#anyway i am allowed to desire things that are not in reach for me rn due to disability and chronic illness but i shouldn't confused that

[opalsiren]

i keep seeing ppl on social media travelling and living in different countries with big groups of friends and think 'i wish i could do that' then i had a dream i was in spain with a huge group of ppl from school living there and in the dream was like 'oh i would NOT actually enjoy this in reality' lol

[charmedreincarnation]

hi i’m sorry for this small rant. i really hope you reply to it because i’m spiralling so bad. i have been listening to v powerful luckiest girl and get all your desires instantly forced subs and i had two really bad days and overall my life feels so shit and i feel like nobody gives a shit about me feel left out with my friends and am really regretting some past choices i have made as in subjects i chose to study. why do subs not work on me ever? i detach but subs just don’t work for me idk what should i do i want to enter the void and live my better/dream life but i keep failing and i’m so spiraling so hard rn. i am not even seeing small success i can’t even manifest my acne away or to grow a few inches how will i enter the void and magically change my life entirely. please help me out. how do i manifest or enter the void as soon as i can. i am being delululu living in 4d but yes ik if i am truly living in the end i shouldn’t have doubts but it’s been so many months when will i see results in my 3d. manifestion should be instant right. i’m sorry for my negativity i hope you have a great day

Hi love! I feel like any of this could be answered in another ask, but you seem really worried, so I'm going to answer it anyway!

First and foremost, you are allowed to have doubts. Just because you have doubts doesn't mean you're producing those thoughts. From a psychological perspective (which aligns with LOA), our thoughts are not entirely our own. This is a scientific truth, whether you believe in LOA or not. Scientists say that our thoughts are influenced by external factors such as our environment, upbringing, and the thoughts of others. Sound familiar? They also claim that we have the power to change our thoughts and create our own reality by consciously choosing the thoughts we entertain. So, just know that you're going to have doubts until the end, but as long as you categorize them as random thoughts and not your own beliefs, they don't matter! For example, if someone dressed as Chucky the doll jump-scared you and you started having "scary" thoughts about it, that doesn't mean you actually believe Chucky is real and coming to get you. You have psychological responses to certain things that have been ingrained and coded in you for a while now. What LOA does is help us intercept these false messages and reframe them as "useless" instead of messages we encode in our mind and assumption.

I've always been interested in psychology and neurology, and even though it doesn't directly relate to your question, it's important to mention that you do have a brain, and your brain is wired to act in certain ways. Once you're aware of why you're acting and believing certain things, it becomes way easier to understand that the 3D world is malleable. I really suggest reading books by authors like Joe Dispenza so you can understand yourself better. Also, watching YouTubers who explain anxiety and reading self-help books can provide helpful ways to manage your own anxiety.

The second thing is, if you don't believe in subliminals, I don't know why people do this, but if you don't have faith in something or assume it doesn't work for you, just use something you have a little faith in. For example, maybe you're more logical. You can read about brain waves and then listen to binaural beats for anxiety,manifesting, and faith. Have faith in it, because you'll understand and know that those waves genuinely change your brain's alignment. That's just one example, but subliminals are not the only type of audios out there. There are many other methods to explore.

Also, meditation is very helpful. Not just to reach the void, but do you know how many conscious thoughts we have in a day? On average, it is estimated that a person has around 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day. These thoughts can range from conscious, deliberate thoughts to automatic, repetitive thoughts. That doesn't even include the number of unconscious thoughts we have, which is probably 100k+. You constantly have these little things running around in your head, trying to keep you alive, keeping you repeating the same thought patterns, beliefs, and assumptions. You can't consciously control them most of the time, but your brain and mind are working overtime 24/7. It's not your fault, so that's why meditation can help you. Not just to reach the void, though you can tap into that using some form of meditation as well, but to clear your mind and then it’s there it will be better to affirm and believe you can do whatever you desire. If you're not truly embodying the desired state, which you're not because you sent this ask, do you think a few measly affirmations can counteract the hundreds of thousands of thoughts you've been having every day since birth, most of which you don't even know exist? Affirmations do work, but trust me, I've been where you're at and worse. This is not the state to solely rely on "miracle affirmations" because you won't believe them, and when something doesn't happen, you'll just want to give up and confirmation bias will make you subconsciously think, "Well, see? I knew it. It isn’t real" But in reality, your mind is just looking for proof to align with your negative beliefs.

I know you say you haven't manifested anything, but can you really think back to something you thought was a "coincidence" or something you didn't really ask for but it just appeared? We usually brush those off as just the world at play or a small world, but nope, that was you. Maybe you don't have clear skin or whatever your desire may be, but as you probably know, that's because you've put it on a pedestal compared to all the other "small" but great things you've manifested

I know you probably wanted me to tell you exactly what to do, but I genuinely don't know you the way you know yourself - your own self, mind, and behaviors. You know best, fr! I could have said anything I've said before, like imagination is the real reality, the 3D being malleable, if you can see and feel it you can manifest it, try SATs or lucid dreaming lalala. But I've learned that you know what you have to do. Sit and meditate to learn about yourself and your mind, and why you think what you think. What past experiences do you still hold onto, reliving them in your mind and creating assumptions that no longer serve you? They can still affect you, we are humans and emotions cling to us like bees to honey, and that's okay. But we need to start moving those experiences into the past and start creating with what we are now, which is the present. Any given moment is a time to say, 'Okay, this doesn't serve me anymore, and this does. I don't want this life anymore, I want this type of life,' and consciously start creating with those desires instead.

Acknowledge your doubts, they're just doubts, and they're really just an extension of life factors that have been slowly consuming your mind. You may have them, but as a god, do you have them? No. But as a human, you are influenced by them, and who cares? You know who you are and your power now, so if you disregard them, work around them. But I can't tell you what to do because I'm not you! I wholeheartedly believe that you will get through this because I have as well and the lows are just apart of your journey as the success as corny as it sounds. But when you do succeed I promise you’ll back to this movement and just be very happy you didn’t give up despite how hard it was 💝

[slamminslamminmcgill]

Plz I am in LOVE with your blog.

Anyway I just finished s6ep8 and im heart broken </3 But I'm fucking obsessed w Lalo praising his bf, it literally makes me so weak. If you could write somethin of Lalo rewarding and praising his good boy pretty please 🙏

been having a rough week so this is exactly what i need rn 🥹 happy to provide bestie

Lalo Salamanca was not known for being gentle.

To everyone else, that is. You were a different story. You were the one person he was gentle with. Where others saw a snarling monster, you saw a cuddly teddy bear. Where others saw viciousness, you saw passion. Love is always strongest from one who saves it up.

That's why, when you came home crying, he wasted no time taking you into his arms. He squeezed you tight and let you cry, using his floral shirt as a Kleenex to dry your tears. Lalo knew better than to ask. He didn't have to; it didn't matter. Whatever it was, it could wait. He had to take care of you first and foremost, so he stroked your hair and let you cry.

His voice was warm tea with honey, a cure for every ailment. "Shh, shh, está bien. Está bien, querido (It's okay. It's okay, darling). Let it out. I'm here. Whatever you need, I'm here. What can I do for you?"

You didn't pull away, mumbling your answer into his chest. "I wanna go to bed."

"Okay, sure. You need some rest. C'mon, I'll take you upstairs. I'll make sure to be quiet for you." He tried to peel you off him, but you just pulled him tighter.

"I'm not tired..."

He raised an eyebrow as he connected the dots in his head. When he figured out what you meant, his lips curled into a gentle smile. "Oh, I see..." He patted your head, a signal to look up at him. You obliged. "You want me to take care of you? You want me to make you feel pretty, yeah?"

You nodded. That's all you wanted. That's all you needed.

Lalo squeezed you tight before he patted your shoulders. "Well, you got the right man for the job. Don't you worry about a thing, mi vida (my life). We're gonna have fun, okay?"

He led you upstairs to the bedroom and laid you down on the silk sheets. "Good boy. You just lay back and relax, okay? Shh, you're okay. I'm gonna make you feel good. I'll make it all better." He planted kisses all over your desperate body. On your face, soaking up your tears. On your neck, breathing in your scent. He peeled your shirt off so he could kiss the scars across your chest, after which he said, "I love this, you know. I love taking care of you. You deserve it. Such a good boy. You deserve to feel good." He smooched down your stomach until he reached the waistband of your pants. His gorgeous brown eyes, the eyes of a killer, mutilating you with love, gazed up at you in desire. "May I?" he asked.

You nodded, lifting your hips to allow him access, to let him strip you of your barriers, to leave you vulnerable in front of him. Anyone else would have been horrified in your situation, to be so weak and defenseless with him, but you weren't. You were horrified at the thought of being without him.

Lalo could tell. He tossed your clothes aside and nudged your legs apart. Firm hands caressed your thighs as he lowered himself to your burning heat. Your eyes clenched shut, waiting to feel him, but you didn't. You opened your eyes to see him staring at you, a look of pure adoration on his face. He had something to say before he got to work:

"I love you."

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[crimsonandcloverwrites]

ok bhah ch11 my longest yeah boi ever

i’m literally... so excited I can’t even read it ok ok

oh no not the wedding invitations not this

i swear to god if we have to go through this wedding. knifeemoji

listen I have a fear that we’re gonna get the break up and the car accident same as canon dear god don’t put us through that either

no fears *literally everything that could make bhah more painful* several fears dot meme

god not the jamie invite. she cant even do it. another sign from god you are choosing to ignore

straight to Jamie’s house oh

lmao the red door I just worked out that’s a hill house reference from when I was wondering in like ch3(?) lol the inner workings of my dumbass brain never stop

“can we talk?” it’s happening what is happening

Dani was so tired of lying oh my god

my heart is literally beating so fast

alone in Jamie’s room bro wtf wtf

Jamie is just so soft and understanding always always aaaahhhhh

fuck she just wants out of this wedding so bad but she can’t even tell him

AAAHHH SHE KISSED HER OH MY GOD IT’S HAPPENING

fuck fgkjhdfkjgh this is not good oh no. Dani finally finally fucking doing something for herself and Jamie so aware that this cannot be happening like this right now

and yet both of them just falling into it anyway oh my goddddd

jesus christ jesus christ “Dani had half crawled into Jamie’s lap, kissing her with a fierce and fervent heat” I am on deaths door

god they’ve both wanted this for so so so so long I can’t believeeeeee

(i am so thrilled that y’all just went there right away btw)

“Please, just - I just want to feel how I’m supposed to.” oucchhhh Dani

god her just... knowing. after one kiss w Jamie that she can finally do it and talk to him and end it and it’s so terrifying but goddd yes

“You think I can ever say no to you?” oof

“Ask,” Jamie breathed. “Ask me.” fucking fuck the power of this line oh my god Jamie is so fucking ready to jump of a bridge for her it’s- the dedication the love the longing the everything I am going insane is it too early to start drinking at 1pm

you’re not you can’t NOT THE CANON DINER SCENE

fuck this is like watching a car crash i can’t look away it’s so fucking visceral and nerve-wracking and painful

but god I’m so proud of her for finally saying what she wants

oh thank fuck y’all didn’t take him out with a passing delivery truck

“You must have known. You know me.” oh god this sentiment always kills me

“She couldn’t say it — the words ‘I’m gay’ forever out of reach — so instead she said, “I can’t.”” my whole body is on fire oh my god this is.... too fucking real

jesus christ the near miss w the truck are u trying to kill me (i actually kind of love that Dani will have to deal w her feelings w him face to face instead of having to bury it all in grief like in canon I am so excited to see how y’all handle that)

a fucking HOUR in the car dfkjghdfkjh the torture

oh honey. literally both of them suffering so much ouch

her favourite saucepan pls this is all so awful and sad but that make me laugh so much the poor confused little duck I am glad she has her comforts

god poor Dani

"Is she here to cook something?"  fgkjdhfkgjhfkjgdf

“No. I think you’re brave.” oh

“We’ll figure it out." listen listen I am undoubtedly losing my mind god this is soft

“She had spent so long being asked and not asking. Never asking. She never dared. To ask was to be known, to be made visible, words forging reality as surely as a smith’s hammer. And yet Jamie waited, letting Dani gather the courage herself.

"Can I -?" Dani said, "- stay?"” please fuck I am just so !!!!!!!! about Dani getting to know what she wants and having a fucking voice. just !!!!!!!!

“Jamie inviting her in” fucking just both of them finally getting some of that quiet courage w each other I am yelling so much

“Dani knew that it wasn't just her feeling this, that it had never just been her.” YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT BABEY

““But you do?” Dani asked. “Want to?”

Jamie’s answering laugh was brief and incredulous. “You have no idea.”” I AM: HOOTIN. AND: HOLLERIN

“I am here” hello? hello I am not coping I am on another plane of existence. DANI FINALLY FEELING SO PRESENT AND WHOLE IN THIS MOMENT

god they’re just holding each other i’m tearing up. Jamie is her home

Dani finally sleeping through the night ow my fucking heart

Mikey’s so chill about all of this sdkdhfdkj I love him

Jamie going out n buying her favourite jam... god the tenderness. love is stored in the strawberry jam and the hairdryer

hmmmmm her attraction to Jamie is so closely tied to a lot of really hard feelings this is gonna take a bit to work through huh???

aw Jamie going to Carson I am so happy she has her little band of gays to help her rn

I love that she can just kiss her now when she gets the urge like maybe chill out a lil just landing all these surprise kisses but like good for u girl. good for both of u

the warmth of the house hmmmmm I love that she’s found this esp because she is perpetually cold and Jamie is always warm but keeps it like that for the kid (and probably for Dani too) aaahhhh

cgjkdfhkjgh Dani is so thirsty poor Jamie trying to keep them in check. these moments are so fucking loaded holy shit

Dani Jamie and Mikey are the cuuutest lil family aw

god the tentativeness between them trying to figure this all out and the casual intimacy and just. all of it is so much and so beautiful to watch unfold

i love this little bubble inside Jamie’s house and Jamie kind of drawing the curtains around them both physically and metaphorically while she lets Dani figure things out and lets it settle between them

it’s all about the hands

oh my god Hannah instantly asking if she needs a place to stay she really is the best

soft little mornings with her Jamie like... once Dani finally defeats the ball of guilt in her chest there is so much goodness to look forward to and I am v glad she has that right now even as she is still struggling a bit. my girl needs all the sweetness in her life

also the idea of Jamie getting to wake up to sleeping Dani in her bed every morning after a lifetime of trying to repress her feelings... god

heh she’s already figuring out all the ways to push Jamie’s buttons god these two are going to have some fun w each other

this idea of learning the creaking floorboards of a new home is so... warm

Jamie leaving all the curtains drawn for her oh my heart keeping her safe keeping her safe

Nan would be so proud of ms Dani u know it’s true

awww Mikey comin home to keep her company

Mikey Dani time is always so sweet I love them

my god Dani n Jamie are so intense w each other and just so full of fucking desire... when those floodgates finally open will they even survive

oof Dani is dealing with soooo much ugh. Jamie always there with a gentle way to bring her back down to earth tho my hearrrtttt

“You’re allowed to be happy.” she is SHE IS ty Jamie Taylor voice of reason

a pinky promise to deal with everything together awwww

“why are you so good to me” “you know why” oh my goddddddd. that’s so soft that’s so gentle that’s so much love

Dani finding little bits in herself in media god i love this

Dani Mikey hours best hours

god Carson... sweet boy. And Judy sending over a whole bunch of food oof just. these quiet little reminders of their love for her. Dani’s about to go through a whole bunch more emotions huh?

fkjdfkjgfh Mikey going into protector mode when Carson is there pls i love hm

ohmy “our room” aaaaaaahhhhh

god Dani expecting him to be upset with her I am so fucking emotional. I relate far too much to Dani in canon and in this story and it’s just. painful as hell to see someone go through the things you know hurt the most holy shit

please Carson is so sweet and understanding and telling her he’s proud of her is making me cry so much I can barely see

this whole like.. uncomfortable but relief-filled kind of coming out between her and Carson is so so beautifully done I can’t stop fucking crying

“God, you two were agony to watch.”  fglkdfgkjdfhkjgh Carson a voice of the people

“You deserve to be happy.” - Carson and also me and also everyone reading this

god he is so wonderful!!!!!! this reminder that she’s not alone and everything will be ok!!!!!!! Carson I love you so much

the box being described as “the beating heart of their childhood“ god the imagery

Jamie so sweetly making room for her and welcoming her into a home I am emotional again the tears have really been unlocked now I’m gonna be a mess the whole rest of this chapter (i say as if I haven’t been already)

the really sweet way Jamie gets her to open up and trust her with the things that have been on her mind

and Dani doing the same for her god this gentle honest space between them makes my heart feel so full I am just so happy that they’ve got each other

“I want you to stay.” please (also now I’m thinking about AE putting Stay on her Jamie playlist jesus christ I am being tortured)

they get... to wake up.... in bed together. i’m so close to crying again when will this stop

i kind of love there hasn’t really been any like... just no more kissing u know but we still get this insane intimacy between them in a way that’s not them shying away from the way they want each other but so carefuly and sweetly and honestly coming towards each other

awww them always waking up all tangled is so cuuute (also Dani feeling so safe and comfy with her that her subconscious is like lets latch on she is good she is home)

lmao Dani having to mediate between these two dweebs and their playfights is so good

Jamie having her lil family surrounding her aww

(also i just noticed the rating change oh god)

sfkjfhdg Jamie looking at her hips all dark eyes and wanting we’ve all been there girl

“you can look” BOLD DANI MY BELOVED

god these two........ the grabbing her silver chain god @ google how to breathe properly??????

“Then show me.” oh my god

fkgjhdfkj so much electricity they shorted out the power

“this is just as nice” when they’re just hugging please they are so soft

i love that there’s just like... gentle soft banter between them in these quiet moments so much

“Dani, give him more homework.”  ghrfjkhjgkjgh

god the heated cheek kiss

this ‘game of chicken’ god they’re just.... really in it huh this is so fun

hmmm Dani going through the suitcases and sort of being able to bring some of herself/her past into this new place is so nice

heh this lil family and their snowfights are so cute

:( she can’t bring herself to eat Judy’s food

Jamie bringing her flowers oh soft

ugh they’re just so softly melting into being together it’s so sweeeeeeeet

“You’re lovely.” and the way Jamie just sinks into her with Dani’s fingers in her hair pleeease I am dying this is so warm

aaaahhhh they’re dancing soft soft soft

“gray eyes fluttered closed, as though the weight of Dani’s touch was too much to bear” god i am..... aaaahhhh

“a gentle calm settling within her. It had seemed that for all her life she had waited for the quiet of this” y’all this is so beautiful and lovely and wonderful and all the good things

ah that kiss. kinda feels like their first real kiss where they just get to be god I am so happy “a profound sense of finally” oh oh oh that’s such a pretty concept

god I love how much they just want each other that second kiss and them just all over each other is perfect and having to try and reel that in and being able to because they know it’s not going anywhere please it’s so so good

god Dani vs Desert Hearts I love this callback and the entirely different circumstances of her watching it again

dsjfhdkjfh oh no Dani losing her mind at Jamie touching her knee god these two have got the biggest storm coming

dfkdjhkgdjh god them like.... trying to take things slow but still letting things happen while having to be aware of Mikey is so funny but I kinda love it and how indicative it all is of them being so grown up and able to approach their relationship in such a mature way. as much as I wish they’d had their teenage love story I do like that it’s unfolding this way now.

“it struck Dani then that she couldn’t remember ever laughing while doing this.” aww

Mikey’s “oh gross” hahahaha poor kid

god this is so funny

“ferret kid” jamie why are u like this sfkjhdfkjf

oh lordt it seems we have reached the unabashedly horny phase good show ol’ chaps

god they’re still so soft tho this is so fun to read

i looove how flustered they both make each other w just their presence. it’s just so !!!!!!

lmao Dani knowing exactly what to do to drive Jamie insane is fdkgfdkjgh perfect amazing show stopping more neck kisses more teasing more barely restrained desire i love it

“the reckless rush of being in each other’s arms” AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

lmaooooo Mikey Jamie is going to lock you outside if u keep doing this

the fact it can just fade back to comfortable companionship too is like. ugh i love them together

“Yeah. You can touch me whenever you want.” oh jesus

“No more interruptions, no more waiting, no more holding back.” it’s happening god it’s happening everyone stay calm (also the slow build to this point has been so fucking perfect y’all are writerly geniuses)

lmao Dani is like please can we just get naked why do u want to watch a movie I am literally right here

oh she is not waiting anymore THAT’S MY GIRL GO GET EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER WANTED I LOVE YOU

“What do you want?” god the tension

aaaaahhhhh just. them being so out of their minds with want but still all nervous and wanting to check in but still just. wanting this so much god this is *chef’s kiss*

lmao Dani already having the hair pulling thing figured out is so good. poor Jamie lol is she even going to survive this

god the fact they’re both still fully clothed n still getting this fucked up just making out n grinding on each other I love this for them

mum just came in to tell me dinner is ready I AM ALREADY EATIN GOOD

lmao fuck I am just... so thrilled for Dani finally getting to experience this get ur whole world rocked baby u deserve this

thumb in her mouth i-

“my idiot” pls that’s so soft

“You have me.” i know this is like. horny but it’s also so romantic sfgkjhdfkjg

ayoooo Jamie’s tattoo excuse me while I lose my mind a lil bit

my god Dani is so impatient to get her naked I love her for it so much “I just want to feel you”... ma’am

Jamie being all nervous is so cute aw

god having this lil moment where they just call each other beautiful n get all cute about it while they’re fully naked n grinding on each other.... perfection

god I can’t stop thinking about every other mention of Dani having sex w Eddie and it just being like adequate or like her not letting him touch her and now LOOK AT MY BABY GO SHE’S REALLY HAVIN THE TIME OF HER LIFE LITERALLY BEGGING TO BE TOUCHED LET’S GO LESBIANS LET’S GO

I feel like I’m like cheering Jamie on rn sfjkghdfkj u guys need anything? some snacks? a condom?? ur doing great!!

Dani crying and thanking her like this is an acceptance speech love that for her

Jamie kissing all over her face aww

I can’t believe this whole chapter is them just getting to fall in love for real

“I want to taste you” i am blushing goddamn Jamie get it

oh my god the dream. she’s literally living out her dreams

“that same focused intensity that could make kingdoms fall” I love that Jamie is just as into getting Dani off as Dani is getting off lmao GOOD FOR THEM

Dani: desperately tryin to get Jamie off. Jamie: are u sure u want to tho??? miss ma’am let the girl touch u already she deserves it (but i do love that she’s always just like.... never wanting to make Dani do anything she doesn’t wholeheartedly want to)

“You sitting here on top of me like this is doing more for me than you can imagine.”  iconic jamie moment

Jamie literally just like.... ‘you can do whatever you want to figure this out’ is so sweet I love her capacity for just. giving herself over to Dani in every way (not just the horny ones) to let her forge her own path

“It was easy to understand now, the exhilaration of it, why people went crazy for it.” god I love this for her so much everything just falling into place

they’re so soft n comfy together and it’s all just so right and lovely

i love that once they’ve started they basically can’t stop honestly get it girls u deserve all the orgasms

“When did you know?” “Sixteen years.” oof my heart she’s known the whole time aaahhhh. all these lil memories god it really was all out of love I could cry. and Jamie admitting the scarf/scar thing whew she really carried around that moment on her face for the whole world to see (also lol at Dani being so fixated on it this whole time that’s so perfect)

heh they’re so cute with their lil teasing banter exchange

lol goddamn this so so spicy I am just dfklghfjkdjghkjdf (that is to say well fucking done I can’t even speak rn)

Jamie just being like you could literally just look at me and I am turned on I... love this whole situation for her so much

god they’re really just going all in Dani is getting like the.... lesbian sex speed run amen

oh god not Karen on the phone just hang up Dani do it do it

god she is so evil

omg she told her abt Jamie go off Dani I am v v proud of u right now

and she hung up on her godbless babe i LOVE your audacity

heh Jamie so transfixed by Dani’s lil purple sweater and skirt I love her

Dani u are such a tease sfkgjdfkg good 4 u tbh

awwww she got Dani’s desk for her oh my god that’s so lovely

Dani n Jamie being entirely not subtle over dinner w their lingering glances and Carson just laughing at them fkjghdkfjgh i love it. he’s so happy for them even w his teasing aw

aaahhh i just love Jamie giving her this space and this room in the house and Dani feeling so right in it

oooh an almost “I love you” god they’re just fuckin u-haulin in love perfection huh

and now we’re back to horny hours love this for them. gotta bless that desk somehow huh!?

i love the mentions of all this soft stuff about belonging when they’re about to rail each other it really rounds it out emotionally

“Get on your knees.” OH MY GOD THE JAMIE ON HER KNEES REDEMPTION MOMENT IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING

HELL YEAH IT IS this is truly what we all deserve

oh my god literally ripping her clothes off her fuck i love how desperate they are for each other and just how into this they both are always

dfgkjdfh jesus Dani are u ever going to be able to get work done at this desk again after Jamie does.... all of this to u on it

“Good girl.” the single most powerful sentence in the lesbian language

jesus christ this is still so incredibly steamy sdflkhskhg it never ends. and them like.... experiementing a bit w some different um. approaches? lol good 4 them good 4 them (and us)

my god them instantly getting all soft after about making each other happy please they’re so dang cute

ok love that we are also getting Dani on her knees it’s equality.gif

this little “I like you” “I like you too” confession right now is... so fucking soft and like... after everything they’ve gone through they still have the power to kinda knock each other off their feet w lil things like this huh?? sappy lil shits

oh no Judy I am scared

holy shit Dani “Didn't think you'd love me anymore” owwww my heart

god Judy is such a good mama I love her so much. reassuring her she’s still a part of the family my god I am so emo. she loves her so much

aw I love this lil shared bathroom scene after so many awkward moments w Dani and Eddie in their bathroom and so many mentions of her fogged reflection. things are finally clear and it’s wonderful!!

lol Jamie well if u didn’t want Dani to get all horny u shouldn’t have worn suspenders!!!!! it’s simple math!

god Dani has changed so much this chapter which only takes place over a couple of weeks right?!?!? after so much anxiety and being so unsure of herself this is so fucking beautiful to see

stop the car thing oh my godddd. she doesn’t even care about having her own cause she’s so happy w the person she’s sharing with I’m so overwhelmingly happy

“You’re perfect.” please I will cry this chapter was so perfect (also so are the memes I cackled so much)

[capriccio-con-espressione]

Sweet Treat

Genre: Smut

Warning: Sub!Xiaojun, Dom!Reader, Femdom, Temperature play, Food play, Nipple play, Bondage, Edging (for quite a long time lol), (Slight) Spanking, PIV (protected), Handjob, Toys used, Wet and sticky sweets

Word Count: 2395

A/N:

1. This is to celebrate WayV's comeback🎉🎆🎖️🎇🎊🏅🌟 Tho I have already postponed it for too long

2. Xiaojun's surgical mask looks like a damn collar here so I just can't stop my wild imaginations to own him. Goodbye.

3. Schoolwork is fucking killing me asdjfhkjdkhfhjsdkn so this does not guarantee regular updates I am sorry sweeties for keeping you waiting for so long :( 

4. I know this is an old pic, but it is what inspired me to picture him in a lacy black collar :P and it also showed how fucking long I have postponed this fic

5. Anyways Xiaojun is delicious af I love him, and he distracts me from the current catastrophe I am in rn so enjoy this

  The fresh scent of pastry filled the air of your apartment, its sweetness seemingly undertoning a leisurable afternoon tea time, yet your mind is on something else. 

  You take a sip of your freshly brewed black tea, feeling the aroma and warmth coating the inner sides of your mouth, while relishing the sight of the sinful image on the bed. Xiaojun's hands are secured to either side of the bedpost, with his neck adorned in an elegant lacy black collar, back leaning against the headboard, eyes glossy with desperation as the vibrating ring is doing sins to his still fully clothed erection.

  "Pathetic." You remark with a smirk, before drinking a mouthful of the warm liquid again.

Urgent babbles of plead and your title began to roll off Xiaojun's tongue like a mantra, demanding release. You simper seductively while approaching him, dipping your fingers in the glass of iced water settled on the bedside drawer long enough before climbing on the bed to straddle him.

  You exhale a warm gust of air on his exposed cleavage before trailing it with your icy fingers, then shove them under the black fabric to tease his left nipple. As Xiaojun tenses up against the cold sensation, you unbutton more of his shirt and force it open even wider, starting to flick his right nipple with your still hot tongue, and watch the ethereal blonde crumble against the contrasting stimulation with gleeful contentment.

  “You taste so good little cupcake…” You coo as you suck the sensitive bud between your hot damp lips, moaning on it as your cold fingertips tweak the other, causing him to let out delicious whimpers. “Fuck, keep making sounds like that and I’m going to devour you…”

  Xiaojun bites his plump lips to stifle the erotic noises in response, failing to notice he only looks extra alluring doing so. “Such a tease…” You cradle his cheek with your hand, admiring the artwork lovingly, then reach for the glass on the drawer again.

  "This is a little reminder that you shouldn't be fucking with my mind or I will fucking torture you…" You smirk as you slide a small ice cube on his clavicle area, then go up to his neck, lightly tracing it circumferentially in search of the most sensitive spots, eventually tucking the freezing cuboid under his collar after locating one.

  “You like this, hmm? Getting all wet and wrecked...” You deliberately breathed near the cube, causing more liquid to trickle down Xiaojun’s neck, which feels like tendrils of electricity twining around and gradually taking over his body to him. “Do you want this nasty little thing to get in between us, or you want my mouth on you instead?”

  “Please Miss...use your mouth…” The bitter cold temperature on his skin along with the teasingly slow vibrations on his cock both make him crave your touch, or anything directly from you even more.

  “As expected, “ You pull on the collar to remove the ice underneath, making sure to make the lacy fabric slap against him upon release. “but not quite…” You chuckle as you glide the melting substance down his chest, watching him whimper and attempt to steer his torso away from the torment, but to no avail because of the restraints.

  "Ooh looks like my poor baby is suffering...let me warm you up a little…" You mock while trailing your tongue down his previously cooled down regions, as you wickedly work the cube around his areola, triumph overflowing inside you as Xiaojun lets out incoherent breathy moans with his eyes closed, then a much louder one erupts from him as you suddenly suck hard on his flesh as you press the devilish thing right on the most sensitive bud.

  "So easily fucked out, aren't you?" You seductively whisper and nip at his earlobe. "Can't even handle a bit teasing...how am I supposed to enjoy my little dessert if you mess yourself up too soon?" You begin to ruthlessly torture his other nipple with the residue of the cube.

  "Ahhh...please Miss I've been good! Please stop teasing me...please…"

  "Why should I rush? That's not the way how you savor gourmet desserts baby boy…"

  "No, please...just do it already...please Miss I want you…"

  “Hmm... I’m not sure what you mean by that. You have to ditch the euphemism and tell me directly what you want little thing…”

  Xiaojun blushes, both from arousal and embarrassment. “I want your mouth or...that sweet warm cavern ...on me...my…”

  “On which part of you? Hmm?” You darkly chuckle as you grind on him, pretending not to know what he actually means.

  “Ahhh.. my... cock! Please, it hurts so much without you. Please fuck me already…”

  “Really? I thought you want me to touch you tease you feel you up…” You taunt as you switch up the vibrations to the medium setting, making the poor boy gasp and jolt underneath you.

  “No-ahh! You can do whatever you want...just don’t tease me anymore…mmfff”

  “Whatever, huh? Be careful what you wish for my little plaything…” You turn the ring to the highest setting before completely open up his shirt, kissing and licking down his happy trail as you tug the waistbands of both his trousers and boxers, allowing some cool air to get in contact with his bare throbbing length, rendering him into a whimpering squirming mess.

  "Awww looks like my slutty sweetie is impatient to get ravished. But you know, the crust must be tasted first before getting to the filling inside…"

  Your lips linger at his pelvic region, blinking up at him and smirking provocatively with fingers still fondling and groping his clothed neediness despite Xiaojun's pleads. The feeling that how his undergarments are held up open, so teasingly close to some release, yet still denied by you, is driving Xiaojun insane.

  "Please Miss I’m really begging you...mmm...my pathetic cock wants your direct touch…"

  "That's my good boy who knows his place." You sit up, satisfied with his self-degradation, caressing his abdomen as you finally remove his trousers, revealing the white briefs with black bolded "All You Can Eat" printed on the crotch area that you gave him as a gift. One more sinful thing added to the image is the way how his pre-cum has stained the thin briefs to make it slightly transparent, his twitching cock visible underneath.

  "Fuck…" You groan as you wrap your lips around his shaft, before pushing the clothing to the side, making his reddish leaking cock spring free under relentless vibrations.

   “So beautiful and delicious…" You hum between sensual glossal movements around his pulsating heat. "If this is what I get for not eating the marshmallow too soon, I will definitely wait until this sweetness brew into its full bloom every time…" You brush messily along his shaft with slightly parted lips, making sure to taste every part of him as he erotically squirms and whimpers underneath, voice laced with some gratification now that he's finally allowed some light release.

  Xiaojun's blissful moment of relief doesn't last long as it's soon interrupted by a ding echoing in your room. You shoot him a suggestive glance warning him to stay in his place, before getting up to retrieve the nectarous addition to your play.

  You soon return to him with a white chocolate molten lava cake, before pressing a spoon into the exterior while smirking at how his stare is fixed on the buttery liquid oozing out of the collapsing cake.

  "Let's add some sweet dressing to this delicate confection, shall we?" You hum while ridding him of all undergarments, before tilting the platter, allowing the cream to trickle down from his clavicle all the way down to pubic region, the resemblance of its color to something sinful is almost too titillating for you to handle.

  "I can promise that your body is gonna be stained with your own cum exactly like this." You dab the tip of your tongue on a droplet of the melted chocolate on his chest. "But it's after I finish this enticing meal…"

  "Please don't take too long…"

  "Aww this is not for you to decide, pretty boy." You condescendingly reply as you turn off the vibrating ring. "Stay still and obediently let me eat you up at my own pace, and I might consider granting you release sooner."

  You hover your body over him, sensually twirling your tongue on all the spots you know that would drive him crazy from your experience, while lapping, nipping on the sweetness and tasting the texture of his skin.

  You feel your throat go dry because of your burning desires as well as the sticky substance you just consumed. “Get a taste of yourself.” You hum while sloppily twirling your tongue with his, feeling his eager wetness wrapped against you as his head pressed harder toward you, signaling for more contact. Noticing this, you slowly envelop your hand around his throbbing length, jerking it up and down smoothly and sensually, earning teary whines from him in response.

  Soon Xiaojun’s frustration became evident as his hips bucked desperately against you. “Hot and bothered and all mine, how cute.” You slapped the side of his bottom as a warning for him to stay still though you loved the sinful sight so much. “No use trying to seduce me like that,” You got off from his body to prepare for subsequent bliss that drove your mind slightly hazy even just by thinking about it. “this would only get you punished even harder…”

  “Punish me then, Miss...take all that is yours…” Xiaojun’s dick twitched from the sight of you opening the wrapper of the condom, legs parted even wider.

  “Really? I thought you so hate to be controlled…but look at you now acting like a little slut at the mere thought of me fucking you hmm?”

  “I am not-ahh!” Xiaojun’s retort was interrupted by another sharp slap across his bottom.

  “Stop faking because all you seem to enjoy now is to live as my personal favorite snack supply.” You triumphantly glared at him while pressing sloppy kisses against his chocolate-stained skin, all the way from his neck to pelvis while sheathing and lubricating his sensitive flesh, tongue relentlessly flicking around the base of his cock.

  “Please Mistress… I can’t hold it in anymore...please fuck me already pleeaaase…” You know this plead is for real because being the collected person Xiaojun usually is, he must be nearing his edge to beg so blatantly like this, but you were enjoying his suffering too much to give him the release he craved.

  “Poor boy...but I would like to add more seasoning before I finally devour you.” You smirk as you pour spoonfuls of the white chocolate residue on his body again, savoring the arousing sight before proceeding to undress and position yourself on his cock, watching him tremble and gasp under every contact between you.

  You steadily began to bounce on him, leaning down to press wet kisses on his lips and whisper more nasty compliments to him just to make him blush even more, his gorgeous features forming an epitome of orgasmic bliss as you pick up your pace. He looked so ethereal and fairylike, that incited the devilish desire burning inside you to ruin and corrupt. You want you to be the single center of his attention, the only thing that matters to him at this very moment. You want you to be the last and only thing he sees before he gets completely engulfed and submerged under the pleasure you are giving him.

  “I just can’t get enough of you, sweet boy.” You softly coo as you press even closer to him, lapping up some sweet fluids before intruding his mouth with your tongue, your fingers tangled in his hair, as you savored the way how he rocked his hips and moaned against you, as well as the loud snaps and squelching noises of your hips slamming against each other.

  You then coo how much of a good boy he is as you untie him, and the way he quickly wrapped you into a tight embrace as soon as he was freed made your heart flutter. Soaking your fingers with the sauce on his body, you insert them into his mouth as he sucked on them eagerly from time to time in between sensual sloppy kisses. You lost track of how much time your lips and tongues were entwined, the sweet texture of chocolate lubricating and heating up the passion among you, gradually pushing you both to climax.

  You then slowly rode him out of his orgasm, relishing the enticing afterglow as your heartbeat gradually dropped back to its normal pace. After burying your face into the crook of his neck to catch your breath, you intended to get up to clear away the mess, yet Xiaojun’s embrace hindered you from going anywhere.

  “What?” You chided playfully.

  “Miss I am so exhausted because of you...you were so cruel…”

  “Only I get to decide when you could cum, sweetie.” You simpered while ruffling his hair with your other hand cradling his cheek. “You are just so beautiful eyes glossy and totally messed up, I can’t help but torture you until-”

  “Stop!” Xiaojun slapped your arm while rolling away from you giggling.

  “Hmm be in denial like this, next time I shall get some whipped cream on this cherry core-” You began as you reached for his nipple.

  “Ahhhh no!” Xiaojun exclaimed as he smacked your devilish hand away.

  “But you do enjoy being my personal snack for me to devour, don’t you baby?” You lowered your voice with your hot breath near his earlobe, then giggled as he blushed crimson red once again.

  Xiaojun was totally clinging on you as you finally managed to drag him to the shower room, streams of warm water massaging both of your sore erogenous core as another current of amorous electricity washed over you, as he became noticeably hard again.

  "I thought you said you were exhausted?" You narrowed your eyes mischievously, as he just sheepishly avoided your gaze while biting on his lip.

  “Round two?” You gently run your hand up and down along his torso, noticing his ever so slight nod.

  “This time, I will be much softer on you, my sweet little treat.”

[preface2adreamplay]

Under Your Spell (Part 14) - Morning After You

Summary: A Jared Padalecki/OFC/Oscar Isaac fiction.

Stef is a musician, recently gone solo. Happy with her life as a forever single person until Jared makes it his mission to get close to her. Her ex, Oscar isn’t sure what to make of her new relationship. Should he step in or leave her be? (For the purpose of this fiction, I have liberated some lyrics from various artists and their videos. This is fiction, with real people mentioned.) Married Jared, single Oscar!

Chapter warnings: Cursing

Chapter WC: 1,928

You doubt and you're desperate, you wear both your cross and your hammer.

Reactions to Twin Flames had been better than she could have ever imagined. The distraction of Jared visiting kept her away from the anxieties of releasing another new song. He had left an hour before the bus pulled away, holding her face in his hands, kissing her like he would never see her again. She missed him already. Already pining for him. He felt the same.

As she made her way across state lines, texts were coming through from everybody she knew.

Jared: I miss you so much. I keep watching this video, wishing we were making it all over again.

Stef: Making the video or making love

Jared: Both :) 

Claire: My god, that video is hawt. Brendan misses you, he’s being a douche rn.

Darius: Mom, that video is amazing, I’m glad I didn’t have to see dad doing those things to you though. Warn me if the next one will be that graphic pls.

Oscar: I was not expecting the video to be like that. It’s both beautiful and confusing. 

Stef rolled her eyes. She could just imagine Oscar’s brows furrowed, thinking over the video. 

Stef: It’s past demons coming for me. I’m allowing them to devour me so I am reborn. I thought you’d be happy for me. Growing up and moving on.

Oscar: So happy for you. x

Several messages popped up from Jared while she drank her third coffee that morning.

Fuck

In trouble

They were Paps

Gen angry. 

HELP ME

Stef snorted with laughter. He was really panicking. 

Chill. I’ll put something up on my twitter about us hanging out, it should take some heat off.

Sure enough, it did. Stef had posted a short tweet about Jared coming to NY to celebrate the release of the song. She tagged her bandmates too. Mentioning that she would see her fans at the next show in Pittsburgh. 

Two more shows in Canada, then home. 

Just before she stepped on stage that night, she shot off a text to Jared.

Stef: Everything ok now?

It was hours before he replied. 

Jared: Still in trouble, will call you later.

They were travelling again, hitting the road as soon as the show was finished. They all stank of sweat and beer. Luckily, they were staying in a hotel the next day. Her phone, on silent, flashed with Jared’s name across the screen. Keeping her voice low while the guys slept, she answered, her heart hammering in her chest.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey you,’ his voice just as low as hers.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Oh, just, Gen not happy we got caught. Photos of us on some gossip website. Did you see?’

‘Nah, I don’t care much for them. I didn’t have food on my shirt did I?’

Jared snorted, the tension easing as he laughed. ‘No. Gen showed me the photos but I told her not to look. We were just having lunch.’

‘Well, don’t look at comments on anything right now, it might upset you.’

Jared sighed heavily. ‘I hate that I’m getting in trouble over this. Can’t I just see my girl without someone else putting it out there for everyone to see?’

‘That’s kind of part of the agreement, honey.’ Stef yawned. She couldn’t help herself, her mind and body were achingly tired. 

‘Yeah, but I broke the rules by going to see you.’

‘What rules?’

‘Well, we date other people when I’m away working. And I’m not working right now, I will be in a week or two but yeah, I may not get to see you all too soon. I’m sorry.’

‘What does that mean for us?’ Stef swallowed a lump in her throat.

‘Nothing baby, I just have to put my energy into my family right now. The kids missed me and I missed them. They’ll be back at school soon...’

‘So, I’ll be put on the back burner.’

‘Nah not like that. Come on.’ He pleaded.

‘It is like that. It’s what we signed up for. It’s not like you’re leaving your wife for me, you have to work between the two of us.’

Jared was silent on his end of the phone, it made Stef feel uncomfortable, she really didn’t know how to move forward in the conversation. 

‘If that’s what you still want,’ Stef said, her voice lower that before. Her fingers winding into her hair nervously.

‘I always want you. Never think that I don’t.’ 

‘But you want to take a break from us for a while?’

‘I don’t want to, but it looks like we have to.’ 

It wasn’t final, but it felt like a kick in the gut. 

Stef couldn’t agree to it, couldn’t say yes or no or fight with him. 

‘Stef?’ His voice came through, she could hear his longing. 

‘Yeah, it’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s not what you wanted. You told me you didn’t want this to be for everyone else, it was just for us and I promised you that. I said it was just for us. I fucked it up.’

‘I wouldn’t take it back though.’ Feeling as though she couldn’t punish him for everyone else’s reaction to it. It seemed so simple all of a sudden. 

‘No I don’t regret a single thing. Maybe I just need to be a little more careful.’

‘We need to be more careful. I don’t want to talk about shit I know nothing about but I hope your wife isn’t too upset about this.’

‘Yeah well. I’ll have to work to get back in the good books.’

‘Good luck with that!’ 

Jared hummed on the other side of the phone. ‘You know what will get me through the next few days? A picture of my girl.’

Stef smiled. ‘Of me now? I look horrid after the show.’

Jared chuckled, ‘Impossible. And send one to me tomorrow too. I need my fix.’

‘Are we talking kinky pictures or...’

‘Well, now that you mention it, the idea is in my head.’ 

Stef bit her lip, curiosity taking over. ‘Maybe I’ll take a sexy picture. You’ll have to wait and see.’

‘Oh, baby don’t make me wait.’

‘He complains! After having me several ways yesterday.’

Jared whimpered. ‘I’m touching myself through my pants right now.’

‘Behave,’ she scolded playfully.

‘I can’t! You make me feel desired.’

‘Hey, can you not quote my lyrics to me!’

Jared started laughing then, feeling the funk of the last few hours draining away. ‘You make me feel so much better about this whole situation.’

‘It’s nothing, Jared. You can move past this. And I’m here until we decide otherwise.’

‘You mean if we decide to break up? Which we’re not.’ Jared pressed, ‘we’re not are we?’

‘No.’ Stef said with finality. 

There was a voice in the background, she heard Jared pulling the phone away from his face. 

‘I gotta go.’

‘Ok, good luck.’ Was all she could say before she heard his weak ‘goodbye.’ 

***

‘Brendan! My little douchebag, you miss me?’ Stef was kneeling on the floor of Claire’s hallway. Brendan was rubbing himself against her legs, annoyed that she had left him and happy that she was back. He couldn’t decide to be excited or just ignore her completely.

‘He was good for most of the time, but he destroyed some shit, as usual!’ Claire spoke to the cat, not Stef. 

Sitting on her back porch in the bright autumn evening, hands around a strong mug of green tea, Stef gagged with each sip. She hated the stuff, but it was all Claire had.

‘So you hear from Richard at all?’ Stef didn’t want to the conversation to get on to Jared. They hadn’t spoken in three days and she missed him desperately. 

‘Yes! Oh my god, we went out last week, that guy is sooooo funny!’ Claire exclaimed. 

‘So, have you fucked him yet?’ Stef asked, remembering Claire asked her the same question about Jared.

‘I did, actually.’

‘And?’

Claire was beaming, ‘that guy is amazing in the sack. He’s amazing anyway.’

‘Woah, Claire. This is starting to sound like love.’

Claire rolled her eyes, ‘maybe. Oh my god. Listen to me.’

‘You’re gushing about a man!’ Stef couldn’t disguise how happy she was for Claire. 

‘I’m seeing him next week too, he’s working on Supernatural so I get to see him and go on set.’

Stef’s heart sank a little, thinking of Claire on set meeting everyone again. Meeting Jared.

Claire nudged her, ‘You’re coming too, you know! I’m not walking on set by myself.’

‘Am I going? Jared hasn’t asked me.’

‘Shush, Richard said he would arrange it with Jared so we can go for dinner. All of us. All the cast, so it won’t look too suspicious for you guys.’

‘That’s nice of him. So he knows about me and Jared?’

‘Yes. And he’s totally cool with it. He said it’s also cool if you want to join us for a threesome.’

‘Oh tell him yes, right now. Tell him I’m ready and waiting.’ 

Claire clapped gleefully, ‘Oh he will be so happy. He’s always wanted to have a brunette and a redhead at the same time.’

‘You know, if I weren’t seeing Jared, I might even consider it.’ Stef imagined herself rolling around in the sheets with Richard, she bet that guy could fuck. 

‘You’re not exclusive are you? It’s more of an open thing, right?’

Stef considered it for a moment, ‘I guess it is. But, I don’t think Jared would be too happy with the thoughts of me and Richard. And you!’

Claire shrugged, ‘As if he’s not sleeping with is wife too.’

‘Please stop, I don’t want to think about it!’ Stef put her head into her hands.

‘Sorry, but he does. That man has a good thing going. Two women on the go.’

‘Am I foolish, Claire? Tell me truthfully.’

Claire reached over and placed her hand in Stef’s. ‘We have been friends for so long, I would tell you if I thought you were being an idiot, in an instant you know I would.’ 

Stef nodded, agreeing.

‘To anyone on the outside looking in, yeah you could be a little foolish. But this is what you want and it’s what he wants. It suits you both. You’re enjoying it now.’

Claire kissed Stef’s hand. ‘So stop thinking too much on it. Just enjoy the love and attention of a good man with a good heart.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right.’

They fell into silence, thinking of the men currently occupying their mental space. 

‘He has a huge dick doesn’t he?’ Claire mused.

‘Totally. And Rich?’

Claire sighed happily, ‘it’s as big as his personality. God, that man is made for me.’

‘Oh I told Jared I would send him a selfie.’ Stef pulled her phone from her pocket.

‘No, let me take it. Pose sexy,’ Claire grabbed the phone and typed in the pin code. 

Stef leaned back against the rail on the porch, her hand in her hair. licking her lips. her gaze cast down.

‘Pull your tits out a bit, perfect.’ Claire showed Stef the photo before whipping it away and texting it to Jared.

‘Bitch, I can send my own messages!’

‘Yeah but you’ll put something boring. Let me.’

Stef laughed, covering her face with embarrassment seeing the picture that was sent to Jared with the tag line. ‘This pussy is so wet thinking of you.’

Brendan was in the lower half of the picture drinking water from a flower pot. 

CHAPTER 15

[apprenticebard]

How can I make more money like you?

An important question!!

So to start with, I am not a person who has Figured Things Out. I got lucky last year - my friend recommended me for a job in a very high-wage area (specifically, San Francisco’s tech industry) that I happened to be a really good fit for, and that happened to be willing to hire people on a trial basis if they were promising, even if they didn’t have college degrees (’cause I still don’t have one). And that was really good for a while, until some stuff happened and I kinda got eaten. Now I’m unemployed and looking for another job; I think I’ll find something comparatively good again, but I dunno how long it’ll be, and right now I’m looking at both moderately high-paying content-writing jobs and jobs that pay around minimum wage (which is a lot here; nothing pays less than $15 because the bay is lowkey insane), in case getting another really good job takes longer than I’d like it to.

But anyway! Obviously there isn’t a super easy way to make lots of money that’s going to apply to every anon who could possibly have shown up in my inbox, but here are some general pointers:

1) Even if things are going really well for you, you’re gonna tend to make less than most people while you’re early in your career. This is difficult but how it is. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and you might be on track for a great career in a few more years, once you gain more experience. If this is where you’re at, I think the best way to make more money is to work on leveling up at your current job, or looking for a different job of the same kind that either pays better now or will probably allow you to level up faster. It’s good to take on extra responsibilities when you have the time and energy to do so, especially if they use a lot of skills you do have, but also a few skills that you’ll need to figure out as you go along. 

Note that I do think that this advice is less actionable outside of the bay (which is full of startups that are growing rapidly and trying new things). I do think there’s still something to it. If you gain skills and responsibilities as well as you can, I think that even if your current job doesn’t recognize that and reward it, you’ll be building up skills that’ll make you more desirable the next time you change jobs.

2) Say you think you’re in a really good industry, and you know that other people in your industry make decent money, but for some reason, you’re not. Or, alternatively, say that you have a lot of skills and some work experience in a decent industry, but you can’t get anyone to call you back, and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you’re secretly terrible and have zero Good Employee Qualities.

Getting a new job is hard, and leaving an old job is scary. I know; I just left my old job, and I spend lots of time being scared that nobody’s gonna hire me and I’m gonna have to go back to working at Kroger again, where I only made it through cashiering shifts by imagining that my characters were being tortured and that I could only save them by making it to the end of the next hour. 

But it really does pay to look at what else is out there. You can get some ideas by very casually looking at job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed; there might be nothing, or a bunch of job postings that you don’t understand, but I’ve found that it’s often good to get the lay of the land and figure out what recruiters are looking for in your industry. If you want better odds, and you have some successful friends, it can pay to ask them whether their companies are hiring for a position you can fill, and whether any of them might like to recommend you for it.

If you don’t have an easy way to get your foot in the door, you’re gonna be filling out a lot of applications. This sucks, but it doesn’t mean that you suck. If you really feel like you’re qualified for the sort of job you want, get someone to help you put together a good resume that shows off your skills, put together a portfolio or similar if you’re in the relevant industries, and resign yourself to applying to dozens or maybe hundreds of things. Recruiters are super arbitrary and will totally disqualify you based on things that have nothing to do with your ability to do the job. (This isn’t even because they’re bad people, it’s because they have a stack of resumes on their desk and have only the faintest idea how to tell which of the associated candidates are gonna be good at things.) It’s a numbers game. If you’re not doing something really ridiculous, like applying to every job with a resume that only lists completely unrelated kinds of work experience, then someone’ll probably talk to you eventually. It’ll just probably take way more applications than you’d think.

(Oh, also, all of the requirements in job postings tend to be pretty silly; as long as you think you’re genuinely capable of doing the work, I think you should apply to jobs where you meet maybe 75% of the stated requirements if the job sounds OK, and maybe 50% if it’s something you’d be really excited to get to do.)

3) If you’re not in a career sort of job at all - if you’re stuck behind the counter at Wendy’s right now, in which case my heart goes out to you, anon friend - or you’ve found yourself in a career that pays very badly or makes you unhappy, and you don’t think your skills will translate to anything you like doing, then you might want to look at changing careers entirely. Most people will tell you to go to college, if you haven’t already. I’m gonna tell you that college is a great thing for lots of people, but not always a good idea financially, and not always the best way forward, especially if you’re not very academically inclined. 

Think about what you’re good at, and think about what your dealbreakers are. You’re approaching this from thinking about money, not about passion, but you still don’t want to end up in a job that you’re a terrible fit for; you’ll get fired or be miserable all the time, and that’s no good for anyone. 

As a first line, if you feel that you’re reasonably flexible and talented, here are some very different jobs that make good money; you might want to consider whether you’re a good fit for any of these, and do more research as appropriate. (This is largely an exercise to get you thinking, not to say that these specific jobs are the ones you should definitely be looking at.)- Nursing. There’s a perpetual shortage of nurses, they have to exist everywhere in the country, and they make at least decent pay no matter where they live. For an RN, you’re looking at an average of about $55k per year in the cheapest states, and about $90k per year in the most expensive ones (although remember that this isn’t what you’ll make at the beginning of your career). I don’t recommend it if you really dislike people, long hours, college classes, heavy lifting, or bodily fluids, but I do think it’s a career that a lot more people should be willing to consider. If you think you can hack the education part, but not so much the heavy lifting, the bodily fluids, or the being around people who might be dying, dental hygienists make about the same amount, and their patients hardly ever need to be carried anywhere while possibly dying. I think.

- Software engineering. The pay rate here is kind of insane; if you have the interest and aptitude, then doing a coding bootcamp and getting a programming job in either NYC or San Francisco is a relatively attainable way of making a genuinely six-figure salary within a few years of starting, even if you don’t have a college degree. It’s not for everyone - I’ve tried to learn, a little, but I’ve bounced off pretty hard so far - but it’s a great opportunity for people who can hack it, so to speak. Like nursing, there’s a shortage here, mostly because software is a rapidly expanding industry that has only existed for, like, forty years tops.

- The skilled trades. We’re talking about electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and other people in this space. It’s hard in different ways than an office job, but there are a lot of people who these are a good fit for. While they’re not as highly paid as nurses or engineers, people in the skilled trades do OK; reaching $50k per year is totally feasible, and people who are both skilled and lucky can break $80k. These jobs tend to go by apprenticeship systems, so if you don’t have a family member or friend to vouch for you, it’s a good idea to look at trade schools in your area to get you started, and then expect to spend several years in a junior position until you know what’s what.

- Flight Attendants. Not all flight attendants are particularly well-paid, but many are, and things like waitressing can be counted as relevant experience. The first flight attendant job I found on Indeed just now is $18 an hour and doesn’t require any experience or a degree, though the requirements do have a lot to say about your appearance, height (gotta be able to get luggage out of the overhead compartments, after all), and willingness to work really weird hours. The BLS reports that the median flight attendant ultimately makes about $56k per year. 

- Police officers. Obviously there are a ton of very legit reasons not to want to be a police officer, but I am of the opinion that someone’s gotta do it, and it’s better if the people involved wanna do it right, right? (I guess I don’t know if you want to do it right. Please don’t become a police officer purely for the money and then shoot someone, anon.) The median police officer makes about $60k, and it doesn’t require a college education, which is honestly a pretty good deal even if you’re not as passionate as Judy Hopps. I don’t recommend it as a job unless you’re not scared of people, even the creepy ones, ‘cause scared people make mistakes, and when police officers make mistakes, sometimes people end up dead.

If you read that list and were like, “Bard, there’s a reason I’m at Wendy’s, can you lower your expectations here a little,” you might want to look into stuff like warehousing, groundskeeping, janitorial work, sales, garbage collection, or construction work. Job sites are your friends; it’s useful to browse them and see what sorts of jobs pay the kinds of salaries you’re looking for. I also think you might be well-served by considering whether you can move in with friends or family in a part of the country where wages are higher. The big cost of living difference in other places is rent, so if you have a housing situation figured out or can split that cost with a friend, you can make a lot more money just by doing the same thing somewhere else. For example, before I got super lucky and became a Real Content Writer, my plan was to hang out on my friend’s couch for six months rent-free, work at some supermarket in SF, and then take my wages back home to Indiana to pay for the rest of my degree. And honestly, if I hadn’t fallen in love with this ridiculous place and hadn’t immediately gotten a much better job, I think it very well might have worked.

There’s a lot more that I could say here, but this is already pretty long. The main things are to think about where you’re headed, to look around at all of the different possible lucrative directions to head in if you don’t like where you are, and to figure out what steps you’d have to take to get there. You’re welcome to come to my inbox with more questions about this - my last job was all about helping people find jobs themselves, so I guess I should know something about it by now - but you might need to be a little more specific if I didn’t hit on the thing you’re stuck on in this post.

[punkscowardschampions]

Janis & Grace

Janis: What's this I hear about a bitch fight, like? Grace: ugh can you NOT please Janis: Is it true though Grace: it wasn't a fight okay I just lost my chill like Grace: moving on Janis: 💔 Janis: shame Janis: what happened then Grace: I don't wanna talk about it Janis: I mean I'd ask her but she ain't responding either Janis: very unlike Mia Grace: I didn't hit her that hard but sure Grace: she'll be watching a tutorial for like fake bruises or whatever obvs Grace: make me look worse Janis: again, gutted Janis: but seriously Janis: why'd you finally lose it with the bitch Grace: ask Pablo Janis: ? Janis: what's he got to do with it Grace: while you were getting with barista boy on the school trip they were also hooking up at some party Janis: no way Janis: what the fuck Grace: he didn't even try & deny it Grace: I literally can't with either of them Janis: Jesus Janis: kinda wish I didn't know now Janis: 🤢 Grace: UM yeah same Grace: but she just had to tell me cos I was dealing with a lot that wasn't about her Janis: well yeah Janis: sitting on that one 'til the best time Janis: cow Janis: should've hit her hard, I'd have shown you Grace: I'm not trying to get sued babes Grace: & it wasn't like I decided to hit her or anything Janis: wouldn't waste a court's time with that shite Janis: daddy not trying to get done for wasting resources really Janis: did think Pablo had better taste, tbh Janis: well, not really but you know Grace: Ew don't call him daddy Grace: I can't even be angry right Grace: I should've just kept crying like I always do Janis: Come on Janis: smacking her ones the best thing you ever did Janis: felt good, yeah? Grace: you'd have done it better Janis: still can, like Janis: have to be a decent apology for that Janis: 💰💰💰 at least Grace: if you do, vlog it & send me the footage Grace: I can't be here Grace: I literally have to leave Janis: where are you gonna go? Grace: idk Grace: I can't think rn Janis: You at home? Grace: obvs not they all think I'm mental there Grace: this isn't gonna help Janis: Hardly Janis: she deserved it Janis: how long do you need Janis: away, like Grace: if I'm freaking out now it'll be worse when she retaliates so ????? Grace: & when school starts Grace: OMG LITERALLY WHAT AM I GONNA DO? Janis: Calm down Janis: okay, you'll be fine Janis: contrary to her word being law in your circle, no one actually gives a fuck what she says Janis: anyway Janis: you said you have loads of shit on her, right? Grace: everyone needs to stop telling me to calm down Grace: you don't even understand Grace: she knows as much about me Grace: this is so bad Janis: exactly Janis: so if she's got any brains, she won't be spreading it Janis: if you don't move, she can't, yeah Grace: but I did Grace: I literally hit her Janis: you don't do things like that, you lot Janis: you didn't post anything about her or her and Pablo, did you Grace: I don't want anyone knowing that ever happened, why would I? Janis: see, wouldn't that be much worse Janis: to her Janis: how you lot operate Janis: she'll make up some story about why you hit her, if she chooses to go for that angle Janis: but she knows you've got all the real shit if she's gonna try anything else Janis: stalemate Grace: Yeah, I guess Janis: I'm sure Janis: school'll be fine Grace: UM how?? it's already rubbish & now I've got no one Janis: join the club Janis: just show up, do your lessons Janis: go town on your lunch break Janis: easy Grace: You've got your bf Grace: don't do him like that Janis: I didn't before, did I Janis: never mind just last term Grace: you didn't want one before Janis: no lad at that school, maybe Grace: I'm gonna have to get one now Grace: ugh Grace: 🙏🙏 there's some party tonight or something Janis: how's that the solution Grace: to not being alone? well duh Grace: who's single rn? 🤔🤔🤔 Janis: 🙄 honestly Grace Grace: excuse you Grace: I'm trying to be pro-active here Janis: you've lost your friend not girlfriend Janis: that's what you should be aiming for Grace: she was my friend for like 10 years, most of my relationships don't last 10 days Grace: I obvs can't just find a new bestie Janis: you can try Janis: that's what you want Janis: what boyfriend has ever been good company Grace: yeah cos she was so good for me Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: not the kind of good I meant Janis: a lad ain't gonna chat about reality telly with you and reapply lippy in the loos Grace: a gay one maybe Janis: if you want a gay bff you go for it Janis: bit problematic but sure we can let it slide Grace: all I actually need is someone whose arm I can be on in the halls & whatever Grace: boys are easy to get Grace: easier than friends anyway Janis: alright Janis: if you say so Grace: duh then I can say I dumped my friends for my man Janis: well they are your friends Janis: so they'll know you haven't Grace: no-one else will tho Janis: I'm not sure anyone else will be too concerned Grace: rude Janis: why? Janis: it's the truth Janis: not like the entire school is on the edge of their seat every time you two fall out Grace: obvs they are too busy watching you & your boy Grace: that doesn't make me utterly irrelevant thank you Janis: why are you getting offended Janis: it's not a performance Janis: just do what you want Grace: Oh sure Grace: I told you idk how to be different Janis: it's a good chance Janis: you've got a couple of days Janis: don't be rash, like Grace: I'm so not ready to just like overhaul my life excuse me Janis: it's shit, right Janis: what do you actually have to lose Grace: I told you on that school trip, if I try & I'm still the worst, what then? Janis: go back to faking it with vigor Janis: no one will know, like Grace: I will Grace: & you since it's your suggestion Janis: who am I telling Janis: not even a good secret Grace: ugh Grace: I'm freaking out, I can't commit to anything if it's not a detox, babes Grace: & even then Janis: boyfriend probably ain't the one then Janis: it's what Janis: 7 weeks if you wanna survive the first term Janis: maybe more? Grace: OMG don't Janis: Hell that's only half term, even Janis: then that'll end and it's more drama Janis: don't need that Grace: that's like 7 boys I need to find Janis: you can't just line 'em all up Grace: tragically Janis: could always transfer Grace: do you think mum and dad will let me? Janis: I wasn't being serious but they probably would Janis: just say Mias shoved your head down the bog Grace: EW Grace: did work for Nancy though so Grace: devastated I can't go to Chelsea Janis: mm did it Janis: she did try to fuck her special ed teacher Grace: Oh yeah Grace: & she wasn't even cute Grace: awks Janis: 🙄 Janis: and her twin has ended up inbreeding so don't reckon much to his fine education tbh Grace: Maybe I should hook up with Mia's dad Janis: don't be grim Grace: He's not hot but he is rich Janis: only relevant if you marry him Janis: and her mum is still very much alive and you'd have to last a while to be written in Janis: if ever Grace: I probably look too young for him to be 😍😍😍 anyway Grace: I'll hit him up post surgery if I'm still bitter Janis: you know people have surgery to look younger Janis: what kind of surgeon you found that's gonna make you a grandma Grace: 😂😂 Janis: I mean you will anyway Janis: your desired aesthetic ends up looking Donatella Versace when the filler starts to drop out Grace: gross Janis: He'll defs have a secretary he's banging, they always do Janis: just send a confession to her house and watch the fireworks, like Grace: that's a secret I already know, babes Grace: Mia caught him forever ago Janis: awh Janis: she does have a 💘 Grace: she has an even bigger allowance cos of too Janis: 'course Janis: got that to look forward to, Venus Janis: pretend to be her and tell then, even more trouble Grace: Do you want me to change or not? Janis: no one said you need to be a nun about it Janis: and if you ain't up for round 2 Grace: Yeah okay Janis: Seriously Janis: you don't need to worry Grace: it's fine for you, you don't care what anyone says or thinks or does Janis: yeah Janis: well she's a cunt Janis: why let her get to you Grace: it's not like I want her to Grace: she just does Janis: had 10 years to perfect it, I guess Grace: mhmmm Janis: don't mean you need another 10 Janis: fake that it doesn't get to you, like you said Grace: idk if I even can but sure Janis: why not Janis: you fake everything else, right Grace: & everyone's seeing through it rn Janis: doesn't have to be a bad thing Grace: Pablo called me mental & he got with Mia Janis: Pablo calls everyone and everything mental Janis: his vocab is lacking along with his brain, like Grace: 😂 Janis: doubt he was aiming for a soul-reaching read Janis: just a moody twat, yeah Grace: it's so okay for boys to have moods like it just makes them look hotter if anything but if a girl our age does anything she's mental Grace: is anyone in this fam calling him out for sleeping with girls at parties he says he doesn't know, no just me getting slutshamed Janis: that's misogyny, kid Janis: and I'm sure we're all very disappointed with him for it, like Janis: but as you said, everyone's seeing through you rn so Grace: my feet hurt I can't even run away Grace: I'm putting my coffee cup on the ground & giving up Grace: throw some euros in it if you come this way Janis: if you come here you can earn 'em and think about something else for a bit Grace: ?? Janis: we wanna go out Janis: the kid already knows you so come watch him for a few hours, yeah Janis: better hiding place than wherever you've got to Grace: before I say yeah, is his sister there too? Janis: I can assure you she'll be out as soon as she gets the chance Grace: Okay Janis: she's like Gus' age Janis: she can take care of herself Grace: as long as that's the only way she's like Gus Janis: 😏 Janis: bit rude but yeah Grace: oh come on, he's a lot Janis: 😂 and you're not Grace: that's why I can say it duh Janis: so is that a yeah or what Grace: I'm omw Janis: good stuff Grace: I need to fix my makeup first so Janis: so you'll be five hours Janis: come on Grace: Shut up Grace: I can't do it in a moving car, I'll look worse than I do now Janis: as long as you aren't rocking a 🤡 look I don't think the kid will mind Grace: you and the love of your life will still have to let me in Grace: what are you wearing? am I gonna have to be fake nice about it Janis: it's cool, he doesn't think you're nice, like Janis: told him what a bitch you are, obvs Grace: thanks babes Janis: any time 🖤 Grace: 💜 Janis: anyway, you'd be here for it Grace: Yeah? Janis: it's stupid Janis: had to dress up 'cos not fully sure where we're going so Grace: that's soooo cute Janis: alright Janis: that's enough Grace: I didn't even start Grace: so mean Janis: I know Grace: Do you want me to do your makeup? Janis: I don't think we'll have time Janis: takes an age don't it Grace: for me cos I have problem areas Grace: it wouldn't take like any time to do yours Janis: okay go on Janis: but we can't make him wait forever so it really does have to be speedy Grace: OMG really?? Grace: I promise, like 10 mins Janis: 👌 Janis: why not Grace: yay Janis: love the enthusiasm, babe Grace: Babes, if you could see me rn Grace: 🙌💜🙌 Grace: but if I get too excited I'll never get there Janis: I know it's shit Janis: but she's been shit for a long time Grace: & I know that Janis: yeah Janis: well Bobby will be happy to see you Grace: duh it's totally mutual Grace: he's a babe Janis: shame you can't take him to school 💕 Grace: he isn't a 🐶 I can't just put him in my 👜 hun Janis: think this one is too big for that and all Janis: 'less you're going really hard Grace: OMG has he got a big scary dog! 😱😱 Grace: one of my exes had one that was like Grace: so evil Janis: no Janis: it's just not a rat dog Janis: and it's nice just a bit excitable, only a puppy, like Grace: 🙏🙏 Grace: thank god Janis: just walked it so it should be chill-ish Janis: [sends pic 'cos god knows I have enough] Grace: ask him if I can steal it for school 😍 Janis: 😏 probably say yes Grace: that's so happening then Janis: you so don't need these bad influences in your life Janis: do you reckon mum used to put Ri in her school bag Grace: obvs have her strapped to the front & all her books in a backpack Grace: if I had a baby I could get away with leaving school though, I'll think about it Janis: behave Grace: I need to find the hottest boy ever first Grace: so it'd be cute Janis: shut up Janis: anyway Janis: don't always work Janis: look at Drew and Ro's kid Janis: weird looking thing, they're both attractive enough Grace: is she though? Janis: thought you'd tell me off for being mean Janis: she could be, if she wasn't dying, like Grace: never seen her when she wasn't so it's too hard to tell Janis: 💔 Janis: must be Mia's GP Janis: doling out the advice Grace: I'll book myself in ASAP Janis: like you said Janis: not a look, is it Grace: neither's this Grace: whatever I don't have the commitment Grace: stopped making myself throw up forever ago Janis: did you? Grace: it's like really hard to do Grace: someone should PSA that Janis: along with all the reasons not to, yeah Janis: reckon there's been a couple of films and docs on it Grace: it has its upsides too obvs, how I get any lads to date me Janis: you can shut up now Janis: didn't need to hear about Pablo jumping Mia's bones Janis: don't need to hear about you Grace: you just wanna hear about my bulimic past instead Grace: 🙄🙄 Janis: um I didn't ask you about that either Grace: you literally just did Grace: but fine Janis: what did you want me to say Grace: whatever I don't need an intervention for that so Janis: alright Grace: where's his dad? He's not gonna like come back & freak out that I'm watching his kid, like who am I, is he? Janis: nah he's on a date of his own Janis: if he came back early, just give me a call, like Grace: Gross Grace: 👌👌 Janis: he is Grace: I bet he's hot though, son like that Janis: old men are so not your thing Janis: don't need to go down that route, tah Janis: and he's not Janis: like he could've been but he's well past it Grace: tragic Grace: I wonder if his mum is pretty Grace: they could've been like couple goals forever ago Janis: long as you keep your speculating to yourself Grace: obvs I'm not that stupid Grace: or mean Janis: just saying Janis: it is really messed up Janis: wonder where she is Grace: did he tell you anything? Janis: they don't know anything Grace: Oh Grace: poor Bobby Janis: I know Janis: still Janis: Jim looks after him really well Grace: yeah he talked about him like non-stop at the fair Grace: it's nice that they have each other Janis: it is Janis: hard for him sometimes though Grace: obvs he can't just do whatever he wants Grace: unless I'm babysitting Janis: and with his job Janis: we're spoilt brats, like Grace: maybe I'll get one Grace: keep me busy Janis: I'd like one Janis: but I'd definitely throw coffee over people like you so Janis: gotta think Grace: rude but v true Grace: there's like lots of stuff at the sports centre you could do Janis: 😏 Janis: yeah maybe Janis: not the worst idea Grace: I'm mostly fake stupid Janis: leave that off the job applications Grace: idk what I'd even apply for anyway so Janis: you could do anything retail Grace: they want girls who look good in the clothes Janis: you do, you daft cow Grace: on like 1 day out of 7 Grace: I can't maintain that much gym time Janis: 🙄 Janis: alright, you could be a teasgirl in a salon or something Grace: maybe but lots of girls wanna do that Janis: yeah but every job gets more applicants than it needs Janis: worth a shot, if you wanna Grace: sure Janis: work on your resume later though, yeah Janis: on the clock here Grace: I'll make dad do it Janis: hasn't he got catering to be planning Grace: okay fine mum then Janis: surely she has a lovely big 👒 to buy Grace: yeah but we'll fit it around the shopping trips duh Janis: 🙄 Janis: gross Grace: you don't have to come, babes Janis: made it pretty clear I won't be Grace: yeah Janis: you know anyone who'd want some meth, like Grace: that's not funny thank you Janis: it ain't Janis: made a right dent in my back pocket, like Grace: so you better start job hunting Janis: I'll find a buyer Grace: Janis Janis: what Grace: you can't sell drugs Janis: not gonna make it my career Grace: just throw it away Grace: it's freaking me out that you even still have it Janis: not gonna waste it Janis: it's fine Grace: OMG how is it fine??! Grace: you could get murdered Janis: not for this much Janis: didn't go that crazy Grace: people get killed for their phones Janis: alright after school special Janis: worry 'bout yourself then, never off yours, you'd be fucked Grace: excuse me for not wanting you dead Grace: & I dropped mine so it is Janis: unlucky Janis: excuse to say you've lost all their numbers though Grace: that was obvs my plan not just a clumsy bitch 🙄🙄 Janis: 👌 Janis: less believeable than you getting a boy to stick for 7 weeks but we'll roll with it Grace: UM rude Grace: it's 7 boys, lasting a week Janis: 😏 7 dickheads for the price of 1, whatever Grace: even I can keep a boy for a week Janis: the real questions Grace: it's not a q, I can Janis: LOL Grace: stop being a bitch & let me in Janis: finally Grace: ILY too babes Janis: yeah yeah Grace: & you're so welcome 💜 Janis: shut up I'm coming as fast as I can alright Grace: it's literally raining btw Janis: let's hope dickhead ain't planned a picnic Grace: 😂😂 Grace: 💔

[palmettoes]

hi babe so have you ever considered neil and matt sharing an apartment? maybe they're on the same team or close enough to share one, and it's absolutely amazing because these boys love and support each other so much. but then.. they're also both absolute children when left alone together and the foxes get updates of whatever the most recent thing is with one completely ridiculous picture that never gets explained (like the Sofa Incident). basically love and fun and the brothers they never got!!

(em you already Know how much i love this prompt but like ,, in case you needed a reminder i LOVE this prompt im still crying thANK U anyway this took probably too long but i highkey poured my heart into this dumb little fic i hope u love it ur such an angel ily !!!)

read it on ao3! | prompts are closed :(

◊

Months from now, Neil will be grateful for this lifeline.It’s the offering of comfort and stability he needs long before he knows he’sallowed to want it, and Matt is holding it out to him without a second ofhesitation. Months from now, Neil will appreciate it for what it is. But fornow it feels bigger than he deserves.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he says, placing a neatly foldedshirt on top of the growing pile beside his suitcase and turning to look atMatt. “I can look after myself.”

Matt, to his credit, doesn’t roll his eyes but Neil watchesthe corners twitch and he knows it’s a near thing.

“I know you can. I’m not asking to be your babysitter. I’masking to be your roommate.”

“Why?”

Neil can’t help it. The question is itching under his skin,making him shifty and uncomfortable. He doesn’t understand Matt’s motives: hespent three years living in close quarters with Neil and half of the last twopractically glued to Neil’s couch at any given opportunity. Why he is willinglysigning up for another year of it, Neil cannot fathom.

“We’re playing for the same team. It just makes sense,” Mattsays and he makes it sound like it really does. Neil frowns and purses his lipsand can’t think of any good reason to dispute it.

“You don’t share an apartment with any of your otherteammates.”

Matt does roll his eyes this time, but it’s a gesturefilled with fondness and, for reasons Neil can’t explain, the rest of hiscomplaints stick in his throat.

“None of my other teammates are my best friend.”

◊

It’s surprisingly easy, Neil thinks, to fall into theroutine of living with Matt. The apartment is already full of Matt’sbelongings, from his two year head start, but bits and pieces of Neil slip intothe cracks—his running shoes by the door, two mugs by the coffee pot eachmorning, Andrew’s hoodie on the back of the couch. It becomes theirs intrinsicallyuntil the discomfiture ebbs away and the word home seeps through.

When Neil wakes up in his new apartment for the first time,the morning feels stretched and torpid. The absence of weight in the bed besidehim is a hollow ache in his chest, and he gets up just to avoid the immensityof it. The world is drowsy outside his window, dark and slow as it blinksitself back to life, but their apartment is already alight with the smell ofcoffee and the muffled sound of socked footsteps.

Neil finds Matt in the kitchen, one hand pouring milk into amug of coffee, the other stirring porridge on the stove. Matt looks up at hisarrival and grins, all teeth and dimples. He sets down the milk carton andhooks his fingers around the handle of the other mug, holding it out to Neil.

“Morning, princess,” he says. Neil wraps his stiff fingersaround the mug, letting the warmth seep through to his bones and wake himproperly.

“Your porridge is done,” he observes, because he can see itthickening around Matt’s spoon as he steps past. Matt yelps and flicks off thegas, transferring the pot to a cool hob and reaching for a bowl in the samemovement.

“There’s enough for two,” he says as he scrapes the gloopymixture into his bowl. Neil stands on his toes to open one of the cupboards andgrab a granola bar from the second shelf.

“I’m good, thanks.”

Neil holds the half-opened granola bar up in defence whenMatt shoots him the look he reserves for disapproval at Neil’s tendency to skipmeals. He doesn’t comment but the tilt of his mouth is displeased. Neil shrugsit off and sips his coffee.

“Excited to meet the team later?” Matt asks as he runs hotwater into the empty pot to soak. Neil waits until the gurgle of the tap shutsoff to reply.

“Not really. I don’t care what they’re like. It’s how theyplay that matters.”

Matt turns to lean against the kitchen bench, bowl in hand,and rolls his eyes fondly—something of a recurring action around Neil.

“Now you sound like Kevin.”

“Kevin sounds like me,” Neil corrects, just to be contrary.

Matt grins around a mouthful of porridge. “You’re both asbad as each other. Come on, you can have first shower. I want to show you thebest route to the supermarket before we’re due at the stadium.”

◊

The team, as it turns out, arefar more excited to meet Neil than he is to meet them. There are three new teammembers, including him; one other first year pro and a transfer from Denver,but Neil inadvertently steals most of the attention. It’s some mixture of hismemorable face gracing television far more than any college student has a rightto, and Matt singing his praises over the past two years, that gives him adegree of interest the Cannons gravitate towards. All Neil really wants to dois talk to the Denver recruit about a certain goalkeeper on his old team, butMatt squeezes his shoulder lightly and it is as much a warning as it is acomfort. Play nice.

Neil smiles and lets KatiLaskey—starting striker—hook her elbow around his neck and rub her other handlightly through his hair. If he closed his eyes, her weight against his bodywould almost feel like Dan. The thought is both reassuring and saddening, likea weight constricting his chest not quite enough to leave him breathless, butspiking discomfort through his ribcage all the same. He finds he cannot makeeye contact with any of his new teammates.

“They’re not Foxes,” he says,when Matt prompts him for an opinion as they ease into traffic on their wayhome. Matt hums assent because it’s true, they are not and never will be theshape of puzzle pieces cut from the same jigsaw. They are Cannons, equal partschaos and content, and they have dug a Neil-sized hole in their line-up, but itis a manufactured kind of welcoming, a family born of necessity rather thandesire.

“They’re good people,” Matt saysand Neil cannot find fault to disagree.

“They’re good as teammates,” hesays instead. Matt flicks him a look under the guise of checking his blind spotbefore signalling the turn-off. They turn down the side street connected totheir apartment complex and Neil traces the vaguely familiar shapes outside thewindow with his finger.

It is still warm yet, the airhumid and muggy with the weight of summer. He can see heat hanging heavy overthe pavement and pooling in pockets between the clouds. He hates days likethese, but this one feels less like a burden and more like a blanket, swathinghim in the absence of body heat. Not ideal, but somehow enough all the same.

“They’re good as teammates, but Ialready have all the family I need.”

When Matt looks at him this time,it is with blatant intent and his smile is blinding.

◊

mattyb: someone come collect neil he’s making me sad

gaynolds: what did he tell you this time??

mattyb: a story about his mom

gaynolds: fuck those are the worst

wildz: u all g josten?

jos10: I’m fine.

gaynolds: :/

mattyb: he let me pat his head

wildz: 4 his comfort or urs ???

mattyb: honestly mine but i like to think it’shelping him too

jos10: It’s nice. Thank you.

nickyminaj: omg neil :( u cant be sad when im too faraway to hug u

jos10: I’m not sad.

jos10: Matt is.

mattyb: I AM

nickyminaj: mattie no :(

nickyminaj: coming to hug u both rn

wildz: me 2

gaynolds: me three

wildz: group hug @ the b/j apt.

nickyminaj: the WHAT

wildz: boyd/josten but im just rlzing how bad thtsounds

mattyb: H

mattyb: NNNN OFJAJKM.VWQ3JFJEZ/.DS’’;XMLD

nickyminaj: uh

wildz: r u dyin ???

mattyb: might have to take a raincheck on the grouphug

mattyb: OH HOLY FUCK

wildz: ?????

gaynolds: omg

mattyb: NEIL JUST

mattyb: CHRIST

nickyminaj: what did he do now lmfao

gaynolds: b/j apartment is my favourite soap

nickyminaj: ^^^

wildz: r they actually ded ????

gaynolds: matt??

nickyminaj: 50 bucks says neil started a fire tryingto make dinner

gaynolds: you’re on

gaynolds: josten knows how to cook

nickyminaj: lmaooo

nickyminaj: u didn’t see him try to use the sandwichpress at the columbia house

nickyminaj: andrew banished him from the kitchen

gaynolds: fuck

wildz: can confirm, neil knos how 2 cook but nt how 2use tech

kevinday: What’s happening?

mattyb: [image attached]

kevinday: What the fuck.

gaynolds: what the fuck

nickyminaj: WHAT THE FUCK

wildz: wht hppnd???

nickyminaj: UR COUCH IM CRYING

kevinday: How did that happen?

gaynolds: is neil BLEEDING

nickyminaj: holy fuck yeah his face

wildz: shit

kevinday: Is that a bird?

gaynolds: IS THAT A BIRD

nickyminaj: oh my god

wildz: matt wtf is goin on?

jos10: We’re fine. Matt had to sit down because hewas laughing too much.

wildz: neil ????

nickyminaj: EXPLAIN

jos10: I have to go. It’s fine.

gaynolds: josten you’re bleeding out of your face andthere is a pigeon on your head

kevinday: Neil

nickyminaj: oh my god

nickyminaj: we’re pretending this is normal oh my god

aaminyard: what is going on?

aaminyard: oh that couch is in shreds lol

nickyminaj: AARON PLS

wildz: called matt but it went str8 2 vmail

gaynolds: the bird probably fucking murdered them

aaminyard: finally

nickyminaj: aaron pls

wildz: aaron pls

gaynolds: aaron pls

aminyard: aaron no

◊

(The bird is collected by an ABC volunteer.

They buy a new couch.)

◊

Integrating himself into an already functioning team is botheasier and harder than knitting together the torn edges of the Foxes. TheCannons are professionals—polite because they are paid to be and serious whereexy is concerned—but they are friends off the court as well. Three months intotheir season, Neil has grown used to one or another of their teammates crashingon the couch in his and Matt’s apartment, or showing up unannounced withtakeout on their days off. Kati takes him out for coffee twice a week at asugar-free café two blocks from his apartment (which Neil delights in tellingAndrew about) and fills him in on the details of her personal life. (Her longdistance girlfriend just moved over from Missouri. They’re adopting cats.) Inreturn, Neil shows her the latest picture Andrew has texted him (the curl ofsmoke against a city skyline, or the glint of a blade under sunlight, or theopen freeway above the Maserati dashboard). Neil is never very sure, but hethinks this makes them friends.

Somewhere along the way, the team become less likecolleagues and more like something personal, something that spreads like warmbutter inside Neil’s chest. He knows parts of their lives that go deeper thannecessity for survival, while they learn where he likes to go to eat and what hiscollege major was. He lets them scavenge through his life for the titbits thatshould not matter yet somehow do, but saves the intimate details to sharebetween Matt and Kati. It’s not that he and Andrew are a secret, but Neil isprivate by nature and the Cannons, for all their friendship, are still notfamily.

They seem content to take what they’re given and pry nofurther, so Neil isn’t concerned when their captain, Breanna Ramírez, asks himto spare a minute after practice. He detours past Matt on his way off the courtto let him know he’ll make his own way home. Matt swings an arm around Neil’sshoulders and leans down to knock their heads together.

“Nice work today, honey,” he says and lets go, waving asNeil heads to the locker room.

Breanna takes him to a patisserie ten minutes from thestadium where, she tells him, they sell petits fours that her husbandthinks are to-die-for. Neil texts a picture of the display cabinet followed bya question mark to Andrew while he waits for Breanna to order. They get theircoffees to-go and Breanna’s husband’s petits fours in a small paper bag,and walk the short distance to a nearby park.

They talk about the season, about the flaws in the startingline-up, and about the kids Breanna and her husband are currently fostering.Neil wants to tell her he and Matt almost adopted an injured bird that they letfly into their apartment, but decides she might not take it in her stride aseasily as the Foxes.

Instead he says, “Maybe I’ll stop by the patisserie again onthe way home. Matt loves pain au chocolat.”

Breanna looks at him, looks away, sighs, looks at him again.

“Josten.” She fiddles with the lid of her coffee cup. “Neil.I didn’t want to say anything, but I feel, I don’t know, morally obligated.”

Neil’s pulse jumps in his wrist and he blinks at Breanna,confused and apprehensive.

“Morally obligated to what?”

“Look, you and Boyd are both lovely and I know it isn’treally my business, but the team has been talking and— Well, I’m not trying topreach to you, but sometimes his fiancée comes to visit and I just want to beclear that none of us are comfortable covering for you. If it comes to that.”

She’s doing everything to avoid his gaze now and Neil hasnever seen her so unsure of herself. He frowns, turning her words over in hishead but no matter which way he pushes and pulls he can’t make sense of them.

“What does Dan have to do with this?”

“You know, because of your… thing with Boyd.”

“My—” Neil stares at her as the pieces click into place,forming a complete picture, albeit one that makes Neil’s head ache. “You thinkI’m having an affair with Matt?”

“You’re not?” Breanna finally makes eye contact, head tiltedand eyebrows knit. Neil almost laughs but something about the set of her jawstops him.

“What makes you think we’re having an affair?”

“You’re very affectionate,” she says, shrugging. “We’venoticed things.”

“He’s my best friend.” Neil’s tongue feels numb in his mouth.His words come slowly, as though his brain is still catching up to theconversation. “We’re just like that.”

“You’re close.”

“Yeah. He’s my best friend,” Neil says again, like she mighthave missed it the first time. Breanna bites her lip and glances down at whereher fingers have twisted in the paper bag.

“There’s really nothing going on there, is there?” she asksin a small voice, and Neil’s patience slips a little.

“He wouldn’t do that to Dan. I wouldn’t do that toDan.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what? Imply that we’re both cheatingassholes? Yes, you did, otherwise you wouldn’t have said anything.”

He knows his temper is sparking, knows he should put a lidon it, but his mouth is running faster than he can catch it. He doesn’tunderstand how she can’t see that they’re the two least likely people to beunfaithful to their partners, or why she thinks it’s any of her concern anyway.

“But you can see how it seemed like that, right? I mean, hecalls you pet names all the time. You buy him pastries for no reason. Lastweek, he kissed you at practice.”

“On the forehead,” Neil feels the need to remind her. “Becausewe’re friends. Do you need a rundown of every interaction we’ve ever had toprove that? How about a timeline of the development of our friendship?”

“This really isn’t any of my business,” Breanna says andNeil’s mouth twists in scorn.

“You’re right, it isn’t. I should go. I still want to get tothe patisserie before it closes.” He stands up, forcibly releasing the tensionin his fists, and tells himself to walk away. “See you at practice tomorrow.”

“Neil, I’m sorry,” she starts to say but he waves her off.He only makes it three steps before he decides he’s not finished. He pivots onthe spot, clenches his fists, and inhales sharply.

“For the record, I have a boyfriend and we’re very happy,”he says and watches Breanna’s face go slack, her mouth opening on words thatdon’t come out. It takes her three tries to find them.

“You never said.”

“It was never any of your business.”

She bows her head little, then looks up to meet his eyes,her cheek dimpled where it’s caught between her teeth. Neil shrugs.

“Just so you know. He’s the only one I’m interested in.”

Breanna nods and looks like she wants to say something else,but she doesn’t protest when Neil turns again to walk away. He has a funnyfeeling the patisserie doesn’t open late and he really doesn’t want to missthem.

◊

“The team think we’re having an affair,” he tells Mattlater, perched on the kitchen workbench to the left of the stove. Matt iscooking pasta sauce in a large pot, which means he’s making enough to freezethe leftovers because he knows Neil will happily go hungry if it means hedoesn’t have to cook on days when he can’t find the energy.

“Our team?” Matt asks incredulously. Neil nods,absentmindedly popping the seal on a half-empty jar of olives.

“Ramírez told me it’s been team gossip for weeks.”

Matt laughs, reaching around Neil to lift another pot downfrom the shelf above his head. He puts it on one of the empty hobs and returnsto stirring his sauce, so Neil leans over to flick the switch on the kettle. Hesettles back into his earlier position and searches Matt’s face, but all hefinds are traces of amusement. It calms him a little, his temper over Breanna’saccusations dissipating.

“Fifty bucks says Pav started it,” Matt says, grinning.Aleksei Pavlov is one of their starting backliners and notorious for hisoutlandish but widely believed rumours. He and Matt have a friendly rivalrythat involves playful nicknames and good-natured trash talking at every turn.

“I don’t bet,” Neil reminds Matt unnecessarily. The kettlepings as the water reaches boiling point and he lifts it over to pour into theempty pot on the stovetop. “Allison would have a field day with this though.”

“Oh God, let’s not tell her. If she finds out, Dan findsout, and I’ll be trying to live it down until I’m old and grey,” Matt laughs.Neil hands him a pair of scissors to cut open the bag of pasta in his hand, andreplaces the now empty kettle on its outlet.

“She wouldn’t be mad?”

“Hardly. She’d think it was hilarious.” Matt pours pastainto the pot and flicks the gas on, before giving Neil a curious look. “WouldAndrew be mad?”

Neil hums, returning to pressing the lid of the olive jarand letting it pop back into place. He doesn’t know what Andrew wouldthink—they’ve never had cause to discuss it before—but he can count on one handthe amount of times Andrew has shown interest in things that don’t directlyconcern him.

“I don’t think he’d care.”

“What, he hears his boyfriend is off gallivanting with hishot roommate halfway across the country and he doesn’t even want to check up?”

“He knows we’re not. Andrew doesn’t care for rumours,” Neilsays, shrugging. Thinking of Andrew’s signature apathy dispels the remainder ofhis anger and he finds that he doesn’t care for the rumour either. Andrew’svoice in his head asks why he cares what other people think and Neil can’t finda reason.

“That’s true enough,” Matt agrees. He twists off the heatunder the sauce and gestures at Neil. “Pass me those olives, would you, mylove?”

Neil snorts, releases the seal on the jar, and hands itover. “This is why people think we’re having an affair.”

“Maybe we are.”

Matt’s tongue dips out to lick the corner of his smile andNeil rolls his eyes.

“If I was going to cheat, I think I could at least do betterthan you.”

Neil earns himself an olive pitted straight at his foreheadfor that one. He catches its rebound in his hand and pops it into his mouth,rubbing the stain off his skin and kicking half-heartedly in Matt’s direction.Matt takes an exaggerated step out of the way and returns to slicing olives andsprinkling them into the sauce.

“Do you really want to be insulting me when the fate of yourdinner rests in my hands?” Matt asks. Neil leans over to steal another olive.

“I’ll tell Kevin you’re intentionally depriving me of abalanced diet.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I have him on speed dial,” Neil says, slipping his phoneout of his pocket and holding it up for emphasis. He pushes off the counterwith his hands, landing softly on the linoleum floor and using the momentum toslide on socked feet to the other side of the kitchen. He bends to take twobowls from the cupboard and leans over to the cutlery drawer as he hears Mattchecking on the pasta behind him.

“Hey, sweetheart?”

Neil turns to find Matt beckoning to him, a strand ofspaghetti dangling from his fingers. He steps over and holds out his hand whenprompted by Matt’s grabby motions. Matt loops the spaghetti around his ringfinger, twisting and squeezing the ends until they mush together, effectivelytying the pasta to Neil’s finger.

“Give the team something to talk about, hey,” he says,exaggerating the wink that accompanies it. Neil turns his hand around and holdsup his middle finger in response. Matt laughs and the sound is white horsesbreaking over Neil’s head. He lets himself be pulled under.

◊

mattyb: [image attached]

mattyb: he said yes!

wildz: what

gaynolds: what

renesbian: what

nickyminaj: what

aminyard: what.

nickyminaj: omg

◊

Andrew calls him two hours later while Matt is making hotchocolate and Neil is flicking through sports channels with the TV on mute.

“I let you do one thing on your own and you get engaged toBoyd,” he says by way of hello. Neil smiles, tipping his head against the backof the couch and tapping the remote against his thigh.

“Jealous, are we?”

Andrew huffs, just barely but Neil catches it. He bites downon a laugh and lets his eyes slip closed.

“I thought you at least had better taste than that.”

“I chose you, didn’t I?” Neil says. Warm honey oozes downhis spine and he melts into the cracks between the couch cushions, the wholeworld slipping away and zeroing in on the static crackling down the phone line.Andrew’s voice is sturdy and smooth, garbled by the distance but stillunmistakeably his. Neil relaxes into it.

“Is that an affirmation of your good taste or further proofof your idiocy?”

Neil hums around a grin but doesn’t reply. He knows Andrewknows what he means, even though neither of them will acknowledge it. Theylapse into steady silence, soft breaths and fleeting movements between them.Neil can hear the buzz of traffic from Andrew’s end and assumes he’s on thebalcony of his high-rise apartment, overlooking the bustling street. Neilremembers the city lights and cool breeze from his last visit, the smell ofsmoke and petrol mixing in the air, the way the railing felt digging into hisback when Andrew kissed him up against it. He lets out a half-sigh, abortedbefore Andrew can make anything of it, and swallows the whiskey-flavouredmemory.

“My team knows about you,” he says, just to have somethingto say. It’s a lot like that with Andrew now—they no longer deal in weightedtruths and bleeding secrets. Neil finds that he doesn’t mind half as much as hethought he would, back when he used to worry they would run out of things tosay one day. Sometimes they have conversations without substance; after all,Andrew has always been good at making something out of nothing.

“I would hope so. They’ve played me twice,” Andrew says onan exhale. With his eyes pressed shut and his lips parted on a breath, Neil canalmost taste the smoke leaking from Andrew’s mouth.

“Funny,” he deadpans. Neither of them laugh. “I mean aboutus.”

He half expects Andrew to be difficult for the sake of it,but Andrew has long since stopped denying they are two parts of the same whole.He fiddles with his cigarette instead; Neil can hear his fingers tap away theash.

“Is that a problem?” he asks and Neil hears the part hedoesn’t say, the I don’t mind if you don’t, the this was never secretto anyone who was looking.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Neil breathes. Andrew smokes. The silence fills spacesbetween them.

Neil cracks an eye open when Matt taps him on the shoulder,holding out a steaming mug. From the smell, it’s a fruity blend from the packof herbal teas Kati had given him as thanks for helping out with hergirlfriend’s move. The mug is hot beneath his fingers so he balances it on hisknee while he resituates his grip to the handle, and raises it to his lips.

Andrew? Matt mouths as he settles onto the other sideof the couch, his own mug of hot chocolate warming his palms. Neil nods,nestling the phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can tap the ringfinger of his opposite hand, an explanation of Andrew’s call. Matt grins aroundthe lip of his mug before taking a sip.

“Tell him if he likes it then he should have put a ring onit.”

Neil frowns, glances down at his hand, and then back up atMatt. He mouths what in return but Matt just flaps his hand at thephone.

“Matt says,” Neil looks at him again and Matt gives him athumbs up, “if you like it then you should have put a ring on it?”

There’s a shuffling sound as Andrew shifts around, thesqueak of a screen door sliding open and closed, before the city noises cut offand the silence takes on a new shape.

“Tell Boyd if he likes his tongue he should keep it in hismouth.”

Neil relays the threat and Matt laughs aloud, his hotchocolate sloshing dangerously close to the rim of his mug. Neil watches him inshock—it’s the first time he can remember seeing Matt find genuine humour inanything one of Andrew’s lot have said.

“Did you just make a joke?” he asks Andrew. He’s not surewhich he’s more caught off guard by: that Andrew made a joke or that Matt foundit funny.

“It wasn’t a joke. It was a warning.”

A cupboard door clips shut from Andrew’s end and Neil hearsthe chink of crockery. He makes eye contact with Matt, who raises his eyebrowsand sips his hot chocolate, before shrugging off his surprise.

“I have to make dinner,” Andrew says. It isn’t a dismissalbut Neil can tell by his voice Andrew doesn’t feel like talking.

“Okay,” he agrees, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Andrew grunts, which is an affirmation in its own way, andhangs up without saying goodbye. Neil drops his phone between his thighs forsafekeeping and takes another drink of his tea. Matt nudges Neil’s shin withhis toe, nodding at the TV.

“You watching that?”

There’s a replay of an Exy match from the previous week, butNeil’s already seen it and it isn’t Andrew or Kevin’s team. He hands Matt theremote in lieu of a response and lets his eyes drift shut on the snippets ofsoaps flashing by as Matt switches channels.

◊

gaynolds: it’s been 8 days since our last b/jnonsense

nickyminaj: is that a record?

gaynolds: i think so

wildz: wild

wildz: get it haha

jos10: What’s b/j nonsense?

gaynolds: it’s you honey

aaminyard: aka every time you message this chateveryone has a stroke

nickyminaj: lmfao tru

jos10: Why?

wildz: u n matt r disasters

wildz: always gttin up 2 crzy shit

nickyminaj: u send the most concerning messages andnever elaborate

jos10: No, we don’t?

gaynolds: NO WE DON’T HE SAYS

nickyminaj: remember when matt and neil’s couch gotripped to shreds by a bird

nickyminaj: and they never explained how

gaynolds: remember when matt and neil got married

renesbian: remember when Neil texted the group chat‘cowabunga’ followed by three hashtags

renesbian: then ten seconds later said he rememberedMatt was visiting Dan and not to worry

wildz: rmbr wen m drank 3L of mntn dew at once

wildz: & n sent a pic of him passed out w ac.board cutout of dolly parton

wildz: y do they hav a c.board cutout of dolly parton

jos10: We can’t recycle her without concerning theneighbours.

renesbian: I think the question is why do you haveher in the first place

jos10: Oh.

jos10: We got her from Dollar Tree.

gaynolds: dollar tree sells cardboard cutouts ofdolly parton ???

jos10: I don’t think she was for sale.

nickyminaj: u STOLE dolly parton from dollar tree

aaminyard: you sound surprised

nickyminaj: i mean yeah

nickyminaj: aren’t u ??

aaminyard: no

gaynolds: no

wildz: no

renesbian: no

nickyminaj: good point

jos10: [image attached]

jos10: She lives in the shower.

gaynolds: that is quite literally the most terrifyingcombination of information/image i’ve ever seen

wildz: 1 time i stayed @ b/j apt & she slept inth bed w me n matt

aaminyard: what the fuck

gaynolds: why did we ever let those two live together

nickyminaj: yeah this has gone too far

wildz: m can move in w me if andrew will take n ??

aminyard: deal.

jos10: Who gets Dolly?

aminyard: never mind I don’t want him.

◊

When Neil wakes up in his and Matt’s apartment on what Mattdubs their ‘roommate-iversary’, the morning feels like a wave, hugging the bayit crashes into and guiding Neil’s breaths through the ebb and flow. A yearstretches across the floorboards, worn smooth under their tread, and laps atthe walls, where they’ve taken to sticking photographs and reminders andsmiley-face messages from one to the other. The world is quiet around him, butfor the buzz of the radio and the familiar pattern of footfalls againstlinoleum floor.

Neil finds Matt in the kitchen, two mugs on the worktop anda pancake flipping through the air towards the pan in his outstretched hand.

“Morning, princess,” Matt says, holding up one of the mugswithout turning. Neil loops his fingers through the handle and around theceramic curve, bringing it to his lips to blow the billow of steam away fromthe rim.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, leaning against the corner ofthe fridge. The way Matt freezes is almost comedic, like each muscle isolatingand tensing one by one. When he looks up, his gigawatt smile is alreadyplastered over his face, bright enough to dissolve the dreary heaviness of themorning, and Neil’s returning grin bites into his cheeks before he can hold itback. Matt returns to his breakfast with crinkles by his eyes. Neil blowslightly on his coffee and takes a sip.

◊

mattyb has changed their name to sunshine.

jos10 has changed their name to princess.

◊

[thespermicidaljellies]

Positive reflective life ramble on adversity, sickness, and the aftermath of 'crisis mode'

So, getting severely physically sick gradually over the past year and a half---because really my doctors and I have figured out its been a gradual thing that's been deteriorating for a while, I realized that even though I've had a LONG series of really awful stuff happen to me, every single thing internally changed part of me in an extraordinary way that's so so healthy and solidifying. It's all because of the amount of work and time I've put in from like age 17 till now in therapy, personally, and within my relationships, and even though I couldn't abate the physical effects or my own frankly severe clinical depression due to genetics, the way I've handled and allowed events in the past year or so to impact me was like the stress test proving that the work has had a permenant impact? It proved to me that as a person I'm healthy, I take things in a healthy way, I approach people in a healthy way, I conceptualize criticism and failing in the healthiest way I can with my rsd, and I set healthy goals and have healthy desires. BUT I haven't been able to actualize any of it because honestly, after everything I kind of just wanted to stagnate and have nothing new happen event wise so that I could just breath and have some stability because I've been totally exhausted and burnt out. I should have taken a semester or a year off of school, the worry and sudden ambivilance to school really hurt my health and my ability to just breath again, and the decision to just tread water and endure without any real changes in my daily routine definetely hurt my energy and health. Taking almost a year off from any kind of dating and sex, and shit even research was good for me. Like to an extreme extent, but I should have listened to my body saying "I'm too exhausted to even use this extra time to benefit myself" and just taken time off from school to work and move out temporarily etc.

But none of that matters now bc I got very very sick, and being bed ridden, isolated, and totally stripped of any sense of security or complacency has really changed my entire perspective on life and the finality of it and the responsibility I have to myself not just internally but externally in the form of action and challenge. My family lives a supremely unhealthy lifestyle and it's impacted me greatly. Our diets are terrible, even with the changes I've made in the past to mine by eating less fatty meat and no frozen foods, it's not enough, I haven't exercised enough or respected my body at all and doing so now will literally kill me down the line. The second I'm medically cleared I'm getting a personal trainer/physical therapist and getting in very good shape, I was an athletic kid and I've said I wanted to do this in the past but there's this weird thing inside of me where a certain threshold is reached where I know that something HAS to happen and it's absolutely going to and it's there, I dont have a doubt in my mind that it's going to happen.

Mentally I need to find a stable medication and therapy routine to treat my dysthymia because I'm unfortunate enough to have inherited my mom's near Electroconvulsive Therapy levels of long term depression, but im extremely lucky it doesn't really come in the form of sadness, just all the other physiological and psychological factors like poor motivation, anhedonia etc. Finding the right treatment now will pretty much give me a baseline to know what my normal is, because it's been a FAT minute since I've been at my baseline, and that'll give me the awareness I need (combined with CBT) to identify warning signs because emotional states aren't identifiers for me. Lastly on a personal level, I'm in fucking shambles rn in all other facets of my life but my health destroying itself stripped me down to only my internal world, and who I am as a person as the only things left. And I feel incredible, like I feel so fucking healthy and loving and assured in who I am and my worth, and all of it has been tested and tried and proven through terrible events, but the only way to remove doubt from my brain was through those events.

I think the past few weeks have been really dark, depressing, and sad for me because its been this weird grieving period of fear and sorrow about all the negative shit that's happened and the perceived loss of the life I've been leading but really, every time I'd think it would lead back to a conclusion of how I'd benefited out of it and the reality that I havent been living, I've been in crisis mode since July 2017, and the strip back down to the core that I'm enduring now is exactly what needed and maybe even what was supposed to happen.

After two days ago, the worst I felt in my entire life, I woke up and like all the fear of intimacy, being vulnerable, taking risks, and making concrete choices is just gone, because there is  literally no more back tracking and hedonistic fleeing from fears even possible. The few people that I've not cut out in my life and have stuck around have said consistently over the past few weeks how much I've helped them and have given so many examples of times where I helped support them at their worst times, from suicide attempts to breaking off engagements to sexual abuse and changing careers, and I honestly didn't realize that people ever thought I'd had that much of an impact in that and I never really believed that I had earned or deserved to receive help or loyalty from people, it's been incredibly meaningful and validating for my biggest difficulty, vulnerability and accepting help. I think once I start to get my shit in order it's time I open myself up to a serious relationship or dating again, but without a goal of actively trying to obtain it, it needs to be with someone who's in the same position I am, the uphill climb AFTER the first uphill climb from neglect and lack of self respect to having identified what the soul needs and wants and what you provide and want others around you to provide to your life as well. I know this all sounds horribly pretentious but I'm here man, like it's all in the past been heal heal heal, and now it's like: the buildings are all built, let's occupy and use them and invite others in to use them as well. Idk yeah, that's everything I guess, I posted this for a specific few people who I know read my tumblr to keep an eye on what's been going on in my life since I'm not active on twitter/Instagram anymore, but thanks to anyone who read anyways.

Officially done with Lyme disease treatment today btw 🤘🏻

[yoongisgoawaydoormat]

Is yoongi your fave in bts? I just today stumbled over a video of bts and watched and now 100 videos later i really think i kinda like them and especially Yoongi. He is such a sweetheart. so as a fellow 1d stan now into bts i wanted to know if louis was your fave and if yoongi is in bts? Cause i find it quite interesting to know^^'

ok so i have some esoteric ramblings that go far beyond the yes or no question you asked me here lmao... i guess im just feeling very “in this essay i will-” rn because of how much i truly adore both of them. also this basically turned into a personal diary entry but also simultaneously a cultural studies essay on how we make meaning in celebrities so like..... 🤷🏼‍♀️

@gettingaphdinmomo can u believe this anon let me merge 1d and bts? im indebted to them tbh

so yeah yoongi is my bias in bts and louis was always my fave in 1d! (well zayn too but z isn’t a member of 1d - tho i think he relates to some of the points im going to make here as well) and coincidentally i’ve actually been doing like... some self-psychoanalysis recently just reflecting on what my affection for louis and yoongi says about me, says about them, etc... just been thinkin’ ya know?

and i just feel like yoongi and louis are 2 sides of the same coin and it’s a coin that i distinctly Relate to and i’ll explain why. both yoongi and louis have very distinct caricature-type reputations on the surface. both vis-a-vis their role in their respective groups and in relation to the personalities that we see/they show us. 

and what i mean by that is that louis is known as loud, brash, exuberant (formerly camp and flamboyant as well, though im not even gonna try to get Into A Discussion of That rn); to most people that do not take the time to go far beyond the surface, that’s kind of louis’ whole deal, right? (again this isn’t a discussion of public opinion of louis and doesn’t account for how his various stories/stunts/‘relationships’ would impact people’s view of him)... yoongi is sort of in the same boat but on the opposite end of the spectrum if that makes sense? he’s the tsundere member. he’s seen as cold, distant, has dry humor, doesn’t like to show affection, etc. that’s what the caricature of min yoongi is.

but everyone who is a fan of either of them knows that neither of those caricatures are wholly accurate and that the caricatures belie an emotional depth and intelligence that both of them very clearly possess.

we can never know even a fraction of public figures’ personalities, but to the small extent that we do get glimpses, yoongi and louis are both individuals who clearly care very deeply about others. they are attentive to the emotions of those around them and they are supportive and nurturing in their own ways. but at the same time neither of them are overtly touchy-feely about it if that makes sense? their empathy is exhibited subtly but it runs deep. their demonstrations of caring and compassion are nuanced behind layers of something else. 

for louis, i think there’s always a bit of humor layered on top of his emotional displays (i.e. giving liam a hard time about being a ‘lad’). and i see myself in that. i use humor as a defense mechanism and couch everything serious in my life in a joke, for better or worse. again, im not saying that that’s what louis is or does in real life, i’ll never know nor would i presume to, but i am saying that i see something of myself reflected in Louis Tomlinson™ and among a million other reasons to love him i think that is one of the reasons i’ve always been drawn to him. he’s so compassionate and caring but you have to make sure you’re not distracted by his bright loudness to miss it. in addition to seeing myself reflected in louis, i also admire so much about him that i am not but aspire to be more like. i wish i could be more extroverted like him and i wish i could be a bright presence for the people around me like i know he is. so with louis i see myself and i see traits that inspire me to go outside my comfort zone and push my own boundaries.

for yoongi, the soft sweet infp that he is, i think his emotional displays are equally as subtle and layered behind a bit of stoicism and a bit of introversion and a bit of being very carefully selective about who he lets in. his displays of affection and caring are alway there but are not done to be viewed and given great attention (i.e. his hand holding). i don’t think yoongi much likes being the center of attention and would much rather have his members be that (lol @ jimin) but at the same time he has moments where his energy just bursts forth. these are moments where he’s clearly so comfortable with his surroundings and the people he’s with that he feels no need to be measured or restrained. again, this is all my interpretation of what i see and is thus filtered and distilled so many times that i’d never presume to state all of this as some factual evaluation of yoongi’s personality, but also again, i see myself in these observations and interpretations of yoongi. i find it very difficult to express my emotions (see the above point about couching everything in humor) but they are there and they are felt deeply and they show themselves in subtler ways. i find it difficult to display affection with even my closest friends and family but am also just a touch-starved bitch looking to hold someone’s hand like yoongi is always doing. i too sometimes begin to feel comfortable enough with those around me that my passion and excitement just bursts forth all at once, but only sometimes, otherwise im hyper conscious of myself and tend to self-police if i have not reached such a comfort level. i see a lot of that in Min Yoongi™. but like with louis i also see a lot in yoongi that i strive to be more like. i struggle with the weight of my own expectations for myself and i internalize A Lot, as yoongi seems to, but yoongi also demonstrates such a clarity of self when it comes to these things. i think he Knows himself quite well, which is something i’d like to be better at. i think his self awareness (something i think namjoon also has in spades) and his work ethic are admirable and inspire me greatly. he just seems so Lucid Perceptive and Insightful about his situation, and that encourages me to be more honest with myself about my own situation.

and like maybe this is all just a diatribe that could be applied by anyone to their fave celeb? there’s levels to abstraction to every celebrity and there’s always interpolation/projection our own traits, neuroses, insecurities, desires, etc. onto how we view our favorite celebs... but idk there seems to be something slightly different with celebs like yoongi and louis (and zayn and namjoon actually now that i think about it). 

like let’s contrast it with other 1d and bts members: jin and hobi have carefully constructed the way they want to be seen and they don’t let people see much beyond that (and they’re So Valid for that). i actually think niall is quite a lot like this as well. the caricature is the whole picture that we get if that makes sense (though of course not even a fraction of the whole person which we are not nor should we be privy to) but its still a human picture, its still rooted in a sense and a feeling of authenticity; it just has its boundaries and is clear about those boundaries. thus the consumer public gets a discrete, self-contained persona whose likeability isn’t necessarily dependent on the consumer’s ability to relate or see themselves in the persona but rather is simply likeable!

then you have liam and jungkook who i see as quite similar in some ways for some reason (which im sure is gonna get me yelled at lmao). i dont mean that i think they’re similar people just that i think both of them are quite earnest and what you see is what you get with them. i don’t think either of them have it in them to pull a jin/hobi/harry (see below) and construct/be viligent about the boundaries of their persona. i think tae and jimin are mostly like this as well. they’re all just kind of unapologetically themselves (liam particularly after 1d ended, tho i know that, ironically, many feel he’s a bit of a poser nowadays)? i see these types of figures as similar to the type above just with less stable boundaries/less concern for those boundaries.

then you have harry whose caricature is constructed to be larger than life, to be almost non-human in its Celeb-ification. Harry Styles™ is not meant to allow for reflection of yourself in it. the consumer is not supposed to find parts of themselves relating to Harry Styles™, that defeats the purposes of the larger than lifeness of Harry Styles™. (i know this sounds bad and don’t get me wrong i do hate harry lol but i also don’t think this is an inherently Bad way to be a celebrity. it’s the david bowie, lady gaga [pre-joanne] school of celebrity and its fine, i just think it should be recognized for what it is and i think its very different from how bts and the other members of 1d operate [though i recognize that some people would view zayn in this light]).

personally i think yoongi and louis (and zayn and namjoon, to account for everyone in this analysis here) don’t fit into the above categories. clearly i dont think any of these four are in the Harry Styles™-type camp (duh). but i also don’t think they fit into the authentic-but-carefully-boundaried jin/hobi/niall camp nor the what-you-see-is-what-you-get liam/maknae line camp. i think these 4 occupy a limbo space between the two ‘categories.’

anyways, the long and the short of it is that we all make our own meaning in celebrities. for me, i find myself drawn to yoongi and louis because i see traits of my own reflected back at the same time and in the same person that i see aspirational traits. im inspired and im comforted by this duality that yoongi and louis provide for me. i love all the members of 1d and bts (except harry lolz) but yoongi and louis (and zayn and namjoon, who i’d say is my 2nd bias in bts if that wasn’t already clear) hold special places in my heart because of how they occupy my sort of nebulous fourth category of celebhood.

anyways, i’m pretty sure no one is still reading this, which i do Not blame you for, but that’s my two cents! i love min yoongi and louis tomlinson, whats new!!!!!!!!!

[roominthecastle]

“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.” - Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric

Well, look at that ancient Greek dude rolling out a pitch-perfect summary of - what I currently consider to be - Liz’s core issue on TBL. My core issue is that I cannot keep things brief, so I’ll poke this some more bc damn S5 was so much better than I expected, and it left me with an urge to try and sort this canon mess into sth I can swallow.

What’s the deal with Liz, why is her relationship with Red in such a terrible shape at the end of S5, and why is that a likely promise of better things to come?

It’s possible to look at this deterioration as a more or less continuous (organic!) process that reaches back at the very beginning; a process to which both characters have contributed their fair share over the years and now they are reaping the consequences and setting themselves up for a potentially healing collision.

I. Liz has narcissistic traits. Red is a natural born charmer with closely-guarded secrets and a pervasive guilt-complex. Putting them together is like putting mints in a bottle of coke: even on a perfect sunny day it's the kind of fun that leaves a mess.

II. Liz’s traits are amplified by Red’s behavior and Red’s behavior is warped by Tom’s presence. When Red scales things back (i.e. stops going on guilt-trips whenever others don’t feel like facing the consequences of their actions), it only makes things worse. This is the dark side of their intense "lock and key" dynamic, the deep angst pit that has been fore-fronted since S3B due to a rapid sequence of betrayals Red suffers from those closest to him. Tom triggers both empathy and repulsion in him, which in turn feeds his self-hatred and prompts him to keep enabling Liz out of guilt, creating an unsustainable bubble that finally bursts in S5.

III. The current name of the game for Liz is repression and denial, for Red it’s still obsession and rumination. At any given time Liz works off of a partial image of him, which is less about him keeping things from her and more about her purposefully ignoring parts of him in a misguided and doomed attempt to keep an illusion of safe simplicity (she does this with Tom, too). Meanwhile Red displays clear signs of compassion fatigue, which comes with its own destructive habits and distortions of reality.

IV. Sprinters are bad at running marathons. This simple truth has been a background tension factor in the Red/Liz relationship from the get-go. It’s mirrored in Red’s earlier troubles with Madeline and in Liz’s “Tom problem”. It keeps them united yet out of sync, which leads to misunderstandings, doubts, and quite a lot of friction.

more on these behind the cut:

I. Liz has narcissistic traits. Red is a natural born charmer.

Liz has a narcissistic streak and a tendency to delude herself as a messed-up coping mechanism, all of which she voices right off the bat in the pilot episode when Cooper asks her to profile herself (and to give us a brief intro to the character). These manifest chiefly as

(1) angry, aggressive outbursts (2) a sense of entitlement/egocentrism (3) blame-shifting

and she displays these traits to varying degrees throughout the show.

Now add to these the standard “Reddington Effect” that gets pointed out by other characters, articulating what Liz has been feeling since day one:

“There's no one on earth who can make a woman feel like the center of his universe more than Raymond Reddington.” (204)

“I was star-struck. It was exciting and captivating and... it consumed me. My work, my marriage.” (411)

We can also witness this "soft power” in action when Red approaches Zoe, Berlin’s daughter, to use her against her father. We can see how easily he can charm and pull people in to get what he wants. Sometimes it hilariously backfires - as it should - but that’s beside the point rn. The point is, Liz seems to receive this standard treatment, too, and she’s immediately, intensely receptive to it.

We can see both the positive (fascination-attraction) and the negative (rejection-aggression) side of this chemistry early on. She gets exposed to Red’s regular charm routine but it’s ultimately a v different experience because what those women quoted above don’t know (and what Liz still doubts) is that with her, his feelings run very, very deep. She is both the means and the end, the journey and the destination. Neither can walk this road without the other but walk it they must.

II. Liz’s traits are amplified by Red’s behavior and Red’s behavior is warped by Tom’s presence.

Thank God I have Tom, because with you, I never know what to believe. I have never lied to you. How the hell would I know?

Red’s secretive, seductive, guilt-ridden behavior feeds Liz’s narcissistic impulses.

(1) His ingrained "I will never tell you everything” ground rule regularly forms a volatile mix with her proneness to irritability and anger. There are countless examples of this (often understandable) reaction with a wide range that goes from a raised voice to actual physical aggression.

(2) It also clashes with her belief that she's automatically entitled to be told everything, regardless of the possibility that knowing might not make much difference to her but could get others killed, or the fact that she’s often careless w/ sensitive info and sometimes straight-up ignores the answer anyway.

This is an irresponsible and wasteful way of going about getting answers. Wanting to know doesn't entitle anyone to know. It's not at all surprising that Red - whose very life depends on carefully calculated discretion - is rarely fully forthcoming. Still, this is a major source of friction, esp as it seems to run counter to him telling her how special she is and treating her as such with a consistency that most well-adjusted people would fall for. A narcissistic personality like hers stands even less chance. This triggers jealousy and possessiveness very early on, and later engenders a full-blown expectation that when push comes to shove, he would always put her needs above anybody else’s, including his own. This (partially conditioned) expectation is in play e.g. when Tom re-enters her life and also when he violently leaves it again.

(3) Red is also burdened with a lot of chronic guilt which makes him an easy target for blame-shifting by those select few he loves. He often allows Liz to push blame on him for things he is not responsible for and he suffers in silence because “in his heart, he knows he must pay”. This also enables her to delude herself into thinking that he's indeed the unified source of all her problems, which makes her receptive to Mr. Kaplan’s terrible Solution to Nothing that targets him as such. Red has branded himself a “sin eater” and this gets taken full advantage of in a way that veers into emotional abuse. It paves the way for Operation Possum and its fallout that ripples across the next two seasons.

These 3 major negative “lock and key” interactions combine and reach a very unhealthy peak in S3/B. Liz’s thoughtless, pointless fake death stunt pushes Red to an edge he barely manages to pull himself back from, and it throws a wrench in the delicate cogwheels of their relationship where the degree of functionality and “healthiness” has always hinged on proportionate reciprocity (of good and bad alike). The faked death plan is - among other things - so disproportionately cruel and so exceptionally dumb and pointless, it unhinges this interplay.

It shakes Red from his grief- and guilt-induced stupor and cracks his habit of putting Liz on a pedestal. In S4 it is now Dembe who gets to be referred to as the "light in the darkness", which, given the changed circumstances, is a much better arrangement for both Liz and Red. Red would never ask anyone to carry this burden but the truth is, he needs someone like that by his side to keep him from falling to pieces. Dembe is a centered, reliable, well-adjusted person who can carry this heavy weight. Liz can't and she shouldn't, either. Now Dembe needs to be the lighthouse keeper as they navigate their stormy relationship.

On top of pulling Liz from the pedestal, Red also begins to scale back his willingness to play buffer and absorb blame. He pushes back against the kind of behavior he partially conditioned and enabled. He refuses to give in to Mr. Kaplan’s absurd and reckless vendetta that still targets him as the “root of all evil” in Liz’s life. He refuses to keep serving as a scapegoat for Tom’s failings and Liz’s self-imposed blindness, but the most significant “slight” contributing to the big fracture in his relationship with her is his refusal to share the secret of the bag.

“That’s why you’re here. That’s… Not to help me, not to avenge Tom’s death, but to help yourself and get your precious secret back.”

It is less about the secret itself and more about Red prioritizing it above her. She is jealous again but this time it is not directed at a person but at his “precious secret” that ultimately separates him from her, and once again it masquerades as projected and misplaced anger stemming from her deeper desire for their relationship to be close and genuine.

We have been here before when the Fulcrum surfaced:

"That's why you came into my life then. And that's why you're here now. Not because of me or who I am to you, whatever connection we might have, but because of some... object. Some thing."

and after her name gets cleared in S3/B:

I thought maybe after all we've been through the past three months that you might want to take a break. It's a mythic battle, and it's not anywhere close to being over. It's your battle, not mine.

and then again with the bag of bones. “Not me but” is the underlying issue that gets to her in each of these instances and it always manifests as anger.

From her warped perspective (warped by pain, confusion, and narcissism) he is deeply hurting her and taking everything from her to keep himself safe and cozy. It is the complete betrayal of her (partially conditioned but still unreasonable) expectation that he’d always put her and her needs first. In her eyes, this is again proof that their relationship, just like the one with Tom, has been a mere tool, a manufactured illusion, which - coupled with the impostor reveal - must truly mean Red never really cared for her at all.

But her assessment is once again dead wrong because she refuses to take a careful look at all the available information in proper context - a broader context where her personal issues are not the only ones of importance and where Red not bending to her every wish, esp those that make him deeply miserable or an instant murder victim, is not a sign of lack of genuine feelings but of a healthier attitude. She is also projecting anger at her own dishonesty with herself on him, and while it worked back when Red was receptive to it bc it was conducive to his self-flagellation, this messed up coping mechanism is finally breaking down, too, due to his increasing resistance and the multiplying events that signal he was never that alleged single source of evil.

"We want the same thing."

Indeed. It's the need underpinning Liz's anger, the same one Red has already articulated, albeit indirectly: "an inextricable intimacy and a commitment." Liz uses anger to express this, Red uses fish stories and Tom.

We were both half right. Together, we were right.

Liz sees Red's commitment forever lying elsewhere: with his precious secrets. Red sees Liz's commitment tied up in her relationship with Tom even after his betrayal, even after his literal death. They’ve been longing for the other to break away and commit, but this longing still manifests indirectly and out of sync: she pulls Tom between them like a guardrail (and DG, too), so Red flees into his “work” as a defensive response, which she interprets as lack of genuine interest and withdraws further into safe denial, and we have a vicious cycle on our hands. Despite all that, she still wants him to give up his secrets and he still wants her to give up her fixation on Tom. It’s no accident Red is so captivated by her when she describes her fantasy to him. It’s v much his, too.

But they both feel betrayed right now and both cling to their respective security blankets: Red to his secrets, Liz to her anger.

III. The current name of the game for Liz is repression and denial, for Red, it’s obsession and rumination.

Liz's remark about Red during her therapy session is telling and relevant here:

"Some of what he's done is unimaginably bad. But some of what he's done for me is unimaginably good."

She has been privy to many good things Red has done for others (hell, an entire county once) but those are not factored in when she evaluates his "goodness". No, this is about her and again, it produces only a partial image. It is a good start to say to an outsider that they don’t have the full picture of who he is (or can be) and therefore their understanding is skewed. However, the same goes for Liz and she refuses to accept that her POV is limited, too, and that she is complicit in it being so. DG is a prime example: she is handed a DNA test and everything that contradicts the result is pushed aside at once. The same happened when Tom told her he was a changed man: she ignored the contradictions, so she could have the illusion of stability. Red withholds information but it’s Liz who blatantly lies to herself about many things.

But back to the quote above: so only what Red does for her is weighed on the scale of goodness. Only that defines his moral character. It is decidedly untrue but again it's a manifestation of possessiveness and something Red partially conditioned in her in moments where e.g. he says saving her helps him live w/ himself (104) or where he implies that being with her allows him to become less of a monster (209). As a result, he is reduced to something less but something confined to her, something conveniently simplified that - depending on her need - is easier to either embrace or scapegoat. When he goes along with what she wants (whether it is actually good or not), he is a welcome, positive presence. When he refuses her (no matter how justified or necessary it is), he is deemed toxic and gets rejected. But after Tom inserts himself back into their lives and after the fake death betrayal, Red seems to have less and less willingness to silently confine himself to her whims and wishes, and they finally reach a breaking point in S5.

Fans on both sides of the "why does Red care so much about Liz" fence focus heavily on love as his primary drive, and label the nature of the R/L relationship accordingly: parental and romantic respectively. What else could explain such grandiose display of unconditional love other than being related or being in love? To quote Red, "perhaps there's a third option." There is and despite it being on full display (or maybe because of it since the show has conditioned us to assume a convoluted mystery everywhere) we often overlook its importance:

With Red, guilt is the operative word. This is the governing emotion right next to love (a more recent development) to which many of his grand gestures are anchored. The pervasiveness of guilt in Red's life is pointed out several times in the show, most notably in episodes 104, 216, and 319:

“The farmer, who is no longer a farmer sees the wreckage he's left in his wake. It is now he who burns. It is he who slaughters. And he knows, in his heart he must pay.”

“The truth of it is, once you start down this road there's no logical place to stop. For the first few years, it may work. You'll draw some measure of virtue from being her invisible benefactor. But that won't last. It's all a fraud. That it's really not about her at all. That it's all about you. And you're just going through the motions to salve your own guilt. All the money, all the time and effort, all the favors in the world cannot possibly equal what you took away from her. Everything else is just a nice gesture.”

“It was a Hobson's choice. There was a woman and her child. Both were doomed. Both would die. I could either save one or lose both. I chose the child. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do in my life. Worst thing by far. I was arrogant. I presumed that there was an order to things, that there was... that if I nourished and protected and taught the child, she would be safe and happy. And she was neither. No matter what I tried to do, all I brought her was misery and violence.”

In each, the debilitating nature of guilt is given emphasis, the symptoms of which are exhibited by Red throughout the show. Chronic guilt can be an extremely powerful drive. As Red notes, "once you start down this road there's no logical place to stop". He genuinely believes he owes Liz an immeasurable debt and that nothing, not even wrecking or even giving his own life for her, could make up for it. If we look at his behavior from this perspective, the primary answer to why he is willing to go to such great lengths for her becomes obvious. He loves her, too, of course, but love is - as noted above - is a more recent, healthy development, and it still has to co-exist with deep-seated guilt that keeps it in a toxic choke hold. This combination is the main reason why he cannot deny Liz anything (see: Tom) and why he's so vulnerable to blame shifting. When someone believes they deserve to be used and punished by the one they also come to love more than anything, the danger of abuse skyrockets, too.

Guilt-driven gestures, no matter how grandiose, are ultimately selfish and fake, as Red observes. But after he finally meets her, love starts creeping into the picture, shifting their dynamic and imbuing it with something real and selfless. And Red starts pushing back a little now where Tom is concerned. This sprouting, deepening love, however, gets badly trampled on when the guilt-trips and betrayals come. Red endures them because guilt says "you deserve it", but it no longer has quite the same hold as it once did. Heartbreak is a somewhat sobering experience but until the still unknown source of his guilt is uncovered and addressed, his relationship with Liz, his love for her, cannot reach genuine fulfillment.

IV. Sprinters are bad at running marathons.

Red and Liz want the same thing (as we have established above) but she is impulsive and wants it now whereas he is wary and plans long-term.

“I can’t tell you what I’m gonna want 10 years from now. Even a year from now. I just know what I want right now.”

Liz is no fan of delayed gratification. She has wants and she wants those satisfied "right now" even if it means she has to trade a more secure, more enduring yet still unavailable future (Red) for a readily available present of poorer quality (Tom). The former requires hard work (of the sweat, blood, and tears kind), honest self-evaluation, careful planning, and lots of patience. The latter is just easy and right there, so she cuts straight to the finish line, then it all promptly comes crashing down on her.

This is what happens after her exoneration in S3B. She goes to Red but instead of some quality personal time, he acts prickly and distant, then whips out a giant map to show her how just much hard work still needs to be done before Odysseus can even consider returning home. Her response? She rejects it (and him with it) and goes straight back to Tom. He promises to give her everything she wants right there and then at a discount. She only has to bury her head in the sand regarding a couple of things and since Liz is prone to self-delusion and denial by default, she jumps at the opportunity. This is where her relationship with Red begins to go off the rails.

“Circumstances are far more complex than we ever imagined. I’m betting on the long play. The future.”

Red plays the long game when it comes to the most important things in his life, and he doesn’t shy away from torturous self-examination and self-denial to secure enduring results and a better future for those he loves. Liz’s relationship with Tom was a sprint with many corner-cutting and the inevitable letdown. They had a short present, but no future. With Red, there is a future still but Liz has to run a marathon to reach it and being a sprinter, she struggles a lot.

But she is not the only one struggling. Red is still traumatized by the loss of his family, which makes him instinctively reluctant to try to settle down again. Those who inflicted that debilitating loss still represent an active force in the world (see: the map). The longing to settle down is certainly there. It’s a dream he shares with Liz. They practically wish upon it under the stars while “Our House” is playing, but on top of his guilt and grief, the circumstances seem to be forever against him, so he doesn’t dare actively push for it like she does (he even rejects Agnes at first). He redirects his focus to the “job” to try and create a safer environment and maybe a future opportunity. This folds back to the marathon approach that Liz rejects at first but now, after Tom's demise, she must face. She vows to destroy Red but I don't think it will be a literal destruction. Deep down they still want the same thing and even though they have yet to admit it openly, they want it with each other.

Their time spent on the run in S3/A is immersed in the theme of a shared home. Liz and Red seek refuge in a theater where the stage is set as a home. This is where Liz tells Red about her fantasy and this is where Red immediately retreats behind a wall when he realizes that Liz will be pulled back into Tom's orbit.

“I’m not interested in what you want. I’m interested in what you deeply desire. I can sense that death and vengeance aren’t what drive you, Elizabeth. Or feed your soul. [What does?] A lost world, I suspect. Another life. If you can’t face your truths, I can’t be of service.”

The Djinn makes a clear distinction between “what you want” and “what you deeply desire”. It is echoed in the tension-filled dream Liz has where Red removes Tom from the picture just when he is about to spill a secret (nice piece of foreshadowing btw), then stalks up to her bed and asks her the same thing - not just what she wants but what she really wants. This image of Red stepping up as a sexual-romantic partner after her husband’s demise is shoved deep down in her subconscious. It is one she is not yet ready to face, but it is there - the option of making a home with him, an option he, too, keeps at arm’s length due to past trauma and present circumstances, and it adds even more tension to their interplay.

This exact type of unresolved tension has already popped up on this show when Madeline Pratt re-entered Red's life w/ some grievances.

"Florence was everything, our way out, a fresh start. But to you, it’s all just a job."

She feels betrayed and played for a fool because Red chose to continue living his danger-magnet criminal life, prioritizing it over her and their intended home.

"They used Pratt as bait, faked the kidnapping in order to bring Red into the Kings’ custody."

Later on, counting on his savior complex, she lands him in hot water to get even. She stages her own kidnapping and lures Red into a trap set by an enemy with a score to settle. If it sounds familiar, that’s because we see something similar play out between Liz and Red. It’s low-key in the background during S3-4 (w/ the whole home theme) and gets kicked into high-gear in the S5 finale (when Liz thinks he played her for a fool so he can continue living his criminal life):

We were out. You said the ship we were on was headed to Spain. Change of plans. Because? Because after far too much time playing defense, today’s the day we switch to offense.

They could get away and start a new life but Red refuses to quit his "mission". As mentioned above, he tells Liz they still have a lot to do and her reaction is disappointment, and when Tom offers her everything Red is not yet able (to go away and start fresh), she accepts. And this is when their downward spiral begins in earnest and all the accumulated hurt peaks in S5, in Liz's very Madeline-esque plan to fake a kidnapping and lure Red to one of his enemies for some answers and score-settling (the same business the Kings were into w/ their illicit auctions):

If you’re gonna tell him you hurt me, he’s got to believe you. You knew Reddington would come for you. He got to do what he always does: try and save me.

Indeed. And he is about to confess his greatest secret to save her life when they get interrupted and an alternate solution presents itself. He kills Sutton, takes the bag and leaves. Liz vows to destroy him after this and I think she is right. Raymond Reddington needs to die for good this time. He needs to die so the man behind that mask can finally emerge. He needs to die so Liz can finally face and understand the full picture.

Red’s guilt feeds on the secrets he keeps and Liz continues to cling to her anger because these secrets are a wedge between them. The murky past and their distorted perception of it (Red's warped by guilt, Liz's scrambled by memory manipulation) hold them and their relationship hostage, so it must be disclosed and sorted for both their sakes. The second chance will not come until this happens. When it does, I think it will be the most cathartic moment in the history of this show.

This collision course is their way back home.

[phantompsychic]

Will’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name: Kusa OOC Contact: IM (or like my starter call and I’ll message you), Discord (on ask/request)

Who the heck is my muse anyway:

Newest member of the Indigo E4. Magician on the side/for funz. Secret phantom thief. Disaster magnet. A fucking nerdlet.

Points of interest:

Appearance: It ain’t Will if he ain’t wearing his mask/dressing like he’s going to a costume party. Pretty tall and fit with a naturally curvy figure. Couldn’t bench press a large stick. Very fair skin that burns easily. The lilac blue color of his eyes can be seen faintly through the whites of his mask upon close inspection.

The First Elite: He’s the first Elite Johtonians/Kantonians face, and is thus the weakest of the 4 + Lance. However, he is also weaker than both the 8th Gym Leaders of the Indigo League (Clair & Green) when they choose to fight at full power. This power discrepancy makes him feel a need to constantly reaffirm (be it to himself or others) his worthiness of being an Elite.

Budding Psychic Master: His skill with Psychic types is enough that he has already been granted the title of Master in his Type, and he already has secretly unlocked a lot of his own brand of destructive Psychic powers. Talented as he is, he still has a long way to go to perfect his skill and lots more potential to realize.

Secret Identities: A runaway whose village was wiped off the map to make room for Johto’s Safari Zone. A phantom thief that uses his psychic powers to steal and expose evidence of corrupt, untouchable criminals. An unknowing descendant of a dead clan of Psychics. And many more. Tl;dr: He is never who he appears to be to most people.

What they’ve been up to recently:

By default, Will is always looking for new ways to further improve both his powers and his Trainer skills. And by night he is trying to find and expose those criminals that have ascended above the law, though that same law is still trying to hunt him down. In his free time, he continues his hobby of treasure hunting and exploring, always excited about the possibility of finding new Pokemon, items, or adventures. Due to his job as an Elite (and the first Elite at that), he doesn’t have nearly as much free time as he used to.

Soon, once his thread with Sabrina is underway, he’ll also take an interest in discovering the secrets of the dead clan he apparently descends from.

Where to find them:

Indigo Plateau: It’s his workplace, so he kinda has to be there most of the time. All Trainers are guaranteed to meet and fight Will, so he gets to meet lots of new people daily. Since he is the one of the E4 that fights the most Trainers, you can also often catch him in the Plateau’s Pokemon Center.

Johto/Kanto: Will can be found anywhere in Johto/Kanto, whether it be on business from the League to take care of some issue or just to explore. He especially loves to explore the Lake of Rage/Mahogany Town area during peak rainy/flood season.

Whirl Islands: Will frequents the depths of Whirl Islands in order to pay respect to its resident Legendary, Lugia. He has never seen the bird himself, but he is able to sense its presence at the bottom of the ocean. He relates to the stories of Lugia’s alienating power and losing its home and literally just wants to give it some kind of company. He doesn’t really do anything while he’s here. He just sits quietly, thinks, stares down at the waterfall, etc.

Literally ANYWHERE: Will, thanks to Xatu, can Teleport anywhere in the world he’s visited, which as a former world traveller is a lot. Anywhere he hasn’t visited, he usually can just Teleport near its general location and walk/fly there. As a naturally curious explorer, he’ll especially gravitate towards mysterious areas (eg Solaceon Ruins) or places that offer new experiences (eg a new Cafe in Kalos or a festival going on in Unova).

Current plans:

I got something set up with fireredrules’ Red with some hijinks regarding one of Will’s little phantom thief operations gone wrong.

I also have something set up with infragments’ Sabrina regarding Will exploring his clan ancestry with her.

And I also have a fun FE AU verse thread going on with tulog’s Caitlin.

And then systematrical’s Gold is having a doodle fight with Will.

I may be forgetting someone so if I am then I’m sorry and I’m not purposely leaving anybody off this!

Desired interactions:

Wishlist is here

In addition to that, I’d say I’m up for misadventure-type threads, threads where he meets new people and maybe is able to help them in some way (or vice versa), and anything exploring the weird or the mythical or the mysterious, etc. Will is very aware that there is a lot of spoopy and inexplicable stuff out there, and outside Ghosts, he’s very curious about it. It also allows for great fun with going wild with hc’s!

In general, he needs more close friends, as in friends who actually know some of his secrets and can help him out with just a thoughtful ear. I’d also love for him to hang out with other League members (any region but especially Johto & Kanto). He also does have his personal issues regarding his perceived inadequacy as an Elite, some personal fears regarding his powers, etc. that I’ve been wanting to rp. Though, those would take more build up.

If you have an idea for something tho, feel free to throw it at me in an OOC ask or IM! Even if we can’t come up with a plot, I’m always game for throwing hc’s around for good fun.

Offered interactions:

Well, as a friendly explorer-type, Will can often be found anywhere that’s needed. So he can always bump into anybody and let whatever whirlwind the other muse is caught up in sweep em both up.

Also, if you feel like making them go on any kind of adventure, supernatural hijinks or no, that’s kind of Will’s thing. He can very easily sweep people up into his OWN shenanigans, which often involve anything from strange ruins to mishaps with his own Psychic powers.

Finally, he does have a vigilante alter ego. He can prove to either be a formidable foe to muses that come up against him, or he can maybe get mixed up with a civilian in some silly mistake he didn’t mean to. It’d really all depend on the muse and what you want. He’s decently flexible.

Current open post/s:

N/A (I suck at opens)

Anything else?:

Can’t think of much else to add rn that isn’t covered in my rules or about, so, yeah. As always, anybody who wishes to interact can like my starter call (which is really more of a plotting call since I can’t write starters without plotting) or IM me!

[finnicks]

i can't put this shit anywhere bc twitter has a character limit and i've p much just left the social media platform i'd post this on anyway.

i usually use tumblr for fun shit and understand other people do, too. this is for myself bc sometimes you have to dump thoughts somewhere, and i don't want to handwrite this bc my handwriting is horrible atm.

navel-gazing personal shit.

i feel like being a navel-gazer rn bc who reads personal tumblr posts? i figured i'd share this here bc i've been reblogging a lot of self-care and positive self-talk quotes for a while now and doing my usual rambling spiel in the tags where i've also offered bits and pieces of where my own headspace is and referenced my own mental health journey. i do hope those posts and even me screeching in the tags helps someone on their journey.

anyway.

for the last two months, i have been putting my mental health front and centre. thanks to a good friend, i realised that no one will ever put my mental health first and the only way that i would ever feel better about myself and break out of this vindictive and awful cycle i found myself in (and have been in for years) was to take the bull by the horns and guide it myself.

so i have been. and it's been fucking great.

it's been hard. it was hard when i first started bc i was wondering if i was doing the right thing or if i was even doing it right. (yes, it is the right thing, and yes, i was doing it right bc i was doing it for myself.) it's been lonely, too, for many reasons, some including the worry of how friends will perceive me and judge me, and also the fact that not everyone i know is even on board the "let's get better and do it ourselves" express yet. if i don't feel a connection with someone about the topic at hand, i don't talk to them about it. it's reasonable; talking about this is opening up a vulnerable part of myself. so, i kept it to myself a lot.

i recognised a social media platform that really let me flog myself. i recognised that it encouraged me to compare myself to others and that i was constantly seeking out shit that hurt my feelings. it sounds nuts but i sought this shit out for the sole purpose of opening up a negative dialogue with myself where i was derisive to myself. ever since being off of it, i have felt really great about myself. that's important to me. not being on there is important to me; if someone can't accept that, that's actually not my problem.

over the last two months, the way i talk to myself has changed drastically. i would like to think that if any of my friends knew how i spoke to myself that they would be saddened and devastated by it bc it's cruel and unkind. how i spoke to myself fed my negative self-narrative and i believed that negative self-narrative was the reality and the truth. it's not.

i know it sounds kind of trite to say "be kind to yourself!" but, seriously, be kind to yourself. pull yourself up when you think horribly about yourself. be your own best friend. it sounds stupid and super cheesy, but it really does work. no one will cape harder for you than you. when i started having a negative thought, i'd say "stop", force myself to reframe, and try and not dwell on it. easier said than done, i know, but it's possible if you really persist.

i changed a lot of my inner dialogue and told my inner voice to go take a hike bc i deserved a lot better. it's gotten to the point where i feel a lot more confident in myself. i still have my insecure moments (of course, we're all people, and this is just the beginning of my journey, too), but these days, i'm able to identify if it's being brought on by me being tired or if it's bc i'm being overly emotional and personalising a situation that doesn't even reflect who i am. i'm kind to myself in these moments (it's important to be).

i'm negl... since doing this, i feel clearer. i feel like i can see shit now. i can see my bad behaviours and toxic habits, and i can see i have power over them. i also feel like bc i've cleared out some space, positive space and energy has come my way, too.

i used to have serious fomo when it came to things and friends. i think it makes sense to not want to miss out on your friends. i didn't want my friends to lose their interest in me and so i felt the need to remain "relevant" to them and i did things that i didn't want to do and took on things i never had any interest in. if you have to be consistently present and in someone's face in order to remain "relevant" (i.e. constantly at the forefront of their mind and someone they talk to), then they're not really worth your time. i did this a lot with a hobby i'm in. ever since i stopped doing that (it's hard to break a habit like this), i felt a lot more fulfilled and less resentful. people will talk to you bc they want to. your friends will remember you and think of you and speak to you and all that shit if they are good people and good friends. i didn't trust people. i am now starting to trust them. (some people do make stupid ass decisions and that also does affect my trust, but, you know, i'm actually open to trusting people to show that they care for me. the whole stupid ass decisions is another thing entirely.)

no one will ever change how you feel about yourself. someone can compliment you, but if someone says you're great, your inner dialogue can rip that apart and call it insincerity if you have a poor relationship with your inner voice. i know; i used to do this all the time and then wondered why i felt like people complimenting me was insincere. (i no longer feel this way. instead, i'm working on stopping my inner dialogue from saying "you don't deserve this" to "i deserve this and i am grateful X complimented me".) i do appreciate the people who are happy for me and celebrate my wins. i am grateful for them. i wasn't grateful for a long ass time bc i could never allow myself to celebrate my wins before. (btw, friends who do not celebrate you are not friends.)

i started complimenting myself. i picked up a gratitude journal again and i write down a minimum of five things i'm grateful/proud of from the day that's been. i do this every night, no matter what. i do it on good days and i do it on bad days. it's important to identify the good. i now look back on my journal and i see all the things that made me happy. sometimes it's as simple as "i'm grateful for my cats" and it can be as detailed as "i'm proud of myself for writing 1,000 words of X fic and posting it." i also make sure to include one person i'm grateful for, especially in the form of an interaction, bc i feel like it's important for myself to remember that, when i feel lonely, i'm actually not lonely at all.

a good friend shared with me that people often make decisions without me i mind. it's not meant to be cruel; it's just a fact. and since acknowledging and accepting this, i've felt a lot better. less vindictive, less hurt. i won't lie, i used to make decisions with people in mind and then grew resentful of them bc i made those decisions, usually out of some desire to "keep" them. the thing is, no one can be "kept". people choose to stay. the moment i began making decisions for myself, i felt better.

i still have a long way to go. i feel like since i started this journey, i've begun to correct really bad behaviours and thinking patterns. by doing that, i've uncovered other ones. people are like onions, and i've begun to unwrap all those gross layers that make my eyeballs water. what drove my insecurities and negative behaviour patterns isn't going to be solved in two months, but in those two months, i've made some great progress. i think that deserves to be celebrated.

the things i feel like i need to work on and feel like sharing include:

accepting compliments; yes, they are for me, and i should be proud of the work that gained that compliment.

accepting that people like me for me.

accepting that people want to be there for me even if i feel like i don't need anyone.

complimenting myself further.

removing myself from situations. this sounds very weird but by removing the "i" from someone's choice has given me so much freedom.

continuing to do what i want to do when i want to do it.

being kind to myself. i am a busy person (my work is a lot) and i need to start angling my self-love to be understanding of that.

stop comparing myself to others. i'm me; i'm great.

appreciating the fact that i am me, and there are some great things about me that are worth celebrating that i won't list here.

accept that i am good enough for me. full stop. (if i'm good enough for someone else, cool.)

sometimes i worry that by me putting myself first in this way and changing the dialogue i have with myself will lose me some friends. maybe it will. some people feel comfortable with who i was before i started this. i have always believed that some people are meant to be in your life for a pitstop or for some part of the ride, and some people are meant to be there with you until you reach your final destination and join you on your next journey. people who can't accept and even celebrate me for who i am and trying to become are not people i want in my life.

understanding (and celebrating) that i'm me and not someone else has been important and great. i used to try and make myself be like someone else, but i'm not. i'm not the person next to me and i'm not my friends. i realised that being me is good enough (it's starting to be). after all, no one is me.

i am enough.

[diaryventsesh]

Limbo: Immovable versus Movable

A bunch of events have come together to make me rethink where I am in my life. Out of the blue I was able to talk to an old friend (high school) a new friend (coworker) and boyfriend such that I kept on getting the question posed in different ways but essentially about my future: what do I want to do next what would be my best case scenario am I happy where I am right now. The hard truth is I am not sure about what I want next. I felt that I was happy in that I was getting into a routine as a new grad just starting at their new job but also that I was getting to a point where I had seen enough to know I have a lot more to learn but not sure how to approach it. I am happy in my new place in that I have so much to explore there's all the hikes and places to walk around. I am sad in that I have to make new friends when I'd rather hang out with my old ones. I also haven't tried hard to make the most of my new friendships as I felt that I needed time on my own after getting adjusted to working full time talking to people and also that I wasn't sure how long I'd be here so I used that as a weak reason to not make the most of friendships. I also used the reason that the people I'd like to hang out with the most are 45 minutes away oof. Another thing I've realized that makes it hard is the assumption that people like to settle down in one place. I assumed that me and Sawyer would pick a place to stay but he has mentioned multiple times that he is a mover, that he gets bored in one place for too long, doing the same thing for too long. That idea clashes with the idea of settling down. This also indirectly clashes with what I realized I am missing. I am missing a close-by friend. I suppose I would get to be with Sawyer wherever he moves but I would also miss having a friend who meets different emotional needs. I assumed that I would be able to make friends wherever I go but I also thought I would be able to do so over a period of years that I would stay somewhere. I have a hard time staying present over virtual friend communications ie just video chats, phone calls, and texts. I am really missing getting to hang out and talk to people I know well in person. Is this something I'll just have to adjust my style to to feel satisfied with? Is this an immovable need or is this something that I can get more out of without feeling unmet. I'm not sure. With the way the world is now and how spread out we all are it may be something I'm forced to try to get more sustenance out of though I've resisted it for so long and thought less of it. It makes me sad to think I may never get the close-by friend again. It also makes me sad that something like settling down in one place is something that I actually took for granted in that my boyfriend is one of the few people I could have dated that has that damn feeling. Like of all the people and desires. I am unsure because I know that I could do something like travel/move a lot but the more I think about myself and my needs, I would prefer not to. I am more of a routine person. If I did move a lot, I would have to have an end point or goal but with Sawyer I haven't asked and I'm not sure he knows what the end goal of that would be anyways. He just knows he doesn't want to stick to one place. I'll likely have to have a more in depth thought out conversation with him about this. This is a big difference in future moves and it's scary to think that this could be a big enough difference to even let the idea of break-up creep in. The reason I haven't completely thought of it as a make-or-break moment is that I don't know what I want completely yet. I don't have a set place in mind to stay. I have ideas and what I would like best but even those ideas started to crumble. I had held on to this idea that I would go back to Oregon because I had the most friends there - Kahana, Reid, Trevor, but in recent events even most of those people are leaving or planning to leave in the near future. Technically, I have a good concentration of friends in Southern California but I'd rather not go back there. At this point

I don't have an ideal place to go back to so I might as well move around. I'm also disappointed because I feel like I don't have any further big goals after becoming a physical therapist. Like I got here and I'm pretty dang happy about it but I feel like I'm supposed to come up with something else to do. Again, I don't know what I want. I don't feel like I am motivated for more like I was when I wanted to just become a physical therapist. Now I'm not sure about it. Is this normal or am I being complacent? Can I give myself the breather of being done with school and finally reach a goal that took a long damn time and effort or is this too much a breather and just a lazy feeling that I need to get over? I suppose it is probably not black and white but maybe a little of both. These holes in what I want next and the unknown that is having to figure out what could be in my professional future, my social future, my relationship future all contributed to me somehow getting really attached to this manga/anime Haikyuu. Obsessed like I watched all 4 seasons and read all the manga chapters in like 3 weeks. I had this need to find out what happened to the characters and whether they get their ultimate goal. For whatever reason I got so into this series and it filled the holes that were the unknowns in my life or rather distracted me from seeing the holes lol. Escapism? The characters are so wholesome and it wasn't your normal sports series where there's the winners and losers the good guys and bad guys and they ultimately win the whole shebang as the underdogs. It was strikingly realistic in showing that they worked hard and got better but didn't make it in the end. They showed other teams and their improvement arcs without making you stop cheering for the main guys even though you wanted to cheer for the supporting teams too. They didn't focus so much on the results of the games so much as the ups and downs of people's individual battles. FUCKING SUPERB YALL. There are like no characters I despise in the series its crazy. Anyways I got so much into this series because it made me feel emotions again. I had just gotten into this feeling that I had to do something more to figure out my future but the motivation and emotion to make those decisions wasn't there. Like I know I should be doing these things because it is my life and it would be good to think about the future but my motivation was just low and like I would do it but I don't have the emotion behind it. This series didn't necessarily motivate me to go 120% like the characters do but it made me feel something. Made me feel hopeful and happy and sad and prideful for the characters. Now that I've finished the series I at least feel fulfilled especially because it ended in a way that I was satisfied with. I don't feel jazzed but I feel calm and content. The hard thing is finding what will give me that emotion again in real life. I definitely felt that sense of content-ness getting to talk to friends in person. I have a sense of it when I try shuffling. I get a little here and there but maybe I need goals to get my highs and lows from. I'm still not sure. No matters. I do probably need to figure out what I want to do in the future in terms of with Sawyer. The moving thing is a big difference and we'd have to talk that out more. Maybe I'll bring that up in a few weeks. I have to at least come into it knowing what I want though. I know Sawyer is at least someone who compromises and is willing to talk and work something out. However, this isn't something that can be done halfway. It's move or stay. I suppose there could be a compromise in some situations like if he could get a flexible enough position that allows him to come back on some seasons but not others - professor like situations? but that would be an option for something with a lot more status lol.

Immovable objects:

- Work schedule/hours in and out (for the most part, I have made this pretty efficient in that I get my workouts in and meal prep such that I don't have to do it when I'm tired on the weekdays although it would be nice if I could get past my ability to not want to be in the living space at the same time as my roommate so I can just cook my food on the weekdays and have free time on the weekend but I'll consider it immovable rn for sake of simplicity).

- Friends being spread out such that I wouldn't be able to move to one place and settle down to be close and that would be easy

- Other people's needs ie boyfriends need to travel more than stay settled (not necessarily immovable in that he is considerate of others ie my needs but immovable in the sense that even if he did compromise and settled somewhere his true desire is to move more)

What I can control:

- My motivation

- How I structure my life to optimize my moods, motivation, social time, etc.

- How I react to situations