts are closed and the mall security guards are out with their "Lowtax-whacking sticks." They're trying to get rid of me, but little do they know that I've become a master of the strip mall underworld. They'll never catch me! As I dodge their futile attempts to oust me from my boiler room haven, I can't help but reflect on the bizarre journey that has been my quarantine experience. It's like playing a real-life game of "Whack-a-Lowtax."

In the end, my quarantine journey has been one of personal growth and self-discovery, albeit with a generous helping of Lowtaxian antics along the way. I hope my tale of trials and tribulations has brought a smile to your face and perhaps even inspired you to find your own silver lining during these strange times. And who knows? With a bit of luck and a whole lot of cunning, I might just find my way back to the top once again, or at least secure a spot somewhere in the middle. After all, everyone loves a good comeback story, right?

[elvensorceress]

UMMMM YOU ALREADY KNOW. I WOULD LIKE A SNIPPET PLZ OF MY BELATED BIRTHDAY PRESENT 👀👀🥺🥺💜💜💜💜💜

WELL YOU'RE IN LUCK because that's what I've been working on this week 🥰 💕💕💕💕

He rolls over beneath the light blanket and slides an arm around his sleeping husband. Husband. His beautiful husband. How is he this lucky? He still doesn't know.

Eddie makes a soft, not quite conscious noise. So, Buck nestles close and kisses his neck. It’s always a 50-50 toss up whether it tickles or ignites heat, and Buck isn’t even sure which outcome is his favorite. It usually ends the same regardless. 

He lets his hand dip under the hem of Eddie’s thin t-shirt and spreads a warm palm over his abdomen. He could do nothing but touch Eddie for hours — has done nothing but this many times before. He loves the soft feel of his skin, the defined swells of muscle, the dusting of dark hair, the delicate bends of knuckles, the taste of his inner thighs, the sensitive dip near his pelvic bone, the places where he bears scars, moles, freckles, and black ink. All of him. Buck loves all of him, has kissed and traced and massaged and licked every inch of him until he knows everything by heart. 

He loves how Eddie breathes, how he laughs, how he moans, how he whimpers. He especially loves how Eddie trusts him so completely, how even when it was new and terrifying, Eddie still offered him everything. He would still give and let Buck give to him even when he didn’t feel deserving. When neither of them felt deserving of something so incredible and pleasurable but safe and joyous at the same time.  

Buck clutches him now, holds Eddie against his chest, and scatters kisses over his shoulder, his neck, his cheek. He knows Eddie’s waking when he covers the arm wrapped around him with his own and tips his head back so Buck can kiss him more. They’ve had years together, many years, but Buck still aches for him. “I love you,” he breathes into Eddie’s ear as he nuzzles in his hair. “I love you so much.” 

Eddie doesn’t open his eyes, but he smiles brightly and sounds breathless as he teases, “Starting with that already?” Because words of love whispered against skin, vowed while tangled in bed together inevitably lead to one thing and one thing only. If they aren’t already lost in the midst of it.

Buck hums against Eddie’s neck and rubs his thumb back and forth near ribcage. “Can’t help it. The fifth anniversary is wood you know.” 

Eddie laughs in his arms. With his whole body. And doesn’t stop. But he does twist around until he can pull Buck into a fierce kiss. “And here I thought it was silverware,” he says in between pressing their mouths together, grinning against Buck’s lips.

[dadtrap-the-nonbinary-pirate]

Have some incorrect quotes from my AU Zim, Tallest Red and Tallest Purple part 3. (Cause yes)

(I don't know the context of this generation a little)

Zim: Hey Tallest Purple, Tallest Red just broke my seashell lamp.

Tallest Purple: Neat. I'm gonna die alone.

Zim: Okay, you win.

......

Tallest Purple: When Tallest Red was born, the gods said, "They're too perfect for this world"

Zim: Please. When they were born, the devil said, "Oh, competition"

......

Tallest Red: Welcome to F*cking Applebees, do you want apples or bees?

Zim: Bees?

Tallest Red: THEY HAVE SELECTED THE BEES!

Zim: Wait-

*Tallest Purple approaches, shaking a jar of bees menacingly*

......

(Zim getting the consequence of pressing Tallest Purple's buttons)

Zim: I mean. Tallest Purple's just standing there now.

Zim: Waiting for me, I guess.

Zim: But it's okay, I think they've pretty much settled down.

Tallest Red: Settled down?

Zim: Well, they only stabbed me once.

......

Tallest Red: You bought a taco?

Zim: Yes.

Tallest Red: From the same truck that hit Tallest Purple?

Zim, with a mouthful of taco: Well me starving ain't gonna help them.

......

Tallest Purple: Why would anyone want to harm Tallest Red?

Zim: Maybe because they met them.

......

Zim: You're irrationally angry 365 days a year.

Tallest Red: Well, that's just your personal opinion, I don't have anger issues. Do you guys think I have anger issues?

Tallest Purple: Well, I wouldn't call it an issue. An issue is something you can fix.

......

Zim: Well, has Tallest Purple been wrong before?

Tallest Red: How wide are we willing to open this up?

......

Tallest Purple: Red, what are you doing?

Tallest Red: Making chocolate pudding.

Tallest Purple: It's four in the morning, why are you making chocolate pudding?

Tallest Red: Because I've lost control of my life.

Tallest Red: Here's your pudding, Zim.

Zim: Oh that's okay, I'm not hungry anymore.

Tallest Red: ....

Tallest Red, looking at Tallest Purple: I'm going to slap him.

Tallest Purple, hugging Tallest Red from behind: Please don't.

......

(When Tallest Red and Zim stay up at night and don't know the time)

Zim: What time is it?

Tallest Red: I don't know, pass me that saxophone and we'll find out.

Tallest Red: *BLASTS the saxophone*

Tallest Purple: WHO THE FUCK IS PLAYING THE SAXOPHONE AT TWO IN THE FUCKING MORNING?!

Tallest Red: It's 2 am.

......

(Whenever Zim somehow gets his hands on a mech, Tank, or rocket launcher)

Tallest Red: So... What's goin' on?

Tallest Purple: You want the long version or short version?

Tallest Red, hesitantly: the short one I guess.

Tallest Purple: shit's fucked.

Tallest Red: Oh. Well, yeah, that's definitely not an optimal situation.

......

Tallest Red: Purple, what does IDK, ILY, and TTYL mean?

Tallest Purple: I don't know, I love you, talk to you later.

Tallest Red: Alright, I love you too, I'll ask Zim.

Tallest Purple: Wait- Red, no-

......

Tallest Purple: Guys where did Tallest Red go?

Zim: They got arrested.

Tallest Purple: How the hell-

Tallest Red: *bursts in through the window* The cops are after me, I thought it would be fun to steal crackers and throw them at people.

......

(Whenever Tallest Red accidentally breaks something of Tallest Purple's since Red does get nervous but no it's not an abusive relationship)

Tallest Red: Who wants to make 50 bucks?

Zim: How?

Tallest Red: I someone to take the fall.

Zim: What did you do?

Tallest Red: I can't tell you. Yes or no, no questions asked.

Tallest Purple, from the other room: Oh my god.

Tallest Red: ...

Tallest Purple: OH MY GOD!

Zim: Make it a hundred.

Tallest Red: Deal.

......

Tallest Purple, trying to impress Tallest Red: I re-initialized the entire command structure, retaining all programmed abilities but deleting the supplementary preference architecture.

Zim: They turned it off and back on again.

......

(When Zim and his Tallests are roommates and he comes back from spending time with (his boyfriend) Dib)

Zim: *sneaking in through their window*

Tallest Red: *turning in their chair and flicking the light on* You want to tell me where you've been all night?

Zim: I was with Tallest Purple?

Tallest Purple: *turning in their chair* Wanna try again?

.......

(Diff universe)

Tallest Purple: I know we're not exactly friends, but-

Tallest Red: What do you want?

Tallest Purple: I've been stuck with Zim for 2 weeks and they've been drinking all the soy sauce.

Tallest Purple: help. TwT

.......

Zim: Hey, do you know the password to Tallest Red's computer?

Tallest Purple: Fuck you, Zim.

Zim: Hey!!

Tallest Purple: No, you misunderstood, the password is "fuckyouZim".

Zim: Oh, no numbers? Not very safe.

......

Tallest Red: Dandelions are every thing I want to in life.

Zim: Fluffy and dead with a gust of wind?

Tallest Red: Unapologetic. Hard to kill. Feral, filled with sunlight, bright, beautiful in a way that the conventional and controlling hate but cannot ever fully destroy. Stubborn. Happy. Bastardous. Friends with bees. Highly disapproving of lawns. Full of wishes that will be carried far after I die.

Tallest Purple: Edible.

......

Tallest Red: If you get in trouble, I'm gonna be like.... a lawyer to you. Ok?

Zim: Okay.

*Later*

Tallest Purple: Zim! Sit down on the chair, you're in trouble.

Tallest Red, whispering: Deny everything.

Zim, loudly: That isn't a chair.

.......

Tallest Red: I'm afraid of clowns. There, I said it.

Zim: Tallest Red, if you don't like clowns, why are you hanging out with Tallest Purple?

......

Tallest Purple: Self care is stuff like taking a bubble bath or putting on a lot of makeup if you like that, or taking a nice warm nap and stuff like that basically.

Tallest Red: Self care is the burning heat when rage washes over you. self care is when you feel the bones crack under your powerful fists. self care is the fear in your enemies eyes.

Zim: Self care is stealing someone's birthday cake just to eat the frosting.

Tallest Red: If you touch my birthday cake I'll make you eat your hands.

......

(When Zim has insomnia)

Zim: Protip is you do not feel good about yourself after eating tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce.

Tallest Purple: What's wrong with you??

Zim: I literally JUST said I ate tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce?? Pay attention.

Tallest Red: No, they mean other than that.

Zim: ohhhhhh.

Zim: I haven't slept in 4 days.

.......

Zim: It's impossible to make a sentence without using the letter a.

Tallest Purple: Despite your thinking, it is quite possible, yet difficult, to form one without the specific letter. Here's one more to further disprove your theory.

Tallest Red: F*ck you.

......

Tallest Purple: The first time I ever got upset in front of Tallest Red, they put their arms around me and it was so awkward that I had to ask them if they were hugging me or reaching for something on the shelf behind me.

Tallest Red: I was doing both, for your information.

Zim: The first time Tallest Red hugged me, it was such a disaster we didn't make eye contact for, like, a week after.

......

Zim: Hello all, it is I, your favorite person.

Tallest Red: Actually, Tallest Purple is my favorite.

Zim: Okay then, it is I, that bitch.

......

Zim: Tallest Purple got into a fight.

Tallest Red: That's bad.

Tallest Red: ...

Tallest Red: Did they win?

......

*Tallest Purple teaching Zim how to drive and taking Tallest Red along for the ride*

Tallest Purple: That's a pothole. To the left!

Zim: Take it back now ya'll. *Drives into pothole*

Tallest Red, sticking their face into the front over the center console: Cha cha real smooth.

Zim: I don't think that's how the song goes.

Tallest Purple, crying and gripping the handle: Please just take me home.

Zim: Country Roads.

Tallest Red: To the place.

Zim and Tallest Red in unison: I Belong!

Tallest Purple, crying harder: What the fuck?

......

Zim: Why did you guys dress up as each other for Halloween?

Tallest Purple: Tallest Red is the scariest thing I could think of!

Tallest Red: Tallest Purple told me I should pick the dumbest costume possible.

......

Zim: Tallest Red, those tarot card readers know what they're doing! Think of Tallest Purple, they're smart!

Tallest Red: Those are suggestions! They're not-

Zim: Tallest Purple knew things, Tallest Purple knew things!

Tallest Red: I don't think tarot cards told them that, though! I think if you just shotgun blast things into the air, saying you think you know things, then you're bound to hit one of them!

Zim: I don't like thinking about it like that. They're just brilliant.

Tallest Red: Well, they are brilliant! But-

Zim: And they saw into the future, and they're basically a God.

Tallest Red: ....

Tallest Red: They aren't.

......

Zim, Entering Tallest Purple's room: Tallest Red did it again.

Tallest Purple: Peace disturbance?

Zim: What no-

Tallest Purple: Arson..?

Zim: NO, JESUS CHRIST, HOW MANY-

Tallest Purple: uh....Attempted murder?

Zim: NO, THEY ATE ALL THE FOOD IN THE FRIDGE, BUT WHAT THE FU-

......

Zim: Adulting is hard.

Zim: How do I quit?

Tallest Purple: Time travel.

Tallest Red: Die.

......

Tallest Purple: *gets a text* Oh! It's Tallest Red.

Zim, excitedly: Did they get me the stuff?

Tallest Purple: Yeah, they say they got the clown costume, the power drill and 12 gallons of blood.

Zim: Wow! Where did they find 12 gallons of fake blood?

Tallest Purple: You wanted fake blood?

Zim: ...

Tallest Purple: I'll go call Tallest Red.

......

Tallest Red: The clock is ticking! We don't have time for this asinine tomfoolery!

Tallest Purple: This unmitigated poppycock?

Zim: Extravagant hogwash!

Tallest Red: Okay, stop.

......

(Both Tallest Red and Zim having fucked up sleep schedules cause of insomnia which in turn Tallest Purple finds them awake)

Tallest Red & Zim: *playing video games*

Tallest Purple: You guys woke at 5:30 in the morning to just play games?

Tallest Red: *silence*

Zim: *silence*

Tallest Purple, figuring it out: ... You two never went to sleep did you?

Tallest Red & Zim in shame: Yeah...

[voskhozhdeniye]

I haven't talked about the whole Dababy thing on here. I've written and deleted multiple posts, but haven't decided how I want to approach it. Do I want to tackle it from the Angela Davis "heterosexual black men and white women are the weak link to equally" quote angle? Do I want to tackle it from the I really do not fuck with most rappers and rap culture because it's built on misogyny, homophobia and capitalistic lust? How about a more personal approach?

I was 12 the first time I seriously considered suicide. I've wanted to kill myself for 20 years now. I truly do not care anymore, and haven't for a long time. My body has been breaking down since childhood, and I'm just waiting for it to give out on me. The day I die will be the happiest day of my life. Sad yes, but that's just the truth of the matter. I don't even know what I would consider to be the second happiest day of my life. This has not been a very pleasant life, and the avenues to escape have all dried up. I've been thinking about whether or not I want to continue my education. Where is it going to take me, am I wasting money, am I wasting time?

12 was the age all of my male friends really started to exhibit toxic masculinity traits. I tried to continue to fit in with my friends, but I just wasn't that person. While I spent the summer between 6th and 7th playing Pokemon, which I had to fight my ultra religious parents for, my friends started being interested in and terrorizing girls. Girls went from friends to bitches overnight. I lost all of my black male friends. I didn't tow the line. I was a lame nigga as the rappers like to say. I ended up losing all my friends in high school. That was more me being an antisocial neurodivergent than anything else. So my former friends became my bullies. They bullied me physically, they bullied me emotionally and they bullied me sexually. Parents are of course in the religious cult, and the Bible has the answer to every problem you might have. So there was no point in turning to them. My sister has two daughters close to my age, so they're really the only people I've ever been close to.

Do you know what it feels like to be abandoned?

Rap culture is not the totality of black culture, but damnit it encompasses a large portion of it. To be black and queer is to be the enemy of rap. Sure there are queer rappers, but like being a POC in America you're never fully American. White people never refer to themselves as European Americans, but we're African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans and so on. Lil Nas X will never be fully accepted by his contemporaries. Any hint of queerness invalidates his blackness to them.

Does anyone remember 50 Cent trashing Young Buck because he was with a Trans woman?

Toxic and fragile masculinity is ingrained in rap culture.

The further I distance myself from it the better I feel, but the further I distance myself from it the more alienated I feel towards my people.

That link I always reblog about gay loneliness talks about how rejection from other gays always hurts more because those are the people you're supposed to build a community with. Well the same goes with race. There's an entire genre of music made by people who look like me, and a lot of the most well known names in it are vocally misogynistic and homophobic.

You don't belong here, and we don't want you.

This goes beyond rap of course, I've heard people who consider themselves advocating for social justice and black equality spew some of the same shit. Don't say Black Lives Matter, and then pick and choose which black lives. If we all aren't free, then no one is free.

But specifically about what Dababy said. I don't know if it's because of Covid, or if my parents have finally figured out I'm not straight, but now whenever I use the bathroom they go in behind me and bleach it hospital clean.

I guess they think they're going to somehow get HIV from their 32 year old child who has never even kissed another person.

My mother was listening to some cult video when I got home about dealing with homosexuals.

My eldest niece married her long time girlfriend back in October. My mother threw a fit when her wife asked to use our bathroom the day after their wedding.

[robyndehood]

My Son's Story (pt. 1)

DISCLAIMER: I Know it's a bit of a long read, but it's important. Please read. I promise it isn't boring. Thank you!

Hi Everyone,

Intro

This is my first real attempt at Tumblr. Please contact me if anything I post violates a rule or is not considered appropriate. Anything I post, I truly mean no harm nor offense to anyone. But I need to write daily again to regain my gift and share it with the world. I have been working on my version of the "great American novel" for years. As a child, I was well on my way to becoming a successful author, but people had other ideas for my career path - and to put it bluntly - my contribution to society. Writer's block set in and then what was second nature to me - creative writing, became a lost skill. Or maybe a distant memory. Writers know that half the struggle as an artist is the dilemma of our own aspiration towards perfection. But nothing is perfect. It is a social construct and the antithesis of true beauty.

The Ultimate Birthday Gift

So, that said, let's talk about my son. He's three - he's actually turning four in December. He was born on my birthday and has been the greatest gift that I have ever received. I won't pretend that he is perfect or even generally compliant with my directions. But he's loving. He's empathetic. He's brilliant. He's beautiful. And most of all, he is the sweetest person I have ever met.

I am going to go slightly off-topic for a bit; just to paint the full picture. I don't want to ramble and I am definitely a believer that a short and to the point message is almost always far superior to a long and complicated message. But bear with me because this snippet of the backstory is essential. And my son's story is important.

Appalachia

We live in Pittsburgh, part of the Appalachian Mountain Range. There is no other way to say it than the unadulterated, ugly truth of it - Pittsburgh is racist. Very racist. Beyond that, there is a general lack of common courtesy to outsiders, customers of businesses, other patrons in stores, etc. And the rudeness, is actually pretty much unrelated to the racism. It sounds strange and surely, minorities who are on the receiving end of it would certainly assume that racism was the reason why they said "excuse me," "thank you," etc. and about half the time are ignored like they're a ghost. But don't get it twisted - there are many times the aforementioned behaviors by many Pittsburghers IS induced by racism AND a lack of common courtesy and manners. You see, their deep-seated tribalism is indoctrinated into many Pittsburghers so completely from a young age that they know no different. It would be difficult for them to understand this article and I'd bet anyone ten bucks that if enough PIttsburghers read this post - they will attack my analysis of Pittsburghese culture as though the post itself is a blitz on the entire city.

Brown or White?

I am latin and there aren't many latins in Pittsburgh. But when we moved to Pittsburgh when I was in seventh grade, people knew my last name. Summer had just passed and I do get brown. I can get brown very quickly in the right type of sun and I get brown eventually in the sun that exists in cloudy and northern Pittsburgh. In seventh grade, some boys decided it would be funny to call me "estupido," and up until two years ago, I avoided sun exposure that would reveal my "brownness" like the plague.

Subversive, Subconscious, and Secret Racism

So, not long after I started that strategy, I was treated as white. (Side note: latins can be any race; but it seems that societal constructs are seeking to change this long accepted designation and categorize latins as some in between, brown race and not an ethnicity. To be honest, I am ok with that and now proud to be latin.)

The reality of being treated white in Pittsburgh for many years was that I learned what white people actually said when they were only with other whites. The most common thing that was said was one white person mumbling to other white people that someone was a "dumb n******" or a "dumb monkey." I've heard white adults refer to children who were black as "n***lets." But it was always this crocodile smiling through their teeth behavior. They'd never dare say it to a black person. Instead, they'd just indirectly discriminate against them.

I do have to mention that by no means do all Pittsburghers behave this way. It's just too many of them. I don't know the percentage, but if I had to guess I'd say - 50% plus.

Yes, Racism Happens All The Time Even if You Don't See it Happen

Many white people will tell you that racism is gone because they don't ever observe it and Obama was president - a black president. Therefore, everything is now over. I can admit that I have experienced my share of discrimination when my skin darkens. But I had no clue how bad it was for black people out here until my son became the recipient of the ugliness of it all. To me, racists are by definition ignorant cowards; so it makes sense they'd pick on a small boy whose only family is his mother.

Evil Always Starts Slowly

If one reviews history, every evil dictator or regime began slowly chipping away human rights. By the time the citizens realized the dire state of their country, it was too late. Their freedoms were already taken away and mechanisms to fight back had also been methodically erased.

When my son was born - a boy who is half African (his father (if you want to call him that since he is basically not involved) is from Ghana); no issues arose for the first two and a half years. But then the indirect discrimination started. The same rules that applied for white children didn't apply to him. I could give so many examples. But let's just say, as a rambunctious boy, if my son mimicked a white boy's same rambunctious behavior, we were confronted and the white family was not confronted.

One day I made an appointment for my son's hair to get cut at Philip Pelusi. They made the appointment knowing that he was only two and a half. The receptionist let me know that the stylist was a "Grade A Stylist," so I would have to pay more. I was fine with paying more; cool. After the appointment was made, I mentioned to the receptionist that my son was mixed race. We ended the call and I began to get my son ready to leave. Within ten minutes, the salon called back and informed me that they didn't/wouldn't cut my son's "type of hair." I promptly returned the call and explained his hair was curly, that's all. They blatantly lied and told me that the stylist doesn't cut ANY curly hair. Right. So, if a white lady came in with curly hair she would be turned away? I doubt it. Either way, the stylist is "Grade A." She is also licensed to cut hair by the state. Shouldn't a requirement for state licensing require one to know how to cut all "types of hair"?; I saved the recording, by the way, and still have it.

As months progressed, little by little wherever my son and I went in "white areas," we felt hostile vibes. Other incidents occurred that couldn't be proven as racial discrimination, but I knew. Whites behaved as though my son didn't deserve to be around them.

Southern Hospitality

We traveled down south a few times in the past year. Yes, some of the south is very racist still to this day. But not where we drove. Suddenly people responded when we said "excuse me," "thank you," etc. No white families prevented my son from playing with their children. No one told me my son was a nuisance or put out that vibe.

The Lesser of Two Evils?

But we had to come back each time because we live here and I've been working my way out of the projects that I have lived in for four years. Shootings. Open drug use and sales. The smell of crack in the hallways. Infestations in other apartments that come our way no matter what we try. People peeing on the hallway floors. Yes, seriously. Young children being encouraged to bully and beat up other kids. Children stealing or attempting to steal my son's toys because their mothers buy them none. Gamgmembers as young as twelve.

So, I concluded: "yes, we will move, but until then, we only sleep in our apartment and we do not play at the projects' playground." I figured IF I saved a certain number of money since I have a car that I saved for and bought last year, we would make it in our new, chosen city (Tampa or Jacksonville).

But then the racism against my son in the "white playgrounds" became worse. One day he was playing with a five year old boy at an indoor playground. The mother had no issue with it. The father of the boy arrived half an hour in, promptly scooped the boy away from my son, and told his son that he had told him he was not to "play with n*****s." My son couldn't understand why he could no longer play with his new friend and kept calling to him, "friends again!" while sobbing because he thought he had upset the boy. I had to leave with my son because of it.

Another time, a ten-year-old boy taunted my son on an outdoor playground and called him a "dumb monkey." My son first attempted to yell, "I NOT DUMB MONKEY," a few times; but the boy persisted and even smirked in my direction. My son ran to me and asked me to make the boy stop. No parent in sight and again, I just had to leave with my son.

Enough is Enough

Finally, last month or so, my son and I were at our usual laundromat doing laundry. We had finished. My son skipped a few steps in front of me and tried to open the glass door but couldn't push the bar to open it because of his height. He placed (yes, placed..lightly) his foot on the door to try to give it a bit more of a nudge. I was a few seconds behind him so just pushed the door open and we went to our car to load our clean laundry into it. In retrospect, I saw an older white male go next door to the beer store right after we walked out of the laundromar. The beer store employee approached us as I loaded my laundry into my car and then intended to leave.

The beer store employee told me he was getting "reports that kids were kicking glass." He said kids. Plural. And what he said made me envision a bunch of grade school kids kicking around broken glass on the sidewalk or parking lot. I responded calmly that "I have one kid and he's been with me the whole time. He wasn't involved." The beer store employee wanted drama to transpire. It was obvious. He said in a threatening manner: "Just so you know, I have cameras." My son and I exchanged glances because we were confused. What kids? Kids were kicking glass. Where? What glass?

Again though, I calmly responded that my son wasn't involved and he should check his cameras. He told me he was calling the cops. So I got my three-year-old son in his car seat and set a time limit of ten minutes to wait. We weren't running when he didn't do anything. The cops of course showed up about a minute later. It's ridiculous because in our projects (different police department than the laundromat police department), there have been shootings where children were outside playing when several clips were emptied into crowds and the police station is a block away. I know people called and it took an hour for them to arrive on scene.

Long story short, the laundromat cops knew it was a bullshit call. The supposed "kicking glass" was because my son placed his foot on the door to try to open it when we were LEAVING. The police eventually informed us that was the alleged "kicking of glass." There was no kicking that happened. The door wasn't even dirtier, let alone damaged because my son tried to use his foot to open the door. Lightly, by the way.

Even though the police were kind to my son, for the next week, my usual gregarious child was terrified to go anywhere. He eventually told me it was because "the cops will chase me and take me to jail because I bad guy now."

He's over it now. Mostly.

But we still have to pick between the craziness of playing at our aforementioned projects or going to a "white playground" and risking my son being rejected. It's usually a 50/50 shot that he will be rejected. If he gets rejected, he gets very upset.

Again, these are problems we never faced on our travels down the southern eastern seaboard. We didn't get treated like this at the destinations or on the journey by car to and from the destinations.

I knew we were living in an extremely racist and rude area, but one day I found this. It's a map delineating the results of a study conducted by Google and others regarding the level of racism in different parts of the country.

I already knew this much. But it's good to know I'm right that we are in the worst part of the U.S. for racism and the kindness we received traveling to those certain southern states was no illusion. And I did ask locals before I found this map if I was right that people are kinder to all colors in whichever given area.

Not the Worst Thing That Happened But the Last Straw

People talk a lot about Karens these days. This lady looked like she jumped right out of a Karen meme. My son was two feet away from her while we waited in line and she said as obnoxiously as possible: "Can you handle this? Please get him out of MY space." Yeah, I didn't let it go. At all. Her argument was that she said "please" so it's OK to make my son feel like a "this" and not a little boy. I held him while he sobbed. Long story short, I decided right then anywhere has to be better than this.

It isn't me just knowing people are being nasty to my son and I'm upset. He understands. He had an evaluation for something and he tested very well. He cried about each of these incidents. He just wants to make people smile and make friends.

So, next month we are going for it. I'm no where close to the aforementioned goal. I have some savings. We may end up in shelters at first after savings dry up in a few weeks. But we cannot survive up here. Nor can we advance here.

Side Note

I wrote this mostly to inform others of the status quo and reality of racism and the real effects it has on one tiny boy. And I know it will just get worse if we stay since it's this bad already.

But if you anyone knows of any resources to help us get on our feet in a month in Tampa or Jacksonville (Tampa is my first choice, but either one.) I have applied for housing, even though I didn't and don't want to go back to projects; but I'd take one down there over watching my son endure so much pain any day of the week.

Ok, so final part: I'm going to say upfront I feel extremely awkward with this paragraph because this isn't my way (years before my son was born I was homeless for a stint and never sat with a sign or a cup. Just couldn't do it), but for my son, I'm going to drop my cashtag here. Everyone is struggling and I know there are people with much worse problems. I appreciate anyone who has read this far and can help spread the reality of what I wrote about. That's the reason for the article; but if help is received at all because of it, we would be grateful but it's definitely a far second most important reason for the post. Here it goes, for my baby, in case it'll change his life and give us that better foot up, here it is: $RobyndeHood