#hope this helps with your catharsis cat <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[couthbbg]

is this emptiness what people call their twenties?

John E. Sokolowski / John E. Sokolowski / Chris Young / John E. Sokolowski / Mike Ehrmann / Kevin Sousa / Mark Blinch

for @girljeremystrong <3

[suugrbunz]

Hi! I was hoping I could get a BoB or TP ship— whichever you’re feeling! 😊

I’m pale, sort of auburn-blonde, green grey eyed, 5’6” and fairly slender but with big boobs and hips.

I'm very passionate, always smiling, empathetic, sarcastic, smart, and easy going. I hide behind my humor so people can’t get too close, and I overcompensate my shyness by talking to everyone, so no one believes I really am. I’m riddled with anxiety and massively self critical and can be stubborn and proud. I feel like inevitably I’ll disappoint everyone, so I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I try to always put others first, and I like to challenge myself. I’m fiercely loyal once I let someone get close to me.

I love animals, especially dogs (I have 9, plus 1 geriatric cat and 8 chickens). I also love learning about anything and everything; I spend a lot of free time listening to lectures. I’m an avid traveler and reader (mostly fantasy). Music is very important to me, and I listen to just about every genre from every era. Drawing and painting are my catharsis, but I love doing anything creative, which has led to me starting a million hobbies and quitting when I get bored.

I’m an INFP-T, enneagram 4, Libra, Slytherin.

Thanks in advance! I appreciate you! 😘

ooo I think you and I are quite similar ! Like I have gray-green eyes, an infp and Slytherin, and some other personality similarities. Anyway, here is your ship babes <3

I ship you with...

→ George Luz

Everyone needs a little bit of George in their life but I think you especially need him

In a relationship, no one should be a therapist for the other ok but what I instead believe is that you need to grow and he can help you grow

He's talkative

But when he is quiet and wants to be calm, he can be exactly thst

So I think he would express to you that there isn't a need for you to feel the need to talk when you're around each other

You can be dead silent and he'll be fine with that

You like dogs? He likes dogs

He knows you're riddled with anxiety; that's ok, he will understand your boundaries and make sure he abides by them + his friends need to as well.

You can never disappoint him.

He will assure you that you two chose to date so you're everything he wants and you will never disappoint him

You two definitely listen to all kinds of music

Ever heard of raggae metal? Yeah he'll find a song to show you... Unless you're not into metal idk your exact taste my dude 🤷‍♀️

he just adores you !! <33

[indouloureux]

debauched angels (and brazen escapades) - Ⅱ

not my gif!

summary (for part two): as spider-man goes MIA, so does black cat. this gives peter an opportunity to get to know you more - receiving information more than he expected.

word count: 11, 442

warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUT mentions of blood, violence, enemies to lovers, awful writing (?) bc english isn't my first language. mentions of character death (not major!), giving (y/n) that one of a kind background past, patriarchal men maybe.

(EXTENDED WARNINGS BELOW THE CUT)

a/n: part two is here yay! tbh i really love this mini-series and i'm happy that so did you guys <3. silkscream read this on AO3 so hey if you see this, i'm in love with your writing. part three is still in the works so i'm sorry if it will take a while to release it. hope you all enjoy!

MASTERLIST ; SERIES MASTERLIST

༻✦༺ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ༻✧༺

explicit warnings: smut, poorly written. praise kink, breeding kink, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, biting?, spitting, oral + fingering (fem receiving), unprotected sex (pls practice safe sex!) maybe cum-dumpster reader, dom/sub dynamics ft. slightly switch!peter and slightly switch!reader (but peter's mostly sub in here lol), possessiveness in the dirty talk, lotus sex position, cum eating. this is like rough smut and a lot of submission but its very sweet in the end

༻✦༺ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒

so, what am i gonna be doin’ for a while?

said, i’m gonna play with myself

show them, now, we’ve come off the shelf

It had been a very long three weeks.

And in those three weeks, Peter had not seen Black Cat but you.

Peter doesn't lament about her absence, nor does he yearn to see her every night during his patrols, too captivated by the bliss you've been providing him for the preceding several weeks.

Despite the fact that his minor remorse is steadily eating him alive. You have no idea he's Spider-Man, one of the people who have broken into your gallery, but when he decided to tell you he was willing to help decipher the clue Black Cat left, he no longer had to worry about giving you any justification why he's so determined to get his sticky fingers on the hint left behind in quest of the turbulent Cat.

You both decided it was best to keep the police out of this, too.

Peter’s temporarily taken a break from being Spider-Man, realizing that figuring out the clue was much more important at the moment. Besides, it seemed like Black Cat was MIA too.

Both of you shifted from each other’s places. He’d finally introduced you to Ned (“Oh! Peter’s Emily” “What?”) and MJ. And he wanted to wait for a few weeks before introducing you to aunt May.

And as Ned had said: Go Ross Geller on her.

He spent those weeks, whilst figuring out what the clue meant, getting to know you. Other than the fact that you’re super into Greek Mythology, Peter discovers you’re into dystopian fiction. You’d adorably gushed about your love of The Maze Runner series – having to read the books and watch the movies at a young age spiced up your so-called addiction.

Piquing his curiosity even more, he finds out your hands, in all their finesse, are not only adaptable in painting in canvases – you told him you’d been dabbling in tailoring (including embroidery and crocheting) after you graduated high school as a method of catharsis for tough moments. One night, after restless hours reading and browsing the internet, you’d ended up crocheting him a blue and red beanie.

He knows your favorite film was Shutter Island; he knows you prefer your tea with three teaspoons of sugar; he knows you only drink vanilla latte for coffee; he knows you're allergic to eggs but eat them anyway because you said, and he quotes, "you only live once."

Peter had gotten those simple facts about you in a span of seven weeks and he craves for more.

Distracting him from his earnest researching (both for the clue and his recent homework), you went inside your apartment with a large empty canvas in your arms, dragging it behind you.

What had been a placid mood before you left had turned to a somewhat panicked state as he approached you (he heard your heartbeat before you left and right after you entered the door). “Hey,” he greets through a small smile. “Do you need some help?”

“Hi, no thank you,” you say back. “Sorry for suddenly barging in. The whole solving thing is driving me fucking crazy and I couldn’t just sit down and stare at books and screens reading things my brain can’t comprehend.”

Peter chuckles at your small rant as you gently placing the canvas against the wall. “’s alright. I’d be nice to watch you paint, anyway.” He replies. “Oh, I-uh- made Branzino. But, I, didn’t make it. Like, I just cooked it. Because I can’t make fish…so…”

“I know what you meant,” you give him a tight smile. “I like Branzino. Thank you.”

As Peter retreats to his comfy seat, fingertips haltingly resting on the keyboard as before, dark eyes flickering between his notebook filled with his scrawny handwriting and his laptop, which had at least seven sites open – three of which were clue related – silence falls between the two of you.

Once you changed your clothes your heartbeat had calmed down. Peter watches you walk towards the box on the side of your bookshelf, picking up a few acrylics and paint brushes before busying yourself to get ready.

Peter, ever the inquisitive, pauses his typing to gaze at you after your stillness, rotating his torso to rest his arm on the back of his chair and look at you. "Um...I have a question."

Peter is a smart person – book wise. Prior to becoming Spider-Man, he'd spend idle hours with his nose buried in a book and his eyeglasses so tight on his eyes that they left a red imprint on the top of his face

Unfortunately, he was never very astute when it comes to privacy and cognizance. A couple months ago, Happy’s seven-year-old fish had died and came to May’s apartment finding solace while she had been on a call with Peter.

He'd never seen Happy so pensive before. He was so distraught that he sobbed in front of Peter during the video call on May's laptop, tears splattering on the gaps between the letters of the board. And Peter had inquired insensitively if his fish had learnt any tricks, enabling his thoughts to speak for itself.

Aforementioned, he never really knew why he had thought that first before thinking of comforting Happy for the death of his pet.

And now, as he starts to rise from his seat and approach you at the front of the easel, he's deliberately paraphrasing the question over and over in his brain.

“Shoot,” you reply, fiddling with the brush between your fingers.

The second the word leaves your lips, the question leaves his head so quickly that he begins to wonder if he even thought about the question in the first place.

"Um," he feels the rush of blood to his cheeks, the apples rendering his pale opalescent skin consolidate the crimson that somewhat turns his cheeks baby-ish; defacing his cheekbones.

You're halfway through your first stroke, the white bristles tainted by the murky black resin. Although barely begun, there's already paint daubed on your skin, constricting your pores.

Your imposing eyes, tad apprehensive, glance up at his rapidly blinking ones. He notices you take in the perspiration dripping down his forehead to his unkempt brow. "Are you alright?"

Peter stammers. “Yeah. Just, forgot what the question was.” He looks down on his scarred knuckles, observing the bumps decorating his fair skin. “Can – can you talk first?”

Most of the days it went like this – Peter itching to ask you a question about anything, but the second you look into his eyes it’s as if he’s been hit by a car and given amnesia, having to forget the question all the time.

And then you’d fill the awkward silence he created, being the first to ask him a question instead.

Which is how he learned things about you - via scrupulous scrutiny, like a vigilant cat with his ears perked and eyes immobile, tail swishing in lieu of what's impending.

“Sure,” you clear your throat. “Um. Come sit beside me first.”

Peter happily obliges.

Eyes too scared to meet yours, they glue themselves on the white canvas as you begin to delicately move your wrist to your desired direction. Peter doesn’t know much about painting, merely having only to know how to sketch. So he is unaware of the exquisite daintiness and importance of integrating to suffuse the aspect;

He observes as you swivel your wrist to trace the graphite line that pinches onto your canvas, filling the white space with the darkness of the pigment that paints the ambience of your adroitness.

“I remember my question now,” he speaks out loud, fighting the urge to rest his head on your shoulder. “Why…do you paint a lot?” (that wasn’t his real question, but it had popped into his head)

The question’s followed by a silence that, unbeknownst to him, is filled by your contemplating thoughts. But he waits for you patiently, expecting at least an answer he’s able to comprehend.

You take a deep breath. “The thing about painting is that it doesn’t matter how you stroke your brushes, or how thick the amount of paint you use, or how broad the bristles are – it’s all about dedication and ingenuity. Unearth the hidden proclivity that pervades the versatility of your hands and the exigent mind that strives for you to envisage and put your sentiments to life.”

When he thinks you’re done, you continue. “My mother loved to paint,” you say softly. “She loved staying inside her gallery, spending hours and hours painting on canvases with different sizes. If I wasn’t busy with school she’d bring me with her and we’d paint together – either she gives me my own canvas or I help her paint her recent one.”

Usually the topic of domestic bliss between parent and child would envy him, the opportunity to experience those taken away from him at such a young age. Though he’s long over by their deaths, this doesn’t stop him from wanting to be loved by a parent—

(But then he realizes he has May, the woman who’s been working her ass off for years to give him a better life; a woman who stayed strong despite grieving alone still. And he adores that woman with his whole heart, thanking him for the love she’s given him.)

—Now he listens to you talk about your mother, unscathed by the faint jealousy. “I watched her think for just a second before starting a new one,” you continue, never looking at him. “and just watching her do that – bring her thoughts to life – it’s something that I wanted to do and I did. Which is why I paint so much.”

You dip the brush on the pallet. “She told me I could be anyone who I wanted myself to be. Told me I should be my own woman, not let a man control me and change my life. So I became my own woman that’s…influenced by her.”

Peter sweetly smiles to himself. “Where’s she now?”

“Dead.”

So much for smiling, huh? Thought you did something there, didn’t you?

“Oh,” he mumbles. “So-sorry.”

You shrug, dragging your brush downward. “It’s alright.” You slightly smile at him. “She…I found her dead in front of our doorstep one night. My dad and I never really knew how she died, or who killed her or what happened. But, but we’d given up a long time ago, y’know? Didn’t see any point of solving her death when we’ve both moved on.” You sighed deeply. “Would-would’ve been nice to know how she died, though. For some closure, I guess.”

Peter nods, his hands on his lap casually rubbing the denim over his knees. “My parents died, too.” He says, more in a way of sympathy than story-telling. “They-they got into an accident. So my aunt and my uncle took care of me ever since. Then my uncle died a couple years ago.”

It was your turn to apologize. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he smiles softly. His gaze is drawn to the silver hair that stood out and hung over your shoulder. Peter points timidly at the hair. “Why do you have-”

“This?" Your hand combs through your silver, your fingertips caressing the dainty threads. “Oh. My mom and I did this thing every birthday of hers. We’d always get this strand bleached until it’s almost white, and we’d douse it in that purple shampoo until it becomes silver,” you chuckle softly at the memory. “People say we look so much alike except for the hair and she wanted us to have something in common in everything."

Peter frowns a little. “Did-did your hair never die?”

“Oh, it did,” you giggle, tracing the curve drawn on the canvas. “We don’t, like, bleach yearly. The first time we did it, my hair died. So she told me we’d only bleach it on her birthday when the silver disappears.”

“What happens when you don’t bleach on your birthday?”

“We’d paint,” you reply, looking forward. “Sometimes she’d teach me how to defend myself. ‘Cause my dad never did those things with me.”

When your unoccupied hand settles on the diminutive area between your thighs, his fingers twitch in an attempt to lace themselves over yours, or maybe just rest them on top of your hand.  “Why not?”

“My father’s really…how do I say this without making him look bad,” you mutter before you bite your lip, gnawing on the slightly chapped skin. “My father is very old-fashioned. He wanted a son. But when he got me, he would sometimes treat me like his son rather than his daughter.

“He didn’t like it when I wore high heels, but I do,” you say. “He didn’t like it when I wore dresses. Said it was too ‘provocative’. I was ten,” you spare him a pointed look. “He would never get all rough-and-tumble on me. But he took me to the golf course once a month to teach me. And he’d bring me to the gun range a day before my birthday ever since I turned thirteen. But he never really believed too much in me to be his heir.”

Heir. Peter thinks there’s more in your life than he thought so.

Testing the spasmodic curiosity on the back of his head, Peter scoots closer, his thigh grazing your finger. “Heir, huh?” his tongue clicks over the roof of his mouth. “What does your dad do?”

“He’s a business man,” You respond haphazardly. You're halfway through your painting, but Peter is too engrossed in your tale to fathom what you're painting. “He wanted a man to rule over his company. And when he had me, he thinks that I’m not capable of the responsibilities laid upon men in the business industry,” you inhale sharply. “Well, guess what dad? I’ve been doing almost all your work ever since mom died, so, eat shit.”

Finally, Peter fucks over his conscience, calling him a coward, before reaching wantonly for the hand that's holding the paintbrush, heedless about the black paint infusing his bruised-tainted hand.

Your skin is frigid and almost unwelcoming to him, almost as if it had been Lilliputian to physical affection for such a long time. But when his hand envelopes yours, it’s almost as if it’s intrinsic to his saccharinely palpable hand; adding succor to your neglected heart.

And he oh-so-desperately wishes his hand could travel anywhere than just your calloused hands.

Though quietly, he could hear your breathing hitch and feel your accelerating heartbeat. Peter senses your reluctance when his clean thumb grazes your painted knuckles. The action nearly disappoints him if it weren’t for your eyes that softened when they traced the spaces between.

“No one’s held my hand in…years,” you whisper, almost unsure with your wordings. “The last person to ever hold my hand was my mom, and that was almost ten years ago.”

“Your dad’s a dickhead,” Peter declares. “You’re strong and you can do everything that he thinks you can’t. His incompetency relies on you, for fuck’s sake; he shouldn’t underestimate you like this.”

“He’s been misjudging me since I came out of my mother,” your breath is shaking, rapidly blinking away the tears he spots. “I’ve done everything to prove myself. What more could he want?”

“You can prove him wrong,” he nods his head, grasping your hand in his tightly. “You’re going to prove him wrong. And you’re going to amaze him so much it takes his breath away.”

When you smile through the lachrymose tears you’d finally let go, his other hand reaches up to wipe the tears off your soft skin.

“Hell, you took my breath away,” Peter softly confesses. “You didn’t do anything yet you took my breath away. That’s how powerful you are, (y/n). Because my whole life, the only thing that took my breath away was when I watched Star Wars for the first time and that was years ago.”

His thumb is dampened by your warm tears. Despite the fact that your face is moist and swollen from crying, he believes you've never been more breathtaking.

Peter leans in to try to kiss you, but your clean fingers place itself over his mouth, index finger tracing his thin pink lips that are gently pursed.

“As much as I want to kiss you too right now,” your thumb drags his bottom lip. “Take me out to dinner first.” You give him a small smile, looking up at him through your eyelashes – the sight melts his heart. “I’m also old-fashioned. Romantically.”

He leans back, slightly upset at the lost of your touch on his lips. “Okay.” He says. “I’ll take you out on the most beautiful date ever. Tonight.”

You raise your brow. “That was quick.”

“I know a lot of people who can help me find a special spot,” his eyes teasingly squint, hand never letting go of yours. “Dress however you want, as long as it’s a bit fancy.”

“Are you going to pick me up?”

“I…I’ll see…” he sheepishly declares.

“Why don’t we just eat the branzino?” you suggest, whispering. “So it won’t have to go to waste.”

Peter pulls back away from you, eyes widening slightly. “That is smart. Let’s do that. But, we won’t have the date here.”

“Is there something wrong with my apartment?”

His eyes yield itself panicked, leaning forward once more to grip your hands rather tightly. “No! No. It’s just – I’d like to take you to someplace else, if that’s alright? If you want to have the date here, that would be alright.”

Your subsequent giggle reverberates around his ears, finding its way to his hammering heart to which it makes him squirm lightly on his seat. “Okay,” you reply with a soft smile. “I’ll let you take me someplace else.”

-

Can my hands be this sweaty?

Peter's hands feel as though they've been immersed into a tub of water. He could feel perspiration flow from his arm to the tips of his fingers, falling to the ground beneath him, not to mention that his hair is growing moist from nervosity, despite having taken a bath over an hour ago.

He’s waiting outside your flat with three Scabiosas in his left hand. He had not-so-casually asked what your favorite flowers were earlier (“So, just for school research, does your friend have a favorite flower? And can you put in yours, too? I’m collecting everyone’s favorite flowers.”), and as soon as you answered him, he sprinted to every flower store that offered your beloved flower.

The Scabiosa’s a glorious scabious, with long, wiry stems producing rich crimson, suavely fragranced pincushions. The smell is addicting – familiar; the vaporizing scent trailing up his nose until his brain registers a moment of clarity. And the familiarity irritates him, because it ends up making him think of someone he wished he didn’t.

The door opens, allowing you to step out of your home.

Beautiful.

Your angelic vogue mollifies his anxieties; Peter becomes privy to the sweet, unbound serenity you brought upon; reign at the discretion of someone as alluring as you smile.

For a moment he thinks died. That when you stepped through the door, you’ve come to take him to heaven as you besieged his body with your surreal, antique wings; holding his hand to bring him to amnesty, pardoning his sins.

But you take him away from his subspace when your hand brushes his shyly, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“Black Cat Scabiosas,” you softly declare. “My favorite.”

Peter offers you the flowers, almost shoving them to your chest (though he didn’t mean to.) “Yeah,” he nods. “I looked for them everywhere.”

“Within an hour?” you raise your brow. “That was quick. It’s hard to find these flowers here.”

“I had my aunt’s boyfriend go to somewhere really far to get me these things,” Peter can never forget the irritated look Happy gave him when he brought the flowers to his place. “It’s no biggie. Anything to- to make you smile,”

And you do smile, smelling the flowers. “Thank you, Peter.”

The interaction is unintentionally limited as of the moment, both silently dying from excitement and eternal delight as Peter opens the car door for her to sit inside in before moving to his side of the door.

And during the ride he’d introduced you to his less-embarrassing favorite songs that he connected to his aux, singing softly to the lyrics as you bobbed your head with him; and if you did know one of the songs, you’d sing along with him with your gentle tone that he finds so comforting he could just sleep if he wasn’t driving.

Observing you from the corner of his eye, he would notice you sit straighter when you’d pass an ice cream store. He makes a mental note to take you there before bringing you home.

It’s almost an hour drive to his desired destination. And you wait patiently until he reaches a spot with almost little to no people in the area.

He gently guides you through the rutted and gravelly road. A hand on your waist that he wishes he could hold whenever he wanted, and another on your hand that he was only lucky enough to hold earlier.

“Where are you taking me, Peter?” you laugh nervously. “This is not the way I want to be blindfolded.”

Peter blushes. “Relax. We’re almost there, angel.”

He doesn’t notice how you slightly stiffen at the nickname. “What are you, like an ax murderer or something?”

“Worse,” he replies. “I won’t tell you what it is, though.”

“I’m going to claw you and repeatedly scream for help, Parker.”

The laughter that occurs stops when you reach the spot. Peter carefully removes the blind fold wrapped around your eyes, shoving it on the backside of his pocket. But he never lets go of your hand.

The sun meets the pristine edge of the mirrored panorama from the lake's flawless oval, which remains completely immobile due to the tranquility and paucity of disturbance.  The trees harbor a soft harmony of its leaves swishing against each other to the decaying foliage falling on the dirt below.

There’s a blanket towards the near edge of the pier that leads to the middle, a basket in the center. Peter hears the hitch in your breathing as you (sadly) drop his hand to carefully make your way to the spot.

“Peter,” there’s a tremble in the way you say his name. “Peter, this – this is beautiful. Thank you.”

“Nothing to be thankful for,” he comes up behind you, resting his hands on your shoulders. “I told you I’d take you on the most beautiful date ever.”

As you walk hand by hand towards the blanket, there’s a soft meow behind you.

Turning around, there’s a black cat passing by, though still looking at the two of you with its threatening green eyes before sauntering away.

And the date goes by uninterrupted – stories shared from memories at old schools, hobbies picked up as children that continued up until now, favorite movies (even though he already knew yours), and embarrassing reencounters. Much to his chagrin, however, you seemed to avoid any topics that included your plans about your future. Yet Peter doesn’t mind.

Within those hours he managed to pick up small quirks from you – how you rub your nose when a chill breeze passes by, or how the nail of your index finger picks on the skin of your thumb when you’re nervous (which he manages to stop when he pretends to hand you things such as glasses and treats).

“So are you planning on telling me the truth behind Atë?” he asked you at some point, halfway through his first glass of champagne. “You said you’d be telling me when we meet again.”

Much to his chagrin, you’d shrugged, taking a bite of the branzino. “Unfortunately I’ve still yet to find out. Been caught up with work to find out.”

“You’ve submitted your project about the Gods too, though, right?”

You shrugged again.

       Before he knows it, the date’s done. Stories shared, food enjoyed, champagne drank through their problems.

You’d gotten home late at night.

Guaranteed, each of you were slightly tipsy from the champagne Peter brought. But you were sober enough to fathom what you were both doing as you fumble with shoving the key through the hole before stepping in, Peter following behind you.

Peter watches as you take courtesy on removing your shoes that had been making your toes ache ever since you wore them. He also removes his after your approval, gently placing them on top of the welcome mat.

The lights are dim, though enough to accentuate both your figures like a painting drawn beneath the night sky. There’s a soft inebriated gloss on your eyes as you hand him a glass filled with cold water.

“I had a great time,” you speak out after he takes a long sip of the water. “Thank you. So much.”

“Like I said earlier, (y/n),” he walks closer, placing the glass on the table behind you. “Nothing to be thankful for. I’d take you out on a million dates if you want to. If it means I could kiss you.

Your nails are no longer sharp, now designed in a sage green squoval that matches your outfit perfectly. “So like…did you only take me out on a date to kiss me?”

Peter’s eyes widened, mouth parting. But he stumbles with his words like how he stumbles on his feet. “N-no! I mean, I did want to take you out on a date. But I also wanted to kiss you. And if you-you wanted to go on a date first before kissing me, then I’ll do it,” he looks down on his trembling fingers. “If you want me to do things for you before I kiss you, I’ll do it and wait. Hell, even if you want to wait a whole year or two, I’ll still wait. Because I still get to kiss you, and the whole waiting will be worth it.”

He senses how your uneasiness that tautened your muscles relaxed, back slumping slightly. “That’s really-really nice.” You whisper, voice barely echoing off the walls but loud enough for him to hear. “Really sweet. You’re like…the first guy to be this genuinely sweet…to me.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” he meekly chuckles. But when you don’t laugh with him, his chuckle dies down. “Have you, never, been on a date?”

Silence.

“Or-or a relationship?”

Head hanging low, your finger traces the lips of your glass. “It’s not like a relationship, per se,” you correct him. “It’s more like a mutual understanding. Like, we both know that we like each other but we never really do anything to make it official.”

Peter hums in understatement. “So you’ve never had a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”

You shake your head. “I guess I’ve never really had enough time to, y’know, look for the right person amidst all the chaos my father put me into my whole life. Every decision I made in those ‘relationships’ were too brash.” You tut. “And, they’re like scared of my dad.”

He takes this as an opportunity to prove himself. Accost the threshold that separates the secrets that await for revelation; he desires to indulge in something more between the two of you that continues to greet him with derision the longer he makes the both of you wait.

Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of drunken confidence does Peter take a bold stride towards you. He towers you, shadow consuming your figure; but instead of scaring you, it comforts you.

“Has anyone made you feel their love?”

You look up at him. Peter reels in the sudden darken in your eyes and the erratic broadening of your pupils. He respectfully tries to pry his eyes away from your heaving chest that’s almost exposed by your attire, but he fails when he feels your chest meet his.

The curls of your hair sharpens your cheekbones, almost as sharp as your mind. Your lips are suddenly luscious – suddenly kissable. Overall, you appear delectable to Peter; making him crave for you and wonder what kind of sweet sounds you’d make for him when he shows you his love-

“No,” you shake your head, tucking your bottom lip between your teeth. “Not that I have remembered, no. I’m a difficult person to please, Peter.”

“Well, lucky for you, I don’t give up that easily." He doesn’t know how they got there – maybe they weren’t that sober. But the state you’re in proves that you’re both only treading lightly in a drunken mind that tells you what you’ve been wanting this entire time.

“Are you going to kiss me, Peter?” you whisper. “Are you going to prove to me that those people I’ve been with are incompetent in achieving my pleasures?” standing taller, Peter feels just a smidge of submission. “Are you gonna stop waiting?”

His hand reaches up to cup the side of your scathing cheek, tilting your head upwards so his thumb could trace your wet lips, dragging the bottom lip down.

“I don’t give in easily,” he replies, the other hand tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. He leans closer to the side of your face until his lips graze the skin of your earlobe. “Beg for it,” he whispers.

Your nail scratches the soft exposed skin of his arm, tracing the bulging on his forearm with a touch so delicate and burning it sends shivers down his spine.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you whisper when he leans back to graze his nose with yours, inhaling in your sweet scent. “I want you to prove yourself. So you beg for it.”

Peter swallows thickly, your risqué tone alone makes the blood rush down to where he’s starting to get rock hard against his briefs.

And it's as if you've bewitched him because he's suddenly leaning in nearer till your lips brush. “Kiss me,” he whispers against your lips. “Fuck me. And I’ll fuck you so good you won’t be able to walk for days, angel.”

And then he kisses you.

It tastes of champagne, cherry, and you. You, you, you. All he feels is you as your hands wander everywhere – his biceps, his back, the flush skin of his arms.

Despite the irreverent remarks spoken thus far, the kiss begins delicately, and he takes his time reeling in the cherry-flavored lipbalm that you had applied earlier in the evening. As he rubs your back, you faintly hum as you lay your hands on the back of his neck, toying with his wild locks.

He's had hopes and aspirations that never came true. But he never expected this to happen - your tender lips on his rough ones. It starts slowly, enabling all of the passion and intensity to flow from your exquisite mouths while Peter kisses you harder.

But he's envisioned kissing you - what you'd taste like, what noises you'd make, how you'd feel. And they were much, far better than he had expected.

His crooked nose bumps yours, digging onto the skin beside your nose when he moves in deeper, his right calloused hand moving up to place itself on the soft skin of your cheek to which contrasts to his, thumb rubbing the skin adjacent to your eyes.

Peter carefully walks you to your bedroom, lips never leaving yours.

And then it’s a mixture of tongue and teeth. His tongue probes your mouth, sucking in your enticing taste. His hand moves down to cup the broad curve of your ass, and he groans when your hands rip the button of his shirt, allowing you to rake your nails through his scarred abs.

The moment is flawed; an angel committing a sin and you’d done it to pleasure yourself. But neither of you care as his lips physically avow itself to treat you like the woman you are – respected, believed in, loved, praised.

His lips move to your neck, kissing everywhere until he sucks on the spot that lets you release the most innocent whimper he’s heard.

“Tell me what you want,” he huffs, voice husky. “Tell me where you want me. What you want to do with me—fuck. Do what you want to me. Ruin me.”

Your breath is hot against his neck as you bite the curve of his neck that meets his shoulder, discarding his shirt that’d been wrinkled by your needy hands. “I want you to use that pretty mouth of yours to good use,” you pant.

He doesn’t oblige immediately, though knowing what you meant. Instead, he takes his time to take your top off, throwing it to the ground where you threw his shirt.

He doesn't spend any time unclasping your bra and staring at your bare breasts. And God, did they taunt him into doing such heinous things that no one would ever forgive him for his misdeeds but you – the fellow sinner.

Peter ducks to take one nipple in his mouth, nipping at the soft bud before sucking on it until it’s perked and painfully erected. He sucks on the top curve of your breasts before he lets his lips wrap around your bud again, his other hand kneeding the vacant tit, thumb rolling through and overstimulating the delicate skin.

His clothed crotch grinds itself over yours, friction just enough for him to smell how wet you’ve gotten underneath your bottoms. You release a high-pitched moan right through his ear and he almost came in his pants.

“You’re so pretty,” Peter murmurs. “So, so pretty. So beautiful. But I bet you’d look more beautiful when I look up to you.”

Peter then kneels in front of you, yanking your hems down so you would step aside and shed the superfluous apparel.

When he kisses the soft skin of your inner thigh, he’s able to take a small whiff of your arousal leaking through your underwear that’s calling for him. But now he’s painstakingly taking his time with you, sucking on your supple flesh until he’s sure it’ll mark the next day.

You moan, throwing your head back as your hands cards itself through his unkempt curls. “Stop teasing me or I’ll finish myself off,” you pant.

So in response, his hands rip the material of your lace.

Peter’s hands guide your leg to rest on his shoulder, giving him a better view of your cunt that glistens beneath the moonlight that seeps through your curtains. The engorged bud waiting for his greedy lips.

His slender finger raises to swipe through your slick folds, feeling your wetness spread throughout his index, only to be cleaned when his mouth sucks on his finger.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he growls. “And you taste amazing. Who made you this wet, hm?” he marks another on your thigh, and another, drawing an arrow to where your sweet nectar is.

Your hands push his head near your aching pussy, his nose grazing your clit. “You. Fuck. You made me this wet. Do something, please.”

Finally, Peter licks through your cunt. His thick muscle starting from your pulsating hole to your clit, sucking on the bud like his life depended on it as his tongue focuses on kitten-licks.

Is this what ambrosia tastes like? When he’s kneeling on the ground with your legs as the arches to your sacred sanctuary. And you give him the taste he’s been waiting for, letting him devour you like it’s his last meal before he’s dragged down to perish with you.

“You taste amazing,” he chuckles through your cunt, sucking greedily on your clit before letting the tip of his tongue tease your folds.

 “Fuck,” you hiss. “Fuck, don’t stop.”

As he continues to suck on your clit, his fingers reach up to shove two of them inside your hungry mouth, pressing down your tongue to mimic how his cock might feel inside your mouth when he fucks your face. Without having to be told to, you suck on his fingers, tasting his skin that tastes of salty sweat, letting the tip of your tongue brush his fingertips.

“Good girl, sucking on my fingers,” he groans against your clit, voice vibrating on your pussy. “Got them wet enough, huh? You like it when you suck on things?”

You whimper only to respond, the feeling of his lips wrapped loosely around your clit being the only thing clouding his mind.

He pulls the fingers out, dragging them down to wet the valley of your breasts, the swell of your nipples, the smooth skin of your abdomen until it reaches your folds.

Peter swipes it across your petals, soaking his fingers even more before they tease your dripping hole. “Peter,” you mewl. “Fuck. Please.”

“Where do you want them?”

The hand on his hair tugs harshly, knocking his head back so that he’d look at you. With a slack jaw, Peter looks up at you through hooded eyes, his fingers still drawing circles around your entrance.

Your thumb comes across your engorged bud, rubbing a single harsh circle before prying it away. Your thumb, coated with your arousal, traces his bottom lip before prying his mouth open, thumb slipping in and pressing down on his tongue, moving deeper until he gags lightly on your finger.

And then your lips purse, making a soft hum, before you spit in his mouth.

Peter swallows, enjoying the taste of you and the sweet champagne.

“Inside me, pretty boy,” you purr. “Put those pretty little fingers inside me.”

He abides, intensions of prolonged foreplay thrown to the side. Peter finds this hot – your thumb in his mouth, gagging him as you tell him what to do; like a plaything made only to pleasure you. And he doesn’t mind you manhandling him. In fact, it fuels him even more, making him even more excruciatingly hard.

Peter likes seeing you powerful; unfettered dominancy consolidated by his adroit fingers that plunge itself inside your hole, moving rapidly as if anarchy was seconds away from ruining the irrevocable culmination of an illicit affair.

He lets go of your thumb with a harsh suck before a loud pop, delirious mouth reaching for your piquant cunt. When the sight alone causes him to slip into delirium, what more could happen when he finally properly ravishes you?

As crooked fingers move in and out of you quickly, his lips are back on your clit with fierce suckles. You moan loudly, fingers raking his scalp to push him unbelievably close to your pussy that he’s breathing through his nose.

The soft skin of his cheeks turn pink, the tip of his nose glistens with your arousal. Peter’s curls are wild and his eyes are darkened with obscene paramnesia, pupils dilated as if you’d gotten him so intoxicated by your lascivious virtu.

Lewd fingers stretch you out, curling a ‘come-hither’ at each thrust that goes licentiously deeper until he reaches that spot that has you moaning loudly, throwing your head back.

Peter looks up at you, catching sight of your accentuated neck. “That feel good, angel?” he jibes, hitting your g-spot over and over again.

You hum, licking your drying lips. “Mm. Yes. Fuck yes. Just like that. Don’t stop.”

Vigor increased, Peter’s lips return to your clit, tongue licking up and down as his fingers trace your walls. His other finger reaches up behind to spank your ass, the ripples making him vibrate.

“Fuck,” you gasp. “I’m close.”

You moan vociferously above him with a couple more thrusts, your legs trembling from your climax. Peter coaxes you through it, gently placing his hands behind you to hold you as his tongue goes to your hole to gather your cum, swallowing it as it drops on his thick muscle.

“Did so good for me,” he moves up, trailing kisses from your navel, to your breasts, neck, until he reaches your lips. He’s sure you can taste yourself through his tongue, making you moan on his mouth. “Can you lay down for me, miss?”

Your eyes open, dusk settles in your irises. And you oblige, laying down with your legs spread open as your back meets your soft sheets with an anticipated shudder.

Peter kneels on the end of the bed, stomach on the mattress. His crotch slowly ruts itself on the bed as his hands push your legs back until your knees meet your chest. “Think you can give me another one?”

With a loss for words, you nod eagerly.

He suddenly licks a bold stripe on your exposed cunt once more, middle and index finger parting your folds in a V as he licks the sweet muscle until the tip of his tongue teases your sensitive hole.

With your entrance stretched out from the previous disquisition, his tongue easily slips in inside you. Moaning, you clench around his tongue that goes deeper at each thrust.

“Fuck, you’re making me feel so good,” your hand reaches up to play with your nipples, only to be pushed away by Peter who traces circles around your buds. “You’re doing so good, Pete.”

His hips continue to rut on the bed, though making sure he didn’t came in his pants, he goes slowly. Peter leans forward, shoving his tongue deeper inside you. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, and he’s doing everything he can to not do the same as he tastes your dewy entrance.

Tasting you was sensational, and it was enough to entice him to his upcoming orgasm. But he wants to satisfy you, to make you pleased - as if this is the one mission he wants to succeed at.

He hums against you, bringing his thumb to apply pressure to your aching clit, rubbing circles. “So fucking sweet,” he growls.

Your orgasm comes no longer than the other, coating his tongue with your cum and juices. He moans at the taste, pulling back to admire your sensitive, reddening pussy.

Your fluids coat the late dusky shimmer of his chin, and your arousal radiates through the white filaments of your cum. Your hands reach out to cradle his face, crushing your lips together.

“As much as I want for you to fuck my face,” you begin, breath hot with excitement. “I need you inside me now.”

“Maybe you could suck me off next time,” he grins.

Rolling your eyes, you slightly push him off you to sit up. You pull on his arm, letting him rest on the headboard.

Peter unbuckles his trousers, lifting his ass up to push it down until he kicks it off to the side where you’d thrown your clothes at.

You’re the one who almost rips his briefs off, gaping when his painfully erected cock springs from its entrapment, swell tip slapping on his stomach.

Carefully, you swing your legs on either side of his thighs, slit on his shaft, grinding on his hard cock as you shove your tongue inside his mouth to kiss him.

“Do you have a condom?” you ask against his lips.

Peter, too infatuated, replies, “No.”

You lean back, hands on his face. “You’re telling me you never thought our date would end in sex?” the question was never meant to be delivered as if you’d been offended; to him, he thinks you found it funny,

His ears turn red. “No! I thought about it, duh. I just got too excited to buy a pack of condoms, ‘s all.”

“Okay,” you nod. “I’m-I’m on the pill, anyway. For some reason. ‘ve been taking them since I turned eighteen.”

Sitting on your knees, Peter’s hand raises his cock, tip teasing your entrance. And he all but cries when you finally sink down on him, your cunt engulfing him.

Peter’s face etches in worry when he senses the slight discomfort you resonate. “You alright?” he asks, hands coming around to wrap itself around you, hand caressing your sweaty back.

“I’m okay,” you nod. “Just give me a sec.”

“Take your time,” he presses a soft kiss on the space between your eyebrows. “Take as many times as you want. Then you can fuck me as hard as you want.”

With that you smirk. And it takes you a whole ten seconds before you start moving yourself up, relying the movement on your knees before sinking back down on his cock.

Your cunt’s snug around his cock, bounding his girth. And it’s as if you’re now whole – a puzzle piece completing a masterpiece of two flawed souls. A shattered mosaic mended by two sweaty bodies; reign at the disposal of gratuitously tedious mutual pining.

It begins slowly. His gaze is fixated on your contorted face of pleasure, which evokes out quiet gasps and whimpers as his tip attains your g-spot with each bounce; his hands never leave your back, stroking your skin with notorious strokes.

“God, you have no idea what you do to me,” you purr in his ear, beginning to bounce faster. Peter moans at the sight of his cock disappearing inside your cunt, seeing white-hot stripes of your cum coating his thick veins. “You feel so good.”

Your head nestles on the crook of his neck, arms around his torso. It’s a glorious moment, a juxtaposition to such a corrupt deed. Peter kisses your neck, sucking on the skin after. And his tongue soothes the pain.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you let out an imposing chuckle. “Beneath me. Being controlled.

When your hands remove themselves from his torso, your right hand reaches up to wrap itself around Peter’s throat. “Fuck,” he pants, swallowing thickly. “You’re taking me so well—ah.”

“Yeah? You like that?” you whisper in his ear when you squeeze the side of his neck. He can feel your nails digging into his flesh, almost drawing blood if you so desire. But he wouldn't regret if you made his neck bleed — if you were the one who caused his ecstatic anguish, he'd bleed for you any time.

“Fucking love it,” he moans. “I love the way your hand feels around my throat”

“Of course you do,” you chuckle darkly. “Filthy fuckin’ thing.” Sighing on his neck, you suck on the salty skin until you start to see the purple forming. “Do you like it when I touch you?”

Your skins colliding fills the quiet room aside from your frenzied cries. And the sound is nothing short of obscene – applauding the both of you for such an abhorrent act. But Peter doesn’t care—it's an epistle for you, a woman who deserves to have her demands fulfilled, whether it's independence or the ability to do whatever she wants without being restricted.

Peter feels like he’s a man who looked for the dirtiest angel to fuck. Or in this case, the dirtiest angel to fuck him.

He sees your navel bulging slightly. Peter’s in too fucking deep he finds it hard to speak. With a sweaty hand, it reaches down to cup your navel. “I’m in so deep, baby?” he rasps. “‘d you feel me?”

“Yes,” you moan.

“You own me, (y/n),” he declares loudly amidst the amoral requisition of skin clapping. “I’m yours.”

He's now fully devoted himself to you, a woman he's just met for a few weeks has already found her way to his conquered heart; filling it with her paradoxical epiphanies of her way of love. Cacophonies of prismatic declarations of each bounce, it brings him closer to the edge.  

I’m yours to ruin, to fuck, to love.

You only moan in response, albeit because Peter’s added his thumb to rub on your clit. “Fuck, Pete.” You pull on his hair again, nestling your head on the crook of his neck. “Cum for me.”

And then he’s spilling into you, marking you as his just as much as he was yours. Moaning with your name rolling off his tongue as he hugs you close to his chest. And you cum on him too, finally making him yours. Peter feels you clench around him, making him hiss.

When you pull out, Peter’s hand reaches for his semi-hard cock and uses his tip to push his cum into you, fucking his seed back. You clench around his tip.

He nearly cums again when he sees his seed drip out of your cunt, smearing around your thighs and on your ass, slick with his spit and your arousal.

I’m yours.

The sight is obscene; almost unforgivably besmirched to the sight of the pristine minds whose innocence will be sullied with one look of the mess between your legs. But your mellifluous sounds combined were so piquant that he doesn’t care for the judgment of his dirty acts; as you drunkenly waver between the threshold of subspace and reality, Peter takes in the euphoric denouement as he calms down from his climax.

Your breathing calms, eyes opening to reveal its feigned innocence to appear as an ingénue to judgmental people – but Peter knows how truly daring and naughty you are.

 And it’s as if you weren’t just fucked into next week as you plant such a sweet kiss on his swollen, wet lips. His heart beats faster, butterflies filling his stomach.

He hopes you feel the same way.

“You’re mine,” you say against his lips. “No man should own me,” with foreheads touching, you let your eyes closed.  “But you do. I’m yours.”

I’m yours.

And you are mine.

-

When Peter wakes up the next day with his arms still around you and your face nestled against his bare chest, he knows thinks he’ll never get used to this.

He’s unsure if this is the start of something new. You only had sex, it’s not like you both told each other ‘I love you’s’ while you’re fucking him. But he ignores the thought and tells himself to just enjoy the moment before it’s gone.

Your hair’s splayed out on your pillow, slightly ajar lips releasing a rhythm of soft, heavy sighs of content slumber. His hand that wasn’t wrapped around your waist reaches up to tuck a strand behind your ear.

When you don’t move, he leans in to place the softest kiss on the tip of your nose. 

You groan and gently push his chest away from you before sinking further into his embrace. He bites his lower lip, concealing a chuckle so as to not disrupt your sleep. His shirt, draped around you to mask yourself, was comfortable against his skin, and the fragrance of you infused with his made it more comforting.

He’d slipped it on you after he took care of you, wiping off the sweat and mess he created between your legs. And when you asked for him to stay right when he began to ponder if you wanted him to leave, he obliged.

Because there's nowhere he'd rather be in the world than with you.

Peter assiduously hoped time would stop so he could hold you longer; it was already midday, and he knew you'd both have to get up and start your days eventually. And he thinks that after you've gone about your days, you'll either do some serious reflecting and decide that having sex with him was a mistake, or you'll pretend that nothing happened and sleep in your respective beds.

And God, he wished your decisions would be neither.

“You know it’s rude to stare,” you murmur, eyes still closed and face smushed on the pillow. “I’d make a mom joke but both of our moms are dead and I don’t want to make you cry early in the morning or else I’ll put myself in an awkward situation."

Peter laughs. “Make all the mom jokes you want. Even the ‘your mom’ ones. It’s also midday,” he corrects you. “And how can I not stare? When I woke up I thought I died and went to heaven because there was an angel in front of me.”

You peek one eye open, though still heavy from sleep. “What book ‘d you get that?”

“My head,” he smirks. “What? Can’t an awkward guy make the cheesiest compliment ever? Do you want me to compare you to a PlayStation?”

He laughs louder when you smack his chest. “Don’t compare me to an object. Your mom taught you better than that!”

Elated, he wraps his arms around you, pulling you back to his chest with his legs tangled with yours. Then he presses loud, smacking kisses across your face – cheeks, forehead, nose, anywhere but your lips. “I’m sorry, pretty girl,” he giggles. “I’m sorry for trying to compare you to a PlayStation. You’re just both fun to play with.”

You groan loudly, attempting to turn away from him. But he's stronger, and as he pins your left arm to the mattress, he pulls you back down. Peter then hovers above you, slotting himself between your legs.

“Peter,” you whine.

“I know, I know.” He says.

His elbows are propped up on either side of your head. Peter balances himself on his right elbow, left hand reaching to cup your cheek that shines from the sunray that slips past the curtains. For a second he thinks he might have been hallucinating – you were shining beneath the sun, like glitter was poured over you to shine brightly and show people your true beauty.

“You’re so – so beautiful,” he whispers, smitten. “Can I kiss you?”

His hand feels the heat radiate to your cheek. You nod. “You fucked me with your tongue last night. I think you can kiss me whenever you want to.”

I think you can kiss me whenever you want to.

(Either you meant that as a way of saying you’re willing to be with him forever, or make this whole incident a friends-with-benefits thing.)

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” he mutters before pressing his lips on yours.

It’s chapped, having to sleep for hours on end undisturbed. And your breath is hot, but so is his and neither of you seem to care about the morning breath slipping past your still-swollen, dry lips. Yet to Peter, no matter what state your lips were in, they’re still soft.

“The bedroom smells like sex,” you mutter against his lips.

“Do you not like the smell?”

“No it’s just-” you place your hands on his shoulders, nails scraping on his skin that had been reddened by you. “My room usually smells like mint.  Do you know what catnip smells like?”

Peter frowns. “Not sure.”

“Well, my friend gave me some mint scented candles on my birthday. So my room smells like mint – or catnip.”

“Huh,” he pulls back. “That’s oddly specific,”

“I tend to say random things when I’m out of it,” you murmur with your eyes closed. “Please let me go back to sleep.”

Peter shakes his head. “You have to wake up, angel,” he whines softly, pushing imaginary hair off your cheeks, fingertips gently caressing the back of your ear. “It’s lunch time.”

You pout. “Can we just stay in bed all day? I’m not in the mood to be productive right now.”

He kisses the pout away from your lips, making him smile when you smiled. “Well, Black Cat could be productive right now. And she could be getting impatient.”

“I highly doubt that,” you snort. “I bet she’s also still in bed, trying to beg her girlfriend or boyfriend to let her go to sleep.”

Did you just call me your boyfriend? “And how would you know?”

“Because I want to go back to sleep and you’re not letting me,” you poke your tongue out, making a face at him. “Unless you’re cooking breakfast, I’d like to go back to sleep.”

He rolls his eyes, propping his left elbow on the side of your face so he can caress the soft material of his shirt that adorns your waist. With meek fingers, they slither their way beneath your shirt to engulf your warmth on his hands, sighing in satisfaction.

“Fine, I’ll cook you breakfast,” Peter offers.

Your eyes snap open. “Yay!”

After hours of your eyes being sequestered by slumber, Peter never knew how much he’d missed looking into them. They’re luminous beneath the natural glow of the sunshine – your irises lightened by the solari. Your eyes, to which coquettish prior this morning, is tenacity on delivering dulcet spectrum to placate his derisive self-doubt from your affections.

Feeling your fingers trace the supple opalescent skin of his cheeks, your right hand slowly comes up to tame his wild eyebrow, massaging the slight crease on his forehead.

“I think I know what you’re thinking,” you whisper, even though it’s only just the two of you in the bedroom. Your features are fleeced with sincerity – showing great care to the boy above you. And your touch is delicate, fearing that he might break down any minute.

“Yeah?”

“And if I am right, I just want you to know that I’ll stay,” you caress his cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll…I’ll be staying with you. If that’s what you want.”

There’s a hint of reluctance in your voice, as if you’d been half-lying, but Peter’s blinded by the sweetness of the words to even fathom the tone.

“Of course I do,” he murmurs. “You’re worth staying for.”

You both got out of the bed after sharing a sweet, innocent kiss. Clad in nothing but the largest sweatpants you could offer in your closet, Peter saunters his way to your kitchen to look for anything to eat that he thinks you’ll enjoy to elevate your hungry state.

After brushing your teeth – and making Peter coffee – he watches you make your way to the chair in front of the easel, picking up where you left off and taint your fingers with black once more.

The music he played on his phone to entertain himself suddenly stops and is replaced with the obnoxious sound of his ring tone. The picture of Ned making a face back in high school appears, the yodeling matching the mood of the photo.

He stumbles to swipe right. “Hey dude.”

“Hey dude,” Ned repeats. “Listen, I’m coming by to drop off the books for the English History essay we’re assigned. You kinda forgot it back at our place and I figured you’d be staying there a bit longer.”

Peter lets out a short laugh. “Oh, I’m definitely staying here a bit longer.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he just knows Ned rolled his eyes at him. “Anyway. Are you coming back tonight? Because Betty’s coming over and I’d rather not you walk in on us.”

“Walk in on what? To your crying face?”

“I’ll just take that ‘crying face’ as a good sign if ever Betty tells me she still loves me,” He snaps. “Right. I’m going to (y/n)’s apartment now. Damn, do these buildings look all the same?”

“Hers has that spinning door.” Peter explains. “Has MJ gone back from her trip? She hasn’t answered any of my texts. She’s acting…weird.”

“What kind of weird,”

“Like, scheming weird. You know, like how she acts when she’s up to something and investigating things or when she’s suspicious,”

“Oh, yeah. She hasn’t replied to me, either. I’ve been texting her girlfriend, though. They’ve been together, staying at Queens for a couple of days.”

Peter nods, glancing at you quickly. “‘lright. Text me when you’re inside the building. Love you.”

“Dude…” Ned sighs. “I know.”

Ned arrives ten minutes after the call, dropping off his books (along with his anagram book that he accidentally picked up). You had offered for him to stay for breakfast, but he seemed to be in a hurry, muttering quick words of “thank you” before speeding off.

When Peter returns to the kitchen to finish what he's preparing, he hears your footsteps approaching him. Then he feels your mellow cheek resting on his broad shouldered back as your arms wrap around his torso from behind.

“Isn’t it dangerous to cook topless?” you say. “You could get hurt.”

“Well, you didn’t have any shirts for me, sweetheart.”

“You could always wear mine,” you offer. “They’re stretchable. Plus, I think you’ll look good wearing a crop top.”

“I look good in anything,” he teasingly replies, turning off the stove. “Breakfast’s ready.”

“Can we watch Shutter Island again while eating?” you ask him with a pout, a light of expectance in your eyes.

Peter chuckles. “Anything you want.” He says, turning his torso to plant a kiss on your forehead. “I’ll just charge my phone inside the room and I’ll be out.”

You both finished eating thirty minutes in to the movie, sharing minimal small talk in between bites, you being almost too enthralled on the film played that was supposed to be only background noise.

As you requested, Peter stayed in your apartment. And he’s doing that thing where he’s focusing on two things at once – homework and the clue. The movie continues still even as you sat in front of the easel once more, your phone propped up as you ever-so-often scrolled to read the website Peter sent to help him analyze the clue.

The voice of Dolores Chanal fills the concentrated silence. “Get out of here, Teddy. This place is gonna be the end of you.”

It’s followed by a soliloquy from Edward Daniels and John Cawley that Peter pays no attention to – if he’s being honest, he’s not an entire fan of these kind of movies, having to prefer sci-fi than thrillers. But he enjoyed it, nonetheless.

“Let’s try this another way. Your wife’s maiden name is Chanal, am I correct?” You’re quoting Cawley, memorized the whole scene from how many times you’ve watched the movie. And Peter laughs when you even mimicked his accent behind the canvas.

Peter shifts his direction from his laptop to the TV, watching Cawley remove a sheet off the board to reveal four names. “Focus, Andrew! What do you see? The names have the same letters.”

Even Peter focuses, eyes narrowing to get a better view of the four names.

Confirmed, the names did have all the same letters. “Edward Daniels has exactly the same 13 letters as Andrew Laeddis. The same as Rachel Solando and Dolores Chanal. The names are anagrams for each other.”

Anagrams.

Peter’s eyes move away from the TV to look for the anagram book Ned brought beneath the pile of papers. He picks the book up, accidentally slamming it open on the table.

He hears you yelp. “Peter?” you call out. “You alright?”

“Yes!” he replies hastily. “I think I just figured out what the clue meant.”

There’s a quick silence before you reply through the loud scraping of your chair, taking long strides to him before standing behind his chair to lean over his hunched figure. “Really?” you ask in disbelief.

“Yes,” he repeats. “The movie gave me an idea.”

“What, when Teddy found out his real name?”

“Yes.”

“The anagram?”

“Yes.”

Peter skims the pages with his finger, almost tearing his flesh by flicking them too abruptly. And you stood behind him, observing how his eyes aided and abetted his mind with what he saw, his brain analyzing the words offered by the book.

The eyes. Thee yes. Th eyes. They se?

They see.

When he pats down the papers on the table in search for a pen, he groans when he doesn’t feel the shape. But you’d given him a pen without him asking for, knowing what he was already looking for.

He repays you with a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before picking up a random piece of scribbled up paper and writing down words they see.

“What’s next, darling?”

You pick up the crumpled up piece of paper that was stuck to the fridge, reading the clue out loud. “Is no amity.”

Belligerent impulses amassed, incorrigible minds repudiated. Peter's mind intermittently assesses the words on his text book, swapping words until he believes he has the right one. And he thinks it should be simple (with a book given, after all), but he's so filled with adrenaline from his enthusiasm that it takes him a while to put the pieces together.

In the end, though, he’s finally done.

the eyes is no amity; unship the molarity, enured the veil

they see animosity; punish the morality, endure the evil

Peter rereads the sentence over and over again to see if something in his mind would click – for a book to open, a memory to unlock. But nothing happens, each search his patience withers into something as a sliver of annoyance.

“I don’t – I don’t understand,” he says angrily under his breath. “What, what’s this supposed to mean?”

“Maybe it’s describing something,” it’s obvious you’re trying to appease his sudden impatience. “Pete, it’s okay. We can still solve it-”

“It’s not okay!” he stands up, throwing the paper aside to run a hand through his hair frustratingly. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I want – I want to catch her. Fuck!”

He’s thankful you don’t question his eagerness; albeit you’re clueless to why he wants to catch Black Cat, you consider not to anger him anymore.

Peter hasn’t thought of her in days, too engrossed in the clue and you. And right when he thought he’d be able to see her again, it all comes back to square one – except this time he’s got a solved clue.

“It’s not okay,” he repeats with a soft whimper, sitting back down and slumping his back. “It’s not okay.”

“I know,” you coo, wrapping your arms around his head, running your own fingers through his hair, untangling the knots. “I know it’s not okay. I’m sorry.”

He breathes, resting his forehead on your stomach and softly rubbing his skin on the fabric of your shirt. When your hands slide through Peter's curls, tugging to relieve stress, he sighs faintly.

“We’ll catch her,” you tell him. “I’m sure she’s still waiting. We – we don’t have all the time in the world but we still got time.”

“I know,” when he nods, your shirt rises a little. “I’m sorry for shouting.”

“It’s okay,”

“Can I-” he stands up, gently grasping your hand to remove themselves from his hair, “I’ll just grab my phone from your room. I need to text Ned.”

You appear reticent to let him inside your room, your gaze flitting between the open door and his eyes that waits for approval. You eventually nod and place a light kiss on his cheek before returning to your seat behind the easel.

Peter then saunters into your unoccupied room, the stench of which has been illuminated by the candle you lighted not long ago to alleviate the odor from the previous night (not that you both complained). Mint fills his nostrils, smoothing out the crease on his forehead. His shoulders relax as he approaches the charging phone on the bedside table.

There’s at least a couple of unread messages – three from May greeting him good morning and what her plans were, five from Ned about something Star Wars related, one from Flash (which was porn, obvi), and -

MJ.

An hour ago.

He abruptly sits down on the bed with frantic hands rushing to open his phone. When MJ texts it usually means two things (it used to be three when they were together): there’s a crisis happening, or she found something out.

Nervous fingers open the messaging app and clicks on her name. MJ: peter, i’ve got bad news

He looks behind him to see if you were standing on the doorway in case his senses detect you as harmless and don’t alarm him of your presence before he replies.  whats wrong?

Though MJ’s text had been an hour ago, she reads the text immediately as if she’d been waiting for his reply. The typing bubble appears and reappears five times before she finally says:

MJ: It’s about (y/n)

Peter responses. what abt her?

MJ: she’s not who we think she is.

what are u talking about?

MJ: lexi’s saw

lexi? Whos lexi

MJ: my girlfriend. didn’t i introduce you two?

sorry. Must’ve forgot

MJ: whatever. Anyway, lexi came to (y/n)’s gallery the same day you saw black cat in the gallery.

And?

MJ: well, she said she saw her change into her costume. Like, saw her change into black cat

Peter's fingers ground to a halt on top of the keyboard, rereading the text with startled eyes and perplexed brows. What?

MJ: she saw her without the mask, peter. (y/n)’s black cat.

༻✦༺ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ༻✧༺

PART ONE; PART TWO; PART THREE

SUPPORT A WRITER AND REBLOG! (please)

[p1nkwitch]

I have plenty of questions about your fanfics I don't even know when to start. Can I just name every one of them and send you star with it?

But please tell me something interesting funfact behind Heart Machinations? Also were you at some point considering bad/different ending?

i think i would never finish writing if you did send me all of them even with the star, i ramble a lot and go on tangents, but if you send them like 3 fics per day i can make it i promise.

Ok to start! Nope! This was the story where i literally envisioned the ending first and had to go backwards to write it. The ending was solid.

But for fun facts!! Oh boy.

This entire story begun with the idea of a one shot, with a slight different plot, it would have ended with Peter as an old man uploading his mind like he promised Elias in the fic and coming back as an Ai, to stay with Elias for as long as they could. I ended up switching things arounf in my head until i ended up with the image.

The thing that started this entire fic.

Peter floating in space with Elias declaring his love.

I was forced by the entire story to find ways to keep them from confessing earlier than intended. God did i regret having to put it so later, because the mental flips i needed to justify them not realizing, were driving me up to a wall.

Another thing that i was not aiming for, but ended up liking was the TimPeter, i didnt aim for it to be a plot point, i didnt even ship them, but i wrote them so well i actually hesitated. Not to the Elias romance with Peter that was a given, but i hesitated to actually make a policule out of everyone.

In the end i decided to go for my original plan, but it had been a posibility.

Most of the relationships surged as the soty progressed, because i realized if it was only them it would get boring so i started to shuffle characters and relationships and it worked far better than i intended.

Now the other interesting tidbit.

Was that originally i was intending for Elias to be the actual big bad, a la Glados in portal. Elias tricks Tim and Peter into thinking Jon went rouge and he got Leitner killed so Peter connects him, Elias pretends things are normal but sends him off to rrepair something outside, once Peter is safe he uses the gas to kill everyone who is not going to be sent to do experiments in the hidden labs.

Martin opens the door for Peter makes him help by trying Elias like the original one did to get himshut down. He realizes and hurt tries to attack him, Martin uses the portal door and Peter still tries to hold unto Elias, but they ended up slipping and going into space.

The Simon plot point was always going to be there, same as the oxygen and confession.They apologize and everything.

In fact Peter was never supposed to realize Elias was killing people until he takes over. I realized it would be impossible to keep him in the dark for so long along with the not confessing so i had to give one up for the story and i was set on my ways.

The more i developed them, the more i started to change the plot to fit better with the new narrative wanting it to be more satisfiying.

Something else that i changed in the story, was that after Leitner dies, Gertrude was supposed to come to check the station, Elias sees her and gets her killed. It did not pan out of course, because i considered it would be too out of nowhere.

When i realize the story was sort of getting shifted i went with the idea to switch the notSasha on its head. Which created lovely Pasha!! Whom i love a lot.

Another thing that i had to develop because i grew very fond of it were Missy and Titania. Particularly Missy, since Titania was a stand in for the vast in some ways. Missy was needed to provide Peter some form of love, since yes, i made the Lukas terrible people, but a child still needs some love to grow and i wanted someone to help with that since Simon couldnt. I love her a lot and honestly wish i could use her in more stories because she is a great character. I know people dont really are in it for the original characters but she is dear to me.

The honest to god most fun i had during the story was writting the chats between the characters and the moments where Elias and Peter where being horny for each other. Peter freaking out silently about the things Elias said, while Elias was being the most horny creature in the station was delightful.

My favourite parts were also writing Elias realizing that he ruined Peter, that he had caused his misery, i wish i could have gone harder on those. Because they are a great part of his motivations. He starst not caring but the more he falls in love, the more he realizes how much of a horrible person he is and how much he is hurting Peter. I love that, i put it before but i like making characters go though bad stuff to get them to the good, to get that catharsis after all the bad.

I wanted to do a bonus. Where Peter does go to Simon’s funeral and everyone has to sit there while Android Simon was just chilling giving his own eulogy.

One thing i sort of chikened out of, but left crumbs around was the plot point that ogElias and Micheal Shelley were dating. Thats why Elias had the picture and writings about him. They split due to Gertrude and Elias defending JON4H. Its why Elias could keep Helen so easily to raise her. She calls him uncle, because they had broken up and he felt he didnt deserve to take that from Micheal.

Currently they made up and since Elias was single they are patching things up, Helen was thrilled.

This is also the story where the cats appear. And im so glad for it.

Captain was an idea based on the au of another fic i love Timeline of Theseus, i just pictured Peter getting the cat and voila. (No, there is no cat in there, but it would had been so funny) They were foils, Elias has a lonely cat and Peter a beholding one. They fall in love. I like that.

Thats all i can remember now. Nikola was always also a plot point, i mean who else would make androids but the puppet herself! Since ideally i intended for Elias to get a body, it was supposed to happen.

I went off, but i really did have a lot of ideas and scrapped ones that i figured no one would see. Im happy i could just leave them out to the world!!

So yes ask away, but as you can see, i sort of go off. Thanks for asking!!!! I hope its what you wanted. Sorry if it goes all over the place.

[sparrowsabre7]

Used a guide, because life is short and this game is long. So I'm meant to talk to Fragile by selecting Fragile jump in my room. I guess that makes sense but given it's only ever been for fast travel not sure how I would have worked that out as a method of communicating, or that Fragile could put you into a beach.

It's quite a nice story beat, that Fragile can't jump to Amelie as previously explained, but she can jump to Sam and Sam can get to Amelie through the things that bind each of them like knots on a strand. It may be a little on the nose but it still works, as does perhaps the first moment of consensual touch Sam allows in the game, after Fragile quietly says "I'll have to touch you" and he silently accepts. For all his weird sexualisation of some scenarios and badly worded dialogue, Kojima can still sell emotional beats when he needs to.

On the beach at last; ok, Higgs is Darth Vader now and has force powers. He creates a BT spiderweb and sets Amelie at the centre before a fourth wall breaking monologue about stick vs rope and one last boss fight: no items, final destination, Fox only.

It's Strandin' Time!

Ok this kind of... blows. It's a stealth segment where he can find out where you are almost instantly. Why the fuck wouldn't you take any weapons Sam? It's really hard to break line of sight. I know I need to throw the boxes to distract him but it's not working. Did manage to yeet one right in his dumb fucking face though. Didn't see that coming Mr. God Particle.

Ah fuck this; LEEROOOOOY mmJENKINS!! Decked the shit out of him then pivoted to bind and then kick the shit out of him some more. God, that's satisfying.

After a few rounds of that, "I don't need a gun Sam". Brave of you to say half way through the fight dickwad. Come at me.

When you were partying, I studied the strand. When you were learning how to control BTs, I mastered the parry mechanic. While you wasted your days at the gym in pursuit of vanity, I cultivated inner strength. And now that the world is on fire and the barbarians are at the gate you have the audacity to come to me for a boss fight and expect victory. Welcome to dirt, punk.

Oh, and apparently you don't need a gun but do need grenades. You're a real honourable warrior, Higgs. Truly the last of the samurai.

Kicked out a Snake-like "Aaaaaah" from him and it's over.

No. Wait. Round 3. "We got DOOMS, Sam! This was only ever gonna end one way." Ok, I... I don't know what that means but now we're in Tekken apparently. Health bars above our heads and everything. Oh no, it's Mortal Kombat, with the slow mo jaw break.

This...

This is kind of a shitty end to a boss fight... I'm literally hammering attack and winning it's just so incongruous with the rest of the game, should have left it at stage 2.

It's got dramatic music like it's meant to be the Snake and Liquid fight in MGS4 but I have no emotional connection to Higgs, in-game or out. He's just kind of a shithead, there's no brotherly bond here and he's not been established enough.

Ah multiple headbutts finisher. It is literally trying to be that MGS4 fight.

I know this isn't the end since Cliff's thing is still unresolved, but it is definitely trying hard to feel that way.

Oh shut the fuck up Higgs, stop with your "you won but still lost" bullshit. Fragile, kill the fuck out of him, please. Ugh, don't repeat I'm not that Fragile like it's your catchphrase.

Ha! Fuck you Higgs! Run out of BT juice. Oh... was that it? One punch. Also, don't just repeat "You're damaged goods" back to him like you're in a Joss Whedon film and that's an adequate comeback. Wow after a strong start this not-finale has been super anti-climactic.

Oh nope,she is going to shoot him. But offscreen. Fragile managed to bring Lou over too, nice. "Where should I take you?" Fragile asks, before Amelie butts in with "He doesn't need you, he's got me." Alright, calm down. Jealous much. But Sam is like "yeah you should go." Glad Fragile at least calls them both out on it.

Ok, so now Amelie says she could have left at any time basically, but did it to force Sam to connect the Chiral network.

And now we're "Mario and Princess Beach" running back home.

And now everything has gone insane. Now Bridget is here but maybe she's also Amelie and Die-Hardman is here to kill Bridget for fucking the world up and now Cliff is here and he knows Die-Hardman (who's real name is John) and Bridget is sending him after Sam but now she's Amelie again and behind Sam and tells him to run by pushing him in the sea, causing him to repatriate but in the repatriation sequence it's not BB inside Sam but one of those horrid dolls.

What the FUCK.

Ok and now I'm back in my room and Deadman tells me Amelie ported me here and then checked out to "finish what Bridget started" which I'm guessing may still mean blow up the world or the beach or something. Christ it has got very dense very quickly.

"We've been operating on the assumption, Higgs was controlling Cliff"; have we? News to me, I always assumed they were two separate antagonists given the Battlefield was entirely separate from Higgs' brand of goopy nonsense. So now Cliff has Amelie AND Die-Hardman on the beach. Great so things have gotten worse. Now Fragile can't port me to the beach either because reasons.

So I have to walk all the way back East all the fucking way because she transported all the secondary characters before me.

Thanks a fucking lot. This has been a real kick me while I'm down moment.

At least I don't need to carry anything there save protection and climbing gear. Hope I can at least drive some of it.

Ooh more flashback time. Looks like Bridget was intending to use BB as a sacrifice to build the UCA, unclear if by causing the Death Stranding or somehow starting the Chiral network.

Anyway now I'm walking these 6k or whatever back to Lake Knot. Some zipline help but one asshole put the zipline where the dismount is off a cliff. Sam echoes this though with a "nice zipline, asshole".

I also have no equipment, so stopping off at the paleontologist to gear up. Nice, a free bike too. Everything's coming up Bridges.

Oh fuck off Deadman, I don't want a Cliff notes session (pun intended), especially when you're just restating a bunch of theories. So Cliff wants BB to b whole, yep already gathered, the battlefield is tied to him due to his anger dragging his hellscape through with him. Sure, cool, can I get back to my drive now?

Oh come on... BTs can now spawn as catchers immediately, don't even need to grab you. Fuck this, I'm running. Sorry purple bike!

Jesus fucking christ Deadman, fuck OFF. Blah blah secret BB experiements were to make BT detectors but actually they were designed to make the Chiral network like I thought.

Oh.

They made the network by building all the cities with a BB integrated into each one.

Jesus Fucking Christ, I didn't see that coming...

That's some heavy shit man. This is that episode of Doctor Who with the space whale heavy.

While I ponder that horrific choice I'll inevitably have to make I am enjoying coming back and seeing how much bigger the highways have gotten in my absence. It's so fun to boost down them on a trike.

Another call from Deadman. Cliff put his BB in the care of the scientists but didn't know they were going to use the BB for the Chiral network, I assume he thought the experiments were benign per the lie told. Deadman says he's unsure how he was able to arrive on Bridget's beach and that there must be more to their connection so I'm going to go ahead and guess, he's Sam's father as well as the BB's, or he's a sibling of Bridget.

Fucking hell, another call from Deadman. Jesus give it a rest. No apparent connection between Die-Hardman and Bridget because his past has all been redacted, also suggested that Die-Hardman had no connection with Amelie/Bridget and that it's DH connection to Cliff that allowed him access to Bridget/Amelie's beach. God my head hurts.

Heartman's saying that the beaches are beginning to merge into a single seam, aside from the battlefield and Heartman's beaches. Amelie may have some kind of super bridge that controls all beaches which further my theory that she was BB patient zero.

Oh boy, big ol' Chiral storm, looks like it's battlefield time.

Flashback time, Cliff gives a sad speech about being a father and it looks like Die-Hardman killed Cliff under Bridget's orders.

Ok we're in Vietnam now and Cliff's wearing DH's mask. Comparatively this opener is less badass than the WWI and II battlefields but only in comparison. In any other games this would be a ridiculously cool moment. The arena itself excels as always, still not sure I could pick a favourite. Vietnam feels more linear but the mix of violent explosions, fire and oppressive silence and darkness work so well together.

Ok, I was wrong, actually reaching Cliff gives a supremely cool scene of Cliff and co marching through a lake of fire.

Another intense game of cat and mouse later and Cliff is finally down.

It's actually a really nice moment of emotional catharsis. Cliff begins to whistle a tune to BB and Sam completes it. It's not a big shock reveal, just a quiet mutual realisation that Cliff is Sam's father. They embrace and then a gunshot is heard and Cliff disappears, having first transitioned from combat gear to a suit, I hope implying his becoming whole and at peace. Despite minimal development until this past hour of exposition, Cliff has been a much more successful antagonist compared with Higgs.

Another flashback, DH is saying that Cliff should escape with his BB, but he will be forced to carry out any orders Bridget gives, hence the previous flashback. Seems DH was one of Cliff's soldiers. Still unclear if the woman lying on the bed, who is Cliff's wife, is the same person as Bridget. It's deliberately vague and when Bridget approached the BB in a previous scene her face was covered with DH'S mask.

Oh... Sam seems to think Cliff is Lou's father but that very much wasn't my take away from that scene. Deadman comes along with a recording of DH, says that Amelie left a message for him to get to the beach with one of Cliff's dolls. He knows it's a trap but plays along anyway and says Amelie also has no recorded past and made the point no one's ever met her in person. Seems to point to the fact that she may only exist on the beach.

DH says that her soul remained on the beach while her body deteriorated in the real world, but with high DOOMs abilities. She could then travel to the beach body and soul by the time she was 20 and the president said never contact Amelie except by hologram, but once the Chiral network was up and running DH checked the old records:

Bridget had uterine cancer in her 20s and never had children, yet Amelie is the spit of a younger Bridget, so... what's the connection?

Ok, now Fragile's here, and says Amelie was behind Higgs, she led the Demens and he abandoned Fragile when Amelie showed up, began the extinction initiative. She could control BTs and she was the one who turned Higgs into Homo Demens, able to command BTs at will. There was no BB in Higgs' chest pack either, only another of the dolls Cliff had.

But if that's all true, then why did she not just trigger the death stranding when Sam competed the network? Why did she need Sam to kill Higgs?

Another chapter closes but I feel we've still got a ways to go.

[avpdpunpun]

i disappeared for 3/4ths a year here’s an update?

its been 4 months since my queue ran out and way longer since i wrote an actual post. 8 months about? i think i last posted when i impulse quit a job that was bad for my mental health and just kept getting worse.

sometimes i wonder when ppl who blog about mental illness disappear if they’ve died. there was a big user i used to follow who did, and i still occasionally think about it sometimes, so i figure its nice to post updates sometimes. and being able to look back on posts ive written and reflect on them/what state of mind i was in can be helpful even if it can be embarrassing/dangerous because its so easy to fall back into those thinking habits 

after quitting my job i did basically nothing for 6 months haha. at some point i managed to clean out my room which i had done the bare minimum on for years because of depression, took out more built up trash than i thought was possible to fit into my small space. its disgusting but the only thing i struggle to keep up with now at least is vacuuming and putting clothes away so my space is a lot cleaner and it makes me happier. your living space can really have an effect on your mood bless you marie kondo

after my post about having an anxiety attack taking my test i got my drivers license in march. i saw the same lady again after going somewhere else and i think she just let me pass because she felt bad haha. i never finished drivers ed and i still get anxiety about driving unfamiliar routes but my skills and confidence have improved a lot. i managed to drive 2 hours to a big city to visit a friend! i literally didnt have a choice in getting my license, but its still something i can be proud of. like, when i have to explain it to people, it feels extremely shitty that i didnt get it until i was 20, and only about 5 months ago too but... for someone who struggles as much as me, i have to be proud of it my small accomplishments or i’ll have nothing.

at some point something in my brain just snapped and i literally havent been able to cry? for a long time in those 6 months i felt like i was right on the edge of breaking down mentally but never actually crossing that line and it was honestly one of the weirdest things ive experienced. i almost wanted to have a breakdown again just to get rid of the feeling and reach a catharsis like... i used to be a fucking crybaby almost but i. cant. anymore. but i think ive mostly moved away from this point... still feel kinda weird tho.

i didnt end up signing up to a local school fo gen eds. its still on my mind for the vague future because there’s topics i want to learn about (psychology, natural resources, languages...) and maybe try to pursue for a career but really i just wanted a way to get out of my toxic house, even if it meant going into debt to live in a shitty dorm. 

in the last 30 days though life has been moving extremely quickly for me. i dont think i couldve lived with myself much longer being a useless adult basically living in my basement bedroom of my parents house, especially with my younger siblings getting nearer to adult milestones, plus my savings were starting to run out.

so literally next weekend, i’m moving out! and i make enough money right now that with the rough budget i have established, if its accurate, i’ll have a decent amount of wiggle room and hopefully wont be ruining my mental health just trying to make ends meet.

it took a long time of searching but i managed to find a job that hasnt made me suicidal and has slightly more than the MIT living wage for my area lol. im a janitor now! we’ll see how long it lasts but a lot of the factors from my last two jobs that contributed to my failing mental health are gone. i rarely have to interact with other people, and if i do its my coworkers, of who i tend to only see for minutes per day, or the other people working in the building i clean who at most i have to say hi and have a nice night to lol. i get to listen to music and podcasts for 8 hours and its very routine heavy. i have to clock out after the 8 hours is up so i literally cant be forced into overtime. a lot of people dont respect cleaning jobs like this but honestly who gives a fuck, its something i can handle mentally and support myself with. its still hard adjusting to 40 hours. i know its the standard, but the standard is rly tough for me, but i think i can do it long term.

all of this has been achieved through sheer self hatred and impulse alone, and im very nervous about moving in with 3 other people even if 1 of them ive known for 8 years, and i dont think its even properly hit me yet. literally cant register that i have to fend 100% for myself but also ill be away from my toxic family! i can bring my cat with me, who before this i got to see at MOST once a week!

a dude ive known online for two or more years is moving to my area too for college and he’s so sweet and kind, i feel better talking to him than i have 99% of people in my life and im so lucky to know him. ive been forced to talk about personal things i was kind of dreading (not his fault, just a result of our relationship going to go from online -> irl and things id have to address beforehand) and honestly i didnt even mind it that much when i just got it over with and talked about it to him! vulnerability is literally the thing i struggle with the most in interpersonal relationships and is a huge block for me in every way and in even the most mundane life situations but like... he’s honestly the best and im getting emotional writing this and its weird af because i straight up dont GET emotional about other people. ive absolutely developed a stupid fucking crush on him recently and i THINK hes been receptive to flirting and i cant tell if he flirts back because we already say i love you and are wholesome af but honestly no clue if he’s into (trans) dudes but honestly? even if it doesnt work out im so happy to be friends with him and im so excited to finally meet him!! i really think knowing him has helped me improve myself 

i’ve always thought that if i could literally just achieve the bare minimum in life that things would naturally get better. like i’m still mentally ill and get paranoid about peoples intentions and i think if my boss yelled at me id have an anxiety attack on the spot. im still depressed and hate that i have low energy and that it’s still rly hard doing basic chores. 

but like a huge part of my problem was that i felt like i literally couldn’t TRY to connect with people if i couldn’t face having to tell them bare info about myself, like “oh i cant drive” or “i dont have a job” or that i was living with my parents but not even making PROGRESS on getting out. like how could i make friends or go on dates if i literally couldnt contribute shit or admit these things i was so ashamed of? a lot of my self image was shaped by this because my entire life i havent been mentally well enough to do as well as i should have.

but like. i feel like im finally doing these basic things!! i dont have to hate myself so much anymore! i dont look badly on other mentally ill ppl who are less lucky than i/havent been able to do those things yet/might not ever and are still in the same situation i was 2 months ago but the self hatred is strong pls understand.

i dont know yet if i could afford twice yearly drs visits for meds or anything and probably not therapy. i dont even know what my insurance is yet haha. but i’ll see

i need to figure out at what point in my life im going to be able to never contact a single person in my family ever again, considering i’ll be a 20 min drive away and they will know the precise location of where i live, and if i’ll ever feel safe enough in society to start hrt but :^) you know :^) i can at least present more masculinely in the meantime!

i dont rly know how to conclude this... i’m not trying to brag either im just very nervous and excited about where my life might be going for the first time ever? maybe? in my entire life? i have no clue what to pursue after moving out, but i can figure it out. and just... that there’s hope even if youre as fucked up and mentally ill as i am lmao!

[deniigi]

Hello! Just about to sit down and read your newest fic, so excited about it! I had a question for you (you very well may have answered this already, so sorry in advance!), but do you have advice for writing? Advice in terms of getting start, plotting out stories, helping get the creative juices flowing? I have all these ideas but seem to lack the drive to get things written out. I know the best advice is to just write, but I'm having a horrible time starting. What do you do in those moments?

Hello my dear!

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The lord has blessed me with a head cold and ruined all my plans of productivity for the day, so I can finally answer this ask! I’ll talk a little bit about both how to get started with a story and then some little things that help me motivate myself.

I have started a tag for writing advice here: http://deniigi.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-advice

This is going to be a long post, sorry mobile users.

I am going to preface all of this with the understanding that I am technically a professional writer in terms of like, a handful of ways, but I have absolutely zero training in creative writing, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!

So, I personally find that, on the whole, that psychological hurdle of getting started comes a lot from the anticipation of the kind of response a story will get (how many hits, how many comments, how many kudos) in addition to a bit of anxiety or fear over  theloss of sustained interest in that story (by yourself and/or by your audience). I find that this can be alleviated by really, truly internalizing the understanding that you are allowed to write your work however you damn please, for whoever you damn please.

There will be work you write for others, and there will be work you write for yourself. Not all work needs to be published; sometimes, it is really nice to just write shit for yourself; it is a plus for humanity if you decide to share it with others, but you do not have to do that.

Furthermore, I would like to present you with this:

This is what my current folder for under fire looks like. And you might notice that there are almost always multiple drafts per chapter. Yes, I did in fact rewrite chapter four 5 fucking times, you bet your ass I did. And I’m not ashamed of it. I think the story is better for it. And that’s the important thing here: you do not need to produce a perfect draft the first time around. You will not produce that perfect draft. Accept this. Embrace this. Embrace it and your cat at the same time to really ingrain it as a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Liberate yourself from the pressure of needing to produce the perfect, most right draft and you may find starting the piece overall to be a much easier, more pleasant experience.

And along with this beautiful, uplifting spiritual advice, I also bring a practical thought: when it comes to getting started, a lot of times, people feel like they need to set the stage, yadda yadda yadda. Ha. No. Fuck that.

That’s a surefire way to bore the shit out of yourself. Start right in the middle of a scene that captivates you if that’s what you want to write. It’s a free platform. No one’s gonna arrest you if you stick Spiderman upside down in trash first thing. They might even applaud you actually, because you didn’t make them slog through some of that ‘It was the evening of the 25th and it was cold out in the streets” bullshit we all learned from Dickens.

Alright. Now let’s talk about actually getting started making words appear on paper.

So, from my knowledge there are generally two ways that folks write creatively. You have what I’m going to call the planners and then you what I’m going to call the monsters (I call them this entirely affectionately, I’m sure there’s a better word for these folks, but I don’t have it atm, all I have is a headcold). Planners are folks who sit down and work out their major plot points, who write outlines, and who create the scaffolding of their work before they set out on their magical journey. I think of these folks as architects.

And then you have the monsters and these are those fuckers who just sit down and write stream of consciously like the heathens all our high school teachers tried to teach us not to be.

I am both a planner and a monster. And a lot of that depends on the length of work I’m going for. I have never in my life planned a one-shot, for example. I just attack that as it is. I follow my heart, if you will. But when it comes to longer chaptered fics, I really do think that some outlining is super helpful.

You might find it useful for one-shots, though, I dunno. Maybe give it a try and see what happens?

The two main fics I’ve done proper outlines for are Inimitable and under fire and I actually find outlining to be immensely helpful in psyching me up to write the story (I go through and re-read my outlines when I start to lose interest or diverge too much from the plot outlined there in the actual writing. 9 times out of 10, re-reading gets me stupid excited to write all over again) and it also helps me keep momentum going throughout the plot.

Here’s a pic of some pages of under fire’s outline.

Physically writing the work is really important for me because it forces me to only put down key points/feelings/ideas I want to include, whereas typing gives me far too much room to get lost/distracted by extraneous detail. And since my handwriting is a teacher’s worst nightmare and I cross out shit and write huge with emotion, I’ll give you a little bit of what the middle page here says:

Miles-

there’s something thrumming

vibrating in his ears wherever he goes

-closes his eyes and somehow enters blackness- emptyness (Stranger Things style)

beat

beat

beat

“help.”

–BACK - everything is gone

closing his eyes doesn’t bring the space back

–it makes him panic. He doesn’t know why. His heart is pounding. He’s sweating He has a horrible feeling of doom.

beat

beat

beat

its gone.

he goes home anxiously. Pretends everything is normal.

his neck crawls

So basically it’s less of a formal outline and more of a collection of stream of consciousness feelings and screenplay directions which I’ll flesh out in the actual story.

Personally, I love writing these kinds of things because they get me pumped for the story I’m about to tell. I get to write out the key scenes and work through all the hard parts first, and then, while I’m writing, I work through the little fun details and banter and I have to write to figure out how we get from one scene to the next and I love the challenge of having to fit those pieces together. I very rarely stick strictly to my outline, (as anyone who is currently reading under fire can tell you right now), but I do try to stick to the main plot points in it and my writing is certainly better for it.

So yes. Outlining is very good, but it is even better when you do it to some kind of music. I listened to What’s Up Danger from the Into the Spiderverse soundtrack on repeat while I wrote this outline to kind of transfer some of the relentless pace conveyed in that song to the piece’s plot.

I highly recommend using music to set the mood of your piece while/before you write a piece of any length. It helps get you in the right headspace (excited or somber or angry) to write. You need emotion to write creatively. You can’t just make that happen sometimes; you need a little help.

A couple other things which might help:

1. Leave your house or the space you’re normally in. Go to a cafe and find a nice corner and have a think and a try in there. Sometimes moving to a different space helps you escape cyclical thinking patterns.

2. Write what you want to read. Don’t bother writing for other peoples’ interests; that’ll just bore the shit out of you all over again.

3. Find an atmospheric mood sound to listen to on Youtube or smth (I personally like Rain on a Car Windshield for slightly somber fics, but you might be into ocean storms or dripping caves or whatever).

4. Heat your feet. I don’t know why but I am entirely unproductive when my feet are cold. Maybe this one is me-specific, but whatevs. Heat the feets!

5. If you’re still having trouble just sitting down and pounding the story out, that’s okay! Maybe it’s not ready to be written yet. Maybe you’re not in the right headspace yet. Sometimes that’s just how it is. One story makes its way out in like, a hour, and the next one takes like, months to finally be written. We all work at different paces. We all write for different reasons.

It might help to figure out why you want to write a story before you write it. Like, if its for attention, it’s gonna be hard as hell. But if there’s an idea that you feel like is important or if there’s a mood you’re trying to work yourself into or out of, then that might be a little easier. For example, I wrote a piece called make it work which is about Fogs finding his motivation to be a lawyer and fight for justice when Kavanaugh was confirmed and I felt super helpless in the face of our present justice system. That story kind of wrote itself and it needed to be written, I feel, not just for me, but for others who were feeling just as helpless.

Writing is catharsis in that way. Maybe you just need to find out what you need to wring out of your soul.

Sorry that got very metaphysical. But I do want to stress that getting started and ending a story are the hardest parts of writing them, so you are definitely not alone if you feel like you’re ramming your head into a wall here.

I hope something here helps you, my dear!

[happilyconfusedpsychmajor]

Spring semester hacks

Ah yes. Spring semester. Thought it was over? Nope. It’s just getting started. Burn out is REAL and it’s very easy to fall prey to. Here’s some things that helps me fight burn out.

1-sleep. Sleep. S L E E P. Please sleep. I know it can be so hard, especially when finals start rearing their heads. Our bodies regenerate during sleep, and it gives our minds time to sort through the information that’s been given to us (or rather shoved down our throats from time to time).

2- eat. You gotta refuel. It’s so basic but even having some bread after not eating for a while will help. Candy will help for a little while, but make sure to munch on an apple or something.

3- get yo body up and moving. Dance to your favorite songs, walk around the block, play with your cat, roll up in a blanket on the floor and pretend you’re a worm. Anything that will stretch you out and help circulate your blood.

4- baby wipe powers. I don’t know what it is, but wiping my face with baby wipes or makeup remover makes me feel clean and awake. Is it the best for my skin? Probably not, but it helps keep me awake. It’s a good substitute if you can’t bring yourself to shower too.

5- breathing. Taking a break from studying and crying over textbooks feels amazing. I like the box method personally; breathing in for five, holding for five, breathing out for five, hold for five. (Get it...it’s kinda like a box 😉) you can also do the 4:7:8 method, anything that brings your attention to your body.

6- crying. Yep. It’s a catharsis. Crying helps me feel better. Just let it all out. It’s okay to cry. Make sure to stay hydrated if you go this route.

7- being a vegetable. My brain feels mushy after a while of just studying. When it gets to this point, I know I won’t be able to retain anything more, so I often just watch Netflix. Or take a nap. Naps are nice.

I hope these things help!

[kaisha-writes-blog]

I did a really long thing (sorry)

Thank you so much for tagging me in this @hklunethewriter! I love the idea and had so much fun reading your answers. Also, I’m brand new to tumblr and only four people out of the 400 I followed have followed me back, so a huge shout out to you guys - and to @hklunethewriter for being kind enough to tag me! Standing nervously in front of the microphone, I can almost hear one of you clapping at the back of the room. 

So, this seems relatively simple, but knowing me I’ll still do it wrong so I’m sorry in advance if I answer the wrong questions. I don’t have 11 followers, so I’m going to tag the four I have, and then just other blogs that I think look interesting. Feel free to totally ignore me and go about your day. 

Note: I hope you’ve got plenty of syrup because this is 100% WAFFLE. I write like I talk, and I talk a lot, so this ended up being much longer than I intended. I’m sorry. I exhaust myself. 

1. What’s your favourite writing spot?

For sure the snuggle chair in my living room (people think I made that name up, but I promise that’s what it’s called in the catalogue). My youngest kitty Cleo likes to sit by me, and walk across the keyboard when I’m trying to type, so that’s always a lot of fun. I consume several hot drinks in the glow of my laptop screen and my crappy ASDA lamp until my eyes start to close. Often I wake up there, and the cycle begins again. 

2. Is there a song you only listen to when you’re writing?

Um, not really. Sometimes I’ll have an idea in my head for something I’m going to write and will make little playlists that inspire me. I’ll listen to them throughout the day, but I find it really hard to hear myself think if music is playing because I just sing to it instead. 

3. What’s your stance on ambiguous endings?

I’m in two minds! Personally, I really like that certain endings are left open to interpretation. I like reading fan theories on the internet, and having the freedom to use my imagination to picture different scenarios, and the air of mystery that comes with saying ‘well, we’ll never know for sure.’ On the other side of the coin, though, if I’m really invested in a story (which happens a lot, because I’m seemingly unable to like things on a low-key level) then I much prefer the closure of a sure, solid ending.

4. Do you believe ‘Death of the Author’ holds up when, especially in our current time period, authors are likely to give and assign parts of themselves to their characters? Do such books exist anymore?

I personally see no harm at all in authors assigning elements of their lives, their personalities, or things that inspired the events they depict to their characters/writing. Though I’m not massively knowledgeable on the subject, as I stated earlier, I agree that interpretation by the reader is key and personally find that being given room to view things in my own way makes for a much more interesting read. I’m a big believer in showing my reader what I’m saying, rather than telling them what’s going on - and while I’m sure that there are books that have been written in mind of this notion, and are intentionally vague, I often find the backstory to the novels I read almost as interesting as the novel itself. 

5. Is writing more of a stress relief or stress causer for you?

I often write for catharsis or enjoyment, so I’m leaning much more towards stress relief. I may, however, answer differently in 24 hours time when I’m frantically writing my assignment for university 12 hours before it’s due to be handed in. Organisation is the enemy, apparently.

6. Adverbs. Thoughts?

I like adverbs, generally speaking, but a pet peeve of mine is seeing them used too frequently! I think it’s Stephen King (could be totally wrong, do NOT quote me on that) who believes that an over-use of adverbs is indicative of timidity? I said earlier that, rather than telling my reader what’s going on, I prefer to show them - and as such, I am often (not always) of the belief that the writing leading up to the adverb should be of a high enough quality to nullify it. Each to their own, though, of course!

7. Has tumblr made you a more productive/”creative” writer, in your opinion?

Mostly yes, but a little bit no. Yes, because I see a lot on here that inspires me to write - whether it’s the work of other writers, a photograph of a beautiful sunset that moves me, a text post of some song lyrics I haven’t heard in FOREVER or a quote I can relate to - I find it all so inspiring. No, because I follow an inordinate amount of ‘cute cat’ pages and find them horribly and fantastically distracting.

8. Who in your life supports your writing the most?

100% my fabulous, brilliant, amazing Nana. I’ve been telling her stories since I was old enough to talk, and I’ll never for one moment forget her constant interest and encouragement. Like many, I’ve explored a wide range of potential interests and career paths in my 23 years; each time, the spark has crackled out, and I’ve given up early and moved onto something else. Understandably, most people in my life started to find it hard to believe in me - but she never did. I’d say “I’m gonna go to college and do this other cool thing I find mildly interesting” and she’d be like “well, ok, maybe this will be the one.” She tells me every time I see her that I could sweep the streets and she’d be proud of me, if it was what made me happy. Her support really is unconditional. 

9. In what medium (books, movies, TV, video games, etc.) do you find the most inspiration?

Honestly, it changes all the time, but at the moment I’m finding a lot of my inspiration through music - particularly Taylor Swift, because she’s a lyrical GENIUS and I adore her. I’ll hear a lyric and start to build a whole scene in my head of what prompted her to write that, and it’s so much fun.

10. Lastly, do you have a link to published work that I, HK Lune, can see/reblog? 

I don’t! I’ve written a few bits and pieces to the point of completion, but have never felt confident enough to share them online, and focus primarily on my university work nowadays. You can read my essays, if you’d like? :D 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’ll start by tagging my faithful followers

@cheezbot @jkirs1 @long-live-beau @quilloftheclouds 

Then I’ll tag the lovely person who tagged me 

@hklunethewriter

And now I’ll tag some cool blogs. 

@catsnmeows1 @turtleconservancy @taylorswift @catsthefun @hilariouscats @meow

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OH and even though nobody will answer them, I’m going to post questions so I don’t do the game wrong. They are as follows:

1. If you could meet one author for lunch, who would it be?

2. What are your thoughts on visual stories? (apps like Choices: Stories You Play, Episode, etc.)

3. What was the first book to make you cry?

4. Do you ever base your characters on people you know?

5. Name the worst book you’ve ever read, and tell me why it was bad.

6. Do you have a trademark writing ‘quirk’?

7. Do you have any (un)helpful pets? (I couldn’t resist asking this one. Also, if the answer is yes, please send me photos.)

8. What advice would you give to a person who is new to writing?

9. Tell me your ideal writing environment.

10. Sad endings: realistic, or unnecessary?

11. You’ve decided to write under a pseudonym. What is it? 

[majestywritez]

Dream Sequences

Intro to Post:

Hey lovelies!! Today's post is all about dreams. Most people think dreams are an easy subject or topic to write about since you know, we all experience our own dreams but to write a good dream sequence, requires a lot of different aspects that I will be going over in the rest of today's post so without further a do let's get started!

Uses for Dreams in Literature

The Realization Dream

In a Realization Dream, something must “click” for a character in a dream, something they couldn’t figure out while awake.

Maybe a character is incapable of putting together certain pieces of evidence in his waking life, but in the midst of a dream’s storm-and-chaos, the pieces fall into place for them. Or maybe their latest desires are thrown into sharp relief in a vivid dream in true Freudian style.

2. The Internal Conflict Dream

A character struggling with an impossible choice might very well dream about it.

Using a dream sequence to colorfully illustrate internal turmoil can give a face to a character’s agony. Remember: show, don’t tell. This is something I often struggle with when writing, guys! Anyone else? Lol

3. The Foreshadowing Dream

The foreshadowing dream is probably one of my very favorites and for me its easier to write. This sequence gives a character a glimpse of the future while they sleep. This particular effect can range from mere hints at events to come—for instance, a character dreams about a ghastly trial where horrible evidence is brought against him, then wakes up and gets dressed down by his overbearing girlfriend—or outright prophesy.

In either case, this dream type should be used sparingly, and with extreme caution: if your characters are able to accurately predict the future with any sort of consistency, it can drain the tension right out of your story!

4. The Communication Dream

Also known as a “shared” or “linked” dream, this conceit comes from the popular notion that people are somehow able to communicate with one another via their dreams.

When used literally—usually in a more fantasy-oriented setting—the Communication Dream can be used either to demonstrate the close emotional bond between siblings, friends, or lovers, or simply to relay important information across vast distances without the use of communication technology.

Or, if the dream isn’t actually “shared,” it can allow one character to say something to another character that she could never say in person, creating a moment of catharsis.

Also a rule to remember before writing a dream: before you begin writing your dream sequence, ask yourself exactly why you’re including it.

If you can’t answer further than, “Because it’ll be awesome,” then the sequence probably isn’t necessary to your story.

Now that we're done discussing the uses for dream sequences, let's get into actually writing one!

Tips for Writing Dream Sequences:

1. Apply a bit of Logic

Writers and critics alike refer to how certain scenes accurately capture “dream logic,” or the fact that dreams seemingly operate on no logic at all.

That’s the keyword, however: “seemingly.”

Remember again that you’re writing a scene first, a scene that your readers need to be able to follow—at least somewhat. Your dream sequence needs to establish its own brand of consistent “dream logic" to ensure that the scene actually functions as a scene.

Even the most surreal and chaotic dreamscape needs some sort of through-line that ties it all together: as bananas as dreams get sometimes, they still have a narrative of some sort.

Even if you decide that your story would be best served by a wildly inconsistent dream sequence, you can at least be consistent in your inconsistency. Basically, keep the chaos running at the same level at all times, and the events within will hold some semblance of internal consistency—even if they’re actually coming apart at the seams.

2. Use Narrative Distance

You’ve no doubt heard of the classic “out-of-body experience” dream, where the dreamer watches their own actions as though they are a spectator instead of being “in the driver’s seat.”

Well, there’s a way to capture that floaty, out-to-lunch feeling in fiction using a narrative technique called narrative distance.

Narrative distance, or “perspective distance,�� refers to the implied “space” between the reader and the narrator or character in the story. Are your readers privy to the narrator’s private thoughts or opinions about the goings-on in your book? Does he or she have a distinct personality—or even agency in the story, to a degree?

If so, that’s close narrative distance.

First-person perspective has the closest and most intimate narrative distance, but third-person has varying degrees of this as well. Can your third-person narrator omnisciently “hear” the thoughts of all your major characters—or does the narration function more like a camera lens, observing the action only on a surface level? Or can the narrator only “hear” the inner monologue of one central character? Or maybe a chosen few? All these decisions affect the narrative distance of your story.

But how does this apply to dream sequences? Well, in order to create that floaty, dreamlike feel, simply increase the narrative distance in your story for the duration of the scene. If you’ve got a first-person narrator, switch to third-person limited. If you’re already in third-person limited, “pan out” further—go for that action-oriented, cinematic viewpoint we described earlier.

The goal is to create a shift in perspective so radical that it makes your readers feel like they’re dreaming as well. “Zoom out” from the dream’s events, set your character loose inside—and watch the mayhem begin from afar.

3. Use a Little or Lots of Detail

There are two basic settings for fictional dreams.

First, there are the dreams that take place in vast voids with little detail and only a few characters and concrete objects within them. This creates an empty, lonely, and often eerie atmosphere, appropriate for both nightmares and reflection.

But these dream-voids aren’t merely seen, they’re experienced—and a very specific type of writing is required to simulate that experience on paper.

In this sort of dream, a lamp should go from “the lamp with the gold-colored lampshade and the base shaped like a crouching cat” to simply “a lamp on a low desk.”

Be vague. Be infuriatingly vague. Withhold details. Use sentence fragments. Leave gaps in your descriptions for your readers to fill in: after all, that’s what they’d do if the dream belonged to them!

The other kind of dream turns everything up several notches: the noise, the saturation, the colors, the mayhem… These dreams feel overcrowded, bursting at the seams, difficult to navigate without stepping on (or in) something unpleasant.

These are a different sort of nightmare: use them to communicate stress or illness or indecision, the product of a split, fractured, or divided mind.

Embrace that chaos in your writing. Go into detail overload. Describe things in florid or grotesque fashion, especially things that wouldn’t normally be either florid or grotesque. Have random, surreal elements intrude into the central narrative of the dream, and make sure these intrusions are as unpleasant as possible. Make your readers uneasy with their descriptions.

Not only does this overblown style suit surreal imagery, but it can make even ordinary scenery feel fevered and dreamlike.

A word of warning, however: exercise at least a smidge of restraint here. You may want your fever-dream sequence to be unpleasant, yes—but not so awful that your readers simply walk away.

Alright, I hope all of this information helped anyone who's interested in writing dream sequences. That's it for today's post, have a wonderful day and don't forget I love you all!

[yogaadvise]

5 Yoga Poses and Journaling Exercises, Paired for Inner Healing

There's a stating in yoga exercise--" Your problems remain in your tissues." It's amusing shorthand, yet real. It is not unusual to be in a yoga exercise technique just to discover the disturbing sensation of anger, jealousy, or resentment arise from what looks like out of nowhere. Fortunately is that yoga exercise can assist you acknowledge as well as digest your hard feelings-- whether they emerge on or off the mat.

You bump up against the body-feelings nexus any kind of time you remain in a yoga exercise course. As well as there are times in life when you want is to be anywhere except where you are. It's a natural component of the human experience. And also yet, if you can learn to stay with discomfort, the next moment commonly generates something brand-new and also sweet-- release, catharsis, or combination. What brings you to the yoga floor covering over and also over is that wonderful feeling of efficiency as well as peace when you remain present with whatever develops during technique, as well as additionally when you bring what exists in your day-to-day life to the mat.

Journaling is an additional technique that can assist you find quality in the mire of sensation and also sensation. It can really feel like speaking to a good buddy or therapist-- just that thoughtful, wise individual beyond of the dialogue is you. A journaling technique can be carried out in a stream-of-consciousness kind of means, or it can take the type of details inquiries as well as responses. Do whatever helps you.

In the spirit of query, integrating yoga and journaling can produce riches of self-understanding. Here's a yoga and journaling sequence for recognizing, digesting, as well as integrating emotions that occur for you on and off the yoga mat. This practice includes longer holds of stances (one to three minutes) because that permits room for feelings to bubble to the surface area. Use a timer to ensure that you don't need to maintain track yourself, and maintain a journal as well as pen nearby. Consider making use of the antique, hands-on art of putting pen to paper as opposed to keying your notes-- research studies show that the plain existence of computer systems or smart devices modifies the method you think.

1. Child's Pose (Balasana)

Child's Pose is the best, peaceful starting point for this journaling and also yoga exercise practice.

Start on all fours in Table Pose.

Bring your big toes with each other, different your knees, as well as push your hips back toward your heels.

Rest your forehead on the floor or your piled hands.

Exert mild pressure on your forehead toward the eyebrow line (as opposed to the hairline) to ground and relieve your body and also mind.

Stay in the present for 2 minutes.

Regulate the size of your breath to a pattern of four counts inhalation, and 8 counts exhalation.

Check out directions for 5 different adjustments for your Kid's Pose.

Journaling Exercise:

Ask on your own, "How does my body feel? What are the sensations in my muscles, bones, joints, as well as body organs?" Try not to inform on your own a story regarding why you really feel the means you do. Just notice the sensations.

Next, ask, "Is my mind calmness or agitated? Where are my thoughts drawn? Is there a predominating topic to my reasoning, or am I drew in several directions?" Once more, attempt not to slam or describe any one of this to on your own. Just observe and also permit to be as you are.

Last, ask, "What is my state of heart, or emotion, at this minute?" See if you can put a name to several sensations, also if they're tough ones. Bear in mind that individuals can hold numerous-- sometimes clashing-- feelings. You could register fear, hopefulness, despair, impatience, and like done in the very same moment.

Write down your observations before transitioning to the following activities. It serves to tape even the noticeable things, such as "I'm starving" or "My back really feels achy." This is a workout in deep self-awareness, as well as that begins with the outermost layer-- the body.

2. Free-Form Cat and Cow (Marjariasana and Bitilasana)

This enlivening workout will prepare your body to hold the poses that follow.

Come back to Table Pose.

Move your back in gentle onward as well as back bends (also known as curving as well as rounding).

As you breathe in, lift your tailbone and chin upward toward the skies as well as allow your tummy relocate down towards the earth.

As you breathe out, draw your tummy into your back as well as round your back toward the ceiling as you put your chin and also tailbone.

Alternate these 2 movements a number of times.

Now, allow this movement evolve. You can guide your hips side to side, or do circles and barrel rolls-- whatever sorts of mild activities stir up and energize your spine.

Let it really feel great and let your body-- as opposed to your program-- lead the method. All the while, stay knowledgeable about your physical, mental, as well as psychological landscape.

Journaling Exercise: Notification the impacts of these simple motions in your body. Ask, "Just how has my body responded? Do I feel awake in my body-- or tired, or tight, or kicked back, or another thing? What sort of ideas exist? Have my sensations shifted from a moment ago?"

Remember, it's okay if sensations as well as feelings shift, and also it's okay if they stay the very same. The function of this exercise isn't to compel an adjustment, yet merely to grow your awareness.

3. Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Downward Pet, an ubiquitous yoga position, offers a luxurious stretch to the whole rear of your body from legs to spine as well as shoulders-- as well as is a healthy and balanced place to hold and also observe. A light inversion, it allows more blood flow to your brain.

From Table Posture, walk your hands a few inches onward, curl your toes under, and press up and back to Downward Dog.

First, pedal your heels as well as release any tension from your head and neck.

Then, align your arms, lengthen your upper body, raise your resting bones up and also back, press your thighs towards the wall surface behind you. Flexing your knees is completely okay here.

Encourage your heels toward the floor if that's offered to you.

Try to keep every one of these activities in the body while taking a breath deeply and also holding the pose for 2 to 3 minutes.

Take a brief remainder in Youngster's Posture, and after that return to your journal.

Journaling Exercise: Exactly how did your body feel? What kinds of ideas existed? Did you experience resistance to the lengthy hold of the pose? Did your mind roam, as well as if so, where did it go? What kinds of feelings emerged? Are they the very same ones from your initial round of journaling a couple of mins ago, or did they change? How do you feel now that it's done?

4. Pigeon Pose (Kapotasana)

According to chakra theory, the hips are the seat of the sacral, or second, chakra, and also control the emotions. Simply put, you might discover that your problems are most specifically in your hip tissues!

From Table Pose, slide your right knee behind your right wrist.

Flex your right foot as well as slide the heel towards the front of your mat.

Slide your left upper leg back as well as straighten the left knee, then broaden the left side of the hips toward the left, and also descend your hips and butts closer to the floor.

Walk your hands forward, relax your temple on your forearms, on a block, or on the floor.

Breathe. Allow experiences to be there. Kick back all that you can.

Sometimes unexpected despair or pain can show up here, if you permit it. Splits can supply a welcome launch from previous injures that you may-- or might not-- bear in mind consciously. Try to permit on your own this experience without classifying feelings as excellent or negative, and also without pushing them away. After 3 mins, change sides. Upon releasing Pigeon Posture, return to your journal.

Journaling Exercise: Observe on your own in body, mind, and also emotion, and also document what you discover, together with any insights. You might ask yourself: "Where, specifically, did I really feel Pigeon Pose in my body? The back leg or the front leg? The external hip or the butts? What was the high quality of that feeling-- deep or shallow, localized or diffuse, positive or extreme? Where are my thoughts currently? Is it getting easier to anchor right into the here and now moment by linking recognition of my body, mind as well as heart? Did my feelings alter or escalate in Pigeon Posture? Were any kind of memories or past experiences activated?"

If you locate yourself dismayed or flustered hereafter method, or if you have unaddressed injury in your past, seek the assistance of an experienced specialist. There are lots of specialists that make use of a somatic, or body-centered, approach.

5. Corpse Pose (Savasana)

Also called yogic leisure or Savasana, this is the supreme minute to incorporate the physical-mental-emotional experience you have actually had.

Lie flat on your back as well as relax your legs to be equivalent distance from the mid-line.

Open your arms to a 45-degree angle, transforming your hands up. Make the effort to establish Savasana in a symmetrical method to make sure that your Prana, or life power, flows unimpeded via your physical and psychological bodies-- bringing rest, integration, as well as ease.

Let go of idea, evaluation, as well as analysis, as well as allow your mind to drift or wander if it wishes to. You might discover on your own honored with an experience of pure Being.

Stay in Savasana for five to ten minutes.

Journaling Exercise: Strategy this last round of journaling as a method to integrate the entire experience. What are the impacts of the entire practice in your body, mind, and heart? How do you feel now? Do you have a message for on your own moving on, or an affirmation about what you wish to produce? Once more, count on whatever pertains to you presently, without judging or censoring. Practicing understanding of body, mind and also heart can result in more liberty, if you enable it.

If it comes conveniently, you can end this exercise with a petition. You may ask that your problems be minimized, or for advice as well as instructions. Or you might merely claim, "thank you for the presents and understandings of this method. May I have compassion, and might I see the light in all beings."

These presents will certainly each link your mind and body differently, which indicates that they all have the potential to launch different ideas as well as sensations. Take the additional time in these postures to heart as well as utilize your journal to better explore pertains to the surface.

*Editor's Note: The info in this short article is intended for your instructional usage just, does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Chopra Facility's Mind-Body Medical Team, as well as is not an alternative to specialist medical recommendations, diagnosis, or treatment. Always look for the advice of your doctor or other competent health and wellness suppliers with any kind of concerns you might have relating to a medical condition and also before taking on any type of diet, supplement, health and fitness, or various other health program.

Learn the 7 Spiritual Laws of Yoga, our trademark form of yoga exercise that strengthens your link to spirit and stimulates profound healing at Seduction of Spirit, our signature reflection as well as yoga retreat led by Deepak Chopra. Learn More.

[acesandwords]

Hey @kami-catharsis , I’m certainly not an expert and depression is different for everyone but I can speak a little on my experience helping one of my own friends. 

One good way to start is straight up asking ‘is there anything I can do to make things a little easier for you?’ they may not always know the answer and that’s ok, offering to listen to them if and when they need to talk is helpful. 

For my friend, frequent reminders that I’m am here for her and that I love her are very important. Somedays are harder than others and there’s not necessarily a way to make it better, on these days she’s asked if I can send pictures of cute animals or my cat doing something silly; it’s a small thing but she’s told me it helps. 

Checking in with gentle reminders to eat and drink water and take medication(if they take anything) are good too. 

If you know of anything that they really enjoy talking about, books, tv shows, movies, hobbies etc. maybe try to engage them in that.

Once on a particularly bad day, my friend was feeling trapped and didn’t know what would help if anything, so I kept sending her random fun facts throughout the day. Stuff like “did you know an ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain?” “strawberries have more vitamin c than oranges” “A lion's roar can be heard up to 5 miles away” just inane and outlandish facts that a lot of people don’t know and this ended up being a pretty effective distraction for her. 

Again, depression is different for everyone. you can tell them you’re not sure what to say and you can and should ask them what might help, and if they don’t know try brainstorming a bit with them. You also might try asking what kind of feedback they’re looking for, do they want sympathy and/or advice? do they just you to listen and not give feedback at all?

It’s worth noting too that while being emotion support for someone it’s important to care for your own mental health as well. If you start feeling overwhelmed it's ok to tell them something along the “hey I love you and I’m here for you - that will not change - I just need to take a break/mental health day for myself”

I hope something in here helps and I wish the best for you friend <3

Quick question,

My friend is depressed. I love my friend, and I really want to help them. But I can’t…words? Basically, I can’t think of anything to say, or I don’t think it will relate specifically to their depression. My friend can’t get therapy as they can’t afford it. What can I do to help my friend, what can I do to make their life a little easier and brighter?

[sanahasan95]

What Are My Dog’s Exercise Needs?

As a bit of a puppy lover, I know a thing or two about caring for them. If you ever had a dog as a pet, you would know how energetic they always are jumping around and playing with you. It’s in their nature to be active and fun loving, thus as pet owners its our duty to have activities with them which can keep them active and at the same time tire out their hyper activeness. Thus, dogs need to exercise daily, mostly due to health reasons because if they do not, they might become obese and eventually can fall sick. But what comes to mind is ‘What are my dog’s exercise need?’. Well, don’t worry because I have the answer right here!

Why does your dog even need exercise?

Exercise is the key factor in having a healthy, happy and calm dog. Since exercise is their catharsis thus, they are fit mentally and physically. In PDSA’s annual PAW report, it stated in the UK 1.4 million dogs (16%) are walked less than once a day, and 89,000 are never walked at all (1%). While 51% of veterinary professionals say that they have seen an increase in dog behavioral issues in the last two years. Thus, statistically we know how important it is for our dogs to get vital amount of exercise. If we love our dogs, we should take care of their health and needs as well.

How much exercise does your dog actually need based on age?

As with us humans, it varies from dog to dog depending on old he is, if he is younger or much older. There are a few guidelines I have listed to make sure your dog can fulfill its potential.

A puppy?

Puppies who are young, have lots of energy but they wear out their energy as fast as it comes. Since they are growing at a fast pace, they tend to take naps and have shorter energy spans. Thus, puppies need several short minutes exercises around 5-10 minutes, after which they need a break. It’s vital for puppies specially to get outdoor play time as much as possible like short games of fetch with exercise balls.

What about in his adult years?

For adult dogs its breed contains a vital factor how he should be treated, but I will talk about that in detail later. But for most adult dogs at least an hour worth of exercise is needed. Where they can do various activities like fetch, flyball, hiking, relay-race games and play dates with doggy friends are some things that can give your dog his happy moment.

What about a dog in his senior years?

Just like us humans even dogs age, and with age they become weaker and less agile. Thus they should get about 30-50 minutes of exercise broken down into 2-3 parts. Walks should be a compulsory for your furry senior friend but should be shorter in length and at a slower pace. Another alternative exercise for a senior dog is swimming which can help him relax and will not have much stress on his joints.

How much exercise does your dog need based on its Breed?

As I mentioned before your furry friend will have a different set of requirements if he is of an active breed or a less active breed like a Toy breed for example a Chihuahua. Dr. Susan Nelson, a Kansas State University veterinarian and assistant professor of clinical sciences, tells Science Daily, “A blanket recommendation for exercise time amounts can’t be given as exercise needs vary vastly between individuals, and factors such as age, breed, weather and general health all influence the amounts of exercise your dog needs.”

The Smaller Breeds.

Dogs such as Chihuahuas, Poodles and Yorkshire Terriers, are considered to be the smaller breed thus tend to be less active. They are what you call the calmer and lazier breed, thus slow walks in the park are perfect for them.

The Giant Breeds.

Even though the Giant breeds are larger in size they tend to be less energetic too, for example the Great Danes, Mastiffs and Newfoundlands.

The Flat-nosed Breeds.

Flat-nosed means the brachycephalic breeds, this means they suffer from breathing and respiratory issues that cause them to slow down and be less active. This breed includes include Bulldogs, Pugs and Shih Tzus. For these types games of fetch are more than enough.

The Active Breeds.

This breed specifically needs lots of activities and exercise, filled with lots of action. The Terriers, Retrievers, Scent Hounds and Shepherds are considered in this category. These active types usually need an 60-90 minutes daily, this can include dog sports/competitions, hiking and longer games of fetch.

How to help your dog to get the exercise they need?

With the information I gave above you need to find out what age and breed your dog is and accordingly create that specific exercise routine. For example, if he is an Active breed of an adult age, longer games of fetch can be played with ‘A paraflight flying disk’.

https://www.amazon.com/Chuckit-Paraflight-Frisbee-Distance-Orange/dp/B008ESY894?ref_=Oct_BSellerC_2975416011_0&pf_rd_p=5b9d8b75-e9e5-5ad1-8650-47adaf572f20&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-6&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=2975416011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=8Y7B1PTGW6H88Z7Y7WW9&pf_rd_r=8Y7B1PTGW6H88Z7Y7WW9&pf_rd_p=5b9d8b75-e9e5-5ad1-8650-47adaf572f20

But if he is of a Smaller breed and a senior in age, walks around the neighborhood or the park are good enough.

 Indoor exercises?

Sometimes we might not be able to give our dogs time and take them to the park, but that doesn’t mean that our dogs should sit at home idly.

Use the stairs at your home to the best of your ability! Train your dog to run up and down the stairs, which can create more building muscle. But this might be challenging for breeds and ages who can’t take strenuous tasks.

Playing Hide-and-Seek goes a long way, with psychical activity it even provides the mental stimulation needed for your dog.

So, hear me out, if you have a Treadmill at home you need to use it! This is most efficient for Active breeds stuck at home. With careful training and speed, you can build endurance in your dog and he will have fun at the same time!

When it comes to dogs, we train them in various ways, thus we even train how ‘Agile’ they can get. Thus, agility training is a great activity indoors, making a safe indoor course with various home items can do the trick. You can use household supplies, such as broom handles, boxes, Hula-Hoops, and ottomans.

Aside from physical activity mental stimulation is needed as well. In particular puzzle toys can stimulate the mental side of your dog very well, especially ‘Nina Ottosson toys’.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Nina+Ottosson&tag=rove05-20

What about waling your dog?

Walking your dog is the best exercise you can give him. Walk him around the neighborhood or go to the park, more so the dog park. Going to the park is a special treat for him since he can chase squirrels or cats, play around with other dogs and play fetch.

Having a ‘varied walk segment’ can be good for your dog, where you speed walk for 30 seconds then walk at a normal pace for a minute, then repeat again and again.

Try to take your dog to various routes and places, since they have a greater sense of where they are, they like to explore more places and especially sniff them around.

How Far Should You Walk a Dog?

That solely depends on your breed and age of the dog. If it’s a Smaller breed you shouldn’t stray far away from your home, but if it’s an Active breed you can probably go as far as you want to.

What Is A Good Exercise Routine for My Dog?

Well, you should just mix up all the exercises every day. Like for an Active Breed for example one day hiking, another day indoor exercise, then go to the dog park and maybe on the weekend train him in a dog sports arena.

 Dog’s Exercise Needs FAQs!

Is An Hour a Day Enough Exercise for a dog?

Again, it depends on the breed and age of your dog listed above.

How Can I Exercise My Dog in Bad Weather?

So indoor exercises are specifically for bad weather conditions, if you can’t take your dog out this can save the day!

What Can I Do For My Dog Who Can’t Exercise?

The best option for this is to take him to a vet and ask him what kind of physical therapy can you do with your dog.

What info helped you the most?

I hope all of you enjoyed reading this, as much I did writing this! Which fact did you relate to the most, or which was more helpful? Do reply to me in the comments below!

Did you already know about these factors, or did you learn something new? If you want me to write a detailed article on anything specific write that down in the comments section as well! If you guys have anything to add as well, do tell me, and if you liked the article please share it, I always love hearing from you guys!

References

https://www.pdsa.org.uk/media/4371/paw-2018-full-web-ready.pdf

https://www.petmd.com/dog/wellness/evr_dg_exercising_with_your_dog101

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090908125132.htm

[pastelvirgil]

When you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy! Then send to the last ten people in your notifications anonymously or not. You never know who might benefit from spreading positivity 💕

This is the third time I've gotten this ask today, so I hope the other two people that asked me don't mind me only answering it once...5 things that make me happy:1) obviously, Thomas Sanders, a Gay Icon™2) I'm getting lots of people saying they like my writing!! Also writing in general- it's great for catharsis, for me, and it makes me happy to make other people feel happy or be influenced by my writing. For example, my fic Roman vs. the Gender Binary was met with a lot of comments about how it made other nb people feel validated, it gave someone the courage to change their pronoun status on their Facebook, which is wild to me. That's the kind of effect I'd love to have if I ever become a published author someday, but to already have done that is crazy and makes me feel all squealy inside.3) my cats!! They are so cute and loving and are total lap cats they love to sit on top of me and rub against me.4) my friends are amazing! They are such a great support system for me,,, my friends are how I mainly came to accept being queer (though I still struggle with my identity, a little)5) I love reading and sometimes when I feel down I can curl up with a favorite book (or a favorite fic, tbh) and it can help either distract me or just help me feel less stressed and a little happier.

[mizannethrope]

Mother’s Day - it’s complicated

Today is Mother’s Day. I’m trying not to be sad.

I have been very open about discussing my mother’s fight with cancer and her death. I write about it a lot. I find catharsis in it so I continue. By writing about it and examining the feelings I have, I keep her alive with me a little bit longer. I keep up the exploration because I continue to learn so much from it. To counter the sense of loss I feel around the Hallmark holiday of Mother’s Day, I have sought to focus on all the other women in my life who have been like mothers to me. My mother loved me to an infinite degree but she also was acutely aware of her own limitations. I think she overestimated them but they were very real to her. My mother pushed me toward others that she felt would “improve” me. During my early life my mother sought out other women who could teach me the things she felt she could not. She was always striving on my behalf. In this pursuit my mother found or encouraged me to seek out surrogate mothers to learn from. She actively encouraged my friendships with these other women.

Let me tell you about some of these women and what lessons I learned from each.

When I was in early elementary school, Bonnie lived down the street from us in our townhouse complex. I’m guessing she was early 30s then. She had no children of her own, though I believed she wanted very much to be a mother. It wasn’t in the cards for her. Bonnie’s husband was a career Army officer and Bonnie was, at that time, a stay at home wife. My brother and I got to know her because we loved playing with her black lab, Machen, German for “girl.” Just as kids would go knock on a friend’s door and ask, “Wanna ride bikes?” I would knock on Bonnie’s door and ask, “Can Machen come out and play?”.

Bonnie had a challenging relationship with her own mother and father. Her mother favored her older brothers. Her father was remote and often cold. My mother, facing disappointment and problems in her marriage, confided in Bonnie and the two became close. Hours in Bonnie’s kitchen would reveal stories of her youth that stay with me today.

Bonnie had studied home economics in college. I’m sure this would be a questionable choice at best today, if such a choice were even an option. People often ask me about my love of food. I got it from Bonnie. My mom was not a very good cook. She never learned to cook in Korea. She improvised once she got to America but her repertoire was largely traditional American fare she learned from my great-aunts. Meatloaf. “Broiled” steak (more like boiled steak). Stew. Mashed potatoes. Frozen green beans and succotash. Because my mother worked, she stocked the house with Hostess cupcakes and Hungryman frozen dinners.

Bonnie was not a gourmet by today’s Food Network standards but she could work a cookbook. What I loved more than anything was watching Bonnie make and decorate cakes. She would make buttercream frosting and turn it into roses and flowers and leaves and grass and basketweave along the edges of a sheet cake. It was like watching something come to life out of a Wilton how-to pamphlet. Every cup of flour was carefully leveled. Every bowl of powdered sugar was meticulously sifted for lumps. Bonnie could also sew and crochet. At her side, I hooked endless potholders. One Halloween I recall we made sugar molds of black cats to put alongside a cake she baked for a friend. We tried over and over to get the sugar to turn pitch black (no gel food coloring back then). When I got the mix just right, we pressed the sugar into the molds and voila! Angry black sugar cats emerged, ready to stand along the orange frosted cake.

Bonnie was my main adult supervision and spirit guide for all my Girl Scout badges. We would pour over the Girl Scout Handbook and dog ear the pages with the badge requirements for the ones I hoped to earn that year. I hosted my first complete dinner party at her house (of course I got a badge for that one). I made whipped sweet potatoes with marshmallows and Swedish meatballs. I invited my parents over and served the whole thing. Bonnie gifted me cookbooks and let me watch her make sewing patterns and sew baby dresses for her nieces. She had a silver collection and a closet full of Kewpie dolls that she collected from childhood. Bonnie also had a weight problem and as a fat kid myself, we bonded over it.

Bonnie had lost 30 pounds at Weight Watchers but she had gained a good portion of it back when I met her. I was just a chubby kid. My mother fed me and fed me and then complained about how fat I got. I remember going to my first Weight Watchers meeting with Bonnie at the age of 12 at my mother’s urging. Having Bonnie to talk to about this was such a help. My mother had been too thin growing up and had never been fat. Her push-pull with me about food gave me whiplash. Bonnie could understand the torment I felt of loving food but hating it at the same time. It was good to have someone to confide in who got it.

Bonnie also had some coping mechanisms that were unusual. When in pain, Bonnie would laugh hysterically. One day she burned her hand in the kitchen. Rather than yelp or cry out, she began to... laugh. I looked at her like she was deranged. Once we wrapped her hand, she confided that her older brothers had often picked fights with her when they were children. When they would hit her, she learned to hide her tears so as not to give them the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. Instead, she began to laugh. Her reflexive pain reaction was laughter. Never let them know you are hurt is something animals know as a survival skill. I had never met a person who had adopted this strategy in such a way. It made an deep impression on me.

Then Bonnie moved away.

Pat was our immediate next-door neighbor. She moved in when I was in 4th grade. She seemed to me to be a successful career woman. She was recently divorced with custody of her 3 kids who were all around my age. Pat subscribed to Cosmopolitan magazine and drank White Russians and pink wine. She was a potty mouth but very pretty. You could tell that she had been sought after in her younger years. Even in her mid-30s, life had not yet worn her down. In my 11 year old brain, Pat was very sophisticated. It was obvious she had had many boyfriends after her divorce. I had never met anyone like her before.

In our neighborhood everyone’s door was always unlocked. We all came and went without knocking, especially in the summer when everyone was home from school. No one went to summer camps back then. Some kids visited their grandparents. Most of our neighbors had family in Tennessee and when summer came, off they went to the Smoky Mountains. My best friend’s family was Cuban so her summers were spent in Miami with her abuelo and abuela. I was bereft without her company. The summers were long. One year Pat’s kids went to spend the summer with their father. I spent almost all summer at Pat’s house while they were gone. 

Pat had a stash of Cosmo magazines from the late ‘70s. Every issue was about sex, make-up, and dieting. It was the summer between 5th and 6th grade and I would go over to Pat’s house and spend hours going through issue after issue. I learned about the Grapefruit diet. I read articles about the mythical G-spot. Does it exist? Is it real? How would you know? The Atkins Diet was a thing. Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks! Then the Beverly Hills Diet was a thing. Eat this, don’t eat that. Eat ONLY this. For 2 weeks. Then eat that. How much should you tweeze your eyebrows? Here is how to get the ultimate St. Tropez tan. I read every word and memorized every image. This was what being a liberated woman was all about. Right there in those pages.

Pat had, in a prior life, gotten her cosmetology degree and license. I would sit in her kitchen and she would cut my hair and put it on rollers. She also sold Mary Kay Cosmetics and had drawers and drawers of samples. Make up nirvana! All in pretty pink bottles. I would try on the different colors but because we had read Color Me Beautiful together, I knew that I was an “autumn” and should stick to the warmer shades. Pat also always had perfectly done nails. Long, polished talons, she would rap them on the counters and on the dashboard while she was driving. Click, click, click, click. When one broke, she would slap on an acrylic tip and lickety-split, they would be perfect again. Perfect looking but not real.

For all that she was worldly and intriguing to my 11 year old mind, she was also clearly struggling to stay afloat. Her job situation was often erratic. She moved from one thing to the next, finally falling back on her cosmetology degree and working in a beauty salon. Her kids seemed to be in perpetual trouble and were not doing so well in school. Her oldest son went to go live with his father. She found herself pregnant by her married boyfriend, had the baby and then found herself pregnant again. Her liberated woman veneer didn’t hold up so well once you scratched the surface. Sometimes the most important lesson you learn is what not to do. Pat was like that older sister you are intrigued by but who winds up being a cautionary tale. I caught onto that pretty quick.

Then my family moved to a new neighborhood.

I met Jenna in high school. She was my boyfriend Garrick’s mom. I think I was probably a sophomore when we first met. In senior year, Garrick and I dated. He was my prom date and we were together until the end of our first semester of college. While in high school, and even after we started college, all of our friends hung out together and we often landed at one house or another near our high school campus. Garrick’s house was one of those houses where we often found ourselves. We were a small posse of nerdy kids who got together on Saturday night to play charades and board games and did student government and band in school. (I was not in band, for the record but I was a big into Model UN and student government.) If we weren’t at Garrick’s house we were at Torunn’s house. Torunn remains to this day, the only truly natural blonde I’ve ever known. Garrick and Torunn lived in the same neighborhood and both had split level houses. The lower level of each home became our regular gaming and movie haunts.

Jenna and her husband were from Oklahoma. They were 25 years out of the University of Oklahoma but she still had a clearly distinct southern twang. Her husband Jim had a deep voice with no discernible trace of southern inflection to my ear. He was a perpetually calm presence. As even-keel and reserved as Jim was, Jenna was vivacious, warm, and very, very chatty. You can pluck a girl out of the south but you can’t pluck the southern out of the girl. I immediately took to her. We were fast friends, me at 17 and her at 46. Which is, funny enough, how old I find myself as I write this.

Garrick had an older brother so Jenna was mom of 2 sons and no daughters. I have even more in common with Jenna now than I did then. As the mom of 3 boys, I understand how impenetrable their lives can seem. More than just a friend to her, looking back, I’m convinced I was her conduit to her younger son and his social circle. Like Jenna, I live for conversation. Through our long talks I think she got to know her son just a bit better. Because I was a girl and I would spill. Boys share so little. I got to be a surrogate daughter and in exchange, I got another surrogate mother out of the deal.

Jenna would invite me to join their family dinners often. She had little choice. I would overstay my welcome at every chance because I so enjoyed the company of this family. At their dinner table I found a more adventurous menu than I had ever seen in my own home. Jenna made an arugula salad with strawberries. What is this insanity? Arugula? What is that? Fruit? In a regular salad? Salad in my house was iceberg lettuce and Wishbone Italian dressing. Jenna was a meticulous chef. Also a Weight Watchers veteran, she weighed and measured every meal like it was a science experiment. Everything was portioned and plated meticulously. It seemed so… fancy. I learned a lot from watching her prepare each meal. Salad, entree, dessert. Each carefully and lovingly prepared with more thought than any meal I’d ever seen in any person’s home. More than the food, there was the spirited verbal sparring that took place like nothing I’d ever seen. Words were not blunt force instruments lobbed across the table intended to inflict fatal injury like they were at my house. Here they were carefully sharpened little barbs meant only to agitate the opposing party enough to up the state of verbal play.

Garrick’s dad was an economist for the International Monetary Fund. Their dinner conversation covered world affairs and national politics. I soaked it up and tried my best to keep up with the conversation. Once in awhile, I managed to hold my ground and even best my companions. I recall one dinner where Garrick, in an effort to show his clear superiority in all things world affairs, threw down and challenged me to identify what the acronym SWAPO stood for. Having just dealt with a Model UN resolution regarding recognition of the South West African People’s Organization as the official government in exile of Namibia, I felt pretty confident on that one. I did not, however, correctly identify the role of the Shining Path in Peru in the follow-on questioning. This was the kind of thing we talked about. It wasn’t the kind of thing we did in my home. I didn’t go back to dinner there without reading the day’s Washington Post headlines.

This was also a family that had lived abroad and had traveled extensively. I was perhaps the only 17 year old girl in all of Northern Virginia, perhaps the entire eastern United States, who enjoyed watching multi hours-long travelogue slideshows with live commentary. But I *really* did. Garrick’s family had trekked all over the world, whereas I had never left the DC metro region. Sitting in his basement, I traveled the world with this family through their carefully curated slideshows. It made me curious. I loved their stories and I loved being part of their family rituals. I felt included and I felt like I became a little bit smarter just by being around them all.

There was an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie reluctantly breaks up with her boyfriend. Reluctant only because she really, really liked his mom. I can relate. I think I spent almost as much time on the phone with Jenna as I did with Garrick. When Garrick and I finally broke up, I might have been sadder to lose my girlfriend than to lose my boyfriend.

Of course we kept in touch but over the years that too, has waned. I hope that I can be a friend to my sons’ girlfriends and, someday, wives in the way that Jenna was to me. I recall that she was the first person who ever told me that I was a good writer and who encouraged me.

No one is shaped by only one person. These women I write about were not the only ones who influenced me or taught me things. It’s a complex calculus, making a whole person. I think my mom understood this. Only much later in my life did I come to realize how difficult it was for my mother to see me connect with these other women. How much it made her feel inadequate and how jealous she was of the time I spent with them. She never said this to me. One day I just understood it to be true. In knowing this and upon looking back, I value her and those relationships even more.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women who shape our lives.

[patriotnewsblogger-blog]

Is an Unborn Baby a Human Being? Planned Parenthood: “It’s Up to Each Individual to Decide”

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/is-an-unborn-baby-a-human-being-planned-parenthood-its-up-to-each-individual-to-decide/

Is an Unborn Baby a Human Being? Planned Parenthood: “It’s Up to Each Individual to Decide”

To: Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer for Planned Parenthood

Ms. Laguens,

You don’t know me and there’s very little chance you’ve ever heard of me, but in any case, I want to make a public appeal to you.

It’s my sincere hope and ambition to make this plea without a hint of rancor or irony, but rather, from a place of genuine brokenness and an assured hope that the God who made all things is well capable of changing your heart and willing to do just that.

As my wife and I watched your recent interview with Tucker Carlson together last night, I found myself fascinated at just how intent you were to avoid his main question—on the moral value of a human being in her mother’s womb—and return to your main messaging. You want the world to know and believe, as I’m convinced you do (at least to a very high degree) that Planned Parenthood stands for choice and women’s reproductive health care.

When Carlson pressed you to tell him your moral judgment of what, exactly, a preborn human being is, you were on point: “I think that’s up to each individual to decide what they believe, but one in three women in this country have an abortion during their lifetime, and obviously, they are making their own choice. What I’m here to talk about today is that the [GOP healthcare plan] will take away millions of cancer screenings and birth control for women in this country.”

Now, before going further, I need to stop and point out (though I’m certain you already know this) that even the pro-abortion fact-checkers at the Washington Post have debunked the claim that one in three U.S. women get an abortion as a 4-Pinocchio lie—the most dishonest rating they have at their disposal.

The Post was slightly more lenient on the claim that Planned Parenthood offers cancer screenings, tagging it as worthy of 3 Pinocchios just days before your president, Cecile Richards, admitted to Congress that your organization doesn’t do any mammograms at all. Further research has debunked your company’s claims that you offer prenatal care—with one of your site representatives even telling a pregnant woman that your brand name itself is “deceptive” since you’re not really in the business of enabling parenthood.

A tried-and-true adage in public relations is, when you’re going into an interview, you need to proverbially ask the interviewer, “Do you have questions for my answers?” In that sense, Ms. Laguens, your answers were admirable. You stuck to the script far better than I would’ve been able to, I can tell you that much.Now to the Plea

There are at least two problems with sticking to the script, however. The first is in doing so, you’re dodging the basic moral question: Is what we’re doing right, and if so, how do we know it’s right? Your conviction is that “choice” is the ultimate truth in every pregnancy—namely, the “choice” of whether or not a woman carries or destroys her unborn child. There’s no other way to say this, except to say you’re imperiling your own soul by dodging this question, Ms. Laguens.

If that little human being has been lovingly crafted in the image of God—even, before the point of viability—your participation in destroying this life makes you accountable before the God of Heaven, whether you acknowledge that reality or not.

The second problem with sticking to your script is you know it’s riddled with lies. As we’ve pointed out before, even the most ardent supporters of abortion and Planned Parenthood—not the least of which is your own president—are forced to admit your claims sound far more like the words of Pinocchio than, say, Honest Abe.

I’m not going to lie, Ms. Laguens, there was a part of me that found this interview with Tucker Carlson downright cathartic. In fact, I avoided watching the interview for a day or so because I assumed that catharsis would be all I’d feel and take away from the experience, and I couldn’t rationalize watching it just to pat myself on the back and cheer for Tucker Carlson.

But that’s not my main takeaway, and that’s why I’m writing this letter to you, Ms. Laguens. In truth, as I watched your interview, the scene that came to my mind was that of the Great White Throne.

I pictured you standing before God—“from whose presence earth and sky fled away, and there was no place found for them.” Then I pictured you trotting out your prepared talking points before the God who made you and every one of those 320,000-plus babies your organization killed through abortion in the last calendar year.

I pictured your vain attempt to change the subject before the King of Kings, and I have to tell you, even as I write this, I do it with tears filling my eyes. He’s not going to talk over you like Tucker Carlson, Ms. Laguens. No, the God who made you will call you to account for what you’ve done, and he won’t be interested in the slightest in your pie charts and 1-in-3 mythology.

It won’t matter to the God who spoke the world into existence that 70 percent—or 100 percent—of Americans favor Roe v. Wade. That defense will be meaningless before his throne. He will judge you “according to what [you] have done,” Ms. Laguens. Nothing more, nothing less. Your talking points will be null and void, and daylight will expose your lies.

So I want to plead with you, Ms. Laguens, and anyone else within earshot: Turn from this wickedness at once and receive the grace that God is offering you in his one and only Son.  

A Place at the Table

I don’t know your heart, but I know you’re like me. You’ve been made in God’s image and created to bring him glory, yet, like me, you’ve failed to live up to his creative design for you and now find yourself far off from him. You’ve gone your own way, attempted to define your own truth, and become “darkened in [your] understanding and separated from the life of God.”

So have I, Ms. Laguens. I’ve been where you are, ensnared by the devil to do his will. What God is offering to you is freedom from this bondage. More than that, God is offering to reconcile you to himself and include you in his family, giving you a seat at his table.

Notice, I’m not asking you to become a pro-life advocate. I’m begging you to turn from this grave sin of slaughtering the innocent. I’m pleading with you to look to the innocent One who was slain in your place and in mine. Cast yourself on his mercy. Then, reach out for help to those who’ve walked before you as you embark upon a new path as God’s child

Ms. Laguens, God has so loved you and me that he paid in full the debt we owe by offering his Son for us. He isn’t just full of love and mercy, he is love, and he is willing that none should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth.

Won’t you come home, Ms. Laguens? Won’t you embrace this free gift of God? Won’t you lay down your arms, disown your lies and call upon Christ as Lord?

Today, if you hear his voice, please do not harden your heart. Today is the day of salvation.

LifeNews Note: Jay Hobbs writes for PregnancyHelpNews, where this originally appeared.

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