#i cannot overstate how fed up i would be

[chirpsythismorning]

this has been on my mind recently...

[abitcaughtinthemiddle]

The Hypocrisy of Vex'ahlia

Before you all come for me, I am a Vex stan and I will defend her until I die - she is my favorite Critical Role character and I'm so glad we're getting a deeper dive into her psyche.

The complexities of her character cannot be overstated. She has a lot going on under the surface, and the breadcrumbs of her deep-seated insecurities have been there the whole time.

I'm really excited we get to explore those in season 3 through her relationship with Percy, in a way different than what we've seen in the actual play streams. I want to commend the writers for being able to convey so much in so little time.

We are introduced to Vex as a sexy, confident woman who uses her looks and charisma to her advantage. She takes charge most of the time, being the unofficial "leader" of Vox Machina. She presents herself as someone who doesn't really need anyone else and does not care about anyone outside of her brother. Keyleth even comments on this in the first episode, "Vex and Vax only care about themselves".

This, of course, is a complete fabrication, a mask she wears to hide her insecurities. A mask, she wants no one to see through. The irony here is that she can so easily see behind Percy's mask - "Darling, take off the mask". It takes one to know one, after all.

She so badly wants to get underneath Percy's mask, for him to show himself to her fully. There's something inside of her that sees the guilt and shame inside of him and that resonates with her belief that she is deeply broken. Vex truly believes that something must truly be wrong with her. And why wouldn't she? Saundor, who said he knew everything about her, saw this, too, after all.

Saundor says plainly, "you will never be enough."

So it must be true, right?

Why wouldn't something be so wrong with her? It would make sense. Her father carries no love for her, her mother died, and Vax had to sacrifice his life for hers. She knows Vax loves her, and she believes he is the only one who does. Even Kamaljiori, an ancient and all-knowing Sphinx, fed into this during their test when Vax fell: "you have no family left who cares for you".

Her hypocrisy lies in the facade she built as a woman who does not need anyone or anything. She presents herself as someone who does not need the love of others, when in reality, she desperately wants to be loved.

Saundor saw this as well.

Vex longs to love and be loved. And yet, she cannot allow herself to give up her facade and let Percy love her and admit her love for him.

The last person to see through her walls was Saundor, and we know how that went.

What he said really cut her deep, as we see after the Kevdak fight when she brushes off Pike's inquiries about her experience in the fey realm.

As we see her relationship with Percy move from harmless flirting to physical intimacy at the beginning of season 3, we see her embrace the physical closeness to Percy but starts to block him out the moment he wants to cement their relationship. But she can't let herself tell him how she feels because that would mean admitting her heart is his - and that would be doomed to end in tragedy, as Vex admits later in the cave.

Putting up this emotional wall between her and Percy will not give Vex what she wants: love.

Love is that emotional intimacy. Vex loves to point out the importance of love between other people- in season 2, pushing Keyleth to tell Vax how she feels ("it always matters"), assuring Allura that Kima's love for her will help her endure after Vorugal's attack, and putting faith in the rest of Vox Machina.

Vex understands what makes love so special, and how important truth and intimacy are to real, lasting love.

And while she comforts others and pushes them to be vulnerable and embrace love, her own fears prevent her from fully doing the same. It's ironic and sad, how one of the only people who can see through her mask is the one she's pushing away.

Trauma makes hypocrites of us all.

Image credits @blorbologist @aq2003

[wannaeatramyeon]

Honey I've seen how you write for taehoon and I must say that you're really good at doing his characterization.

I personally think that, because he's someone who has quite a hard time expressing himself and with relationships, he would actually not put that much efforts in his relationship with reader. Like not trying to respect others' boundaries and working for the relationship to work, because for him of reader knows he like them and they like him why do anything else ? It'd be a waste of time. That is until reader is fed up because he's doing the bare minimum and wants to break up. As soon as reader says this, he feels something beating and throbbing in his chest. He's scared. In a way he didn't feel since a while. He can't lose them right ? He can do better! He just got to show them! So when reader let him a second and last chance, he becomes the best partner. So much that it's not easy to believe he didn't put any works at first. But it's weird because it actually doesn't really bother him. When he see how reader smile when he just sit next to same and enjoy each other's presence. Did they always smile so brightly ? Now that he've seen how a relationship work he's gonna do his best to not let reader down again.

Hey anon, thanks for reading! It's always pretty fun to see people's differing opinion of the characters so ty for a chance to discuss! I think everyone's Taehoon HC varies a little and my Taehoon probably is a bit more mature and a little less wild.

Some more Seong Taehoon x Reader hc below...

I build a lot of his maturity based on the trauma of losing Dowoon. In my hc, I cannot overstate the impact this has had on him. He's healed somewhat, but it's an ongoing journey and he has learnt a lot from it.

With Taehoon losing someone so close to him (and seems like the only friend he had), he makes the effort to be a little bit kinder to you if you manage to get close.

Kinder is subjective though.

But he's had the experience of pushing someone away, and then it resulting in the worst possible outcome so he's not likely going to repeat that mistake again.

Of course he is an asshole to everyone, you included but he tries.

He's not a complete robot. He's smart and perceptive af. Taehoon knows how other people sees him, the effect he has on people, he just doesn't care.

In a relationship though, he would show he cares. In his own way. He gives you a little bit more leeway, does a bit more for you, tries to make himself a better partner for you.

Note - partner, not person. He's not going to fundamentally change who he is, but he will learn to read you a bit better and if there's something he does that genuinely upsets you and doesn't clash with his morals/principles then he will give it a go.

Honestly, I think if he's doing the bare minimum with you then your relationship is on the way out. He's not going to put in the effort if he doesn't want to be with you.

Then again, Taehoon imo is the kind of person that would just straight up tell you that. He doesn't mince his words.

[mincedpeaches]

Girl in another organization at the office basically needs to make two simple powerpoint pitches and send two separate emails with the powerpoints asking for approval from a quorum before I can do my shit. It been well over TWO MONTHS and there is NO REASON why this couldn't be banged out in less than a day. She came across as a preppy went-to-catholic-school girl with her shit together (mostly by virtue of being blonde in her zoom pic) and I have been FALLING ALL OVER MYSELF to offer my help to her for AGES. At this point I'm a hair's width away from either putting her on blast in a professional manner or dropping all professional pretense and being like "girl. are you neurodivergent or what."

I can see exactly how difficult this task could be from an executive dysfunction standpoint because the process is not clear, the standard work is either intentionally vague, out of date, and/or doesn't really define exactly what to do step by step. Which is why I have, and I cannot overstate this, been falling all over myself to help. I was fed up waiting and so right before break I scheduled a meeting for today to go over it step by step, like make her do IN FRONT OF ME OVER CALL, but then she messages me like "oh I have [company software] issues today I'm working them out with IT on the phone right now" (likely story) and I was like okay I can reschedule for tomorrow, but you know you don't need [company software] to send emails right? Except I was SO nice about it. I am being SO nice about. And I'm about to lose it.

Girl does this task haunt your inbox? Does it haunt you in that ADHD way where you if you spent even a fraction of the time you've spent stressing about how you need to do it just actually doing it, then it would be done ten times over? Do the number of small steps to understand what to do seem insurmountable? I've been there. Please. I'm falling all over myself!! I can help!!! I want this done so bad!!!!

[hiding-in-my-blanket-fort]

The way I'm utterly and completely fed up with every single member of my family - and many, many of the people around me - cannot possibly be overstated rn.

I've been avidly childfree for as long as I can remember. In my 30s, I'm 100% confident that's the right choice for me. No holds barred. My mother is pressuring me harder and she kicked it up into HIGH gear today.

"If you loved me as a mother, you would give me grandchildren."

"Daniel Radcliffe had a kid. HE loves his mother."

"I must have done something wrong as a mother to make all three of my children not want to have kids!" (Yeah, you bitched about how much you hated being a mother for my entire childhood. Whaddya expect?)

"Oh, I get it. You just don't have a backbone. Only the strongest survive childbirth like I did!"

(We won't go into the fact that she has always been vehemently against me expressing a single scrap of sexuality at any point, forbade me from going to prom because "BOYS", and has repeatedly been against the idea of me dating....yes, I'm aromantic and non-partnering, no she doesn't know that. She literally wants me to have a baby FOR HER, no son-in-law involved.)

She has reconnected with several girls I knew in high school who are all pregnant and/or have several kids by now. I don't have any connection with these girls now but SHE does. She's making baby clothes for them, sending stuff to their baby showers.

Every. single. one of these girls are too wildly emotionally immature to have children. They don't discipline their kids AT ALL. In any capacity. They randomly strip toys away from their kids just to make them scream and then they laugh in the kid's face while the kid cries.

It's fucking AWFUL.

One of my cousins is expecting her first baby and she literally wants to name her child after the tv show Vikings. Why on earth would you do that to your child???? She has no Norse roots. She's straight up American. And she's gonna name her kid Uthegaard (seriously a name she's considering).

Why TF are people like this allowed to procreate???? WHY?

My parents have been GROVELING at the feet of my brother and his girlfriend lately. He doesn't have a job btw. They are 10000% supporting him. He's in training to be a pilot simply for the money (his words). It was a one year program, and it has taken 5+ years. He's not done yet.

He refuses to get a job to support himself because he just...doesn't want to be bothered. So instead, he brags about getting black-out drunk, partying, and gaming for 16 hours, while my parents pet him and say, "We're taking you grocery shopping and you can get anything you want because we don't want you to worry about money!!!"

After they spend $200+ on groceries (where he demands specialty cheeses and cuts of salmon) he doesn't want to eat any of THAT food when he brings it home. He wants to go OUT. So they say yes!! Of course!! And he gets to pick the place!!! So he chooses the most expensive restaurant at $100 a plate.

I've literally never in my life been to a place that expensive. I would feel SO BAD about it.

He throws raging tantrums when we play games (and yes, he's coming over this weekend for my father's birthday so we can have "family time" and I'm holding out hope I might die in my sleep before then). He'll literally fling the cards on the table and yell, "This is fucking STUPID! I have THE WORST cards!! I can't possibly win with any of those cards!! I refuse to play until you start over and deal me another hand!"

And people DO. They LAUGH. They say, "Wow, you're a spoilsport...let's just do what he wants to make him happy!"

He's turning THIRTY YEARS OLD and he's behaving like this!!!!!

His girlfriend is like fingernails on a chalkboard levels of arrogant. She works at a water bottle factory. Two years ago, she was a temp who was called in to decorate the office now and then. She did NOT get that job and was instead moved to standing by a series of valves and reporting on a walkie-talkie whether the valve(s) are on or not.

Fast forward to present day and she's bragging about how "they won't fire me, I'm indispensable, they NEED me! I'm on the same level as the boss now! I'm going to tell THEM how it works around here now!"

Girl....what the actual fuck kind of mushrooms have you been eating to be THAT delusional???

My parents were SO enamored with her when she had her own art show....which was at a very tiny hole-in-the-wall place, with a plain table, a black cloth, and a handful of playing card sized paintings that all looked the same (some airy little clouds and sparkly stars).

I literally had my artwork displayed at the Yellowstone Art Museum and sold at their annual auction.

They did not give a flying fuck.

Is it any wonder I don't want a family of my own? Is it any wonder that I will ALWAYS prefer to be entirely alone rather than deal with other people and their fuckery????

I want peace and quiet. I want a cozy house with plants, books, and a herd of rescued cats.

I never, EVER want to follow in my parents' footsteps and surround myself with this bullshit for the sake of "Faaaammmmilllyyyyy."

[jenroses]

Growing up in the 70s and 80s I cannot overstate how heavy the pressure of body conformity was, but it was *weak* compared to what was pushed on my mother, who grew up in the 50s and 60s.

I can't help but think that a whole lot of the backlash against trans people has to do with people who grew up in this mindset.

I grew up with a rock solid message that I must never, ever wear horizontal stripes because they would "make me look fat".

I *AM* fat. And one day I found this dress with horizontal stripes made out of the softest knit fabric, a maxidress, with pockets, the kind of thing you toss on and don't have to wear anything else at all when it's hot... the fabric is literally cool to the touch...

And it dawned on me that there were no number of vertical stripes in the world that were going to make me look not-fat and I bought the damn dress and I still sometimes wear it. It's one of the more comfortable things I own, though I've almost completely replaced my wardrobe to be sensory friendly fabrics. My 40s were about unpacking all the bs my mother fed me, which was, still, tame compared to what she had shoved at her her whole goddamn life. Things like, "You have the wrong head shape to wear a buzz cut." Like really, that's a thing that was said to me when I had literally never tried it. I've been clippering my hear now for eight years and you know what? There's no wrong shape to go nearly bald.

The cost of nonconformity was much, much higher back then. We're not so very far from the times when failure to dress "correctly" could land one in a mental institution or jail.

Every time I hear someone much older than me talking about how their shame about their bodies and weight have robbed them of all kinds of fun experiences and simple joys and delights in life, it breaks my fucking heart. Older women, in particular, have been shamed into and forced into (and perpetuated themselves) so many stupid narratives about what one "can't do" if you look a certain way. Sometimes they don't even notice it...they'll just casually be saying something like, "I would have loved to play volleyball back in school but this big ass wasn't going to look right in those shorts tee hee" and I'm like that's??? actually??? tragic???????? Especially when it's something they COULD still pursue or try but they've got a fixed mindset about it.

My 84 year old aunt really spent all of her 30s-60s believing that she COULDN'T just put on a swimsuit and enjoy the water in the summer. I have so many memories of this mindset affecting her all summer. Just casually existing by a pool in a swimsuit was something that women who looked like her Could Not Do. This is someone who broke so many gender barriers in her field, who was a pioneer and a bad ass, but who held herself back from something she truly enjoyed for DECADES because she's fat. A couple of years ago she told me how stupid she feels having thought like that now that her age has changed her mobility and safety in going to a pool and it's no longer literally possible for her to do so.

She bought the bullshit and deprived herself of happiness when it was possible, so she lost her chance at hundreds of moments of simple enjoyment she now looks back on sadly.

Really sadly.

I think this is a topic where we can literally see a huge generational change among society right now. The bitchy boomer who says something like, "oh she should NOT be wearing that" when a happy, chunky Gen Zer bops by in a crop top sounds like the death rattles of an ancient relic to most of us in younger generations. After we get over the overt hate that surges when we hear things like that, most of us can see right through that prickly exterior into the deeply damaged, sad, and vulnerable person inside who is the one that's the real problem in the equation.

And yet, while it can be easy to think, "Thank god I'm not like THAT" none of us are truly immune to the messages that are blasted in our faces all the time that still shame fatness and make us feel like we owe society a certain kind of "beauty."

Just keep an eye out for any limiting beliefs you have that are depriving you from joy and delight you want and need. As anyone like my aunt could tell you, you won't someday look back and think, "I sure am glad I didn't do what made me happy all those years!"

[urlredacted]

also dropping the hint that you want whataburger 2 nights in a row is not subtle get fucked

[dwellordream]

“...A lone woman could, if she spun in almost every spare minute of her day, on her own keep a small family clothed in minimum comfort (and we know they did that). Adding a second spinner – even if they were less efficient (like a young girl just learning the craft or an older woman who has lost some dexterity in her hands) could push the household further into the ‘comfort’ margin, and we have to imagine that most of that added textile production would be consumed by the family (because people like having nice clothes!).

At the same time, that rate of production is high enough that a household which found itself bereft of (male) farmers (for instance due to a draft or military mortality) might well be able to patch the temporary hole in the family finances by dropping its textile consumption down to that minimum and selling or trading away the excess, for which there seems to have always been demand. ...Consequently, the line between women spinning for their own household and women spinning for the market often must have been merely a function of the financial situation of the family and the balance of clothing requirements to spinners in the household unit (much the same way agricultural surplus functioned).

Moreover, spinning absolutely dominates production time (again, around 85% of all of the labor-time, a ratio that the spinning wheel and the horizontal loom together don’t really change). This is actually quite handy, in a way, as we’ll see, because spinning (at least with a distaff) could be a mobile activity; a spinner could carry their spindle and distaff with them and set up almost anywhere, making use of small scraps of time here or there.

On the flip side, the labor demands here are high enough prior to the advent of better spinning and weaving technology in the Late Middle Ages (read: the spinning wheel, which is the truly revolutionary labor-saving device here) that most women would be spinning functionally all of the time, a constant background activity begun and carried out whenever they weren’t required to be actively moving around in order to fulfill a very real subsistence need for clothing in climates that humans are not particularly well adapted to naturally. The work of the spinner was every bit as important for maintaining the household as the work of the farmer and frankly students of history ought to see the two jobs as necessary and equal mirrors of each other.

At the same time, just as all farmers were not free, so all spinners were not free. It is abundantly clear that among the many tasks assigned to enslaved women within ancient households. Xenophon lists training the enslaved women of the household in wool-working as one of the duties of a good wife (Xen. Oik. 7.41). ...Columella also emphasizes that the vilica ought to be continually rotating between the spinners, weavers, cooks, cowsheds, pens and sickrooms, making use of the mobility that the distaff offered while her enslaved husband was out in the fields supervising the agricultural labor (of course, as with the bit of Xenophon above, the same sort of behavior would have been expected of the free wife as mistress of her own household).

...Consequently spinning and weaving were tasks that might be shared between both relatively elite women and far poorer and even enslaved women, though we should be sure not to take this too far. Doubtless it was a rather more pleasant experience to be the wealthy woman supervising enslaved or hired hands working wool in a large household than it was to be one of those enslaved women, or the wife of a very poor farmer desperately spinning to keep the farm afloat and the family fed. The poor woman spinner – who spins because she lacks a male wage-earner to support her – is a fixture of late medieval and early modern European society and (as J.S. Lee��s wage data makes clear; spinners were not paid well) must have also had quite a rough time of things.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of household textile production in the shaping of pre-modern gender roles. It infiltrates our language even today; a matrilineal line in a family is sometimes called a ‘distaff line,’ the female half of a male-female gendered pair is sometimes the ‘distaff counterpart’ for the same reason. Women who do not marry are sometimes still called ‘spinsters’ on the assumption that an unmarried woman would have to support herself by spinning and selling yarn (I’m not endorsing these usages, merely noting they exist).

E.W. Barber (Women’s Work, 29-41) suggests that this division of labor, which holds across a wide variety of societies was a product of the demands of the one necessarily gendered task in pre-modern societies: child-rearing. Barber notes that tasks compatible with the demands of keeping track of small children are those which do not require total attention (at least when full proficiency is reached; spinning is not exactly an easy task, but a skilled spinner can very easily spin while watching someone else and talking to a third person), can easily be interrupted, is not dangerous, can be easily moved, but do not require travel far from home; as Barber is quick to note, producing textiles (and spinning in particular) fill all of these requirements perfectly and that “the only other occupation that fits the criteria even half so well is that of preparing the daily food” which of course was also a female-gendered activity in most ancient societies. Barber thus essentially argues that it was the close coincidence of the demands of textile-production and child-rearing which led to the dominant paradigm where this work was ‘women’s work’ as per her title.

(There is some irony that while the men of patriarchal societies of antiquity – which is to say effectively all of the societies of antiquity – tended to see the gendered division of labor as a consequence of male superiority, it is in fact male incapability, particularly the male inability to nurse an infant, which structured the gendered division of labor in pre-modern societies, until the steady march of technology rendered the division itself obsolete. Also, and Barber points this out, citing Judith Brown, we should see this is a question about ability rather than reliance, just as some men did spin, weave and sew (again, often in a commercial capacity), so too did some women farm, gather or hunt. It is only the very rare and quite stupid person who will starve or freeze merely to adhere to gender roles and even then gender roles were often much more plastic in practice than stereotypes make them seem.)

Spinning became a central motif in many societies for ideal womanhood. Of course one foot of the fundament of Greek literature stands on the Odyssey, where Penelope’s defining act of arete is the clever weaving and unweaving of a burial shroud to deceive the suitors, but examples do not stop there. Lucretia, one of the key figures in the Roman legends concerning the foundation of the Republic, is marked out as outstanding among women because, when a group of aristocrats sneak home to try to settle a bet over who has the best wife, she is patiently spinning late into the night (with the enslaved women of her house working around her; often they get translated as ‘maids’ in a bit of bowdlerization. Any time you see ‘maids’ in the translation of a Greek or Roman text referring to household workers, it is usually quite safe to assume they are enslaved women) while the other women are out drinking (Liv. 1.57). This display of virtue causes the prince Sextus Tarquinius to form designs on Lucretia (which, being virtuous, she refuses), setting in motion the chain of crime and vengeance which will overthrow Rome’s monarchy. The purpose of Lucretia’s wool-working in the story is to establish her supreme virtue as the perfect aristocratic wife.

...For myself, I find that students can fairly readily understand the centrality of farming in everyday life in the pre-modern world, but are slower to grasp spinning and weaving (often tacitly assuming that women were effectively idle, or generically ‘homemaking’ in ways that precluded production). And students cannot be faulted for this – they generally aren’t confronted with this reality in classes or in popular culture. ...Even more than farming or blacksmithing, this is an economic and household activity that is rendered invisible in the popular imagination of the past, even as (as you can see from the artwork in this post) it was a dominant visual motif for representing the work of women for centuries.”

- Bret Devereaux, “Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…”

[crippledasinfuckyou]

im going to vent a little under the cut. tw for mentions of su*c*de, s/h and just. painful angry thoughts

had to take an official step back from my volunteer job today. i havent been since august bc ive been stranded at my dads house 100+ miles away, but I finally pulled myself together and let them know that even when i am back home, my health is just too bad and too unpredictable to be able to commit to volunteering at the moment.

i'll be honest: it makes me so hopeless that i have to do this because my body is falling apart. that even the things i love the most are becoming inaccessible to me. it makes me want to die, because i dont want to live in a world where i watch everything i love float away from me on a ship that cant be stopped.

ive been struggling mentally as is, and have almost relapsed self harming (i managed to get it under control but i cannot overstate how close i came) and this just feels like the final straw. i somehow feel completely numb and also incredibly heartbroken at the same time. i just want it all to stop.

im just so fucking fed up.

im safe though, so please dont worry about me (genuinely, worry makes me feel worse. i mean it in the nicest way possible when i say im not looking for sympathy, i just need to get this out into the void) im not going to do anything that would actually endanger me. i just want to feel okay again. i dont know if i ever will

[severelynerdysheep]

Bruh, do you know that not everyone can go vegan, right? You know eating disorders such as ARFID exist, right? If not, please search it up on the internet and stop guilt-tripping people. If I stopped eating meat, I'd literally DIE, because I could only eat pasta (just one type) and carrots, so I HAVE to eat meat, it isn't always a choice. I'm trying to recover, but literally nobody in my country knows what ARFID is, so I have to try alone, if you were gonna use the "you can recover tho" card. And I read your post about "hOw EvErYoNe CaN aCtUaLlY gO vEgAn". Based on it, I already am vegan, even if I eat meat. Then why do you think everyone who eats meat is anti-vegan and a cruel villain? I'm literally vegan based on what you said.

1) Everyone with moral agency (which you have if you are able to use Tumblr) can be (and has a moral obligation to be) vegan. Do you know what veganism is?

2) I'm really sorry you suffer from ARFID, I assume you are typing this from a hospital bed since being unable to eat anything but plain pasta, carrots, and butchered animal flesh must leave you (and I can not overstate this) very severely ill. I assume you are also being fed via peg feeding or some other liquid diet? Since a doctor would be super negligent to leave a patient suffering such extreme malnutrition. Even if they don't know what ARFID is. I personally almost died from anorexia as a teen, so I know how traumatic eating disorders can be, and I hope that you are able to recover from this incredibly serious (esp with the malnutrition effects) illness.

However, if you look at the definition of veganism, you will see that veganism, as an ethical philosophy, is a way of living in which you avoid all forms of animal exploitation "as far as is possible and practicable". And while many people can recover from eating disorders while consuming fully plant-based diets, some cannot (esp if they require inpatient treatment which doesn't cater to vegans) and for those folks, consuming some level of animal flesh, weaning milk, eggs, etc. is necessary for a period of time while they are in recovery. And they are still vegan.

So yes, since you must be severely severely ill in hospital while being treated for the massive physical effects of your ARFID, it's not possible and practicable to avoid all animal exploitation, hence you can still be vegan while currently consuming animal flesh while in treatment.

3) I don't think that every single person who consumed animal flesh, calves weaning milk, eggs, etc. is an evil and cruel villain. I think that folks who choose to exploit animals (which includes consuming animal flesh, weaning milk, eggs, etc.) when it is avoidable for personal pleasure, convenience, etc. are committing abhorrent and violently unjust acts. And yeah, I don't hold high opinions of these people when they make these choices while either knowing what they are paying for or choosing to be willfully ignorant. Just like I don't hold anyone in high regard who chooses to inflict unnecessary violence/exploitation against any individual, human or non-human. I think that that's a very logical position, and I'm not going to pretend that I like folks that hurt others for personal pleasure. I'm not about that life..

[wyrddogs]

Quick rundown of stuff I’ve worked on:

-- I’ve been taking Kermit to the park for socialization purposes. We just wander around and/or sit for an hour, let him sniff things and look at things. He gets cheese whenever he offers eye contact. He is really good about eye contact.

/// He’s seen adults and kids on bikes, skateboards, scooters, and roller blades; a variety of leashed dogs; one loose dog that was captured and got a lot closer to us than I would have preferred; two separate women who approached and wanted to pet him, but settled for talking to me about him; kids playing soccer; and a group of people having a picnic.

/// Bindi is a great model for good behavior. Just the bestest girl.

-- I can’t remember if I’ve said this before but he’s been letting me brush his back teeth. He’s also gotten much better about cleaning his ears.

-- Lots and lots and lots of practice not eating enticing things like coyote poop, random dead things, etc. on the trail in exchange for cheese. On a related note, lots and lots and lots of practice letting me dig items out of his mouth in exchange for cheese.

-- Lots of practice letting me capture and leash him on off-leash walks. He is really good about this. If I stop he presents himself for capture.

-- We switched to a different harness so we’re practicing those procedures.

-- On nosework we’ve started reverse luring and freezing at the scent. I’ve also started hiding the scent around the yard. I cannot overstate how fascinating it is to watch Bindi and Kermit use their noses to find a bit of birch oil.

-- We are continuing the conversation called “Do NOT Steal Bindi’s Toys”. He is very determined and sneaky. He’s been getting quite a few timeouts. He’s not impressed when I tell him I’m the nice option. Last week Bindi removed some of his butt hair and he respected her for an entire day.

-- Practice settling quietly in my lap at the computer. He finds this difficult, but he wants to do it. Sometimes he requests to be picked up and placed in my lap. I imagine as he gets older and less squirmy this will get easier for him.

-- He’s getting good at stacking. He loves it. He desperately wants to be put on the table and fed ludicrous amounts of cheese in exchange for standing still. For his sixteen-week photo op, my roommate and I weren’t setting up the table fast enough so he tried to climb the chair to get up there himself.

[grapeicies]

8 Things 8 Years of Therapy Taught Me

(Working with a professional version)

1) STOP PUSSYFOOTING YOUR STRUGGLES AND PICK SOMETHING TO WORK ON.

It’s tempting to think that you can go into a therapist’s office with no game plan. 

It’ll go like this: you tell them something’s wrong, you clarify what you think is wrong, and they use their fancy degrees and licenses to eventually sus out what’s really wrong with you and come up with either a miracle medicine or say that one perfectly profound thing that will set your life into motion. 

Doesn’t work that way.

Your therapist is human. While they are more trained and more experienced with handling a wider variety of issues, struggles, and stories than the average person, they still cannot read your mind. They cannot understand how you tick by the short amount of time they have you for, especially when it’s weekly or monthly sessions. In order to get the best out of your sessions, you have to identify problem areas and at least start the process of brainstorming what direction you want to move in. 

Your therapist cannot fix you. They cannot force you to recover. 

You are always in charge of your own recovery. It doesn’t work otherwise.

Personally, I like following the CBT model and focusing on changing behaviors in order to change thoughts in order to change feelings. It feels less overwhelming to change my behaviors because my thoughts aren’t nearly as visible as how I behave and my feelings are involuntary reactions to my own thoughts and events happening around me. If you’re too overwhelmed to decide on just one behavior to work on, that’s what your therapist is there for. To guide you.

2) Do your fucking research.

Most people have the impression of therapy as an hour of you sitting on a chaise and talking the ear off of a nodding observer who takes notes and occasionally chimes in with profound bits of wisdom. Psychodynamic therapy is the most common form of therapy and it works for some people! It just doesn’t work for everyone. Know that if it didn’t work for you, there are still options out there for you to still try!

Just a short list of alternative therapies:

Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (My personal favorite experience!)

Art Therapy

Music Therapy

EDMR Therapy

And many more

There are also different levels of care (from highest to lowest; commentary is US-centric!)

Inpatient [Individual or Group] (Split into Residential and Acute) Meant for short-term stabilization in a medical/hospital setting in an emergency ONLY. 

Partial Hospitalization (PHP) [Group] the step down from inpatient; after a person is stabilized, they are placed in 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day care where they commute from their residence to their program in order to reintroduce structure to them after a major disruption in their life (like an inpatient stay). Typically, group sessions are paired with a team of providers who advise a personal care counselor who supervises your progress. A person can be referred to PHP as either an alternative to inpatient or as a transition from inpatient, depending on their level of need. If you need PHP and cannot afford it: ASK ABOUT HOSPITAL CHARITY CARE OPTIONS. (Lasts anywhere from 1 week to 2 months)

Intensive Outpatient (IOP) [Group] can either be a step down from IP/PHP or a preventative measure to keep a person out of the higher levels of care (because IP and PHP are expensive and will 100% increase your insurance rates, unfortunately). An IOP schedule operates anywhere from 2-4 days a week, depending on your level of need. Most IOP will start you at 3 days a week and either increase or decrease the number of days you attend depending on their assessment of your wellness. Like a PHP, an IOP will typically pair group sessions with a team of providers and a single PCC who supervises your progress. Also typically has charity programs! I know! I benefited from them! You have to ask though! (Lasts anywhere from 3 - 12 months)

Routine Outpatient Care (ROC) [Individual or Group] the most common form of care. Is often either the precursor to or the ending point of higher levels of care. This is where a person has the most autonomy in the maintenance of their health and is the most long-term form. Most therapists have a sliding scale for payment options. The sliding scale, unfortunately, does not apply if you’re paying with insurance. Make sure to talk to them or their secretary about your financial options and look into potentially free options. (Lasts however long you can afford it or however long you need it to)

Support Groups [Group] (Typically) free community resources meant to explore and process difficult feelings in the company of other people who have gone through similar things! It’s most often in the form of 12-step programs but I hate those so I like to make sure that people know they have other, secular options available! Like SMART! And Facebook Groups! And Discord Servers! Places that are specifically oriented for people who want to feel supported while they recover!

3) Be picky.

I cannot overstate this enough. View therapists like you view a job interview because you are LITERALLY hiring them to help you manage that bitch of a blob of electrified fat sitting in your cranium. You’re setting up for an uncomfortable process; it should be with someone you feel like you can grow to trust.

Ask them:

“How long have you been practicing? What demographic do you specialize with? What are your strengths as a therapist? What are your weaknesses? What methods do you use for treatment? Have you been through therapy yourself? How recently? How often do you seek an outside opinion? Describe your ideal patient. Have you treated patients with similar problems to the ones I have described? How often do you anticipate seeing me? Do you assign homework? How should I prepare for our first session?”

If you are non-white, LGBTQIA+, (previously or currently) poor, disabled, or part of any other marginalized group I urge you to also ask these questions:

“What is your experience level working with my community? How do you view my community? How do you or would you adapt your treatment methods to accommodate people like me? What options are available for me? Do you know someone who might be better suited for my needs?”

I cannot emphasize enough just how much it radically changed my life to find therapy options in my community. There are just some things that all the education in the world cannot compensate for. Someone who meets you on most of your community needs is better than someone who meets you on literally none of your community needs. Not having that connection, feeling like I was being humored but not heard, almost drove me away from therapy entirely.

4) Understand that you are wired to troubleshoot.

If you feel in your gut that something isn’t right, understand that something is not right.

Here’s the caveat though:

What you think is wrong may not actually be what’s wrong. 

Building an accurate intuition for troubleshooting is a gained skill. If your upbringing wired you for dysfunctional relationships and fed into cognitive distortions that overtake your view on situations, then something is still off and still needs to be addressed. Or you’re just able to recognize that you’re in a shitty place and your environment needs to change. Or a whole host of other things. Troubleshooting is RARELY a one-solution fix and it is even more rarely a black-and-white issue. There’s nuances to the gears that keep you going. It often takes time and care to assess and then get to work on everything. If you keep maintenance up on your system and take care of things before they get unmanageable, you will eventually be able to workshop your own solutions. Still, we’re here for professional help because it is beyond a point where we are able to take in on ourselves.

Sit there with your fucking check engine light and do not turn it off because someone tells you to. 

Shine on, you immensely well-developed system, you.

5) DO YOUR GODSDAMNED HOMEWORK.

If your program/therapist asks you to do it, do it. 

This isn’t school. 

You will not be punished for not doing your homework. (Except for potentially being told you are harboring a therapy resistant behavior and that there’s nothing the therapist can do for you as the crushing disappointment from realizing you flaked on something important yet again sets in)

You will also not be rewarded for doing it if you avoid it. (Increased sense of trust between you and your therapist! A sense of accomplishment for having worked on yourself and delivering on a promised result! Increased self-confidence and dopamine rush from feeling reliable!) 

Homework is the way that you show your therapist how committed you are to the process and how accountable you are for your own development. It helps you build trust with them and helps you form a helpful habit.

But, like, also don’t treat it like those last minute assignments you would fill out literally as the teacher was walking through the door. There’s no guideline to this. Your homework is for your personal development. If it’s too insufferable to do consistently, talk to your therapist and figure out something else that does work for you. You are the master of your own destiny. Your therapist is there to make sure you’re held accountable for your progress and to help guide you towards being the best version of yourself.

Fully involve yourself with your homework and make it something you want to do.

5) Be your own snitch.

SNITCH ON YOURSELF.

TELL YOUR THERAPIST EVERYTHING THAT IMPEDED YOUR PROGRESS THAT WEEK/MONTH.

COME INTO YOUR FIRST SESSION WITH A FULLY ITEMIZED LIST OF POTENTIALLY THERAPY RESISTANT HABITS YOU HARBOR, TEACH YOUR THERAPIST HOW TO RECOGNIZE THOSE BEHAVIORS IN YOUR ACTIONS, EXPRESS HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO OVERCOME THEM, AND BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR OWN PROGRESS.

Don’t know what a therapy resistant behavior looks like? Here’s a PsychCentral post.

Resistance is a natural part of recovery. Everyone has resistance within them to change or new thoughts/habits/ideas/whatever. It’s how your brain protects your identity from the things that would wreck it.

And you are here to recognize that your identity is a construct and you are the person who defines it. 

If you are working with the right therapist, being honest will not kill you.

Even if it means being referred to a new therapist. Even if it means being asked to leave your program/your therapist’s practice. Even if it lands you in the hospital. (All have happened to me! It sucked! A lot! It hurt! A lot! I cried! A lot! I lived! A lot! Honestly! I was better for it!)

There’s a level of catharsis that comes with looking your worst fears in the face and answering them with radical honesty. When you’re willingly and brutally honest about the obstacles that come with working with you and the severity of your needs, you are giving your therapist the opportunity to set their limits and boundaries. You are helping them help you by allowing them to be honest about how well they can work within the parameters your situation has set for them. While sometimes the answer is yes, they can help you, sometimes the answer is no, they can’t help you. You must be willing to accept both.

You have to be willing to show your underbelly if you want to get anywhere meaningful.

6) Document the fuck out of everything.

You know those sessions of therapy where you know something important happened that week between now and last session? The ones where you, for the life of you, cannot resummon the thoughts and feelings and words you had when you were stuck in the thick of it?

Document them. 

Sit there and learn how to document every little step, every tear, every smile, every awful, terrible thought. Make vlogs, write letters, fill up journals and scrapbooks and sketchbooks and playlists and write songs and make memes and do everything in your power to make sure you’re able to hold onto what’s important so you can present it to your therapist. 

While you are in therapy, learn how to TAKE NOTES. 

You do not have to take traditional notes (my preferred method was to doodle while we talked and use the images to trigger the memories of what we talked about when I reviewed them later because that’s how my brain works). Understand that you need a reminder and a way to access the information from your sessions later so you can keep doing the work outside of therapy.

Beyond the fact that it is satisfying as fuck to hold your progress in your hands, it is also important because your therapist cannot work with a shrug and an “It was alright. Nothing really happened.” They are not your friend. 

They are there to help you. Help them help you.

7) Learn when it’s time to buckle down and when it’s time to let go.

The hardest skill I had to learn when I was going through therapy was learning when to recognize “I am no longer growing” and then look my therapist in the face and say “Thank you for everything. I’ve learned everything I can learn. I need to go.” But I’ve also heard from people who say they’ve had the opposite problem: they don’t know how to stay. They don’t know when to say “I have things to learn from you and I want to learn them.”

Therapy is a professional venture. While you are building meaningful relationships, it is impossible to complete your journey while relying on the guidance of a single person AND a loose network of fleeting connections is not a support system. It is support soup. 

People need a support *network* constructed from the various enriching relationships they have built for themselves. Therapy is not an exception to this.

Do not be afraid to challenge yourself and explore why you feel the way you do and your emotional urges. Challenge why you feel the urge to run. Challenge why you feel fear when you think of leaving. Understand that when those feelings arise, your growth often lies on the other side of the opposite action.

8) Keep going.

Develop the capacity for grit.

In a society that benefits from your self-hatred and animosity towards the other, it is your radiance and your defiant capacity for love and empathy that is the true revolution.

You cannot change the world. You cannot change your family. You cannot change people.

Let yourself resist those truths and then accept them.

Commit to accepting them.

And then operate within the boundaries placed before you.

You can influence the world around you when you invest in yourself and the people around you. When you demand better for yourself and work for it, you embolden other people to want the same. You may not be able to feel the impact of the mark you will leave on the world when you do better and still you must have faith that your mark is made.

This post is my effort to shape the world I live in using the tools I built for myself. And just like every thought, every quote, every gesture, every conversation, every hug, every tear, and every smile carved and shaped me into the person I am today, I have one wish for everyone who reads this:

I hope for all of you to one day wake up and realize you are currently the best version of yourself that you have ever been.

And that you will only continue to get better.

8 things 8 Years of Recovery Taught me

[beca-mitchell]

this is all for you; don’t want to hide the truth

Summary: Four important moments of jealousy in Chloe Beale’s life. Bechloe week, day 2: jealousy. One-shot.

Word count: 1,398.

4.

Her fist clenches when she sees Beca kiss Jesse. Beca just runs off stage, like she knows Jesse is it for her. Like this was always her plan and she’s sure.

Chloe wonders how somebody musters up that kind of confidence - how somebody musters up that kind of passion or love for somebody.

She wonders and wonders, letting a kind of blinding rage build up inside her until it kind of evens out into nothingness.

Except, it isn’t nothingness.

It settles like grains of sand, flickering in the wind.

It isn’t rage, not even close.

It’s a blinding jealousy that threatens to encompass her. She’s even naive enough to believe that she’s jealous of Beca, but she knows it would be a disservice to Beca if she lied to herself like that.

Her thoughts shift and she wonders where she went wrong - where could have been the one on the receiving end of Beca’s affections.

She knows then that she no longer has to wonder about that passion - that love.

It was in her the moment she met Beca Mitchell.

Now it manifests in jealousy because she was too late - too slow.

This is what heartbreak feels like.

4a.

She thinks it kind of goes away. Years of being Beca’s friend, first and foremost, have kind of numbed Chloe to the kind of pain she gets whenever she sees or hears Jesse and Beca together.

Still, Beca is happy and Chloe thinks that love means some kind of sacrifice - it’s just how she gets herself through the day.

She takes deeper breaths. She can stay afloat.

Then-

“Just because you are making me very sexually confused does not mean that you are intimidating. We have nothing to lose! We have literally nothing to lose!”

Chloe thinks that she has a lot to lose, with a kind of heartbreaking finality, for the second time in her life.

3.

It’s difficult, living so far from Beca, especially that she’s touring and becoming famous.

Chloe loves that her girlfriend is getting the recognition she deserves.

Chloe loves that people are recognizing that Beca Mitchell is talented and beautiful and charming and all the traits that Chloe has always cherished and held close to her heart.

Chloe has always known that Beca’s talent would shine through one day - it was always there, even during their time at Barden.

But there is a kind of jealousy that settles in Chloe’s chest when she lies down at night, wondering if Beca’s going to call and wish her goodnight. She wonders how many more people she has to share Beca’s affections with - how many more people get to see Beca just as Chloe sees her-

And like clockwork, Beca calls.

“Chlo, I just wanted to call to wish you goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Chloe says, unable to fight the smile that graces her face.

“I love you,” Beca murmurs, as she always does, soft and shy.

“I love you, too, Bec.”

Still, Chloe’s jealousy has no basis - no leg to stand on, not when she has what nobody else does: Beca’s all-encompassing, unconditional love.

She curbs it and battles it back.

It’s easier than ever.

2.

Chloe has always wanted to be a mother.

Maybe that’s overstating it a little. It was never her be-all, end-all goal in life, but she had wondered and dreamt about it from time to time. She loves children, loves caring for them, and she loves the idea of raising her own children with the love of her life.

That happens to be Beca Mitchell.

And Beca Mitchell happens to be as equally in love with her.

It just so happens that Beca will be the one to carry their children.

Their children.

The idea of that still baffles Chloe. They had talked about all their options, quietly in the sanctuary of their bedroom, looking at adoption, surrogacy, IVF, finally settling on the fact that Beca would carry their children.

Chloe loves Beca with everything in her. She loves taking care of Beca and attending to her every need.

She equally loves their future child, contentedly growing inside her wife. Chloe spends time singing to Beca’s little bump, wondering aloud if their child will inherit Beca’s stature, secretly hoping and praying that this baby will have Beca’s eyes.

And how Chloe wants Beca’s personality to transfer into their child.

All Chloe knows is that her love for Beca transfers to their child as naturally as expected.

What she doesn’t expect is the strangest rush of jealousy when Beca finally holds their newborn in her arms, attentive and loving - all her senses trained on their baby.

It’s the strangest sensation, Chloe thinks because it fades as quickly as it comes. All the exhaustion and mild fear fades along with it.

She assess it as something that’s not jealousy - not even close.

It’s the keen awareness that it’s not just the two of them anymore - there’s another human being in their lives who needs their undivided attention.

It is so easy to find excess pools of love in her to give. She cannot imagine not sharing her love with two of the most important people in her life.

She’s not jealous, she thinks. Never again.

She’s lucky.

1.

Chloe is fading in and out of sleep. She’s exhausted. She feels like she’s probably more tired than Beca had been the first time around.

Beca tells her it’s because she’s older.

Chloe tells her to watch herself.

As she fades in and out of consciousness, she hears Beca’s voice, somehow clear as day above everything else that muddles through Chloe’s mind. She exhales slowly, about to get up in case Evan needs to be fed. Their son has already proven to have a voracious appetite, something Chloe insists came from Beca.

Instead, Beca’s voice is hushed and clearer than ever. She’s speaking to their three year old, Beth, apparently.

“Sweetie, mama needs some rest.”

“But all mama does is sleep!” Beth exclaims, attempting to use the same hushed tone that Beca is using. “Ever since the baby,” Beth mutters.

Beth had been so excited at first, but Chloe has noticed a kind of despondent air about her recently.

Chloe is about to get up fully to comfort their daughter when Beca sighs and gently tugs Beth onto the bed with them. Chloe pauses, wondering and curious as to what Beca will say or do.

“I grew up without brothers or sisters,” Beca begins. “So when you first came around, I was actually so unsure as to what I would do when I didn’t have your mama’s love all the time even though I was the one who carried you. It was so brief, however, because I knew without a doubt that we would love you with everything in us.”

“You love me,” Beth points out unnecessarily.

“Duh,” Beca says, squirming with Beth on the bed. She quickly hushes Beth when she giggles.

“But now - now all you guys ever do is talk about the baby.”

“I understand you’re a little jelly right now of your brother.”

“You’re jelly!” Beth whispers back, still giggling. Chloe’s not sure that Beth understands what that means completely, but the way Beca says it must amuse her.

“I mean jealous, Bethie. You’re a little jealous because mama and I are taking care of your brother.”

Beth is quiet.

“I want you to know,” Beca says softly. “That we will never run out of love for the two of you. We love you both so much, just like your mama and I love each other. We just need to make sure that Evan gets everything he needs right now because he doesn’t know how to do things so well, yet. He needs to grow so he can be big, like you and then do things by himself.”

There’s a pause.

“You know, your mama and I are so happy that we have the two of you in our lives. We love you both very much.”

“I love you, mommy,” Beth whispers. “And I love Evan too. He just poops a lot.” Chloe feels her squirming into Beca’s arms. Now she’s a little jealous herself.

“I love you, Beth. Now, if only your mama would stop pretending to be asleep, then maybe we can convince her to cuddle with us until we need to get up for breakfast.”

Chloe smiles and opens her eyes to her family.

@bechloe-week.

[thesnug]

Katie Eats, Part III

(Here's Part I and Part II)

Aside from the nonfat diet we were all inadvertently on throughout the 90s, I didn't try a real diet until college, when Atkins came on my radar. Atkins gets a lot of grief these days, but I cannot overstate how revolutionary it was back then to suggest that fat might actually be good for you. I took to the idea with gusto. Being vegetarian, my only Atkins-approved protein source was cheese, so for weeks I melted mozzarella in the microwave and ate it straight, twirling it on a fork like pasta. It was bliss.

I neither gained nor lost weight, and eventually I started craving oranges, so I gave it up. I moved on to living on 800 calories a day, until my friends had an intervention because they were so sick of my foul moods. Then I tried living exclusively on Power Bars for a while, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, let's skip over 20+ diets because this story is long enough already (but you'll be able to read all the details in my memoir in 2076, pre-order on Amazon now!). Suffice it to say that through all of this, my body seemed to be as disconnected from me as I was from it; my weight stayed in the same 10lb range no matter what I did, and indeed seemed to fluctuate up and down based entirely on its own whim.

Until: phentermine! This diet pill is a stimulant and appetite suppressant, but was prescribed to me off-label in 2010 for brain fog. I absolutely and completely loved it. For the first time in my life I had energy and could think clearly. I was making sensible food choices, and wasn't craving sugar. It was magic.

And I lost a little bit of weight, which felt great, especially since I was in the aftermath of an ego-shattering breakup. So when my doctor ratcheted up the dose, I leaned into the appetite suppressant effects and lost 30 lbs in about a month. Totally healthy and reasonable, right? I was flying high. I was now a size 6, which meant I had a whole universe of clothes open to me that I'd never had before. For the first time in my life I could shop based on personal aesthetics, rather than just trying to find something tolerable in the handful of clothes that fit me.

But then I started having heart palpitations, and my friend Ted told me he was worried about me, which I resented but knew was probably justified. I got off the phentermine, started working 80 hour weeks, and gained back all the weight in the course of a year or so.

And in the midst of all this I started dating a man who, among his many other excellent qualities, fed me real food on a regular basis and passed no judgment on what I ate in between. Reader, I married him.

And then I got pregnant. Oh, the sweet sweet indescribable joy of knowing that I was now in a phase where people would nod approvingly and say "You're eating for two!" A phase where weight gain was not only accepted but encouraged! And also, on a more practical note, a phase where I had constant nausea for three months straight, and the only thing that helped tamp it down was eating.

So I ate, and ate, and ate. But the midwives did not nod approvingly and say "You're eating for two!" Instead they informed me that if I was over a certain weight threshold, I wouldn't be ​​allowed to give birth in their birth center. And that I should really not gain any more weight. But no, they didn't have any practical solutions for how to do that safely. I should continue eating, but just stop gaining weight.

By week 16 I'd already gained all the weight I was "supposed" to gain over the whole pregnancy, which left 5 months of stressing about it and getting increasingly disapproving looks from the midwives. The internet nodded along, with data about weight gain and miscarriages, labor complications, etc. The messaging in my world had gone from "your weight means you're a lazy monster" to "...and now it's killing your baby." I left many midwife appointments in tears. It was, shall we say, a low point.

How does our hero get from this nadir to her current enlightened self? Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!

PART IV →

[askullandbones]

about how women's sizes are nonsense: i know right??? and pants are just the worst- the numbers are all nonsense, there's no consideration for body types, and the pockets?? are an inch deep???? last time i went to get pants i went to the men's section, still comfortable with my femininity just fed up, and after a few trips to the changing room to figure out my size i was able to get an armload of pants i could be 95% sure i would fit into

(still talking about clothes, sorry) and these pants- the comfort! the pockets! and i cannot overstate- the consistency!!! probably going to need a belt, but that was kind of already a problem for most women's pants. noticed most of the stock catered to a smaller waist than me, but still probably not switching back.

Yeah when I shopped for clothes in the women’s section pants were always my biggest enemy. One size in one brand wasn’t even close to the same size in another, and since I have wide hips but am short as hell, I would have to deal with pants that were too tight but the right length or hem them while they fit right around me waist. It’s hell.

Once I realized I was trans and started buying in the men’s section all you gotta do is like... find the sizes on the pants sitting folded in a pile. I just walked around picking up a huge stack of the size I needed and they were actually the same size. And yeah, the pockets?

Actual pockets. It’s ridiculous.

[suggestionsofthecaribbean]

The Pearl: Barbossa and Swann

After James Norrington makes a proper fool of himself and forces Elizabeth into a difficult place, she receives an ominous summons from Captain Barbossa.

Featuring: @lizzyswann-turnersuggestions and @barbossasuggestions

The captain’s table was not quite so richly appointed as the last time he had had Elizabeth Swann as his guest, but he had had his crew bring up an assortment of salted meats, a few tropical fruits and a thick stew of uncertain provenance- and of course, the captain’s favorite, apples.

There was a conspicuous third chair that had been prepared for a place setting that wasn’t there. Barbossa had appropriated it as a footstool, and gave the King the laziest of salutes from where he sat rather than rising as she entered.

“Glad you could make it, Yer Majesty,” he said, with a yellow grin for appearances’ sake.

Moodily, Elizabeth approached the table, plucked an apple from among its brethren in their silver tray, and bit into it.

She nodded towards the third chair and wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist.  “Expecting better company than mine?”

“Not with how the wind’s been blowing around here,” he said as he reached for the prosciutto. “Ye gods, girl, where’d you find that one?”

A number of true, but ambiguous answers flashed into her head at once.  He’s a former commodore of the British Royal Navy, got fed up with Beckett’s monstrousness and defected.  Or, he knew my father in Port Royal; closer, but still hardly the real answer.  

After a short pause, though, she said, “He’s the man I turned down to marry Will.”  She did not know why she told him.  She sat down heavily in her appointed seat.

Barbossa’s eyes widened as he made an ambiguous grumbling sound, but he was more focused on his plate than looking at her.

“Any relation to the old admiral?”

“Youngest son.  Rather unwanted.”

“Mmmh,” said Barbossa, with a strange combination of a sage nod and a faintly overwhelmed expression as he weighed this over.

A moment later, he added: “Yikes.”

She cast him a faintly dirty look mid-chew. Barbossa only shrugged, palms up.

“He was the commodore in the skirmish between the Dauntless and your ill-fated last crew,” said Elizabeth, her voice a little clipped.

“Commodore’s a commodore, dearie,” he said, beginning to laugh. “Can’t really expect an old man like meself to keep ‘em all straight in their little white britches and blue coats and wigs-“

(Barbossa was himself rather splendidly wigged at the moment, though as it was both a patently wishful shade of honey-brown and tumbling over his front in plump ringlets that mostly hid the few wisps of straggling, graying dishwater blond he hadn’t managed to tuck up beneath it, he felt himself to have more than enough room to talk.)

“-not that he’s making that kind of showing out here to start with.”

After a fairly pregnant pause, he added, in a slyer voice, “So ‘t’wasn’t his father running for Beckett, then, was it?”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.  “After the mess with you, Jack was for the noose.  Then-Commodore Norrington made the decision to let him go free.  He gave him a day’s head-start, and then pursued him.  It ended in a hurricane off Tripoli.”  She fell into a silence, thinking about what James had told her about that night, knowing this incident, more than anything to do with herself, was what drove him to drink now.  “James resigned his commission and left Port Royal.  Then Beckett came into the picture.  He had an arrest warrant for all three of us for our part in Jack’s escape.  I cannot claim I was not angrier than anyone else at his choosing Beckett’s side over mine, but good men have done worse things to restore their happiness.”

At this, Barbossa began to laugh.

“You don’t have to qualify any of that t’me! I’ve been keeping Beckett on tenterhooks of a somewhat intimate nature off ‘n’ on for the past month and a half meself.”

Her eyes rolled.  “What did you want to hear me say?”

“Just trying to make sense of what’s gotten into your head. I always did like taking credit for putting you and Turner together, so it’s a matter of pride, for starters-“

“Really?” said Elizabeth, in a voice that was suddenly softer and more intimate, leaning forward in her seat.  “And what would have happened, Captain Barbossa, if Elizabeth Swann had been the woman from Port Royal to board this ship?”  She had avoided thinking on this as much as possible, but the incident with Sao Feng had thrown it into hideous relief in her mind.  Their curse had likely protected her life as much as it did theirs.  “Even if you had cut Will’s hand and your curse had been lifted, even if I were safe on shore, none of this would have happened if it were not for - oh, for me.  You overstate your match-making skills, for a start.”

Rather than being chastised, Barbossa grinned, rather dreadfully.

“That’s my girl,” he said proudly, chuffing her fondly on the shoulder. This time her head rolled with her eyes, but she continued eating lest she continue to make an ass of herself instead. “So if I’m following correct, after all of that, he shows up with a ship and no wig, all for the love of yourself-“

“For doing what’s right, over what’s proper,” she insisted.

Barbossa made another indistinct noise, muffled by the cup of juice-cut wine he had brought to his mouth.

“He isn’t that lovesick. He chose to take the heart to Beckett first, after all-”

“And did he ever say why that was?”

“He said if he did that he would get his life back.”

“Bit hard to reconcile with him puking off the side of me ship.”

“How would you like working for Beckett?”

“I’ve never been one for the taking, pardon my meaning.”

“It seems there exists a rumor that Beckett has nothing to give,” said Elizabeth shortly.  “In any case, he took nothing from Beckett but the heart of Davy Jones, the Gloriana, and seventy-five able and willing men.”

Barbossa swallowed a mouthful of pineapple and smirked unpleasantly.

“Is that more or less’n he’s taking from you?”

“I’ve given him nothing,” said Elizabeth - pointedly.

Barbossa’s entire mouth somehow managed to drop toward his chin without opening.

“‘T’ain’t what I’ve heard, but impressive all the same, then. It’s a bold wench indeed who can convince half the ocean and Internet both she’s buggering one of the Navy’s top men, an’ even moreso for makin’ ‘em think he’s begging for it.”

Elizabeth skewered a sliver of meat with her fork almost daintily and ate it with a delicate, demure little shrug.  “James isn’t one of the Navy’s top men anymore.”  She took a drink of wine next, patted her lips with a napkin, and then said, “I had hoped to make him one of mine.  But his drinking…”

“Ah, yes. That’s why I called you in here. Apologies if you thought it was only for the company-“

“I didn’t.”  She put her goblet down with a heavy, final thud.  “What do you propose, Captain?”

“I’ve overseen many a drunk in my day, and it’s more often’n not nothin’ a little physical labor, or, er- mortification o’ the flesh, as the Spanish call it, won’t put right,” he said, nearly brightly. “Course, seeing as you hold him so highly in your affections… hm.”

“I’m not having him flogged,” said Elizabeth flatly.  “I’ve-”

She caught herself in the middle of saying ‘I’ve hurt him enough’, in some shock. Barbossa was not the right man for that confidence.

“Suit yerself,” Barbossa said, with an agreeable shrug. There was a shriek and a chitter from across the room, and his little monkey came barreling out from behind the curtained bed he had moved on board as soon as he took fresh command of the Pearl. Jack Sparrow may have enjoyed luxury as a form of wealth, to be hoarded and then traded away to fuel further adventures, but his personal needs were simple enough, and a cot as welcome a place to rest his matted head as any.

Barbossa’s tastes, on the other hand, ran toward what could be charitably called new money, and in the brief time he had had his own ship again he had already begun working his influence on the Pearl’s captain’s quarters. This was mostly in the form of chintzy little porcelain figures and a strong inclination toward candelabra featuring faux-gilded, faux-Grecian figures, but somehow those still didn’t speak quite so loudly as the reveal of Jack the monkey clambering up his beloved master’s legs in a tiny, faithfully reproduced East India Trading Company armada officer’s uniform.

“There’s Daddy’s good boy! You had me worrying you’d be sleeping right through supper-“

Elizabeth squinted at the monkey in the background until she could be sure she had it correctly, then she rolled her eyes with her full body and threw herself into devouring her stew with new ferocity in order to avoid making any statement on that. Barbossa, for his part, was so engaged in feeding the monkey little shreds of prosciutto and keeping him from chewing his wig that it was a moment before he even noticed.

“Well,” he said, “scuttlebutt is, they make excellent pets. Show her your trick, Jackie-“

The monkey, still chewing open-mouthed and looking around the room, straightened up on his master’s shoulder and, obligingly, stiffly put his arms behind his back.

Elizabeth found herself choking down a giggle before Barbossa could notice it.

“Good boy- who’s a good boy?”

He flicked a grape at the monkey, who made a smaller, chirpier squawking noise, as though to assert that he was indeed the good boy, and possibly the best boy.

“So the curse works differently on him, then?” asked Elizabeth gamely, remembering the first time she had dined in this cabin, and with the same man, and the same monkey.

“A… friend cleared that matter up f’r’is sake,” Barbossa explained. “A little kindness. He din’t mean to be naughty, did you, darlin’-“

The monkey rubbed his velvety little head on Barbossa’s grizzled cheek and then dove, quick as a flash, down into his pocket to pull out a tiny tricorne. He put this on with great dignity and leapt over to the empty setting, where Barbossa began laying out a little feast for him.

“Be this a characteristic trouble of the ex-Commodore’s, then?”

“Apparently.  Ever since he found himself stranded in Tortuga a year and a half ago, after his resignation.”

“Hrm,” said Barbossa. “A man don’t fall that far ‘less ‘e’s already at the brink, by my reckoning. Likeliest he just hid it, real crafty-like.”

“He says he was always prone to excess,” she admitted.  “They gave him a lot of brandy to deal with some shoulder wound when he was 16, he says that was the start of it.”  Why was she telling him this?  Annoyed, she washed her mouth out with wine and swallowed.  It surprised her to realize she had never seen Captain Barbossa drunk.  

“Well,” he said. “I know you’ve some sentiment for the man, but if I were in your position, I might ask myself how far that goes. Speaking personal here, he’s lucky he weren’t sick on the deck of my ship.”

“And… what’s that mean, exactly?” asked Elizabeth, almost afraid to know the answer.

“He’d be cleaning it up, for starters,” said Barbossa, “with a good whipping for his trouble.”

“Oh, I think I’ve hurt him enough,” said Elizabeth with an air of finality that was cracking in places, revealing the stress beneath her royal posturing. “I’ve spoken to him. He’s already watered down whatever remains of his liquor.  Hopefully that’s the last of it.”  Her agitation, not fully concealed, made it clear that hope was not what occupied her mind.

“He’ll be having the terrors in three or four days, and you can mark me on that,” Barbossa said gravely. “He’ll be proper screaming for it, but don’t you dare let him have it.”

“What do you take me for?” she demanded.  “Of course I won’t.”

“I take you for a woman what’s got a tender heart where he’s concerned!”

“All the more reason to deny him!” shouted Elizabeth, matching his tone, half rising from her chair with her hands flat on the table - largely to prevent it from showing that she was shaking in anger and whatever else.  “Do you think it would be merciful to let him poison himself?  The worse it is now the better for him he gets through it quickly.”  

Elizabeth pushed the chair behind her and started to pace the room, looking for a moment as though she might storm out.  She ended by leaning back against the table with her face resting on her hand, all the better to disguise the actual content of her mood. Barbossa watched her, his face unreadable, as his little monkey clambered back to rest on his shoulders.

“Well,” he said, “I’m no expert in affairs o’ the heart. I speak only from the position of yer humble lieutenant myself.”

“Ha.”

“An’ as a man of some experience, o’ course.”

“Captain Barbossa, I am well aware that there is a problem, and as I have related to you, I have made my displeasure clear; he has proposed a solution.  Of course I will have to act if he does not follow through with it, but I will not act as though I do not have faith in him to try first.”

“An’ if he does go crawling back to the bottle, what then?” he retorted. “Begging yer pardon, Yer Majesty, but it wouldn’t go amiss to have a contingency in mind.”

“Then I told him he’s out,” she said flatly.

“Ah,” said Barbossa. “Off of the crew, or- er- shuffled off of this mortal coil-“

“Off the crew.  But I think he’d rather die than go back to being an outcast from both piracy and the rest of the civilized world, so it’s a far better motivation.”  Or he could join the Empress, that stupid man, he could join the Empress and I could conceal any of his lapses-

“‘S’a fair question, I thought,” Barbossa protested, holding up a ragged, long-nailed hand as though to defend himself.

“One to which you already knew the answer,” she responded testily.

“Alls I’m going to tell you is to reckon which you find more important- yer heart, and the ex-Commodore’s with it, or the Brethren waitin’ for you to slip. Permittin’ my boldness, I’ve grown accustomed to yer face an’ would rather see ye stay on top. ‘Specially with knowing I couldn’t get two votes meself if I paid for ‘em.”

She gave him a grudging smile, not at all certain of his sincerity.  “I made a similar point to James,” she said with some reluctance.  “I know.”

“So it’s James now?”

His smile was either endeared or mocking. Maybe both.

“Well, to make one thing clear- I ain’t marryin’ the two of you, even if he does learn to restrain ‘imself,” he said as he stood. “Not risking that curse again, that’s for certain.”

Elizabeth’s answering smile could barely be termed one.  Snarl might have been more appropriate.  Yet there was no passion in her response, which was rather more indicative.  “I have no intention of marrying my dog, Captain Barbossa.”

“Now that’s the word of a king,” he said, beaming with warm approval.  

So she was the king again.  Internally, Elizabeth wanted to die, or at least sleep for a thousand years.  James was supposed to be there for her when she felt like this.

As for Will, she owed Barbossa no explanation of that.  And having earned at least the appearance of his respect, she did not wish to immediately throw it out.  

“Are you satisfied on his account?  I have no further reassurances to offer you.  The ball is in his court now, and my next play relies on his,” she said stonily.

“My satisfaction is the least of our worries. There’s still one way that swain of yours may yet prove useful.”

He came very close now, looking wry and avuncular and almost absurdly sinister all at once with his swaying walk and his thumbs looped over his belt.

“After we’ve finished retrievin’ Sparrow from wherever he’s gotten himself this time, the seven seas are ours. Beckett ain’t got the heart no more, do he? Davy Jones is yours t’command.”

“Technically, Captain Norrington’s,” said Elizabeth, almost frozen.  She had known this would come up, and yet she had not given it near enough thought.  She had spent the weeks moping about Will, of course - not planning how to handle the terms of James’ defection.  Of course every pirate on the sea would want to use the heart.  

Barbossa made a face, looking almost impossibly invested in looking as uninvested as he could.

“Technically,” he repeated. “He ain’t doing much with it, far as I’ve seen.”

“Captain Barbossa,” she said, in a steady, low voice.  “I am not enslaving Davy Jones.  It is far too dangerous.  We will come up with some terms for him to follow, of course; but we are not enslaving him.”

“Who said anything about enslavement?” he said, with an incredulous laugh that Jack the monkey punctuated with a quizzical little head tilt. “We’re civilized types. We can bargain.”

Elizabeth’s facial features relaxed.  She could not quite smile yet, but she was… relieved.  She bowed her head in acquiescence.  “I’m so glad you see it that way.”

“You know me an’ my sensitive nature,” Barbossa said. “You could almost say I feel sorry for the ol’ slimy bastard.”

“You do realize that anyone who kills him must take his place on the Dutchman,” said Elizabeth, as though feeling bored.

“O’course.”

“And so no one is very likely to kill him.”

“Not a pirate, for certain,” Barbossa said, with that same easygoing yet somehow doubtful-sounding laugh. “That’s a post what requires a man o’ duty, an’ self-effacement, who cares most about doing what’s right. I’m sure we could find one of them without having to look too hard.”

He winked.

Elizabeth looked shocked and then outraged, but by the time she spoke she had brought it down to terseness.  “No.”

“No one’s forcing him,” Barbossa said dismissively. “I don’t think anybody as self-obsessed as that one’d jump in on that without due consideration, what with the transmogrifyin’ for those what break the rules-”

“Self-obsessed? And from what do you deduce that?”

“For cryin’ out loud, he’s got a stylist-”

“A stylist? Giselle?” she asked incredulously, then burst out laughing.

“An’ an image consultant- you know, back in my day, we made our reputations through the sweat of our brows an’ the strength of our backs, not through contracts with social media managers,” Barbossa groused.

“Oh, when was that? The Myspace era?”

“We hand-coded our own damn profiles!”

He was smiling again, but it was very nearly a snarl.

“Explains a lot of their aesthetic, doesn’t it?”

“Nothing like artisanal work, eh?”

“Thankfully,” murmured Elizabeth into her wine.

Barbossa took a moment to let his temper cool. He reached for the nearest dish and found an apple, which eased him, and took a crunching bite that sent juice dripping down his chin and into his beard.

“Perhaps we can agree to disagree then, Yer Majesty?” he proposed, all affability again.

“Oh, certainly.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” she demurred, lifting the goblet to him.

Barbossa held out the apple as though to toast with it and slurped off the juice.

“Just don’t get too held up in the beholding, will ye?” he asked. “You’re smarter’n that, Miss Swann. Always ‘ave been. ‘S’a fair part o’ why I’ve gotten so fond o’ you since we’ve, ah, rekindled our acquaintance.”

“Yeah, I like you better too now you’ve had a Snickers,” said Elizabeth, unperturbed.

It took a moment for the joke to land, and then he cackled.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Something thought you might.”

“An’ if your latest boytoy gives you any more trouble, I’ll show you where we keep the cat o’ nine around here.”

If he was trying to shock her, he succeeded.  “I have no intention-”

“If ‘e causes you any more trouble. If.”

She had no response to that - because truthfully she expected he would.