#anyway you don’t have to wear makeup or shave or get married or have kids or do anything just because other people do it

[deathlygristly]

Sometimes I read through my dash and I think there's a whole cognitive world out there that I don't get.

It's where people think in hard defined categories and really weird social rules and feeling like they have to do things they don't want to do just because other people do them. It seems like a really hard way to get through being alive, and they're always talking about having to unlearn it and how hard it is to rebel against it and how it makes them miserable.

I am very glad I don't live in that world, and instead I live in a cognitive space where I do whatever I want and I take people as they come without categorizing them and I'm happy.

[cyndrastic]

aight update on the future au:

polls not over yet but it’s leaning heavily at McCormick, so i’ll give you my pcov designs and some headcanons for the McCormick parents rn cause out of all the adults they’re my favs 💕💖

i love them so much you don’t understand (also surprise surprise Kenny married Butters [changed his name to Vic], no one could have ever guessed that considering one of my first art posts on this account was a bunny comic 🙄)

anyway they both have mullets cause i just really like mullets, and Vic shaved the side of her head cause that’s my headcanon of what butter’s hair is in the show (cause his little tomato puff makes no sense) and i feel like he would have kept those.

more details and explanations for some things under the cut (aka im ranting about my fav characters and how they work as a couple with little bits of au lore sprinkled in)

Vic-

you may notice i’m jumping back and forth between he and she for Vic, and that’s cause he uses she/he. Don’t get me wrong, I love Butters and Marjorine, but i’ve seen the argument between them so many times. “Butters is a Cis guy!” “Marj is a trans girl!” fuck it Vic is a gnc icon and picks whatever gender he wants depending on whatever the fuck he wants and he’s hot both masc and fem. and i mean very hot. Butters in the show gets a couple descriptive things, namely in the “It’s Butters!” song hes said to have dimples, and more importantly when his father thinks he’s wearing his mom’s makeup when he’s not. that means this kids got perfectly flushed cheeks, nice eyelashes and eyebrows, and unblemished porcelain skin even at 8 years old. that paired with his blonde hair and presumably blue eyes (i’ve never met a blondie without blue eyes), emphasized cheek bones we see in the pcov special (implying he’s got a more slender face and likely more slender and long figure in general, which is the what literal modeling agents tend to look for btw [i would know my grandma and mom were models because they were both pretty with thin frames and lanky limbs]), and the scar over his left eye makes him insanely attractive.

the scar especially gives him something to stand out with; make people remember him (sometimes he even takes out his glass eye just so people get a good look at his empty socket and that image can be seared into their brains). being androgynous also helps make everyone, whether they’re attracted to men or women, find him hot. no one even knows if Vic is short for Victor or Victoria, and that’s the point. also due to how he grew up in this au (spoiler alert, Vic’s life was awful for a lot of years between beginning of high school and when he reconnected with Kenny as an adult [that’s an understatement Vic is by far the most traumatized character in this au]), he doesn’t feel particularly comfortable with being on one perfect end of the gender spectrum; girl or boy. So no matter how he’s presenting, he’s always going to look somewhat androgynous.

Kenny-

Kenny is kinda the same, i just wanted him to look more cool and unhinged. I got rid of the full beard cause i can’t draw it and also hated it, but i added snake bites cause they’re cool. I also got rid of the beer on his shirt cause I feel like after being raised by two alcoholic assholes he wouldn’t drink much as an adult. oh yeah and he’s a he/they now cause you can’t tell me princess kenny didn’t awaken something in him. i feel like he would go to a fancy award ceremony for some massive science breakthrough in a gown. he’s the typa guy to accept some prestigious award for his scientific findings in a slutty silk dress. Basically everything I changed in Kenny’s design was to make him look more like the wacky uncle who gives children weapons (spoilers he is). i kept how the pcov specials made his stockier cause honestly i just like him a little bit bigger. I feel like that’s a treat to himself. he spent so long in a home where he’d probably have to starve some night cause they couldn’t afford to eat, so when he becomes an extremely successful adult, he can give himself the luxury of eating three meals a day or eating junk food that was too expensive for him. he can finally afford to be a little bit heavier; it’s just proof that he’s made it this far from where he came. He’s also more of a mad scientist in this au a la Dr. Mephesto, but far more ethical in what/how he runs experiments.

both-

Their dynamic and characterization in this au is by far the most fleshed out because of how much I like these two characters, and it’s genuinely my favorite couple in the au. I might make a whole separate post on how they operate as parents because they’re both so horrifically worried that they may accidentally follow in their own parents footsteps. Yknow, generational trauma and whatnot. They’re also both insanely unhinged. Both of them are just balls of the walls crazy, which stems from both of them being traumatized (i mentioned Vic is the most traumatized in this au, Kenny is the second most cause of dying thousands of times over his whole life).

Kenny has lost all grasp of physical or mortal fear cause by this time in his life he’s died so much he’s lost any sense of connection to injury, even to other people. It’s difficult for him to register that other people are mortal because it’s such a foreign concept to him, and that can lead to some issues in the lab given that it’s such a dangerous place to work. Meanwhile, Vic has the people she cares about, and has a hard time grasping that people she doesn’t care about aren’t just stepping stones. She was used her whole life, then used and hurt people as an adult (yes she was an NFT bro, no she’s not anymore), but now she has a hard time not snapping back into the NFT thing and scheming every cent out of whoever gave her a dirty look at Walmart. Kenny and Vic can and generally do help each other out with these things, but they can also be each others worst instigators (“oh yeah you should absolutely do that consequences be damned” “no he had it coming to him don’t worry” “yeah fuck him up! beat his ass!” typa shit. they support each other non-conditionally but sometimes that leads to them getting arrested).

[purplesimmer455]

Tess came over to pick her niece Piper up from the Kang household. Iseul opened the door, and she smiled as she saw Tess. "Oh, hey. Piper and Cam are in Cam’s room." She gestured for Tess to come inside, and Tess did. "Wow, nice place." Tess said, looking around. It was more spacious than her house but still felt cozy. "Thanks." Iseul grinned and she led Tess over to the living room. She sat down on the couch and Tess sat next to her. "I have a small apartment in Copperdale, but usually I end up crashing at Min Jun and Paenji's place when I come back from travelling." Iseul added. Tess nodded. There was an awkward silence, and then Iseul said. "I'm sorry that the last time you, me, and Megs hung out I kept making moon eyes at her. I know she's with you, and I’d never ever come between you guys. Its just...seeing her again brought up all these memories." Tess nodded. "It's okay, I know you guys used to date in college, and those feelings are so conflicting. Plus, when I met you I could see why Megs liked you." She admitted. Iseul grinned. "Don't tell me you have a crush on me too, Tess." She added playfully. "You wish." Tess joked back, and they laughed.

Tess brought up a recent Foxbury vs Britechester soccer game, and Iseul shook her head as Tess described how good the Ubrite Dragons did. "Do you play any sports?" Tess asked. "No." Iseul grinned. "I like watching sports but I'm not so great at playing." Tess nodded. "I love both.” She said. “I played for the Darby Dragons in college and it was intense to balance with my studies but so much fun.” Iseul grinned. “You were playing sports, and I was partying in my college days.” Tess waved her off. “It’s all good. Personally I was a bit more studious and focused on sports and classes, spending time with my friends and cousin Luna, and my then boyfriend Julian. The other stuff was good, dating him was not. He wanted to get married at age 20 after we graduated, and have kids right away, even though I'd told him I didn't want any of that.” Tess said.

Iseul grimaced sympathetically. “I get it. I dated one girl in my 20s who liked me when we kissed, and woohooed, and she’d ride with me on my motorcycle.” Tess’s eyes widened. “Sorry to interrupt, but you have a motorcycle? That’s so cool, and I think now I’m crushing on you.” She said half jokingly and Iseul grinned. “Technically I had a motorcycle back in Bridgeport but I sold it.” Iseul said. “But anyway, with my ex’s friends and family it was like she was embarrassed of me. She’d ask me to wear fancy jumpsuits to family events instead of suits and wanted me to grow my hair out and wear makeup saying it’d look nicer and fit better with her. I remember I shaved half of my hair off once and thought it looked so good and wanted to show her, but when I did she faked a smile and said ‘That’s great, babe, but isn’t shaved hair too bold and sudden? Why don’t you cover it up for now until it grows out and looks prettier?'" Tess furrowed her brows. "Exactly. I guess she wanted me to be more feminine? And that’s fine for anyone who likes the style like my niece Cece for example, but it isn’t me. I think she wanted me in her version instead of as who I am, you know?” She said. Tess nodded. “What an asshole.” She said. “I love your style and hair, it’s making me want short hair again. Plus your ex seems like she had her own issues and was putting it on you.”

Iseul nodded. “Thanks Tess. It's cheesy, but it makes me happy to see Cam with someone like Piper who really likes her for her. Cam reminds me so much of myself at that age, and although she's always been a confident girl, being with Piper makes her shine and glow even more. When Cam first told me about Piper, I wasn't sure about her but I met her and saw how much she loves Cam and the way she was complimenting Cam’s hair and clothes. It's dumb but it made me so fucking happy to see that and see Cam so happy with her." Tess grinned. "That's not dumb, Is, that's sweet. Can I call you Is?" Iseul nodded. "Yeah. But don't ask me to call you Tessie or anything." She added, grinning. Tess rolled her eyes but smiled. “Megan told you about my nickname?” She asked, smiling. “She told me everything about you.” Iseul said. “She raved about you so much, and I wasn’t sure if I was jealous of you or of Megs.” Iseul added, grinning mischievously at Tess. “Both, obviously.” Tess joked, and they laughed.

[rotationalsymmetry]

re: "afab non binary questioning culture is wondering if you’re actually non-binary or just don’t like what it’s like to be a “woman”."

This is very legitimate, and it can be tricky working out which things you don't like about being seen as a woman are misogyny/patriarchy things and which are, y'know, gender identity things. (But also it doesn't have to be one or the other! You can both intensely dislike female gender norms as a thing that exists in society and also be personally non-binary! Opting out of "womanhood" doesn't mean you have to give up your opinions of patriarchy either!)

Honestly I have found the perspectives of, and indeed simple existence of, transfeminine people and men who like crossdressing and so on, absolutely invaluable here. For instance, if there's guys (actual guys) who just like makeup in spite of not being "socialized" to like it (and indeed being heavily socialized to stay away from all that stuff), then there has to be some intrinsic appeal in make-up for some people, and that implies that when some women like make-up it's probably not just a female socialization thing, but an actual liking-make-up-for-its-own-sake thing that would still exist in a world without gender roles or with very different ones. Which in turn means that me not liking make-up is something different from make-up intrinsically being awful.

(Although, there's also a difference between how make-up is as a strictly optional thing and how make-up is as something that you're pressured into doing. Anyways.) For me, the kind of non-binary I am is bigender, both male and female. I'm still a woman. I'm just also a dude. Which means that everything I don't like about "being a woman" (and there are many such things)? Is a thing I don't like about "being a woman" (ie under patriarchy/strict gender roles), not a thing I don't like about actually being a woman. If that makes sense.

(uh, I understand that "bigender" means "two genders" and doesn't have to be those two genders. By the way. That's what those two genders are for me though.) Some specific examples: Do I like strange men looking at me as a sexual being? I do not, or at least not under most circumstances. (If I'm opting in and can opt out again, that's completely different.) Do I like a specific man that I actually want to have sex with looking at me as a sexual being? Oh yes. Do I like shaving my legs, or feeling self-conscious if I don't shave them? I do not, I would much rather it was just a neutral thing for women to not shave their legs, like wearing skirts vs pants is a neutral thing. Do I like form-fitting clothes? Hard no. Do I like nail polish? It depends -- I don't do well if it's supposed to look polished and perfect or if it's the wrong shade of pink. But if it's just color and sparkle and something I can have fun with? Love it. Do I like long flowy hippy skirts? Yes. Floral patterns on clothes? Sometimes, if it's pretty enough; other times, I'd rather not. Do I like jewelry? Sometimes. Do I like cooking? Love it. Knitting? Yes. Do I like people assuming I'm safe to have around kids? Absolutely. Do I like it when groups split off into a group of men who talk about politics and a group of women who talk about, I don't know, how to get stains out of things? Absolutely not, please let me be in the politics group OK? Even though I recognize that someone has to know how to get the stains out.

(Did I like being "a bride"? Oh gods no. I did rather like getting married though, and did actually like the wedding planning. Just not "being a bride".) Do I like being called "handsome"? yes. Do I like short, masculine-looking hair? yes. (Although not like buzz-cut short. And if I got read as male with long hair I'd probably go for long hair.) Do I like clothes that make me look masculine? yes, at least some of the time. Do I like thinking of myself as male? Yes, at least some of the time. Do I like engaging in "feminine" stuff while thinking of myself as male? extremely yes. "Masculine" stuff while thinking of myself as female? Very much yes. Anyways: gender isn't just about what you don't like, it is also often about what you do like, and that can take some time to figure out (and can change over time!) Labels (or, uh, "refridgerator magnets") exist for you, for you to understand yourself and to explain yourself to others in a way that works for you. "Woman who doesn't like "being a woman" under patriarchy" is an excellent label. "Nonbinary" is an excellent label. "Nonbinary person who doesn't like patriarchy" is also an excellent label. Have fun with gender. Get revenge on patriarchy by living well. Do drag, whatever your gender is. Meet people whose gender experience is different from yours. Stay away from terfs -- we've got better ways to be a feminist. Follow your bliss.

[lovemesomesurveys]

Do you have a dog? I do.  Are you single or taken? Very much single. How many pillows do you sleep with? I only use 1-2, but I have 4 on my bed. I had more, but it got to be too much lol. What do you think is the worst food? Seafood is pretty gross. Does it snow where you live? No. :(

Can you play an instrument? Nope. Is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes? White with black stripes. What shoes are you wearing? I’m not wearing any currently. Are you wearing socks? Yes. Did you graduate? Yeah, I graduated with my BA back in 2015.

How many siblings do you have? I have two brothers. Are your nails painted? Nope. Have you ever been married? Noo. Did you go to prom? I did. Do you have you nose pierced? No. What is your favorite soda? Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, and the cherry versions of all 3. Can you rollerskate? Nope. Have you ever broken a bone? Yes. Shorts or Jeans? Lounge shorts around the house. Dresses or skirts? Dresses. Makeup or no makeup? No makeup. What is your favorite condiment? Ranch. Do you like cheese? I love cheese. Apple or Android? Apple. Do you have a twitch account? Nope. What about instagram? Yes. Tiktok? Yes. I don’t make them, though. Snapchat? Yeah. How old are you turning this year? I turned 32 last month. What month were you born in? Well, it’s August and I said I turned 32 last month so take a guess.  Do you like summer? Noooooooo. Hoodies or Tank tops? Hoodies. Would you shave your head for $1,000? No.

What time is it now? 10:11AM. Do you like to draw? No. I don’t have any artistic abilities. What is your favorite tv show at the moment? I have several. Do you have a nickname? Just Steph and Sis. Video games or board games? Board games. How do you like your pizza? I like pan crust and extra sauce and cheese. The toppings depend on where I get the pizza from, but my ideal pizza has crumbled meatballs, garlic, spinach, and pesto. Cilantro and green onions are good, too. Beer or wine? Neither. Are you scared of tarantulas? Uh, HELL YEAH. Have you ever been hunting? No. What about fishing? Once. Not my thing. Do you like going camping? No. What is the last fast food place you ate at? I didn’t eat there, but the last fast food place I had was Jack in the Box. During covid, do you wear a mask or no mask? I definitely wear a mask. What color is the shirt youre wearing? I’m wearing a black, blue, and gray tie-dye t-shirt dress. Netflix or Hulu? Netflix. Parrots or Owls? Uhh, owls. Do you have children? Nooo. What is your favorite movie genre? I like various genres. Do you like 90s music? Yesss. 80s music? Yes. Do you have a playstation 4? It’s my brother’s, but I use it sometimes. Have you ever played Fortnite? Nope. What is your best friends name? Yolanda. Love or lust? Love. What is in your pockets? I don’t have any pockets. I never use ‘em anyway. Do you prefer texting or calling? Texting. What time do you like to go to bed? I don’t particularly like to, but my sleep schedule is so out of whack, especially over the past year, that I’m up until the early morning hours. Do you like anime? No. Who was the last person you visited/saw? My aunt. Do you have tattoos? Nope. Pie or Cake? Cake. Do you like to bake/cook? No. Do you like sports? Nope. Have you ever been on a boat? I have. Name a state that starts with M. Michigan. Pick two words that ryhme with the word Blue. Glue and flu. Have you ever played Kingdom Hearts? I played a little back when the first one came out. Have you seen the movie The Breakfast Club? Yeah, many times. If so, who is your favorite character? I don’t have one. What day is it today? Friday. On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you like mayonaise? 10. I love mayo, I always get extra on something that comes with it.

What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Strawberry, mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, cake batter. Can you type fast? Yes. What year is it? 2021. Have you ever built a snowman? No. What did you have for dinner? I haven’t had dinner, yet, it’s only 10:30AM. I’m barely about to have breakfast. Do you like spaghetti? Yes, especially with meatballs. Mail or email? Email. Do you like to read? I love to read. Have you read any Stephen King books? No. Do you like skittles? Nah. What about starburst? Eh, I liked the pink ones as a kid. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had Starburst. Fast food or home cooked meals? Both. DC or Marvel? I like both, but Marvel is my favorite. Did you vacuum today? No.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #318

“what can you do, where can ya go, when your mama is a burnout, and your daddy is a pyro?”

Do you have your ears pierced more than once? Yeah. Do you use an electric toothbrush? Yes. When was the last time you changed in front of someone? Oh, I have no idea. That's something I avoid like the plague because I loathe my body. When was the last time you got high? Never. Do you get along with your parents? Yeah. How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now? None. Have you ever used a Ouija board? No, I don't fuck with that stuff. Have you ever met anyone who claimed to be a witch? Yes. Do you go along with prank-callers, or just hang up? I don't answer numbers I don't recognize to begin with. Would you ever tattoo a lover’s name onto your body? Nooooo. Do you own any version of Guitar Hero? I have a lot of 'em. Do you use mouthwash every single day? No. Do you know anyone with asthma? Yeah, my mom. Have you ever walked through a forest at night on your own? Uh, no sir. When was the last time you were in a graveyard? It's been many, many years. Do you know what an ‘AMV’ is? Yep, used to make 'em. How many items are in your recycle bin? (On your computer!) Oh yikes, probably loads. I haven't emptied it in... I don't know how long. Would you rather be a bird or a fish? A bird. What’s one award show you have to watch every year? None. Who do you like more: the Batman or the Joker? Joker. Heath Ledger's is my favorite. Have you ever had a pet rock? No. How much do you weigh? Yeah, no. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Taking nature photographs. Have you ever lost your luggage at an airport? No. Have you ever been on a rollercoaster that actually scared you? I don’t do roller coasters to begin with. Have you ever gone in a sauna? Ugh, hell no. Has a stray dog ever tried to bite you? No. Have you ever had an eating disorder? No. Are you attracted to people outside of your race? Yes. Are you in love with anyone at the moment? No. Have you ever dated someone more than once? No. Best cough drop? Those creamy strawberry ones. If you have a pet, does it make a lot of noise? One's a snake, so she's silent as could be. My cat is generally quiet, but he has his times where he just walks around meowing, normally for attention. Are you a fan of eyeshadow? If I actually wear makeup, yeah, I like black eyeshadow. Can you tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi? Absolutely. I don't like Pepsi. Would you feel funny if you kissed somebody of the same sex? Done it before, didn't feel weird. Besides furniture, what’s the biggest thing in your bedroom? A Silent Hill poster. Which of your friends makes you laugh the hardest? Girt. Have you ever been in a Catholic confessional? Yeah, as a kid. What color was the hair of the last person you kissed? Brown. What was the title of the last song you listened to? So today I've really been digging dark synthwave/cyberpunk-ish music, and right now I have a playlist on that's currently playing "DNA War" by Absolute Valentine and Billy Mays. How far away is the closest Walmart? Not even five minutes. Can you do a backflip? No. Who is the lead singer of your favorite band? Well, Ozzy is the lead singer of Ozzy Osbourne, haha. When was the last time you went fishing? Not since Sara visited and we went catfishing with my dad one night. What brand of deodorant do you use? Secret. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Yes. Do you regret it? Nah. Who was the last person to buy you a drink? My mom, lmaoooo. Who was the last person to buy you dinner? Also my mom, haha. How old is the oldest person you’ve dated? Juan's maybe like... 28 or something by now, idk. Have you ever run a stoplight? No. Have you ever dated someone & then dated their sibling? YIKES, no. That sounds miles beyond awkward. Are both your parents still living? Yeah, thankfully. What’s something that makes you feel more creative? Music, for sure. Do you collect Mason jars to use for crafts? No, but I do find those super cute. What gives you a quality of life? Not much nowadays, idk. What would give you a high quality of life? A sense of purpose, direction, and worth. Do you have any rugs on top of carpet in your home? We have a big one in our living room, yes. I don't get it. Do you have a mattress cover on your bed? Yeah. Do you hate taking naps during the day? No; naps are normal for me. Who has the best personality on YouTube? Maybe I'm biased, but I genuinely do think Mark for a multitude of reasons. He's just extremely likable imo and sincerely a fucking spectacular human being. Do you have any vinyl records? No, but I would love to collect classic rock and metal ones. Which serial killer(s) do you find most fascinating? I'm quite honestly not well-informed in serial killer stories. I think they're interesting, but not enough for me to learn about them. Have you ever visited any celebrity gravesites? No. How do you feel about archaeology? It's fuckin dope. Any animals whose behaviors you find particularly interesting? ALL OF THEM AHHHH!!!!! But I particularly love learning about social animals, like meerkats (mongoose in general, really), African wild dogs, wolves, etc. What are your thoughts on gun control? I don't support the idea of banning firearms altogether, but I am very much in favor of some reform. There needs to be a much, much more strict and complex system in order for you to legally own a gun, and I also support periodic "check ups" to ensure you still fit whatever criteria is laid out. "Bad people will still find guns;" yes, some most certaintly will, but you can't convince me that the numbers wouldn't decrease. It would take a serious villain to put so much effort into pursuing obtaining a firearm. Do you like animals better than most humans? Sure do. Have you ever had to block people online for harassing you? I've blocked people to prevent that. If you collect anything, what is your favorite piece of that collection? I cherish the plush meerkat Jason gave me most, probably; out of my Silent Hill stuff, the limited edition Revelation flyer I have in Japanese. Are you friends with anybody you didn’t like at first? Hi, meet my best friend lmao. Are there any musicians you didn’t like at first, but grew on you? Probably. Do you have any favorite books you’d like to have signed by the author? Not really. Well wait, Ozzy signing my copy of his autobiography would be pretty damn cool. Do you like any board games or card games? I'm not really a board game fan, but Magic: The Gathering is fun as far as card games go. What historical figure(s) are you most interested in? I'm not incredibly interested in any, but I do think Pharaoh Hatshepsut was a bad bitch. She was one of the extremely few female pharaohs, and if my memory serves me right, one of the most successful. Do you like Breaking Benjamin? I sure do. How many people of the opposite sex have you told you loved them? One. Have you ever had to change your phone number? Yes, because I was getting strange texts from numbers I didn't know. Have you ever played bingo at an actual bingo hall? No. What’s your favourite comic book/graphic novel? I don’t read any. What is something you take pride in? How far I've come as far as my mental illnesses go, particularly depression and PTSD. What’s the biggest magnet on your fridge? I'm not getting up to go look. Have you ever eaten a Big Mac? No; I hate lettuce on burgers, so. What brand is your vaccuum cleaner? Dunno. Do you believe in sex before marriage? Sure, but I don't believe it's a must for everyone. Plenty of people don't even want to get married. Be intimate once you're comfortable with the person, and be safe and smart about it. Are you for or against abortion? I'm pro-choice. Do you feel like you need to lose weight? It's fact that I need to. My body just doesn't want to, afuckingpparently. All I seem to be capable of is either maintain or gain nowadays. Is summer your favorite season? It's my least favorite, actually. Do you wear glasses? I'm basically blind without 'em. Can you say the alphabet in more than one language? Yeah, in German. What do you want out of life? To feel like I made a difference, even if it's a small one. Do you ever get carsick? No. Do you groom your eyebrows? Not really anymore, no. Have you ever liked someone who treated you badly? No. When was the last time you went in the car past midnight? Oh boy, probably not since I had my cyst in I think '16. I was in so much agony and we had no painkillers, so I had to wake up Mom to go to Walmart to grab some. They barely even helped at all. God, I couldn't imagine dealing with that again. Were your last two kisses with the same person? Yes. Do you have alcohol in your house? I don't think we do right now, no. Do you have any personal fashion rules that revolve around your own preferences/body type (e.g., you never/always wear a certain color, sleeve type, or length of dress)? Yeah; I don't wear anything that shows my legs unless I shaved, but I will never wear a dress that isn't at least past my knees. Do you remember any celebrity whose style you admired when you were a teen? What do you think of that style now? Avril Lavigne was/is an ICON. I still think she looks badass. So, is it gif with a hard G or soft G? I used to say the opposite, but I say "gif" now. Apparently that's how the creator of the term says it anyway. When you are invited to things like wedding showers or baby showers do you tend to go or skip? What about graduation parties? If Mom is able to take me, I'll try to go to the first two if they're my closer friends. Do you like spicy chips? Oh FUCK yes. What’s the last movie you watched at a friend’s house? Elf with Sara's fam. Can you remember your parents’ birthdays? Mom's, yes. Dad's, only the month. Do you read your friends' surveys? Yep, I love learning about them. Do you know anyone with a glass eye? Not to my knowledge, no. Do you ever use the n-word? Absolutely not. What piercing do you like most on the opposite sex? I tend to like lip piercings. Do you prefer beef, chicken or steak? Chicken. Ever spent the night in a tent? Yeah, multiple times as a kid, "camping" in the yard with Dad, haha. What do you call your grandparents? I called both sets just "Grammy" and "Grampa." Have you ever cried while reading a book? Oh, certainly. How many college degrees do you want? I got none, and I'm not going back to college. Do you know how to play pool? What about foosball? Yes. Have you ever attended a professional sporting event? Yeah, hockey with my dad a few times. Do you own any jerseys? No. Were you born with naturally straight teeth? No; that's why I had braces. If you were the opposite gender, what name would you like to be called? Maybe like... Victor. Idk. Do you prefer original or sour Skittles? I love both, but sour. Do you like bacon bits on your salad? Yeah. What is your favorite kind of soup? I'm not a soup person. Did you learn to type through a computer program for kids? Yeah. What do you take for pain? Advil/Ibuprofen. What is your favorite place that you’ve lived? My pre-teen and teenage years house: in the woods on a dead-end road and down a gravel path that everyone always missed when learning where our house was. The actual road itself had very, very little traffic, and there was a large expanse of cotton fields. I loved it and miss the house itself, but it's got a lot of bad memories rotting in it. Who are your favorite kids that you’ve babysat? My niece and nephew. <3 Who is your favorite cousin? I don't have a favorite. We barely interact at all. Does one side of your family live in another state? Literally none of my extended family (or half-siblings) live in NC. What states did your parents grow up in? New York and Ohio. Have you ever had an allergic reaction to an insect? No. Is there a good hospital where you live? God no. It is notoriously awful. When was the last time you were asked out? Did you accept or decline? Mid-2017. I aceepted. Does your job allow piercings or tattoos? N/A Do you want to get married? If so, what color will your dress be? Yeah. Probably white/ivory or black. Ever had a caricature done of yourself? How much was it, and were you satisfied with it? No. Do you like peanut butter and fluff sandwiches? No, I don't like the texture. If you got married and then got divorced, would you want to re-marry? Probably not. What’s your favorite amusement park? I haven't been to nearly enough to know. Do you play video games? If so, what kind? Yeah. My favorite are horror games, but I also love me some story-driven survival games like The Last of Us, and then there's "kids" games like Spyro, etc. I like a looot of different kinds. Would you buy used clothes? I don't think so. I know it's easy to wash clothes and stuff, I'd just still feel kinda... grossed out by it.

[purplesurveys]

1036

survey by tickticktmr

How many...

How many times have you skipped class? I skipped one day a year back in high school, and that cut was always for this day-long event that the school would arrange to serve as a break from academic classes; for example, for those days we had like themed classes like knitting and it was also usually a themed costume day. I didn’t see the point in it, so I always skipped.

I cut a lot of classes in college that it’s impossible to count because, welp, it’s college lol.

How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed? Hundreds.

How many years have you known your second closest friend? 10 years.

How many alarm clocks are in the house? We don’t have any alarm clocks, but we have alarms built into our phones. If those count, then we have five.

How many people have you argued with?  I don’t think I can count this. I’ve had arguments with various people ranging from mild bickering to full-blown fights.

How many times have you watched your favorite movie? I watched it every day for a certain period several years ago and I go back to it at least once every year. It’s probably been a little more than a hundred times.

How many people do you live with? Four, my parents and two siblings.

How many pairs of boots do you own? Zero.

How many people have told you they're in love with you? Just the one.

How many times have you cried over the opposite sex? A handful, but all have been in the non-romantic sense. I used to cry all the time when we’d drop my dad off at the airport, and I’ve cried over my grandpa’s and Nacho’s death as well.

How many people have been in your house at one time? Do you mean what’s the most number of people that’s stayed at our house at one given time? Not sure...maybe it was the time the entire executive board of my org came over for a meeting before the official start of the sem? It was only a little over 10 people, but then again my mom doesn’t appreciate too many visitors.

How many stuffed animals are in your room? There are a couple of plushies, but not anything bigger than that.

How many cellphones have you went through? Tons. I was my parents’ nightmare. I’ve gone through 8 so far.

How many pets do you have? We have two living ones, both dogs.

What would you do if...

What would you do if you could never listen to music again? I’d be really distraught over never being able to listen to my favorites anymore. Even if I don’t really listen to music when I’m depressed, i.e. now, I still like having the option to tune in when I feel like it. So even if it won’t be the end of the world, I’d still feel pretty damn lonely.

What would you do if your current bf/gf cheated on you? I don’t have one anymore but I’d be really puzzled and be betrayed if she had, given how much she hates cheaters and the act of cheating.

What would you do if you could never wear jeans again? Rejoice for the most part, but also be sad over mom jeans because they’re the only comfy kind of jeans and that’s the one type I genuinely enjoy wearing.

What would you do if your dad became president? Expect him to tap me for help almost immediately. I think he’d make a good leader considering he’s already one at his work, at least a far better one than my mom ever could be.

What would you do if you lost your most important possession? Right now that’s my laptop. If I lost that, I’d mostly be scared of the possibility of my parents whooping my ass; but at the same time my company just gave me a company laptop anyway so it’ll be easy to start over.

What would you do if your house burned down? Stop taking this survey, obviously. Then I’d grab my phone and Kimi, since he’s here with me in my room.

What would you do if your best friend didn't want to be friends anymore? I’d be devastated and start thinking if I’m the problem.

What would you do if you had to move do a different state/province? Thank fuck. I’d be relieved to have the chance to start from scratch, and I’d be all for it.

What would you do if someone shaved your head? Be furious, especially if they did it while I was asleep or otherwise unaware.

What would you do if Jesus came to your front door? Think that it’s probably an act and ask them to leave.

What would you do if your house was robbed? Check if my parents, sister, and dogs are unharmed.

What would you do if your sister/brother got married? Puzzled because 1) they are both single, 2) we are still in a pandemic and why would either of them want to get married right now, and 3) they are 20 and 17.

What would you do if dogs became extinct? Idk, be upset.

What would you do if the last person you kissed proposed to you? I’d be conflicted and a mix of emotions. I’m not sure I would take it well now, even if that’s all I wanted in the end.

Have you ever...

Have you ever broke a body part? I’ve mildly sprained an ankle, but I’ve never broken a bone or had an organ severely malfunction.

Have you ever broke someone else's body part? I don’t think so. 

Have you ever changed for a guy/girl? I’ve adjusted a lot. Idk about change.

Tried to jump on a celebrity but been stopped by the security guards? Kind of? Greyson Chance walked into the mall right when I was exiting and my first instinct as a 14/15 year old was to grab my phone and start taking photos, even though I wasn’t even a fan and could not name any song of his and was just excited to see a Hollywood person in such a mundane circumstance lol. But it wasn’t the smartest move, obviously. I got to be a little too close just because we were crossing paths; I wasn’t trying to be near him, but that’s what his bodyguard interpreted so he asked me to back off.

Have you ever complained about the last person you spoke to? I don’t think there was ever anything to complain about Hans. We’ve always been on amazing terms and he’s one of the funniest people I know.

Have you ever cried on your mom's shoulder? As an infant.

Have you ever dialed 911 as a prank? No. I’m not a jerk.

Have you ever won a talent show? I don’t have anything to show off, so I never joined those.

Have you ever spilled a drink on a expensive electronic item and ruined it? Nah. As clumsy as I can be, I’m always careful with liquids and gadgets.

Have you ever fainted when someone told you shocking news? Nope. I’ve only fainted because I was extremely hungry.

Have you ever swooned over the Jonas Brothers? In 4th grade. I still like them, but I haven’t swooned over them in a while.

Have you ever bought a piece of makeup that cost over $100? No, I don’t buy makeup period.

Have you ever been cheated on by someone who claimed to love you? I haven’t.

Have you ever got food free because the waiter thought you were hot? No, and ew.

Do you...

Do you have someone who will always be there for you? Yeah, I’m lucky I have friends who remind me all the time.

Do you have a membership at a gym? No, was never interested.

Do you act dumb to get guys/girls to like you? No. Hasn’t this been debunked a million times?

Do you know anyone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day? Possibly more, yes.

Do you follow the rules? As much as possible, yeah.

Do you have a friend who secretly really annoys you? Eh, kind of, but I don’t count her as a friend per se.

Do you always have Pepsi at your house? I don’t think my parents buy Pepsi whenever they get softdrinks. I’ve only ever seen Coca-Cola bottles.

Do you flirt with anything that moves? No.

Do you watch Sponge Bob? I watched it regularly as a kid; as an adult, I’ll watch the older episodes from time to time.

Do you count sheep when you can't sleep? No.

Do you sweat easily? Nah. I’ve been told I rarely look like I sweat, actually.

Do you like pineapple? Not at all.

Do you refuse to wear something that's out of style? If it’s something that’s recently gone out of style, like culottes, then yeah. But if you mean like 90s stuff like fanny packs and mom jeans, I believe those things are back in style all over again.

Do you type 'u' or 'you'? I type both, depending on what I feel like using and who I’m talking to.

What is...

What is your best friend's name? Angela. Maybe Gabie? But mainly Angela.

What is your first girlfriend/boyfriend's name? See second name above.

What is your neighbour's name? I have no clue what any of their names are other than the director who lives two houses away; his name is Mac.

What is your least favorite swear word? Faggot.

What is the best and most romantic way to propose to someone? I think it will always be different per couple, and if a given couple wants a romantic proposal in the first place.

What is something that always makes you laugh? The show Friends.

What is the name of your hometown? That’ll stay a secret.

What is the most gentle way to turn someone down? Idk...haven’t really had to do this before, and the one time I did wasn’t the nicest way.

What is the ugliest girl name? 1) Can’t think of any, and 2) that’s just mean.

What is the most boring thing to do? Technically, waiting. Especially if it’s for something mundane, like lining up for a government service.

What is the funnest kind of question to answer? On surveys? I appreciate random questions the most.

What is the most useless thing you know? I’ve read a lot of ‘useless’ trivia on Reddit that I’ll probably never have to use or bring up in this lifetime.

What is your favorite pair of pants? My mom jeans, which I always mention when asked this.

What is the best flavour of ice cream? I personally root for cookies and cream.

[angelixii]

1-140 (anything you haven't answered already) - Felix

Oh, hello! Thanks for the ask!! 💕

3 fears - Spiders (I get frightened when I think about them) heights (slightly) and the public (anything like murder, kidnapped, ya know stupid people)

 3 Things I love - Music, Idols, and animals

 2 Turns on - ig Hats (like snapbacks) and glasses

 2 Turns off - oof I don’t really know.. ig self absorbed or a fudge boy

 My best friend - C: @straykids-sk (wuv you)

 How tall am I - 5′2

 What do I miss right now - My cat that passed away :c (her name was P.J)

 Favourite color - Blue, red, and sometimes green

 Do I have a crush - no not really

 Favourite place - my home

 What am I listening to right now - theres a website called asoftmurmur.com and it has noises like rain or waves and stuff like that

 Shoe size - pretty sure 10 in US womens

 Eye color - brown

 Hair color - light-ish brown

 Meaning behind my URL - I chose Felix cause hes my bias wrecker and hes angelic C:

 Favourite song - Theres like a million but 5SOS’s She Looks So Perfect wil always be a favorite (idk why)

 Favourite band - Ill just chose Stray Kids cause I don’t wanna write them all out

 How I feel right now - kinda tired but ig ok

 Someone I love - Ill say my best fren Georgia (@straykids-sk) cause i wuv her

 My current relationship status - single and i kinda wanna stay that way for a while

  My relationship with my parents - We all live in the same house and its just us (I have one other sister but she moved out. But shes here a lot tho) and we all get along well

 Favorite season - probably Spring c:

 Tattoos and piercing I have - none and I don’t really want any

 Tattoos and piercing I want - ^^^

The reasons I joined Tumblr - Georgia wanted me to and I thought it would be fun (I was right c:)

 Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? - no :/

 Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? - oh heel no she my best fren I would never

 How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? - when I have school like 20 minutes at max

 Have you shaved your legs in the past three days? - I did today

 Where am I right now? - at my house on my laptop c:

 Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? - reasonable level cause I’ve always had ear problems and they are sensitive (even tho I always have my earbuds in)

 Do I live with my Mom and Dad? - yup

 Am I excited for anything? - not that I can think of no

 Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? - nope :/

 How often do I wear a fake smile? - not THAT often

 If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? - oooof I don’t think I could answer that question

 What do I think about most? - probably k-pop

 Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? - Definitely behind

 What was the last lie I told? - It was kinda a joke but “i’ll do it because im the good child”

 Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? - Eh depends on who it is but facetiming/video chatting

 Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? - ghosts kinda and aliens, I mean sure we’ve barely discovered space, who knows whats out there

 Do I believe in magic? - sometimes yeah

 Do I believe in luck? - I mean yeah

 What’s the weather like right now?- theres nothing really going on

 What was the last book I’ve read? - uhhhhhh fully on my own (not in class)? The Maze Runner Scorch Trials

 Do I have any nicknames? - Kassadoodle, Kassidilla, Kassy

 Do I spend money or save it? - I’m trying to save as much as I can rn in my little money jar c:

 Can I touch my nose with a tounge? - nah

 Favourite animal? - Lions and Fennec Foxes

 What was I doing last night at 12 AM? - uhhh im pretty sure saying goodbye to Georgia on video chat

 What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? - oo um I cant really think of one rn :/

 What is my favorite word? - yeet

 My top 5 blogs on tumblr (not in any order)

@honeylixs

@zoxsu

@tinyfigureskater

@stray-kids-dork

@straykidsmate

 If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? - I probably wouldn’t say anything cause im shy and afraid people would judge me on what I say c:

 Do I have any relatives in jail? -not that I know of

What is my current desktop picture? - a pic of Bts

Had sex? Bought condoms? Gotten pregnant? Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? Had job? Smoked weed? Smoked cigarettes? Drank alcohol?

no to ALL those questions C:

Am I a vegetarian/vegan? - nope don’t think I could ever

Been overweight? - …

Been underweight? - no.

Gotten my heart broken? - nah

Been to prom? - nope

Been in airplane? - nope and I never want to really

Learned another language? - I take required (cause im one of the more intelligent kids in school. I know shocker right?) Spanish classes in school but im on summer break so I dont remember any c:

Wore make up?- nope

Dyed my hair? - nope

Had a surgery? - plenty of ear surgery and had my tonsils removed

Met someone famous? - nope

Stalked someone on a social network? - nope

Been fishing? - no but my dad has always wanted to take me and it sounds kinda fun

Been rejected by a crush? - nope never really had one and if I did I would never have the guts

What do I want for birthday? - ooo idk but i have to wait till next year anyway cause its already passed

Do I like my handwriting? - sometimes when my hand cooperates

Where do I want to live when older? - with my girl Georgia

Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? - nope ima good child (yeah ok suuureee)

What I’m really bad at - running :/

What my greatest achievments are - managing to keep straight A’s and I dont even study cause im online so

The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me - “u bird cage” - Georgia c;

What I’d do if I won in a lottery - ooooooooof idk

What do I like about myself - uhhhhh heh ig my hair or eyes/eyelashes

My closest Tumblr friend - Georgia (yes I do know her irl but shes honestly the closet tumblr friend I have so)

Any question you’d like? - hmm idk

Are you outgoing or shy? - definitely shy, unless with people im close to then quite crazy

What kind of people are you attracted to? - funny, cute and nice people

Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? - hA no

Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? - kinda

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? - oof idk

What does the most recent text that you sent say? “ohhhh no XDD” (sent to Georgia)

What are your 5 favorite songs right now? - (I already answered this question and don’t wanna answer again)

Do you like it when people play with your hair? - yes I love when freinds at school did (once we were watching a movie in Spanish and my friend next to me was playing with my hair and I almost fell asleep heh)

Do you think there is life on other planets? - totally

Do you like bubble baths? - I haven’t had one in forever

Do you like your neighbors? - only one cause I think im related to them somehow or they are to like my uncle

Where would you like to travel? - out of this hell hole country c:

Favorite part of your daily routine? - checking my tumblr and stanning talent

What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? - stomach

What do you do when you wake up? - check my notifications on my phone

Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? - I wish it was more tan than it is (im quite pale)

Do you ever want to get married? - yeah

If your hair long enough for a pony tail? - yes but I hate pony tails so I never do it (I used to all the time as a kid)

Would you rather live without TV or music? - I rarely watch t.v anymore and listen to music almost all day so

Have you ever liked someone and never told them? - I mean yeah

What are your favorite stores to shop in? - I dont really have one for clothes but I do like Walmart

Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? - I mean sometimes

Do you smile at strangers? - If the smile at me first yeah

Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? - not that I can remember no

Ever wished you were someone else? - no (as much as I hate myself no)

Favorite makeup brand? - son;t wear any so I dont got one

Last thing you ate? - a Reese cup

Ever won a competition? For what? - not a big one I can remeber no

Ever been in love? - c:

Facebook or Twitter? - dont have a fb and i barely use twitter anymore but twitter

Twitter or Tumblr? - DEFINITELy tumblr

Are you watching tv right now? - i mean its always on for bg noise and light so ig so

What color are your towels? - all kinds of colors

Favorite ice cream flavor? - either Strawberry with out the strawberries or cookie dough

First person you talked to today? - my mom

Last person you talked to today? - Georgia

Name a person you hate? - C: theres too many

Name a person you love? - once again, theres too many

Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? - C: theres too many

Do you tan a lot? - I barely go outside so thats a no

Have any pets? - too many

Do you type fast? - I mean kinda yeah

Do you regret anything from your past? - everything XD

Ever broken someone’s heart? - I highly doubt it

Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? - C:

Is cheating ever okay? - hell no

Do you believe in true love? - I mean sure

What your zodiac sign? - Pisces

Do you believe in ghosts? - why is this question on here twice?

Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page? (via catscuddlingandyou) - “…but not at all overwhelming, the balance of the different fragrances was subtle and flawless.” Twilight - Breaking Dawn (Do NOt ask me why thats the closest book its not mine and ive never read it and i NEVER plan on it)

oof that took like two hours heh.. its now currently 2:18am. and im very tired

but thanks for the ask anyway love! Im sorry for the wait! I was busy today. But im probably going to go to bed now

[amuelle]

An Invite….

AmuElle:

I was at my parents’ house when I got the invite. “This Friday Lee would like to cordially invite you to a birthday celebration. Bring your party spirit and let’s celebrate my birthday in style.” It was just a birthday dinner with five other people. I wouldn’t need shoes or a dress. Ms. Lithebe always has something to wear. I was rational, reasonable and relaxed. I RSVP-ed. I was surely going.

Strolling through the mall by chance I met up with Lee. As we spoke about the dinner, I realized I needed to get her a gift. A real gift! Not just M100 in a birthday card. Something thoughtful and sentimental. As we talked while pulling bottles of wine off the shelves she mentioned her guest list. She mentioned a few friends and family as I nodded as if my approval mattered. Then she casually mentioned her brother.

I froze. I had forgotten about him. Our interactions and conversations so seldom included him. I had forgotten…but how could I forget? A long standing crush that in my mind should have culminated in a long standing passionate love affair. I was always too scared to say something and he never saw me like that, but that was THEN! This is me now! In the past 17 years a lot has changed. Puberty ended and I learnt the fine art of a push up bra and shaved armpits. I’m not the teenage girl still struggling to find her voice or feel beautiful. She (me) had blossomed into a vivacious woman who doesn’t apologize for being Hennessey in a room of champagne drinkers.

He probably wasn’t the same either. The saggy jeans and durag were long gone. Its slim cut suites and designer shoes now. Maybe like most men my age he has lost his lust for life and settled into the stereotypical role of a “MAN”. Not like I haven’t seen him in all this time but I’m pretty sure I don’t know him like I used to.

On Friday I woke up early to sift through all the clothes I had packed to finally arrive at an outfit I thought said the right thing. My mind went from ‘I wanna enjoy tonight’ to ‘you need to make this man question his God tonight!’ I started considering booking a makeup artist and getting a new perfume. The one I had said “I smell nice, don’t forget me’” but it was apologetic. It doesn’t boldly enter the room as an offensive announcement of my presence, nor does it represent the spectacular seductress that I am. Sense had left my body. After running around town with my bantu knots in the desire for an immaculate twist out. I sat in front of the mirror wondering if doing my make up for two hours was really necessary.

16:30….I should have left half an hour ago. This winged eyeliner took 20 minutes too long to get just right. I looked fine, no, I looked fantastic! Even my nieces’ gave the go ahead. I was out the door. Gifts in the back seat, driving shoes on. I’d change my shoes before I headed inside, least I ruin a great outfit. This was really happening.

 The Poet:

It was the delicate shade of pink on her toes in a snake skin stiletto that brought a flood of memories. Toes I hadn’t seen in years. The last time I saw her was the last time I saw her. We talked till the early hours of the morning and she would disappear for the next two years until today. NOW, this moment here she stood in the doorway holding a bunch of roses and a bottle of champagne. Her skirt almost offensively short but because it’s her, it was incredible.

I’m clutching the camera different now because I’m pretending to be normal. I take a photo of her walking in. As always she caught me off guard. I knew she was coming. I dressed like I knew she would be here but still I’m surprised. I’m never ready for her. I always forget (to my own detriment) how it feels to be around her. She hugs me. “What’s cooking good looking?” she says and I reply cool as a cucumber that it’s all good. She walks in greeting the other guests leaving a trail of her perfume through the door way. I’ll never forget that smell, it’s her smell. Another woman could wear it but it would never smell like it does on her. It’s memorable because of her.

I avoid her for part of the evening to fulfil my camera man duties but inevitably as always I find myself drawn to her.  Then she begins to weave her magic on me. She might be one of the most talkative people I know but when she listens, she listens deeply. It feels like she can hear your heart beat and whatever you say matters the most in that moment. She laughs at all my jokes and asks why everything always ends up sexual. I know I’m not being sexual, it’s her way of planting seeds and it always makes my cheeks tingle. I love how she never says it plainly. I understand that she loves to preserve the mystery and the mystery excites me.

I’ve wondered what it would have been like if we had both been braver back then. Would it have been a love for the decades? Would we be married now? I wonder what my kids with her would look like. Maybe we would have ruined it and now be two people who don’t even speak. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant to be. I love to enjoy her aura. Her clever puns and sexual innuendos after the occasional touch on my thigh and her gazing into my eyes like she can see my soul. But this is all it was meant to be for me.

The party winds down and after letting her laugh at me for an hour, I have to leave. I need to leave. She has that look in her eye. That one last drink before we end the night that might lead to expectations and disappointments. I’m not that guy, I’ve never been that guy. Not the one she wanted anyway. I’m still full of life and youth. The freedom of it all is seductive.

She came outside to say goodbye and for some reason I touched her shoulder as she walked away. I was just making sure she was real. I wanted her to look at me over her shoulder and wink. Instead she turned around and asked why I was being weird. Before I knew it the words had left my lips. “I wanted to be sure it was you.” Her forehead crinkled and she asked who I was expecting. I thought. No one, baby girl. Just you. 

 AmuElle:

I got home just in time to beat the curfew. Of all the things I took into consideration when planning my day, I had forgotten that we are still in a lock down. The police are on the roads patrolling…looking for spot fines and I can’t put myself in a situation I cant gauge.

That awkward touch on the shoulder was warm. I had forgotten how warm and soft his hands were. Not half hoping, I was full on hoping I’d grab my phone and there would be a text saying “you looked beautiful tonight, it was wonderful to see you”. But no text, not even a butt dial.

Then for some reason after every stitch of concealer, foundation, contour and high light was gone from my face, I get phone balls. I don’t know what he will say or think but after tonight I have a deep certainty that the magic wasn’t one sided. I just remembered why I was so afraid back then. Even after all my blossoming, I still had the same fear. I started typing. It didn’t matter now, this wouldn’t change things I convinced myself. Sent. There we go, its done.

Good night world

The moral of the story is nothing, shoot your shot and live!!!

Bisou bisou

[fuckyeahjamieandclaire]

It turns out love can conquer crow’s feet. Executive producer Maril Davis on the period drama’s decision to let love, not age lines, drive Claire and Jamie’s reunion arc despite a 20-year time jump.

There’s always been plenty to envy about Claire and Jamie, the star-crossed couple whose centuries-spanning romance propels the period drama Outlander. They’re capable, brave, and beautiful, blessed by an unbreakable bond, strong convictions, and even stronger sex drives. Since the series’ first season, their ear-pleasing accents, smoldering, soul-searching looks, telegenic love-making, and repeated rescues of each other’s lives have set a high standard, relationship-wise. But recent episodes of Outlander have introduced us to yet another quality we wish we had in common with Claire and Jamie: They’re almost immune to aging.

By their third seasons, many TV series settle into a rut—a familiar and welcome one, in the case of some comfort TV, but less so for hour-long dramas with fantasy elements, which traffic in twists and upheaval. But disrupting the status quo wasn’t a struggle for Outlander, an adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s book series, which comprises eight novels (with a ninth on the way) and assorted shorter works. Through 37 episodes, the Starz series’ story is still closer to takeoff than landing, working through the third book in the sequence, 1993’s Voyager.

The events of Voyager dictated an unorthodox interlude for a program that’s centered on the interplay (and intercourse) between two charismatic and chemistry-laden leads: an extended separation and a mutual 20-year time jump. At the end of Season 2, the pregnant Claire (a 20th-century English nurse who in the first season accidentally slips into the past through, um, a mystical stone) and Jamie (her 18th-century, red-haired highlander lover) are forced to break up by the impending Battle of Culloden, at which Jamie, a Jacobite rebel, expects to be (and nearly is) killed.

To protect their soon-to-be-born daughter Brianna, Claire (played by Caitriona Balfe) returns to the 1940s. Believing that Jamie (played by Sam Heughan) did die, she does her best to move on, relocating to Boston, raising Brianna, becoming a doctor, and growing apart from her first husband, Frank, who’s caring and attentive but lacks Jamie’s highland lilt, kilt collection, and Men’s Health cover physique. Jamie, meanwhile, survives battle, torture, and imprisonment (nothing new for him), grows and shaves a big beard, fathers a son, pivots to printing and smuggling, and gets married again out of loneliness, all while carrying an eternal torch for Claire. Midway through the third season, after almost five episodes apart, they reunite in the mid-1760s, two decades older but no less in love—and, curiously, looking a lot like they did the last time they were together.

“I wanted to look—well, the same as when you last saw me,” Claire says with some trepidation during their first conversation, admitting that she’s dyed away the single gray streak that had appeared in her hair in earlier, Boston-centric scenes. Mission accomplished, Claire. Neither member of Outlander’s leading duo looks any worse for wear after 20 years of imprisonment, parenthood, and pining for lost love. 

For Outlander’s creators, the time jump presented a production dilemma, not because of the story (which Gabaldon had already plotted out) or setting (most viewers aren’t well-versed in the intricacies of 1740s vs. 1760s style), but because of the actors’ appearances. In real life, a two-decade difference isn’t invisible, no matter how much St. Ives Oatmeal and Shea Butter Lotion you lather on because of Balfe.

Heughan, 37, and Balfe, 38, were both 34 when the series premiere aired in 2014, but their characters were considerably younger. “Jamie’s kind of early 20s, Claire is late 20s when it starts,” Outlander executive producer Maril Davis says by phone. Three years passed between Claire’s first time jump back to 1743 and the Battle of Culloden, which, Davis says, would put both of them in their “mid- to later-40s after the [20-year] time jump.” Although the creators talked about shortening the story’s time jump to reduce the need to alter the actors’ appearance, they found that they couldn’t do it without omitting too many plot points from the characters’ time apart.

Aware that the time jump was looming, the producers started doing screen tests last season with Balfe and Heughan, in consultation with head of hair and makeup Annie McEwan, who had worked on Season 4 of Game of Thrones before joining the Outlander crew. After experimenting with various looks, the creative team decided, essentially, that both Balfe and Heughan were too hot to convincingly tamper with by obscuring their actual features. “We have two actors who happen to be incredibly beautiful people,” Davis says. “It is hard to make them look bad, damn them.” Originally, the pair’s first post-reunion sex scene featured a reference to stretch marks, but the writers lost that line from the script, Davis says, when the makeup crew informed them that stretch marks “don't read very well on camera.”

Even apart from the specific challenge of wrinkling, graying, and thickening two age-resistant actors, the transition from 20s to 40s is a particularly tough one. “It's hard to make young people look incrementally older,” Davis says. “It's obviously a little easier—and I put ‘easier’ in quotes—if you're aging someone up from like 30 to 80. … With two actors who look so young anyways in their real life, we realized that we couldn't do major jumps without it looking fake, and also taking a lot of extra time in hair and makeup, as well as using a lot of extra prosthetics.”

For Davis, a veteran of more explicitly sci-fi (and more makeup- and prosthetic-reliant) productions such as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, Outlander’s understated approach to the aging process didn’t come intuitively. “There were some times that I said to our hair and makeup team, ‘Can we go farther? Because you can't read some of these lines that you're painting on camera,’” Davis says. “And they were horrified. They were like, ‘Are you kidding? Oh my god, we can't go any farther.’ It's interesting, because you also have to take the advice of people that have been in the business doing the hair and makeup a long time, knowing that they can only go so far until they feel uncomfortable because it doesn't look real anymore.”

In addition to the aging uncanny valley, there’s the time cost to the talent and crew to consider. A heavier hand on the cosmetic side—on top of the prosthetic flogging scars already applied to Heughan’s back in shirtless scenes for much of the series’ run—would mean much more time in makeup chairs, staring blankly into mirrors as fake years and real hours add up. Though according to Davis, Balfe and Heughan, who were frequently consulted, never expressed any reservations about hiding their youth under veneers of age. “They're both very game for whatever we want to do, and so this isn't a vanity thing,” she says. “Neither of them, I don't think, at any point has ever said, ‘I have to look good, so don't make me look too old.’”

This was a weighty decision, because the ramifications for the series could extend far into the future. Unlike some shows or movies that might insert a brief flash-forward in a single scene or episode, Outlander is committed to the time jump for the long term. Whatever aging the crew applied to Balfe and Heughan now would sentence them to the same look for years to come on a series that may still be relatively early in its run (which already has been renewed for a fourth season). That’s not only a nuisance, but potentially an acting inhibitor, as Davis says Heughan discovered while wearing his wild beard in the third season’s second episode. “If you have something on your face like that, sometimes it's a little harder to talk, you're more aware of it, it takes you out,” Davis says. “So all of these things are factors, and same with if we were getting into heavy prosthetics to make actors appear much older than they are.”

The end result of all the discussion and screen tests is a difference so subtle that you have to squint to see it—just like the new, older Jamie has to squint to see small text without wearing his reading glasses. Specs aside, he looks almost unchanged. “With Sam, we've kind of weathered him, adding more shading to his face,” Davis says. “We've got some lines that the hair and makeup department have put in themselves, and then greying at the temples for him, as well as with Caitriona. We realized because her skin is also so young that we'd have to sell a lot of it with the gray in her hair.” Of course, even that gray is gone now, at least temporarily, although Davis says its absence stems from an impulse to portray Claire’s humanizing insecurity, rather than a need to preserve the stars’ romance-novel looks (which she acknowledges are part of the show’s appeal). “So much of our talk about appearance is motivated from a character standpoint,” she says. “I don't think we ever go, ‘Oh my god, they have to look amazing because this show is trying to sell a fantasy element.’” But who’s to say that the mystical stones don’t have anti-aging effects?

In navigating the time jump, the producers’ overriding desire was to avoid distracting the audience by going overboard on aging. “You don't want to be taken out of the moment, sitting back watching at home,” Davis says. At times, though, the lack of aging is its own sort of distraction. My wife and I giggled through one supposed-to-be-tender scene as the script tried to sell us on these nearly identical-looking 30-something specimens as people pushing 50. “I don’t look like an old man?” Jamie asks self-consciously, shortly before exposing his still-chiseled chest. And Claire, after completely disrobing to reveal her youthful frame, tells an admiring Jamie, "You must really be losing your eyesight." Nobody’s buying it, guys.

The aging-related dialogue is less jarring when it alludes to the absurdity of the situation, as when Claire marvels to Jamie, “Most men in their 40s have started to go soft around the middle. You haven't a spare ounce on you,” or when she greets the family lawyer by exclaiming, “You look exactly the same!” (No Battlestar fat suits here.) In other scenes, though, the actors convincingly convey the passage of time through emotion, even though they both remain outwardly radiant. “We had so many discussions with Caitriona and Sam about this internal aging, because some of it, you are trying to sell this gravitas of 20 years of loss through their acting, which I think they do so well,” Davis says.

The best asset Outlander has in hand-waving its characters’ immutability is an audience that’s willing to suspend disbelief. “Let's be honest, we could've kept these two apart for a week and it would've seemed like an eternity,” Davis says. “I think for the fans it probably seemed like 100 years—for us as well. So I don't think we needed to add to that at all.”And if—like a lot of the Outlander faithful—you’re the sentimental type who doesn’t mind some soapiness, you’ll accept that love can conquer crow’s feet. “I think in a weird way, that 20 years just kind of faded away when they saw each other again,” Davis says. “In some ways, it was like so much time had passed, and in other ways it was like no time had passed at all because that love had never died.”

With the reunion episode’s semi-awkward aging exchanges behind it, Outlander soon stops dwelling on appearances: The following week, Jamie fireman’s carries a man from a burning building, and the week after that, not-so-newlyweds Claire and Jamie tear off their clothes and writhe around on the floor. Most Outlander watchers wouldn’t have it any other way.

Judging by the books (spoilers!), there’s still a chance that we’ll see an actually old-looking Claire and Jamie in future seasons. “If we're lucky enough to do all the books, they're in their 60s in the current books,” Davis says. “So we do want to also have somewhere to go, and we do need to use, as a base, our two actors, who are very young, and so we want to be with them on this journey.”

But based on this season, don’t be surprised if the 60-something couple doesn’t look a day over 45. “Time doesn’t matter, Sassenach,” Jamie says in Season 3’s sixth episode, using his pet name for Claire. “You will always be beautiful to me.” And also, most likely, to everyone watching at home.

[nostalgiaispeace]

748.

1. You’re seeing someone (but not dating them officially yet). You’re about to meet each other for another date, and they walk up to you with a GIANT hickey on their neck. How do you react?: i’d be weirded out tbh 2. Your best friend is having a party to celebrate a big achievement they made. However, your significant other invites you out on a date and they say it’ll be very special. Who do you chose, and why?: my best friends don’t live near me so i’d probably go with my husband. 3. You’re in a grocery store, and you spot a $50 bill on the ground. No one else is around, and no one would know if you took it for yourself. What do you do?: take it. 4. Your best friend is in a relationship. They constantly cheat on their partner, which makes you upset. One day, their partner comes to you and says they suspect your best friend of cheating. They want to know if you have any information about that. What do you tell them?: probably would tell them to talk to their partner and then tell my best friend she needs to tell them.

5. You want to give yourself a make-over before you see your friends at school/work again. You decide to dye your hair, get a body mod (either a tattoo and/or piercing, can be moderate like an ear piercing or more wild like a medusa piercing), and try some new make-up. What color do you dye your hair, what mod do you get, and what does your make-up experiment look like?: red; tattoo; cat eyes 6. You overhear one of your co-workers talking about how they constantly steal from the company, but no one knows it. You really dislike this co-worker because they’re constantly slacking off, and they don’t treat you very well. What do you do with this bit of information you just heard?: tell the manager. 7. One of your friends goes out of their way to change their appearance. They decide to try an entirely new look. They come to you and ask you what you think afterwards. Unfortunately, you think they look terrible and that this new look is completely unflattering. However, they LOVE it. What do you say to them?: I wouldn’t care if it made them happy. 8. You’re picking out a ring at the jewelry store to be engraved. Once you pick it out, the jeweler takes it from the case and heads to the back room to engrave it. You notice she left the case unlocked and open, making it extremely easy to take anything from inside it. There’s no cameras, and no one is around. What do you do?: nothing. 9. Your significant other leaves the room to go to the bathroom. You notice they left their cellphone on the nightstand, unguarded. A text arrives from one of their exes. Do you look at the phone?: if it was his ex, yeah lol 10. Someone offers you a million dollars to get a name tattooed on you. It can be any name, even your own. Whose name do you get tattooed on you, and why?: Marilyn Monroe. because she’s everything. 11. You’re walking past a middle school and notice a boy no older than twelve being teased and bullied by a group of older kids. You’re an adult, but you’re alone. Do you try to stop the older kids? Why or why not?: yes; because that’s bullshit if i walked away. 12. At your job, an attractive new assistant manager was just hired. You’re single, and have been for a while. You notice the manager subtly hitting on you, and finally offers their number. Do you take the opportunity for a relationship, even though they’re your superior?: i’m not sure.......i’m married and he’s the only person i ever truly dated so i have no idea tbh 13. One of your best female friends finds out she’s pregnant. Her boyfriend has just left her, and she has no money to support a baby, let alone herself. She comes to you for advice on what to do with the pregnancy. What do you tell her is best?: tell her to do what’s best for her. 14. You catch your significant other in bed with another person who you don’t recognize. Who do you yell at first, and why? What do you say?: i’d be in shock and probably run and leave...probably wouldn’t yell until later...i don’t want to even think about this wtf 15. You’re on a first date with someone. They’re cute and all, but their personality drives you up a wall and you really want to leave. However, they seem REALLY into you. How do you end this date?: tell them i want to go home? 16. The person you dislike (maybe even hate) the most is across the street from you, texting on their phone and not paying attention to the world around them. They begin to cross a busy street. It looks clear, but when they look down to text again, a few cars start coming at quick speeds. This person still doesn’t look up or pay attention; they’re engrossed in their phones. Do you sit back and let them get hit, or do you do something? What do you do?: I’d yell for them to move 17. You’re at the mall and you notice your best friend’s significant other holding hands with their preferred sex. They seem pretty close to that person, and then you see them start kissing. What do you do?: tell my best friend. 18. You’re at a party and everyone is smoking and drinking. You really want to have a good time, but you’re having trouble opening up. Someone offers you a pill and says it’ll make you open up. Do you take it? What do you say?: no 19. You’ve been dating someone for a little over two months. You like them a lot, but you wouldn’t say it’s love just yet. They come to you one day and say they have a surprise you’ll love. They lift up their shirt and show you that they tattooed your name on their stomach with a heart around it. How do you react?: i’d tell them they’re dumb. 20. Your older sibling is a notorious d-bag. They lead people on just to get into their pants, then brag to their friends about it the next day. One of your friends expresses romantic interest in your sibling, and your sibling starts using their typical romantic BS talk on them to try and get into their pants. You try explaining to your friend how your sibling is an asshole d-bag, but they seem to think you’re lying. What do you do?: i don’t have an older sibling. 21. One of your very good friends expresses romantic interest in you. However, you are far from interested in them. They keep hinting at going out with you. They flirt with you, they buy you cutesy things, and start telling their friends that you and them are “practically a couple”. What do you do about this?: this has happened to me and i told them to back the fuck off. 22. You’re at the library. You notice a teenage girl in the corner crying. She’s dressed in all black, with black lipstick and a spiked collar. To you, she looks a wee bit threatening with her style. Do you approach her and ask what’s wrong anyway?: yes...and that look isn’t even threatening wtf 23. You’re a sophomore in high school. While in one of your elective classes, you see one of the seniors in the back of the room showing one of their friends a small handgun they have. Do you report it? Why or why not?: yes; because that’s fucked up. 24. You’re interested in someone new, and you tell your best friend about it. However, you notice your best friend starts flirting with this new person, even after you told them that you were going to talk to them. How do you react?: i’d be pissed probably? 25. Your younger sister, who is 10, comes up to you and asks for information about diet and exercise. When you ask why she wants to know, she tells you that she wants to go on a diet because she thinks she’s overweight. She also wants to start shaving and wearing makeup, because she thinks “boys will like her better” if she does. What advice do you give her?: I’d tell her that she’s too young to worry about such things.

[mychemicalrant]

An Autism Reflection

I am going to do a write up of childhood and adult observations about why I think I might be on the spectrum. It’s a little TL;DR, sorry.

When I was a kid I had trouble understanding the concept of familial and friend love. My friends would say “I love you” and I’d always saw “ewww, you can’t love me!” in response. It took me many years to understand the concept of love applied to family and friends and more years still to decide whether I loved other people. I can now say that I love my dad and that is very obvious but I can’t say I love any other biological family members just because they are biologically related. When I got married, I met many people in my partner’s family that I can say I love on a personal level but I don’t feel “love” simply because I am now legally related to someone.

Love as a feeling doesn’t come naturally to me and it certainly didn’t come easily as a social concept. You are supposed to say “love” in social contexts even when you don’t feel it because love isn’t so much a feeling as it is a social handshake of sorts, I suppose. But I do think for many people love comes from a real place in them. When I was a kid the thought of claiming to feel an emotion I did not feel was utterly incomprehensible. If I seemed hurtful this may have been why. I didn’t attack others on purpose but if I seemed insensitive it came from the fact that I did not understand why we had to display affection when we didn’t feel it. I would always make the grandmother I didn’t see very often cry and I never knew why. I guess that’s why? I feel extremely uncomfortable opening gifts in front of others because I am afraid I will have to perform excitement and not be able to. I hate weddings and funerals because I honestly don’t give a shit about the emotional context but everyone expects you to put on a display of sadness or joy or whatever and I don’t even feel that, let alone want to display it.

One time I went to the dentist for a filling on a bottom tooth and he numbed the spot but found when he went to work on it that it wasn’t numbed. Some other part of my jaw had gotten numbed instead. This went on for two more shots until we finally got the right spot numbed and he told me I had crossed nerves. My emotions are the same way. Funerals and death barely seem to phase me (I cried for maybe 5 minutes when I found out my mom had died when I was ten) but I’ll genuinely cry over some random thing.

I often can’t identify my emotions at all, although I am working on this. As a Pagan I had explained this as having a closed heart chakra. As a personality enthusiast I had explained this as being an INTJ or an Enneagram 5 and therefore bad at emotions. But the more I studied these things the more I realized something still wasn’t getting answered. INTJs are stereotyped as being effective, successful, and driven people despite preferring introversion. That’s not...really me. But INTPs are stereotyped as being scattered and flexible and I need to have routines and obsess over increments of things such as time, money, or resources. I am very internally organized and this extends to the outer world as well. I get frustrated going off the plan or making changes or not being able to account for something because a new variable came up. But since discovering that I might be on the spectrum it actually feels like a puzzle piece snapping into place. My whole life makes sense, even (and especially) the things I have been made to feel ashamed about.

Having autism means you process and prioritize information differently, and for high functioning females this can be hard to identify at first. I made it through school okay. I didn’t have any significant learning difficulties except being extraordinarily bad at math (like, took pre-algebra four times from 7th grade to college bad) and having to do a Title 1 remedial reading course in elementary school. I didn’t have trouble focusing and I excelled at writing tasks. I had extreme struggles learning things I had no interest in but managed to get good enough grades anyway. I was easy enough to get along with and although I didn’t have any friends at school until 9th grade I made it by okay. (Most of my friends were male or tomboys and always 1-3 years younger than me.)

Dating, socializing, and friend-making were never easy for me but I didn’t think this indicated that I had a disability in these areas. I had always assumed I was just really bad at it? Like, I share no interests with other people and am genuinely not interested in other people. As a kid I was desperate to play with other kids but couldn’t bridge the social gap to ask and would only play with one close friend at a time when I did have friends. But as an adult I keep to myself pretty much. I didn’t really think this was an indicator of a disability or cognitive situation because I had just accepted it as a part of my life. My interests are intense, particular, and not always popular. My interests are also geared for the wrong demographic compared to what I am. People and socializing are utterly boring to me. I prefer solitary tasks. So on and so forth. It wasn’t until I hit post college that I started to realize I had a real problem, which will be its own post.

When I’m honest with myself, I feel mentally at the age of twelve. I fixate and obsess over things well below my age group. When I was in my twenties I figured, well, your twenties are like an extended teenage time, right? But then I hit thirty and realized this is when you need to start showing the world that you are an adult. Drink mimosas and don’t do it through a straw. Know what an IRA is and know how to climb the corporate ladder. Don’t fixate on t-shirts and small collectable objects. Don’t obsess over tiny objects in the shape of US states. Stop hyperfocusing on the color of everybody’s eyelashes. Care about babies and home ownership and marriage.

I’m learning some fascinating things about girls on the spectrum. A lot of girls with Asperger’s have issues with gender identity and feel out of place in a woman’s life or with female gender roles. Girls with autism have a special challenge in life, because female gender roles are socially dependent in a way that male roles aren’t. Boys are taught to be independent and girls are taught to form social groups. Right out of the gate girls are being trained to be social-minded, which in one sense means girls are essentially getting autism therapy right from birth, which may explain why girls with Asperger’s don’t display traits in the same way that boys do. But as girls grow up they tend to respond to the challenges of being autistic in different ways. A primary way that I’ve come to learn through my research is to cope by mimicking the behavior of those around them and giving the appearance of understanding and performing those roles.

However, I think there’s another coping mechanism, and it’s the one I’ve chose. I’ve coped by more or less shunning social expectations and finding myself in male dominated spaces like video games and anime, etc. Nerd spaces are safe for a reason because it allows us both to indulge in our love of fantasy and world-building and also to fixate on something that isn’t sexually or socially driven. If you think about it, neurotypical gender interests stem from sex and signalling that one is sexually available. For women, it’s beauty and fashion and displays of attractiveness. For men, it’s sports and cars and other things that signal masculinity and strength. But for people with autism sexual stuff can get lost in translation so I have chosen to ignore those roles and not perform them at all, much to the chagrin of my parents growing up.

I shave my head in the bathroom sink for convenience. I never wear makeup (primarily because I can’t stand the sensation of goopy shit on my skin but also because I see absolutely no point in it). My clothes are mostly practical and comfortable. I can only wear breathable fabrics so tight frilly blouse-type fabrics are torture and I have only worn them a handful of times in my life. I wore bras only when I had to and went without most of the time. I never thought about the role that sensory sensitivities played in my dressing decisions but they are 100 percent the reason behind all the decisions I make, second only now to my OCD intolerance of fabrics that drape and touch nearby objects as I pass. Anyway, I’m not pretty but I am practical and functional.

I may not have stated that I felt inundated by a sea of sensory overload until I realized why that is. One thing I have done to cope is to fixate. As a kid I fixated on seemingly little things like sequins or collectable items I wanted. When I fixate on acquiring something (food, objects, whatever) I can tune out other things like how I’m feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed. I still do this and at 31 years old I fixate more or less on the same things I did as a kid. One thing of fascination to me is colors, especially objects that come in many colors. Christmas lights is my earliest example of this, but as an adult it could explain my love of crystals. All crystals are rocks but they come in many colors and I love this so much. As a kid I was obsessed with tiny colored boxes. As an adult I went to The Container Store and bought them in every color. I’m still. You guys. I love colors so much.

I use food as a stim mechanism. At restaurants I feel almost entirely overwhelmed by the fluctuating environment of people moving and spinning and crawling all around you, plates being shoved into and out of your face, servers touching you and reaching over you, lights and sounds and crap. But I never noticed I was feeling so anxious by this (or I just chalked it up to my OCD) until I realized that the only thing I can willfully focus on when at a restaurant is the food. When is the food coming when is the food coming when is the food coming when is the food coming food is here food is here eat eat eat quick get it over with so we can leave why is the check taking so long I’ll have another piece of bread etc. I find myself eating even when I don’t want to out of the compulsive and comforting motion of reaching back and forth to my mouth, chewing, and so on. I used to overeat as a kid out of boredom but now I hardly eat at all because I get distracted and forget. I didn’t think of myself as a stimmer, though. The kind of stimming where people know that’s what you’re doing because you are rocking or otherwise zoned out in some very obvious movement that doesn’t fit the social context. Because I wasn’t doing that, I didn’t realize that what I was actually doing was stimming. Bouncing my leg so furiously that people thought I was convulsing. Picking my skin for hours. Constantly having my hands at my mouth or picking at some fabric or fraying the paper label on a bottle. I am almost always stimming in some fashion or another but the stims are pretty subtle. I mean, everyone clicks pens, right? Drinking and eating are stims and I often have a coffee when I go out because the act of raising the straw to my mouth gives me a physical action to do that comforts and calms me. There’s a lot to say on this topic so I’ll just move on for now. My point is, for females with high functioning autism it isn’t always obvious by male autistic behavioral standards because we have learned many masking techniques or just took the hit and identified as nerdy or non-binary or asexual or some other label that we thought explained it. The more I dig, though, the more I am amazed at how much of me stems from this potential. It’s heavy, though. I have a cousin with low functioning autism (we didn’t use that word back then; you know which word we used) and to realize I might be on the same spectrum is something to sit with, for sure. But it’s also a profound relief to think that all of these things aren’t my fault. I drove my parents absolutely insane growing up and always felt so much shame for it. They blamed me for not performing socially appropriate behavior or performing at my age level socially and now, to think there might be a reason for it is profoundly liberating and heals me on such a deep level. I can feel the Maniac Magee knot of self-hatred and loathing and blame starting to untangle at last.It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.

[intimatevoid]

Stolen from @littledonkeyburrito, as usual~

1. Do you prefer guys to shave down there? I have no preference. As long as the hair isn't making things difficult, like getting caught in hands and toys and teeth, he can do what he wants.

2. Do you prefer liquid, mousse or powder foundation? Why? I don’t really think about it because I don't wear foundation. My skin's clear enough that I don't need it, and even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t wear it because I would sweat it off in minutes. (Setting spray? I destroy setting spray ;A; it’s the worst.)

3. How much does your mother know about your sex life (or lack thereof)? Next to nothing, I guess. All she knows is that I've been with Ash for a while, and that I was with Seb for a while too.

4. Do you enjoy watching cooking shows? Not really. Like if one's on in a waiting room or something then I'll absently watch, but if I have any say in the matter then I don't know watch them.

5. Do you worry about gaining weight? Only if it affects my health somehow. Aside from a recent fluctuation from hormonal fuckery, I can usually do whatever I want without my weight changing at all.

6. Have you ever used fake tan? Nah, I've never needed to. I tan really dark, really quickly.

7. How do you organize your make-up? I just put different kinds into little ziplock bags to keep them from getting lost in my makeup bag. Pens in one, eye-shadow and eye brushes in the other.

8. Do you ever look at someone cute, and automatically make a move? Hahaha, holy fuck, I would never have confidence in my own desirability to do something like that. What would the point even be?

9. Do you live in a house, apartment, or another type of arrangement? An apartment, but I’m hoping like crazy that later this year I’m able to move into a house.

10. What’s one event your town has that you don’t like to participate in? Toowoomba has the Carnival of Flowers. I usually avoid it because it’s too hot, and too noisy.

11. Are any of your siblings married? What are their spouses’ names? Nope, though Clare (the bitchy, transphobic one) is engaged to a lovely guy named Simon who deserves so much better.

12. Does your father have any creepy or scary friends you don’t like? I haven’t spoken to my dad in years. I haven’t spoken to any of his friends in even longer. Though he’s all about being friends with Jesus, who certainly creeps me the fuck out. Does he count?

13. Do you watch any shows that you know your parents wouldn’t approve of? Ha! Literally anything that’s not conservative or whatever, they would disapprove.

14. What venue was the last real concert you went to at? Some concert hall in Brisbane, I don’t remember what it’s called.

15. Does your best friend and their mom have the same last name? Yes, no, no, yes, and half plus their dad’s last name.

16. What color is your cellphone? Black.

17. Are you currently waiting for a phone call? From whom? No, thank fuck.

18. Do you have any drugs in your bedroom? No

19. Is there a feature on your face that people compliment you on? Sometimes my eyes or my skin.

20. What are your plans for the rest of the week? Nothing, thank fuck. This past week has been exhausting and I am grateful for the chance to finally fucking rest.

21. How many studded belts do you own? None.

22. Has your partner ever had braces? I don’t think so?

23. What have you eaten today?

 A sandwich, and some spicy noodles.

24. What’s your favourite thing to do? Quietly spend socially antisocial time with loved one/s, perhaps gaming or reading, gently touching but otherwise not interacting.

25. Did you wear a jacket today? Lord no, it’s way too hot.

26. Have you kissed more than two people of the same sex? Eyyyup!

27. How many times have you had sex in one day? Twice I think? Or maybe only once. I don’t have sex very often.

28. Did you exercise at all today? Nope, but I’m scheduled for it tomorrow.

29. Would you ever move far away for a job opportunity? Only if the new location was geographically close to somebody I care about. I’ve worked too fucking hard on my relationships to waste it all by distancing myself from any more of my loved ones.

30. Are you too shy/embarrassed to tell people your middle name? Negatory.

31. If not, what is it? No bc internet, but anyone who knows me well will know it anyway.

32. What day of the week is garbage day on your street? I always forget the exact day; it’s either Tuesday or Wednesday.

33. What is something new you learned today? That it’s possible to complete Dark Souls without ever levelling up.

34. Do you need a haircut? Not a full haircut, but I do need a trim. It’s been about six months since my last one and my split ends are insane.

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards? If I try, yeah.

36. When was the last time you ate popcorn? Too long ago! Probably during a D&D session.

37. Do you like eating out at restaurants? Cheap restaurants. The more expensive they get, the less I enjoy the atmosphere.

38. Is your name common? My first and middle names are semi-common, and my surname is very rare, at least in australia.

39. Do you look older or younger than your actual age? Before I transitioned, I was mistaken for up to ten years older. Now that I’ve transitioned, always younger.

40. Were you ever a Pokemon fan? Yus!

41. If you could get rid of one season, which one would you choose? Of which show?

42. Have you ever performed in front of a large group? A couple of times, yeah.

43. Are you hungry right now? Nah, I just ate.

44. Have you ever had the chicken pox? Nope. I should probably get vaccinated. 44. How often do you do laundry? About once a week.

45. Do you know anyone who snores? I do. It sucks, cause I used to not snore at all. Then randomly, about a year and a half ago, I just started snoring for no reason at all. 46. Would you make a good movie critic? I think, with some training, I could. I’m good at being analytical and critical of things. 47. What goal are you aiming for this year? 1) Move house in March/April, 2) yisit Dusty in May/June, and 3) build a computer in July when my tax return comes in! 48. What’s the farthest you’ve walked? In one day? Hard to say, I used to walk a lot but not so much anymore. 49. What does your favourite shirt look like? My current fave is just a plain black blouse. I like it because it goes with almost everything. 

... what? I’m poor, I don’t own much clothing. 50. What made you feel most accomplished in your life so far? Realising just how many people I’ve surrounded myself with who care about me. Realising that I’m going to be okay. 51. What can’t you afford but wish you could? BASIC LIVING REQUIREMENTS LIKE DECENT FOOD AND CLOTHING AND STUFF LIKE THAT

Last 10 people in your Facebook messages inbox: (excluding group chats)

1.       Moses

2.       Sage

3.       Ash

4.       Maz

5.       Kathryn

6.       Maddie

7.       Seb

8.       Chloe

9.       Tammy

10.     Ruin

1. How long have you known 1? Since the day he was born.

2. When did you meet 2? A few years ago, though we didn’t really talk til Miitomo became a thing.

3. When was the last time you saw 3? About half an hour ago.

4. Have you and 4 ever gotten into trouble together before? Oh ho ho, have we ever.

5. How old is 5? 31? I think?

6. Have you ever taken a shower at 6’s house? Nope, I’ve never been to her place at all.

7. Have you ever taken a dump at 7’s house? Haha, yeah.

8. Have you ever thought about going out with 8? Mmmmmmmaybe :3

9. What about 9? Not going out, but we’ve fooled around together.

10. Would you ever go out with 10 or ask 10 out? I actually used to want to, but now we’ve settled into a much more satisfying dynamic.

11. What’s the best memory you have had with 1? No specific ones, but watching him start animating from scratch and achieve great things has been amazing.

12. What’s 2′s lastname? nooooot my place to spill it on the internet :P

13. Would you ever take a bullet for 3? Maybe. It’s hard to say without the situation actually happening.

14. What would you do if 4 died? I’d be pretty fuckin’ sad.

15. What would you do if you found out 5 killed someone that you were related to? Depends on who it was. I’m not very close to most of my relatives.

16. Would you take care of 6 if they were sick? Of course, assuming she was close enough to do so.

17. Would you kill 7 if it was the only way for your other friends to survive? Yep. Sorry dude. If it’s any consolation, I’d say the same for literally everyone else on this list.

18. Has 8 ever cooked for you? She has not, on account of her living half a world away. But we have promised to cook for each other when we finally meet!

19. How many times have you and 9 fought? I don’t think we ever have.

20. Have you and 10 ever cried together? I don’t think at the same time, but we’ve each had times where we cried with the other, yeah.

21. Have you and 1 ever kissed? Ew. No. He’s my brother.

22. Do you ever dream of 2? They’ve been in my dreams once or twice before.

23. Is 3 a boy? Nope.

24. Does 4 have any kids? Noooope.

25. Do you want to marry 5? Nah, I don’t think we’re really suited for that. 26. How did you meet 1? it all started when my mother gave birth to him

27. What was your first impression of 2? meme master 28. Would you ever date 3? I currently am dating 3! 29. Are 4 and 5 friends? They have never met.

30. Who is 6 going out with? Nobody at all. 31. Is 7 a boy or girl? It feels weird calling him a “boy”. He is a man. 32. What would you think if 8 became your stepbrother/sister? I would wonder how the fuck her parents 1) met mine, and 2) didn’t despise each other 33. Is #9 a dork? Of course, and I love that about her.

34. What is a random fact about #10? They make incredibly tasty vanilla custard. 35. Who does #1 have a crush on? Probably his girlfriend 36. Does #2 have any stalkers? Alas, I think they do, though hopefully they’ve all fallen away by now 37. If #3 said they were in love with you, what would you say? I would say it back to them, and we would kiss, because it is already common knowledge that this is a thing.

38. Is #4 hot? My sister is an incredibly gorgeous lass and anyone she fell for would be very lucky to be with her ^_^ 39. Who is #5 best friends with? Her sister, I think. 40. Does #6 have good fashion sense? I don’t think she tries to, but she certainly doesn’t look bad or anything. Her hair is excellent for sure. 41. Is #7 single? He is not! He started dating a lovely lady recently, which was delightful to hear. Hopefully I get to meet her in a couple of weeks. 42. Would #8 and #9 make a cute couple? Ahahaha, I think they’d drive each other up the wall.

[welshjule]

You got me begging you for mercy

To my Friends, Family and all Readers,

Welcome to my first blog. Every week I will be posting a story ‘loosely based’ on my life in Australia since 1982. My aim is to provide a little escapism in a sometimes-hard world and to hopefully make you laugh. The content will be mature themed as I am in no way attempting to be a role-model!

Happy reading my Darlings

Let me know what you think.

Ju xx

Perth, Australia.

January 1995

It was a Sunday night and I had just put my daughter Alice to bed. The house was red hot, the windows were wide open and there wasn’t a breeze; it was like living inside a sweaty sock. Summer in Perth can be brutal and it is a dry, burning heat that scorches the hair on your arms and rips the skin off your feet if you try and walk barefoot outside. The temperature had hit forty degrees that day and I only had two stand-up fans, so a load of our family and friends had been swimming at the local pool.

We got home and Alice, who was about five years old, spent about two hours in a cold bath – in her bathers, underwater, face-down and pretending to be dead! My job was to run in and rescue her every so often but I kept forgetting. I gave the nickname ‘Insane Alice’ to my daughter when she was very young because she was my wild, brave, curious nutcase, who always had something to say and most of it was somewhat demented. Over the years, we dropped the Insane bit and it was just Alice, but to tell the truth, she’s still a bit touched.

My Father called her ’his Alice’ for thirty years.

So, my exhausted daughter was now asleep with a wet towel on top of her and a fan blowing hot air around her room.

Walking into the kitchen, I stuck my head under the cold tap until my hair and face were soaking wet. Grabbing an ice-cold beer from the fridge, I wandered out to the garden and laid back on an old lounger. Tracey Chapman was singing about a fast car as I lit a fag and skulled my beer.

The house was like a furnace and there was no reprieve outside. From November to March, you went to bed sweating and you got up the same way. We lived in a low-income area and nobody had air-conditioning; you just had to deal with the heat.

At that time, single mothers didn’t get to choose the houses with alarm systems and swimming pools. We could only afford tired, old rentals with dripping taps and broken flyscreens and to make matters worse, I was cleaning two ‘beach-front’ mansions a day while Alice was at school.

 #These were palaces, with huge swimming pools, wine cellars and balconies overlooking the blue ocean and I earned a pittance. I had to shut my mouth like Ruby from ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ when the ‘lady of the house’ complained about smears on the bathroom mirror or dust on the roof because I needed the money.

Looking around now, my poor garden looked so sad; that unrelenting ball of fire had burnt the beautiful flowers I had planted and singed the lawn so badly that it was now just dry, straw.

I was feeling a bit weird and conflicted because everyone around me seemed to think that I should be trying to find a man to ‘look after me and be a father to Alice.’ Don’t get me wrong, it was said with kindness, but I was bored of the whole thing.

Thirty years ago, there was a real stigma attached to being a single mother. If your marriage failed but the dad was still on the scene with the kids, that was ok. If there was no father in sight, it played with people’s heads.

I chose to leave Alice’s father when she was a baby and bring up my daughter alone and I loved it.

I didn’t have a man and I didn’t really want one.

But some people just weren’t comfortable with it. Was I a lesbian? Did I hate men? Was I flirting with their man? They wanted to set me up with their husband’s mate from Bunnings and it was all, ‘We’ve got to find you a nice fella’ and ‘you can’t be too fussy.’ What a cheek! I was thirty years old with no visible hump on my back. Who were they thinking of wheeling in? Alf F##king Stewart?’’

There was a lot of pressure

And It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried.

I’d been to Bachelor and Spinster Balls, joined ‘Parents Without Partners’ (very creepy) and even went to ’Japanese conversation ‘night classes because everyone told me ‘There are loads of divorced men learning languages now Ju. There will be blokes everywhere.’          The only man I ever spoke to was wearing a grey cardigan and had just retired from the civil service.

God knows I tried

And I was about to try again

In 1995, there was no tinder or instant messaging because there were no mobile phones or computers (well not in our house anyway). People had to leave their residence and go hunting in pubs and clubs on a Saturday night for their own Brad Pitt or Pamela Anderson and it was utterly soul destroying.

But I had the Wanneroo Times and I was on a mission.

This local community newspaper had started printing adverts in their classifieds for single people wanting to meet a partner. It was basically, ‘man seeking woman’ or ‘woman seeking man’. Then, everybody told massive lies about themselves; ‘very attractive, happy go lucky, no baggage, loves a good red wine and walking on the beach at sunset.’ It was ridiculous but that didn’t stop me filling in the form.

My advert said,

If you are a sports fanatic and watch it on tv all weekend – read on

If you are bitter about your wife taking everything from you in the divorce, we’ve already met - read on

If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, warm winter fires, bubble baths and collecting driftwood. Stop reading Sir, for you are a dead set serial killer.

I didn’t say much about me, just,

’blonde, thirty, likes to write.’

And I posted it off.

It took a week to receive any responses.

I’d been watching ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’ and wondering how I could get in touch with Kevin Costner to tell him I was waiting for him here; in the hottest, most isolated corner of the world!

But I was feeling quite hopeful and ready for some romance in my life. I spent most of the week singing ‘You know it’s true, everything I do, I do it for you.’

On a Monday morning, the postman dropped an official looking, brown envelope into my post box and I had seven letters!!

Buzzing with excitement, I made a cup of coffee, lit a fag and opened the first one.

He had a wife but they didn’t sleep together. He desperately needed passion in his life, maybe two afternoons a week! Yeh right, dream on!

Three more were married and just wanted a bit on the side.

My fifth would-be suitor boasted of a body tattooed from his neck to his toes and a willingness to provide colour photos. I just couldn’t stomach it!

And the sixth little gem was a smooth-talking illiterate who claimed to be a ‘mad rooter’ but added that, ’If I was a ‘Fat Sheila,’ then not to bother eh!’

I could feel a black depression impending; Was I supposed to settle for this group of no-hopers?

But there was one letter remaining and that was written by a man named Fred.

Fred was English and had been in Perth for a couple of years. He worked in some office and liked Guinness. That was good enough for me!

We spoke on the phone a couple of times and met for a quick coffee. He was a nice bloke and didn’t seem to be deranged. He asked me to go to the movies to see ’Braveheart’ and I said ‘’lovely.’’

So, its Friday night and I am sorted. Alice is staying at my parents’ house and I have a date!

The Commitments are slaying Mustang Sally and I am drinking a vodka and tonic. My hair is a work of art! It has been washed, blow- dried, straightened, back-combed and gelled, plus I’ve used half a can of hairspray, so this hairdo is not shifting.

On goes the make-up, a pair of jeans that are much too small and a black shirt. Sounds simple doesn’t it?

But it is still 32 degrees at 6.30pm and the sweat is dripping down my back. I am sitting on an ice pack with my feet in a bowl of cold water and the pedestal fan is coughing, stale air at me like an old family dog. The jeans are slowly roasting my legs, the underneath of my hair is soaking wet and the makeup is dripping off my face.

But I don’t care, because I’m looking good, the house smells of ’Red Door’ perfume and I’ve had a few puffs of a lovely old joint I found on top of the kitchen cupboard.

I am ready for action!

Fred turned up at about seven and he looked very smart with jeans and a blue shirt. He was quite a portly fellow, very suntanned and with a completely bald head. I don’t know if he’d ever had any hair and I didn’t really care.

I was flying!

We were a bit early for the movies so we went for a drink first. The pub was practically empty but the night was young, so I told Fred that it was my shout. He asked the ‘gothic and heavily pierced’ barmaid, if she could make him a flat, white coffee and she looked at him with complete disgust. I ordered a double vodka and we sat down for a chat. I really wanted to find Fred attractive but he wasn’t giving me much.

He had a very strong Yorkshire accent and was into cycling and re-cycling. He started telling me about sustainable compost heaps and I just glazed over.

But, as I sat looking at him, the room started spinning and Fred began to morph into Dierdre Barlow from Coronation Street and a brown, boiled egg.

That old puff was strong!

’’I’m that choofed you chose me lass,’’ he said ‘’and I’m having a grand time, but I’m not one for the drink.’’

’Jesus Christ! When am I going to cop a break?’ I thought, ‘I’m a thirty-year-old woman wearing skin tight jeans and high heels. My legs are shaved, my elbows moisturised and I HAVE THE HOUSE TO MYSELF!! Who gives a shit about recycling?

I didn’t want to talk about Fred’s ‘loovely bunch of lasses at work’ or ’the benefits of riding a bicycle.’

My life consisted of chicken nuggets, nit shampoo and a daughter who was obsessed with a demonic dessert called Strawberry Shortcake. This nauseating strawberry cake had three best friends called Apple Dumpling, Raspberry Tart and Cherry Cuddler. They sounded like a bunch of sex workers and their pimp was a freak called ‘The Prickly and Peculiar Pieman from Porcupine Creek. Alice had it on an old video and played it constantly. She had been speaking in an American accent for about three weeks and I was over it!    

 I wanted to act like a teenager. To get absolutely wasted, fall-down drunk and extremely immature. I wished Fred would suggest a drinking game so that we could get really loud and find everything hysterical. I needed him to make me laugh because that is sexy. I wanted to completely skip the bloody movie altogether!

Nah, take that back.

Fred was, in fact, an egg that spoke with a Yorkshire accent and he was boring me to death.

So, we walked to the cinema and bought our own tickets, (very civilised), then I was straight into the Candy Bar. Buying a very expensive choc- top ice-cream and some popcorn, I asked Fred what he was having and he said,

’’Nah, I’ll not have owt, I’m watching me weight.’’

That really irritated me because I’d been considering a box of Maltesers too and now I couldn’t have them because I would look like a pig.

We found two seats in the middle row. The place was packed out because it was the first night the film was showing.

‘’So, Fred, what’s this Braveheart about then? It’s not going to be all blood and gore is it?’’ I asked.

“I don’t know Julie, I haven’t seen it,’’ he said, but it translated to, ’’Ah doon’t know jooleh, I’ve not seen film.’’

Now, don’t forget, I was deep in the grip of Sherwood Forrest and I thought Braveheart would be similar; some battles, dodgy accents, a love story, some fantastic one-liners ‘a la’ Alan Rickman.

I thought wrong.

The beginning of the film showed the beauty of Scotland with some hauntingly lovely music and a softly-spoken narrator. By the time I had eaten my choc-top, there were bodies of men, women and children hanging from beams, heads chopped off and the stabbing and slashing of everyone in sight; including the poor horses.

I was in a hell of a state!

Alice always compares me to the late, great, British comedian Larry Grayson when I am out of my comfort zone and am shocked or horrified. I get flustered and loud, highly camp and completely over the top.

I have to have things explained to me very clearly.

This film was way beyond my comfort zone.

My hands were over my eyes and all you could hear from me was ‘’Oh my God, when are they going to stop killing?”  ‘’Oh, that’s gross!’’  ‘’I can’t look!’’  ‘’Why is there so much blood?’’ ‘’What’s happening Fred?”

And then an English soldier ties Braveheart’s beautiful bride to a tree.

I’m thinking, ‘’hurry up Wallace and save your woman.’’

Everyone is waiting for Mel to rescue her but he’s missing in action.

And the English Bast##d slits her throat!

Now, we still had about three more hours of this film to endure and the main character’s wife was dead. I just couldn’t believe it. She was exquisite, almost heavenly.

What was going on?

Í nudged Fred, ‘’What’s happening Fred? Is it a flashback or a dream? Is she coming back?’’

I was beside myself.

Fred was getting a little snippy at my endless questions and bad language because I couldn’t stop saying ‘’Oh F#ck’’ every time a limb was chopped off and it was constant carnage. It simply never stopped.

There was a teenage boy and his girlfriend sitting next to me and I tearfully asked the boy what he thought was going on. Did he think the lovely Marrun was coming back? Was it a flashback? He just looked horrified and two minutes later they both left.

So, now I’m crying and it’s serious. I’m absolutely gutted about useless Wallace not getting there in time and I don’t really feel like watching anymore.

Worse though, I haven’t got a tissue!

I am sobbing and my nose is running and I am doing that unattractive, hiccupy thing.

Fred’s forgotten his handkerchief and I’m hyperventilating and trying to quell my hysteria. But it’s just so sad and all you can hear in the whisper quiet audience are my racking sobs and sniffs. In the end, I had to use a KitKat wrapper and the sleeve of my top to wipe my nose. (yeh, I know, disgusting).

So now I’ve got to sit through another 150 minutes of butchery and treachery, heads in the mail, people being thrown out of windows and the mass raping of young maidens. It was relentless and I was suffering very loudly.

Fred was peeved, “Nah then, Jooleh, joost try to be a tad quieter pet. I can’t ‘ear film.’’

I was frazzled and I hadn’t even got to the torture of William Wallace.

What a joy that was!

About thirty minutes of Mel being hung, drawn and quartered very slowly with some lethal weapons (sorry, I had to).

First, he spits out the anaesthetic drug the princess slips him and then he refuses to shout ‘mercy’ to end his own torture. It was all too much and I kept shouting ‘mercy’ at the screen and crying loudly, but Mel just kept hanging on in there.

William Wallace was no pussy!

Eventually though, all the organs have been removed from his body and he has to die.

In his last few seconds alive he sees his wife, Murron, walking through the crowds, waiting for him and she is so beautiful, it’s heart breaking. Braveheart shouts ‘Freedom’ and I’m completely finished.

Before anyone could move, I was out of my seat. ’’I’ll see you in the foyer Fred,” I sobbed and ran to the toilets before the lights came on.

My body was shaking, my legs were like jelly and I was sweating. I felt like I had given birth to ten-pound triplets in an African hut, alone and without pain relief!

Then I saw my face in the mirror and stopped dead.

The old mascara I had found in the kitchen drawer was not waterproof and I had these black spider lines all down my cheeks. My eyes were smudged with dark grey eyeshadow, my nose was bright red and my face was blotchy and oily, with no trace of a base!

For some reason, my hair had also suffered and it looked like a yellow bird’s nest that had been sat on.

I hadn’t brought a handbag out with me, just a small purse, so the only things I had to rescue this complete disaster was a ten dollar note, a factor 30 lip balm and a furry tic-tac.

Everybody was coming into the lady’s toilets now and they were all looking at me. One girl came over and pretended to care but I saw straight through her. I’d heard some of her friends laughing at me during the torture scene.

I didn’t have a spare head so there wasn’t much I could do. I just washed my face, blew my nose and went out to meet Fred. I refused to look him straight in the eye though because I was hideous.

As we drove back to my place, the car was silent and I knew that Fred was sulking.

He eventually said ‘’Appen, A’Il see film again wit’ lasses from work. I missed most of it!’’

I thought, ‘’Oh do one, you Bloody tart, you are definitely not coming in for coffee.’’

We hit my driveway and I jumped out of the car like an Olympian.

Fred said something that sounded like ‘’See thee soon then Lass’’ and I said ‘’lovely.’’

Slamming the front door, I felt shell-shocked.

I jumped under a cold shower, washed off all the makeup and gunk from my hair and tied an old sarong around myself. Making a cup of tea and some toast with Nutella, I grabbed the remote and sat on the sofa.

Two minutes later, it was just me and Kevin.

I didn’t think I would ever hear from Fred again, but he rang a few nights later while I was watching ‘Home and Away‘ with Alice.

‘’Ow do Jooleh love, can ya guess where I am?’’ he asked jovially.

I froze. Oh my God.

“You’re not outside are you Fred? ’I asked,

‘’Nah’’, he chuckled, ‘’I’m lyin’ in’t cold tub, sipping hot brew and eating an apple pie. Blooody Bliss!’’

I hung up the phone and we never went out again.

Dating makes me realise why I’m not married!

If you liked this story, there’s a lot more to read because Alice and I have been writing tales ‘loosely based’ on our lives for many years, with the hope of finally finishing a book called ’A Mother like mine.’ Every Saturday, I will be publishing a blog so that you can read it over the weekend. Sometimes, Alice will write one too.

We will talk about love, losses and dating disasters, womanhood, teenage years and being a Welsh, single parent family in a rough-arse suburb of Perth in the nineties; from our two, completely different perspectives. I will even tell you how my true love literally walked through my front door and I almost took Alice to live in Texas! Our stories will be mostly funny but there will also be our recollection of some hard times. Nobody escapes them and sometimes it helps to read about other people’s battles.

 Future titles include;

‘The Good, The Bad and the Aussies’

‘A Gang of Gary’s’

‘Doyawannarootorwhat’

‘Sorry about my little fella?’

‘Six months pregnant or a Tattoo?’

[m-a-cpoetry]

I’m Angry

I’m angry. I’m angry and it’s something I can’t change. I’m angry because I can’t change. I can’t change who I am. I can’t change what’s in between my legs, what’s attached to my chest, what hormones flow through my body, what happens every month. I was born this way. I didn’t choose this. I can’t help it. And you know it, yet you still judge, you still harm, you still ridicule, you still frighten me. You try to alienate me from my body. You seperate my mind from my physical form. You sell me products and demand I wear them, yet you don’t want me to? You tell me to lose weight and not eat, but real women have curves? You say you understand what I go through, but oh, you so clearly don’t. You say it must be hard to bleed every month, but you demand we keep it a secret. You say it must be hard to fear being attacked, but you refuse to quit raping us (also, if you didn’t know it’ll be our fault anyways). You say it must be hard to not be paid as much, but you make fun for letting you pay for the date (even when we offer to pay anyways, but that’s emasculating). You say it must be hard to have to shave, but you wouldn’t touch us if we didn’t. You say it must be hard to have to put on that much makeup, but you won’t look at us unless we do. You say it must be hard to have wear heels, yet you require it at our place of work. You say it must be hard to give birth, but we’re basically useless if we don’t (not to mention afterwards we’re not as pleasurable to you). You say it must be hard to be a girl. And I say you don’t know the half of it.

Did you know that more women are killed than men when at home? Did you know that it is incredibly likely for a woman to be killed by a partener? Did you know that being alone as a woman is dangerous? Did you know that dating as a woman is dangerous? Did you know that being married as a woman is dangerous? Is there no escape? We must be in constant fear. There is no safe space for us (yet you require we be your safe space, and your cook, and your maid). We get approached and our only line of defense is “I have a boyfriend”. Because men respect men more than they’ll ever respect women. Our right to say “No” is unimportant, but we already knew that. “No” is no longer our vernacular anymore. We understand that “No” won’t get us anything. Instead we dance around the answer, hoping you’ll get the hint. We keep our heads down and keep walking. We tune out your voice. We put headphones in and cross our legs. We cross the street when we see you coming. We hope that there’s strength in numbers (even though we know there’s not). We know that 1 in 5 women get raped. We hope we don’t get pregnant after you rape us (Lord knows you don’t want us to get an abortion). We hope you don’t kill us when you’re done with us. We hope even if you do, that you’ll make it quick.

You say we don’t need feminism anymore. And I say that you’ve got to be joking. Really what more could we want? We can vote and own land. What more is there? It’s ridiculous to want to be able to walk alone at night. It’s ridiculous to want to be able to wear my clothes. It’s ridiculous to want to be able to drink with my friends. It’s ridiculous to want to be able to ride a cab alone. It’s ridiculous to want to be able to live alone. It’s ridiculous to want to be able to live my life without a male presence in it. Without someone to “protect” me (not to mention that that same person very well may kill me). You see my independence, my equality, as a power move over you. You say when wish to keep my last name, it’s a feminist movement. It’s a political stance. You seem to ignore the complete equality of the situation. You keep yours and I keep mine. Yet, it’s an issue for me to do so. You say when I don’t shave my legs, it’s a statement. You don’t usually shave your legs, but it’s a requirement for me. It’s unhygienic when I have it, but it’s natural when you do. You say when I prioritize my career over having a family, I’m making a point. I’m a “bad” woman (as we all know we’re only good for pumping out babies). Many of you do the same, but it’s wrong when I do. You leave the wife at home and have her take care of the kids. Too bad I’m not her. I don’t want to be her. I can’t be her. Not only will people look down at me for not wanting to stay at home, but they look down at you for wanting to stay at home. This doesn’t only affect me. It affects you too. But you still don’t care?

-M.A.C.

[non-binary-royalty]

1-100 😇

i hate you

I’M NOT EVEN THAT INTERESTING

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?

definitely spotify

is your room messy or clean?

a mix of both tbh

what color are your eyes?

very very dark brown, ugly as hell

do you like your name? why?

no, i want to change it but i haven’t decided on a name yet

what is your relationship status?

single and lonely as fuck

describe your personality in 3 words or less

garbage

what color hair do you have?

dark brown

what kind of car do you drive? color?

a black truck

where do you shop?

for clothes? mostly at zumiez and online stores

how would you describe your style?

dumb

avorite social media account

this one

what size bed do you have?

queen

any siblings?

two, a half brother and a sister

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

somewhere in the quiet country, but not too far away from civilization

favorite snapchat filter?

i don’t really use snapchat

favorite makeup brand(s)

i don’t wear makeup (obviously)

how many times a week do you shower?every other day when i’m motivated enough

favorite tv show?

i don’t have an all time favorite but the last one i watched that i really liked is westworld

shoe size?

9.5

how tall are you?

5′6

sandals or sneakers?

sneakers

do you go to the gym?

no but i desperately need to tbh

describe your dream date

me making us dinner, watching a movie in bed, cuddling, lots of making out bc i’m a big fan of that

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

nothing

what color socks are you wearing?

i’m not wearing any

how many pillows do you sleep with?

two

do you have a job? what do you do?

i work at walmart in the backroom mostly

how many friends do you have?

like 10

whats the worst thing you have ever done?

developed emotions. that shit will wreck you

whats your favorite candle scent?

anything that smells like wood or cotton. but i really like clean shave by yankee candle

3 favorite boy names

haven’t thought about it enough

3 favorite girl names

also haven’t really thought about it

favorite actor?

jason momoa

favorite actress?

right now it’s either katie mcgrath or evan rachel wood

who is your celebrity crush?

don’t really have one

favorite movie?

chicago

do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?

i don’t really read

money or brains?

brains

do you have a nickname? what is it?

alex

how many times have you been to the hospital?

once

top 10 favorite songs

i can’t really pick 10 but my favorite right now is leave you in the dark by state champs. it’s super pretty but sometimes it gets a little too real lmao

do you take any medications daily?

like seven or eight

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

between oily and dry

what is your biggest fear?

people

how many kids do you want?

i don’t really want any

whats your go to hair style?

whatever i wake up with but i usually wear a beanie

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)

like medium sized

who is your role model?

nobody

what was the last compliment you received?

that i’m cute (wrong)

what was the last text you sent?

apologizing for not answering because i was at work

how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?

idk

what is your dream car?

chevy camaro

opinion on smoking?

it’s a terrible habit but i’m very guilty of it

do you go to college?

nope

what is your dream job?

blacksmith

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

rural

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

nope bc i can’t use them anyway

do you have freckles?

yes i hate them

do you smile for pictures?

not unless i really have to

how many pictures do you have on your phone?

i’m too lazy to check

have you ever peed in the woods?

probably

do you still watch cartoons?

sometimes

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?

mcdonalds

Favorite dipping sauce?

i don’t have one

what do you wear to bed?

either boxers or nothing

have you ever won a spelling bee?

nope

what are your hobbies?

playing video games and wanting to die

can you draw?

no

do you play an instrument?

not really

what was the last concert you saw?

pvris with issues and cruisr

tea or coffee?

both

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

tim hortons

do you want to get married?

maybe someday

what is your crush’s first and last initial?

nope

are you going to change your last name when you get married?

idk

what color looks best on you?

none of them

do you miss anyone right now?

yes

do you sleep with your door open or closed?

closed

do you believe in ghosts?

kind of

what is your biggest pet peeve?

rude people

last person you called`

the last person i spoke to on the phone was you

favorite ice cream flavor?

peanut butter cup

regular oreos or golden oreos?

golden

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

neither

what shirt are you wearing?

i’m not currently wearing one but the last one i wore was a fallout one

what is your phone background?

a picture from bioshock

are you outgoing or shy?

very shy

do you like it when people play with your hair?

yes it’s one of my favorite things

do you like your neighbors?

not my downstairs neighbors lmao

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

every time i shower

have you ever been high?

not really

have you ever been drunk?

not really no

last thing you ate?

waffles when i got up

favorite lyrics right now

“you gotta promise not to break no matter how far you are bent” - rhode island by the front bottms

summer or winter?

summer

day or night?

night

dark, milk, or white chocolate?

milk

favorite month?

april

what is your zodiac sign

aries

who was the last person you cried in front of?

you