#i didn't post this back then since my mom checks my blog

[delatoid]

I didn't post this here when I had the dream, but this is a good time to post this anyhow:

I had a dream where there were 2 non-binary flags

The regular one was for peacetime, but when we went to war we would swap the white and black stripes

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 12/09✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

@snsp6 I really hope that this won’t change MK’s view on his bio dads :( Anonimo Hello! Wanted to ask or more so I am wondering, will MK start seeing Wukong differently after finding out he literally killed Mac and even after seeing their past and how close they were, dam the trauma, anyhoo I love your art and the Shadowpeach bio parent au! Keep up the great work! >:D

Oh it will. (In a good way? a Bad? that's for me to know and for you to wait a week to know)

@hopefulbelievertimemachine Imagine if MK found someone who recently found out that they were a demon and he comforts them cuz he had a similar experience.

Oh that would be sooo wholesome!!! It's one of my fav trope when there's another character who go throught the same exact thing as another character and the two of them bond over this.

@zammy357 Hello, hope your day/night is going well. I wanted to ask since me and a friend like your bio parents blog and wanted to know if we can use it for an arc? Our blog is called @amnesia-wukong-au. We wanted to ask before we started doing it.

Hi!! Yeah sure as long you tag me and the masterpost of the shadowpeach au

Anonimo Wait what is a glamour (in context of Sun Wukong and Macaque)

A glamour is a magic spell that changes/cover your appearance. Like in the show macaque should technically have 6 ears. for animation purposi I guess they are not drawing all of them, but we say he uses a glamour also for covering his scarred eye.

@clueless-simp ha chiesto: What if PIF, BDK, Sun Wukong, and Macaque (and most definitely Mei) did a "parent trap" tactic to get MK and Red Son together? Setting things up, getting them alone together, pretending they are all busy, and the only option is for them to spend time together under the sunset XD XD XD

Oh no that would end bad. like-comically bad.

@honeylavender27 ha chiesto: Imagine red realizing mk doesn't know about court napping and just invites him over one day. Red son: so I'm sure your wondering why I invited you here.. Mk: yeah it's kinda weird you didn't want Mei to come. Is everything ok? Red: perfect actually, I'll explain everything just enter here first please. Mk: oh ok -walks into the prepared courtnapping room and gets locked in-.....uh red? Redson: consider yourself courtnapped...

Ahah poor MK. I think they would make a disastrous courtnapping that would be the equivalent of the phrase "task failed succesfully"

@artgurusauce ha chiesto: ARGGGHHHH, they're SO CUTE! I love your bioparent AU so much! Altho I am wondering: When MK turns back to normal would he retain some subconscious paternal attachment to our ol boys here? Maybe he even calls Macaque "Mom" without realizing it...

@blazerratbluefire-blog ha chiesto: Plot twist of the century for the oblivious monkey men. MK remembers ~everything~ when he was a cub! I'm not sure if that is what is planned, but! It would be really funny! Especially if he just calls Macaque 'Mama' all casual and just walks away. While Macaque EXP. has crashed and is rebooting. Gosh, that would be so cute! I absolutely love your artwork, by the way! It is so adorable!

Can't answer yet. He does NOT have memories, but he will remember ONE thing...

@daniellemarvel4 Hi, fist off I love your work and can't wait to see what you do next! I was wondering who is more protective of MK when it comes to Red Son? Whether that would be Pigsy, Wukong, Macaque, or even Tang (mabye Mei but I don't think she could stay serious long enough). Also, can we see what Sandy's doing?

mmmmmm---- I think Wukong. Freenoodle is pretty chill with the DBK family after everything that happened. Mac is also quite alright since he was always in good relationship with them. I would say Wukong would just want to be sure his kid doesn't get hurt by the fire in any way

Anonimo I've been squealing, grinning, and kicking my feet going through the Shadowpeach Bio parents AU. Baby MK has been SO CUTE and fun. I wonder if he's going to remember or be embarrassed about it. Another part of me hopes that river is still in play so Sun & Mac can fall in and suddenly MK and everyone has 2 chaotic super-powered Baby Monkeys to take care off 😭 😭 😭

Anonimo ha chiesto: I almost cried they are sooo cute. I hope that we get more sweet family content. Loving the comic thanks for making it 💕💕💕💕

Anonimo ha chiesto: I don’t want the cure to work ! Or could it be like that: MK is such a powerful being that the Dosis Pif gave them, just wasn’t strong enough. Instead it only aged MK up a bit so now he is a small kid or a teenager but not a grown ass money man again. I am not ready to leave the monkey family stuff behind 🥺

unfortunately the river has been close untile further notice. (dw this wont be the end)

@cutvdo ha chiesto: Mei bribing Red Son with baby MK pictures

@luciferapollyon ha chiesto: I hope Mei, Red Son, Macaque and Wukong all got pics before they turned MK back

Anonimo ha chiesto: DHJSJDJDH LIL BABY BEAN! I wonder if Wukong and Macaque took any pics of lil MK while he was smol baby? She would keep them and use them as blackmail. (affectionately)

Anonimo ha chiesto: Your shadowpeach bio parent au is just perfect!! Thankyou for feeding the fandom with the nectar of the gods!!! Especially the one where mac slips into the bed after wukong waits all night. Like Mac would wake up in the morning and see him fast asleep and think of Peng asking 'is there anything Wukong could do that would break his hold over you?' and just seeing him at his most vulnerable right now he's like 'no, not when he always gives me a reason to stay.'

MY HEART

@queen-of-purple-roses Wait if MK is experiencing Macaque’s memories then does that mean that Macaque can experience MK’s? Are they able to dive into each other’s minds?

So the thing is that MK is hearing the past from both POVs. Macaque by definition can hear ANYTHING so yeah he could definitely experience MKs memories. But the thing is-does he want to? I headcanon that his future-present-past hearing abilities are something he only used a couple of times, and because what he heard from them was so traumatic, he decided to NOT use them again (like wukong laser eyes)

@sillygothpartykid ha chiesto: I know everyone is asking you to make the gay monkeys kiss but I actually like how you are developing their relationship. You letting them work through their problems and feeling first giving us that sweet, sweet slow burn! Love your art btw!❤️❤️❤️

awwww ty!!!! yes pls slow burn for life.

@kraytherandomchick ha chiesto: Hey, love your ShadowPeach AU! (Started rereading it after crying from the season 5 finale hehe :'D) But there's always something that's kinda stuck in my head, if MK's no longer immortal, would Macaque or Wukong get sad at the thought of getting older and forced keep going without him?

So- *sigh* technically, we don't really know MK immortality status. it's a grey area for now. Because on one side, he's a stone monkey, who, by nature like Wukong, can perfectly age and grow like a normal monkey. On the other hand, he's technically died already, and by the time he was created by Nuwa, both his biological fathers were already immortal (Wukong bc yes, Macaque because he's a demon, and he can die from wounds and illness, but can't age)

So to answer: we don't know yet what's with him. we will see (I promise that)

@lmk4ever ha chiesto: I LOVE THE SHADOW PEACH BIO PARENT AU SO MUCH!! Mk boi is so lucky to have a artist like you and fathers like them. I want to ask, will shadowpeach ever get into a fight out of anger in front of Mk? Or did they moved on from that phase?

If they will fight it will be more of like- the 2 dads grounding MK. If they need to fight they learned that they need to go on another mountain to do it so they don't bother their child

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will we get a traffic light trio ship?

Probably not, but I'm all for dragonfruit/spicynoodle and having MK and Mei NOT dating each other at the same time.

@yuk1yun ha chiesto: If lmk season 6 isn't like your au, then I don't want to watch it

BRUH THAT'S THE NICEST THING I HEARD ALL WEEK

@conniescialla ha chiesto: HIIII!! ok scusa l'italiano ma letteralmente trovare artisti italiani ispira sempre quel momento patriottico alla YES ONE OF US MUAHHAHAH Scherzi a parte, il comic Shadowpeach bio parents Au è meraviglioso, si approva soprattutto l'hurt/comfort ;p

Tanti kudos!!<3

AAAAHHH CHE BELLO UN ALTR* ITALIAN*!!!!!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I really wanna see jelous wukong!!!!!! I dunno maybe some random demon trying to flirt with emo monkie or something and wukong is like oh hell no!! He is mine!! I think it would be so cute

he would become incredibly possessive and start hissing and growling like a tiger. NOBODY TOUCHES MY SOFT PILLOW

Anonimo ha chiesto: I think it would be so cute if Wukong would take care of sick Macaque! It would show Macaque that Wukong changed and is no longer like he was before. I wonder if Macaque got sick, would MK help or would Macaque be too stubborn to let anyone know.

I know everyone says Wukong is this great sage with incredible abilities in every field (and he is) but I would like to imagine that, since he needs to do these thing for Macaque specifically, he's so stressed over the fact he needs to do them perfectly that he fucks up lmao.

Like, he would try his best to take care of him and almost burn the kitchen in the meantime, while Macaque was only hoping the two of them could just stay more in bed cuddling each other

Anonimo ha chiesto: im just imagining Mac getting anxious becouse he cannot find baby MK and Wukong is there to calm him down

@shadowpeachera ha chiesto: Heyy I absolutely love your shadowpeach bio au, the drawings, the text its perfect! Did Mk every run off or get into trouble now that he’s a cub or even play games with Wukong and Macaque like hide and seek? That would be really cute. I can imagine them playing hide and seek while Mk discovers he can make shadow portals, meanwhile his parents are stressing and scared as they have no idea where he is.

i think both of them would freak out.

WAIT I HAVE THE PIC I HAVE THE PIC

I'VE BEEN SAVING THIS PIC SINCE 2017

@nyx-daughterofchaos98 ha chiesto: Hi! For LMK, I watched a nature documentary on Monkeys the other day and a lot of monkeys correct each others behavior by doing something called “Disciplinary Nips” or “Discipline Bites” (This isn’t a sexual ask I promise) I think it would be absolutely hilarious, if Macaque and Wukong are napping together, and for whatever reason, Wukong keeps moving around, unable to get comfortable. And in his sleep-riddled state, Macaque gets annoyed and bites him. 🤣 Like; I’M TRYING TO SLEEP! KNOCK IT OFF! 🤣🤣🤣 And when Wukong does stop moving, Macaque does actually fall asleep. Even better is if Macaque wakes up and has absolutely No Idea he bit Wukong because he was half asleep at the time. Or he thinks it was a dream and ensue the shenanigans when he realizes it wasn’t.

OMG THAT'S SO CUTE AND SILLY AAHHHH!!! EVEN BETTER: what if they do this without noticing BEFORE they are like-actually romantically back together, and someone sees the mark bites AND THEY START TO ASSUME CERTAIN THINGS BRUH.

@tabs-tabi-tabby  Can Macaque help with MK’s clones? Or would that be Wukong’s area?

MK can't make the same clones macaque has. He can control a little bit his own shadow, and use that as a clone. so as long as it's his own shadow, it's more Mac area, if it's his own hair clone then it's Wukong's

@startdustmonkie ha chiesto: Does Mk and or Wukong know about Savage and Rumble? (If so how did they find out about them?) — (also: do Savage and Rumble see Mama macaque as a parent?)

@mushrum-soup ha chiesto: Hi just wanted to say I absolutely adore your shadow peach au it's literally the highlight of my week 💖I was wondering tho are rumble and savage just shadow clones in your au or similar to their Lego counterparts :O?

Yes they know about them. No they aren't his kids let's say. My own personal headcanon for the Au (or the show in general) is that they are both Macaque shadow, like- clones with a little bit of personality just like MK clones represent specific parts of his personality. He has 2 of them because he lived 2 lives, one before and one after he was brought back to life.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Just read the latest Shadowpeach bio kid comic, and i cant help but giggle a bit at how MK’s chirp woke Wukong and Macaque up lmao just the “and they snoozing- OH SHIT BABY CHIRPING WHATS WRONG-“

HE IS BABYYYY

@hellobur ha chiesto: Did you base when mk was reaching fr macaque after he was walking away because mk called him mama after this or was it a funny coincidence (mk also doe the pose but I can't find it lol)

Also I absolutely love this story and your art your work is incredible! ^^

Omg LMAO NO I DIDN’T BUT NOW IT’S 100% MORE FUNNY

@dragonaboni-blog ha chiesto: Hi! First off, I love your art and your Shadowpeach AU, it's the reason I'm reactivating my own Tumblr account lol One of my favorite tropes in this story is "A gets sick and B takes care of him" so I'm wondering… What would that trope be like in the AU? What would the monkey trio be like when they got sick? Do any of them sleep through their illness? Or are any of them extremely dramatic like "These will be my last words…"? CoughcoughWUKONGCoughcough

Aaahh I’ve seen a lot of asks asking this one but honestly I don t know If I’ll ever draw that trope. Maybe bc Wukong should technically have canonically too much knowledge about general illness to be worried about normal daily life illness. If it was something more life-threating. Maybe yes, but I still have to cook.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Counterpoint: wukong can't handle spicy foods because he has no impulse control and his monkee brain wants him to only eat fruit and peaches

Ouch. Yes that seems about accurate for him lmao

Anonimo ha chiesto: About the lmk bio au.... we have seen that MK can manipulate certain parts of his body in the 72 transformations... so..... Wukong and Macaque could technically have children.

I’ll be 100% honest I have no idea if stone monkeys are…fertile?

Anonimo Hey there! I am in love with your art. LMK is something that came into my life recently and damn I love it so much! Love your AU, and I can't wait to see more of it. Funnily, since the baby MK incident I imagine this later on becoming a somewhat spark of many funny arguments later on. What I mean is I see baby MK has a favorite parent (*cough-cough* MacCRACK *cough-cough*) [Sorry with the name joke, couldn't help myself]. XD. And I imagine Wukong be a bit jealous at times and go 'Anything you can do I can do better XD' Also see lovely Redson have a thing for MK, and then I imagine him ask his parents about advice on pursuing his crush. "So who is the lucky girl?" "Well, you already know him-" *Spits out water* "You got yourself a husband?" "What, no I haven't yet-!"

Aww I don't think MK would have a favourite but definitely there are times where he wants one parent more than the other (play time with Wukong, nap time with Mamacaque)

Anonimo ha chiesto: Yknow what they say… like father like son! In the sense that they’re all gay /j

Oh yeah absolutely it's genetic/j

@wolfasketch ha chiesto: Mac being on the sunny side and Wuwu being in the shadows

I know I'm looking into it too much but- AHHH!!!

That was unintentional but HOLY SIT U R RIGHT

Anonimo ha chiesto: Poor Red Boy never got to see baby MK! Imagine him just staring at the adorableness that is baby MK and being like 'I hope our future children look just like you OH MY GODS YOU'RE ADORABLE'. Baby MK: :3

Their child will literally be Kai from Ninjago so I guess THEY ARE RIGHT HE WILL BE

Anonimo ha chiesto: And then MK will wake up back to normal, confused, but proud that he managed to get them even closer?

100% yes

@drowning-in-webnovel-chapters ha chiesto: I can't imagine how the monkey dads are gonna try to go back to sleep after that, oof. Also Wukong definitely knows all that from when he used to help Macaque through visions, right?

Yup! He does indeed!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I’m guessing MK is getting a mini version of Macaque’s “can hear the past/present/future” thingy, did he managed to hear it accidentally or was he trying to learn more about his powers/Shadowpeach’s past ?

Yes, he was just wondering since last time that he found the sleeping cuddling with him, what exactly happened for them to rift away. Guess curiosity killed the cat

@aurabooboo ha chiesto: So. I'm rewatching season 5, right? I noticed that they almost had a yelling match with MK right in the middle. Would Wukong apologize to him for that?

These 3 have so much to talk about… i wont draw everything, but they definitely apologised offscreen.

@elianaroselight ha chiesto: It is quite telling how Wukong immediately knew what to do to help calm MK, but also, Macaque coming in with the perspective of having gone through it himself. The need for them to remain close by and wait until Mk is asleep before trying to leave. This means Mac has been through exactly what he is telling them not to do and knows the pain, sorrow and trauma that comes from feeling abandoned like this. They may be facing their past hurting their own kid through proxy and try to help him fight against the trauma. Luckily they have good people to help when they themselves can't. *looks at Freenoodles*

Yup! Their response is exactly related to what they do to calm the other!

@thenerdycupcake ha chiesto: So, does MK’s gold vision combine with his hearing sometimes so that he sees some of what he’s hearing from the past?

Oooohhh i guess he does! So he can literally see and hear the past!

@frogsfandoms ha chiesto: Omg why can I see after MK wakes up he thinks that it isn’t the past he’s hearing and that it actually just happened. Rushing to see if Wukong and Macaque are hurt and or trying to stop them from fighting 😭😭😭

Oohhh our baby still doesn’t want to believe it actually happened :(

Anonimo ha chiesto: Adult MK: OH MY GOD A SPIDER *desperate scared monkey noises* Baby MK: what's this? A 5 starts meal? *Tries to chomp said spider* He's gonna be sooo disgusted when someone tells him he tried to eat one fkdkdlfmfl

Oh poor MK. He’ll be teased about this for the rest of his days.

@sailera ha chiesto: Hello I have question about you Shadowpeach bio dads au- How would Pigsy react that his only employee turned to a baby? And hadn’t answered his phone in few days? Also love your art!! And your ISAT comic got me again interested in playing Sky ✨

Mk only became a baby for like- 20 hours. Mei told him that he stayed at FFM because he was ‘tired after training’. As of now Pigsy didn!t found out

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

That's all for this week! Thank you a lot for all the asks!

[shuenkio]

Birthday present | Psh. 🎁

Paring: Sunghoon x M!reader | Genre: Fluff

ᯤ Synopsis: He was unhappy with the gift that you gave him, SH was mad but what kind of present did he truly want?

ᯤ Cw: None maybe.

ᯤ Non proof read | Eng is not my first.

ᯤ This is a work of fanfiction, do not throw unnecessary tantrums on this nsfw/sfw blog. ©Shuenkio

ᯤ Crd to all the owner [dv/pics]

A✓N: probably disappear after this one for real[fr], the exam is under my nose and here I am, writing delusional thoughts. 🫂

To be friends with Sunghoon was so easy; you don't get why all those girls say it's so hard like this, it's so hard like that. When m/n just go and give Sunghoon a bottle of water one time after his practice for the match as a figure skater.

Ever since then, you and him get along pretty quickly, or maybe you're just his teammates? Privilege, of course. But little did you know that Sunghoon is not the type to express his heart or how he feels about something, nor is an exciting surprise out of his expression. He was indeed a cold person, to be honest.

Yet you can still hang out with Sunghoon; having enough patience to be there for him whenever he's spacing out, freezing, is like sometimes you wonder if you have a robot friend. Cloud began to set into a breathtaking sight of night, filled with the city lights lit up. It was time to go back home after a long, intense day of practicing. Sunghoon is not here because he had finished before you ever since this morning.

Checking your phone for a time, you saw a reminder pop up on your notification.

"Sunghoon's birthday today; let's post and wish for him."

Oh, it's actually his birthday; maybe time flies too fast to even think about anything; December 8 is here already. Furrow your brow, rubbing your chin with your slender fingers. Having deep thoughts, what should you give him for his special day? He's not the type who loves luxury things like men do, such as watches, belts, or whatever you just know he'd not too plead at it.

Pop, you suddenly get an idea by gifting him glasses because he likes them a lot. Wait, what if he doesn't like it? Perhaps winter is approaching; a scarf wouldn't be that bad, isn't it? It's keeping everyone warm; each one of us needs it. A scarf that it. Must stop by a fashion store before heading home to see him at his place.

7 p.m. comes by in a blink of an eye, and you find yourself knocking on his door. You didn't realize that he'd be throwing a party and celebrating with his family and friends; all you had in mind was to deliver him his gift. The door cracked open, revealing a taller figure. In front of you, Sunghoon, who had a birthday hat around his head. Funny, because he's not into childish stuff; it must be his mom.

"M/N, you're here! Uh, what are those?" Seeing a plastic bag in your hand makes him wonder what it could be. As you respond quickly by saying it was his gift, so then both of you get inside the house first. The party is still ongoing, yet some of his relatives are already full, which makes the house empty for some reasons.

Settled down all of your stuff in one place as you make your way to where Sunghoon are. He was in a kitchen, pouring soda into two empty cups. Tapping him on the shoulder while your hand is holding a bag behind your back, ready to surprise him even if he won't be surprised anyway.

"M/n? Here, soda, you must be tired from the training!" Said from a tipsy guy, handing you a cup. You didn't accept it yet till you finally handed him the gift you've been wanting to give him before taking the cup. Sunghoon didn't realize he was smiling from ear to ear the moment M/N gave him.

Whether he was surprised or not, a gift is a gift; it was meant to be a little curious. What could that be, isn't it? Fishing inside the brand plastic bag, he found a vintage scarf inside; it suits his skin tone well though, despite being as pale as snow. He then unwrapped and blanketed his neck with his new scarf. Did he like it? You bet he might not by the face he made right now, catching you off guard a little.

"Did you like it? Sunghoon, we've been friends for ages, but I can't deny what your favorite thing is you love the most. Sorry, Hyung, if that's not on your... expected list." Feeling a little hurt and guilty, a present is meant to be accepted in all kind the guest gives, while Sunghoon did otherwise.

"I don't like it, quite much m/n; you should know me better." With a smile that almost wiped his cheeks, Sunghoon frowned, unhappy. The scarf on his neck, the item you spend time thinking deep to find one—guess you're wrong this year. Sigh, you have to make it up to him this time; anything will do.

"Sorry, really, I'll find something more perfect for you; just say it." Picking on your finger's nails, you determined you'd do as Sunghoon told; one word will do; that's all Sunghoon needs to say. The taller's lit up slightly; this is the moment he has been waiting for for years. Anything? Sunghoon likes it.

"We have been friends for ages, right m/n?"

"Yeah?"

"Then, let's not be friends anymore; I'm tired of this friendship." Nani? Goosebumps were running and throwing your skin as your heart sank deeper than a Titanic ship. Did he really say that? What did you do wrong to be as guilty or bad for him to have the guts to no longer want to be friends with you?

"What do you mean, Sunghoon? I've never done anything wrong, am I? Right?" Tears are almost forming; a waterfall could break anytime soon. To prevent that, Sunghoon takes a rewind turn and gets into the point then. He was afraid you'd be a cry mess if he didn't spit any loner.

"Be my boyfriend instead; I hate that I can't be more than a friend! I wanna love you, m/n," placing your palm on your chest; if only only you had heart issues, a second won't spare. M/N almost nearly fainted with the sudden confession from a friend of his, who is the cold-hearted guy. This is something.

"Kill me now."

"I'll take that... As a yes, my boyfriend." 

[tip-top-cloud-surfer]

K's Master List

Hello there! I'm K and welcome to my side blog!

Minors please do not interact with my blog. I will block you. Blank blogs and ageless blogs have the same protocol. It's nothing personal, just trying to protect myself.

I do not do requests. It has nothing to do with you lovely people. I did requests for a previous fandom I was in and because I'm a natural people pleaser, it just became an unhealthy cycle. So, now I only write what I feel like writing.

Please do not copy or repost (i.e. copy and paste elsewhere - reblogging is a different thing and greatly appreciated) my work. This is the only place that I publish these works.

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I do tag lists for ongoing stories/series. Simply reply to or reblog the work/series and say that you want to be tagged

To be tagged, you must have a reference to your age in your bio. No exceptions. It's nothing personal, but because this blog is 18+ Only, I'd look like a dumbass hypocrite if I tagged ageless blogs. Help me help you and put your age in your bio/pinned post.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy my works! My actual Master List is below the cut.

Works are separated by character. Characters with more than five posts have a separate master list. Major content warnings (i.e. pregnancy, death, etc.) are provided but please check each work for more specific warnings.

If you see a [*] symbol, it just means that work is more suggestive.

If a work is listed with "OC | Reader," the 'Reader' is biologically related to an established character (i.e. Maverick's daughter).

OC characters might have an established race/appearance, so check the summary/warnings of that work first.

Top Gun

Nick "Goose" Bradshaw

See Separate Master List

Pete "Maverick" Mitchell

Handyman - Fem!Reader (Wife!Reader)

Summary: When it comes time to give your newborn daughter a bath in the kitchen sink, it conveniently breaks. Fortunately or unfortunately, Maverick is a handyman.

Top Gun: Maverick

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

See Separate Master List

Jake "Hangman" Seresin

See Separate Master List

Javy "Coyote" Machado

A Walk Down Memory Lane - Bradshaw!Fem! OC | Reader

Summary: Rooster and Tweety Bradshaw look through their mom’s belongings as Tweety’s wedding to Coyote approaches.

Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia

Come Here - AFAB!Reader

Summary: You have your period. Fanboy takes care of you.

Family Man - GN!Spouse!Reader

Summary: After a long day at work, Fanboy returns home to complete his most important job: taking care of his family.

Robert "Bob" Floyd

See Separate Master List

Beau "Cyclone" Simpson

The Admirals Strike Back - Wife!Reader (Mitchell!Reader)

CW: Consensual and Very Much Legal Age-Gap Relationship (About 15 years); Non-Traditional Father-Daughter Relationship (Between Maverick and Reader)

Summary: Maverick knew that his somewhat estranged daughter was married. He just didn't know who she married.

Natasha "Phoenix" Trace

Bleeding Hearts - Male!Bradshaw!Twin!OC (Braedon)

CW: Hospitals; Exes; Unresolved Feelings; Best Friend's Brother

Summary: After the bird strike, Phoenix's ex, who just so happens to be Rooster's twin brother, comes to check up on her.

Daggers (All 7)

THE FAMILY AFFAIRS COLLECTION >

Mav's Reaction to Each of the Daggers Dating His Daughter - Mitchell!Fem! OC | Reader

Summary: Maverick finds out that his daughter is dating someone that he knows when she invites her new partner to dinner. And so he makes it his mission to greet them at the door first.

The Daggers and Their (Secret) Kids

CW: Pregnancy, see warnings for additional specific CWs by Dagger (include Reference Character Death, Strained Relationships, Divorce, etc.)

Summary: Headcanons about the families that the seven Daggers could have had going into TGM with, since there's nothing about their families mentioned in the movie.

The Love Game - Fem!Reader (Glitch)

CW: Unrequited Love; Angst; Emotional Angst; One-Sided Relationship; ‘He’s in Love with Someone Else’ Trope

Summary: Glitch has been in love with Hangman for years but he’s getting married to another woman.

A.N. Multiple Pairings: Hangman/Glitch; Hangman/Fem!OC; Glitch /Mystery Dagger

[ilovecoelacanths]

This is a story about a book that changed my life.

It's also about how amazing libraries and authors and people who care about sharing cool things with curious kids are. Also, fish (especially fish). It's kind of different than what I usually post but it's been bouncing around in my head basically since I started this blog so here you go, I hope you like it. This is the reason I love coelacanths so much, and why I think everyone should know about how amazing they are.

When I was little, I loved going to the library. My little brother and I would pick out way too many books and the librarians always had to come over to override the 30 book limit at the checkout stand (they pretty much knew us on sight and were ready to override it as soon as we started heading over to check out). After we finished getting our library books, our mom also let us look through the free pile that was in the foyer on the way out. It was mostly old library books that the librarians just needed to clean out, but there were a lot of books that people brought when they cleaned out their personal collections too (especially teachers, and there were a bunch of books with old school library stamps inside). The free pile didn't usually have a lot of things that interested me, but one day when I was poking through it I found a book called Fossil Fish Found Alive: Discovering the Coelacanth, by Sally M. Walker.

I loved it. I had never even heard of coelacanths before, but this book fascinated me. It told the story of an incredible animal, long thought to be extinct, that had somehow survived for millions of years! It was nothing like any fish I had ever learned about before. I already had a casual interest in marine biology that I can thank PBS Kids and Wild Kratts for (particularly their episode on sperm whales and giant squid, I loved that episode), but this book took it to a new level. I wanted to be a marine biologist so I could learn more about coelacanths.

Like a lot of things when you're 7, that was a phase. Unlike a lot of phases, this one I came back to. After taking a break from my dreams of being a marine biologist to experience the hell that is middle school, one day I pulled a book off my shelf. I hadn't read it in a while. When I picked it up again, I remembered how incredible this animal was, and how much it had inspired me when I was younger, and those thoughts of becoming a marine biologist started to return. I'm in college now studying marine science, and I brought the book with me to school, where it sits next to two other science books that have inspired me (My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson).

Earlier this year, I was thinking about how much this one book had changed my life and I wondered if I could find Ms. Walker and thank her. I knew she had many other science books for younger audiences, and even another book about coelacanths, so I was sure she had a website of some kind, and I was right. So I found her contact page and wrote her an email explaining the impact her book had had on my life, and thanking her for it. And to my surprise, she responded! She was very kind and we sent a few emails back and forth. She gave me some excellent advice and even told me about some of the people she contacted while researching her book, including Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer herself, the person who rediscovered the coelacanth when it was thought to be extinct! I'll never forget how she took the time to respond to me and how encouraging she was.

But Ms. Walker isn't the only one I have to thank for pointing me toward the path I'm on right now. If I hadn't already loved reading, if I hadn't seen any show or video to make me interested in marine biology, if the library didn't have a pile of books for anyone to take home, if I had lost that book during one of our many moves as a kid, I don't know what I'd be doing right now. There were a lot of things that happened to make it so that I found this book, but I'm glad for every single one of them. They led to me learning about an incredible animal and changed the course of my life. And now, I love coelacanths.

[btr-rewatch]

Big Time Rush Song Rankings (+ commentary nobody asked for): "BTR"

I was bored. Decided to go through their albums and put them into a list from favorite to least favorite.

"Worldwide": Is it possible this song is overrated and hyped too much? No. This song was on heavy rotation for me from the moment I heard it. Wonderful song, 10/10. Full of love and yearning. Their all white outfits in the music video? Iconic. My mom's friend's daughter went to one of their shows and was picked as the Worldwide Girl, and young me didn't handle that well (I wasn't even AT the concert, so not like I had a chance, but still). I'm almost over it.

"Til I Forget About You": When they would show the music video for this during commercial breaks on Nick, I would leap from the couch and do the dance along with them. There used to be a good analysis post breaking down each of the boys' sections in the song and how it correlates with their personalities in the show and how they deal with heartbreak (there's also one for "Famous" that does the same).

"Big Time Rush": I used to sit on the school bus and stare blankly out the window listening to this one on repeat at like 7:45 in the morning. Just...not even awake yet but psyching myself up to live it big time.

"Famous": This one is pretty much tied with "Big Time Rush" in my head, and I'm tempted to bump it to 3, but the song's theme ultimately wins out. Love this song. Can't help but see it in a weirdly haunting light due to the above mentioned "Famous Analysis" post that I read over and over when I was younger and changed the way I saw the song from that point on. Thank you to Swedish girl-group Play for giving us this song. (I assume most people in the fandom have seen or heard the Play version already but if not, check it out)

"Halfway There": Ok, so. I love this song, but EVERY TIME I listen to it, I'm filled with slight annoyance over the fact that it's the "different" version than was originally released. When this single was released, it was KENDALL who sang the opening lines ("When the chips are down, back against the wall" etc) and then James who did his part later. That's the version I listened to for months before they got rid of it and replaced it with the version that appeared on their album. It was a jarring experience for me, and I've never quite fully recovered. The song will forever sound slightly wrong to me because of it.

"Stuck": Prior to starting this blog and doing the rewatch, I hadn't heard a lot of their songs for years, and I had completely forgotten this one existed. Like, it had been wiped from my brain. Rediscovering it was fun.

"City is Ours": Fun fact-my sister is scarred for life from this song and can no longer listen to it because when she was younger, she used it as her alarm tone to get up for school. It's forever associated with waking up in a panic early in the morning and has been ruined for her since the show's original run.

"This is Our Someday": I feel like this song is one of those forgotten ones. I don't remember it being big either in the show or outside of it back in the day (and it has the second lowest listens on Spotify). I do like it, though. Such a hopeful tune, and the line, "One is good, but four is better?" That's a good one. So true, guys.

"Count on You": This is a sweet one. I LOVE the music video for it in the Jordin Sparks episode. It's just. It's smooth. It feels like silk in my brain, though it's not one of my faves. I especially like how Logan's part, "What would I wanna do that for?" comes right at the "four" mark in their counting. Very nice.

"Big Night": Was never really a fan of this one because something about the way the music is structured bothers me but it's super sing-able, so it gets some props for that.

"I Know You Know": This one was going to be number 12, but it gets a bump up due to the acoustic version from '22 giving me slightly more appreciation for it. My original list didn't even include this song because I totally forgot about it until just now when I was going through the album.

"Oh Yeah": Not much to say about this one. I didn't really listen to it when I was younger because it was a "James song" and he was my least favorite of the guys singing-wise. (I am SORRY James stans) Love the spinning Logan head in the music video, though. I remember the fandom really enjoying that part.

"Nothing Even Matters": I simply don't have feelings about this song one way or another. It's just there.

"Any Kind of Guy": I have bizarre issues with this song. Gives me sensations of unpleasant colors and patterns. Zig-zaggy and burnt orange and brown. Bleh. Last place for "Any Kind of Guy." I think the silly music video with all the costumes didn't help.

[chiyuumiii]

NIGHTFALL || PART 2

Earth-42 Miles Morales/F!Reader

[TAGS: Prowler Miles Morales, Miles Morales, Miles G. Morales, Female Reader, Fluff, Just Pure Fluff, Cuddles and Love, Morning Kisses, Sleepy Kisses, Forehead Kisses, Prowler Miles sneaks in through your bedroom window and cuddles with you hehe, Vigilante, Miles saves you from a bunch of ew creepy men, Secret Relationship, Secret Love]

Note: TW: Mentions of harassment, slight drugs, Google Translated Spanish, Bad/Decent Writing, Typos, Grammatical Errors!

Point it out if I missed something <3 Thank you!

This is part 2 of a fic! Check my blog to read the first part if you haven't &lt;3

He begrudgingly climbed up on your roof, lifting himself up by your windowsill. Though, it was difficult to see you from the moist coating of the panes. He sighed softly, he held onto the heel of the roof and sat, glancing over at the sky as he took sight of its beautiful dark hues. He silently took a break from his vigilante duties, with only the wind howling in his ears soothing all his injuries.

He left after a short while as he noticed the sky getting brighter by the minute, returning back to his own room, slipping through the window and putting his gear back in secure places.

You were completely oblivious of his visit to your place.

Honestly, he just wanted to make sure you got home safe and sound. But it might've been more than that, y'know?

The Prowler has a heart, too.

♡♡♡

You yawned sleepily, rubbing your eyes and blinking rapidly, glancing over at your plugged phone, only to realize, the cord came off, yay!

“I'm such a fucking dumbass..” You groaned, you checked its battery percentage, 42 percent.

“That can do, I guess.” You sighed, sitting on the edge of your bed and scrolling through your phone like you always do. 

You noticed a news article on a website, discussing The Prowler, the image on the thumbnail showed the vigilante that rescued you the night before. You never knew that was his alias, since he didn't bother to tell you last night.

You clicked on the link, intrigued by it. Scrolling through, you found out more about him, I guess he wasn't much of a vigilante, seeing as his criminal records involved…some things. But he still cares about citizen safety. Looks like his mom raised him well.

You plugged your phone, getting up and walking over to the bathroom to wash your face, gently applying some skincare products on it and rinsing it, then wiping your face.

“Hey.” A voice rumbled behind you, you flinched, looking at the mirror and turning around, it was The Prowler.

“What- How did you get in?! HOW DID YOU EVEN FIND MY HOUSE?!” You leaned up against your sink, a little frightened. You were befuddled by him.

“You don’t need to know,” He sighed, trying to sound heedless. “I just wanted to say I’m glad you got home safely last night.” He uttered inside of his mask, arms crossed over his chest.

“Yeah- Thanks…” You smiled sheepishly, though still in confusion and curiosity. “So…Are you gonna do anything else besides just stand there menacingly?” You chuckled nervously, raising your head slightly upward to see his mask.

You heard a soft sigh escape his lips, shaking his head before turning back to you. “I’ll leave now.” He exited your bathroom, slipping out through the window.

You watched him leave, curious about his identity and his true behaviour, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge of it, staring at the window he left through.

You walked over to that window, gazing over at the morning sky above.

“That was…something.” You felt a smile paint onto your face involuntarily, a soft hue of pink visible on your cheeks. You then mentally shook it off and closed the window, locking it up securely and proceeding with your morning routine.

After that incident last night, you had to stay home. You couldn't bear going through that again, even if Prowler will be there, there's also a high chance he wouldn't.

You crawled up to your bed, scrolling at endless, repetitive posts on social media, it was boring…You had wished that vigilante would've stayed here much longer…

PART 3 SOON WAAAAH

[pitheinfinite]

Thank You 💜💜💜

This was supposed to be posted right after my account got restored, however, I 've been super busy since last Wednesday. Sorry for being so late.

I am so so so grateful that so many simblrs helping out in such a short notice. To be honest, I didn't expect so many people, both old and new friends, willing to help out a simblr who's been on hiatus for the past 3 years when they read such a post at the end of the weekend. Thanks to your prompt actions and helpful experience-sharing, the tumblr staff finally make things right in 3 days. Thank you so much!

I thought about giving up since my family remained my top priority at least for the next 3~6 months. But losing @pis3story would be a great pity. The story blog collected works from many simlrs who kindly took the time and effort to make a intro post of their story specifically for pis3story. I felt really bad if I just let go without any fight.

Now the story blog is back, thanks to you.😘

I will try to keep reblogging for pis3story when I have time to browse through my dashboard, and make a better use of my lost-and-found account. Before the episode, I didn't realized what "pitheinfinite" means to me and how much I missed the community. Even though I won't have much time left for the game (We're looking for a better place for my mom. Housing hunting and packing have become the most important parts of my daily schedule), I'd like to try to be more present on tumblr, checking in the community more frequently. I can't make a promise, but I will certainly try.🏋️‍♀️🏋️‍♀️🏋️‍♀️

[coordinatorsunny]

Intro

Hello! My name is Sunny☀️ and I use she/her/they/them pronouns. I am a pokemon trainer and and and up and coming coordinator living in Hoenn. I'll mostly post my stuff about the hoenn league, pokemon contests, pokemon or just some random stuff.

Here's my picture 📷

(Picrew by me!)

Other stuff

I have been living in Hoenn for my entire life here so if you have any questions about the region you can ask me! The history, culture, pokemon that lives there anything!👍

I was a huge fan of watching pokemon contests on tv and admired the coordinators performing on stage so that's what inspired me to become a coordinator.

I also learning about pokemon on @quillpokebiology blog. You should check them out there really awesome!

I also have a penpal name Callister who owns the @pokeblogingalar. He's awesome so check him out too!

Also please talk to me I'm really lonley🥺

My team

My mom was a pokemon rescuer and she would adopt them when I was little so my childhood was involved with a lot of pokemon and basically loved pokemon ever since I was a little baby :) Some of the pokemon I had were given to me on my birthdays and some of them I caught in the wild when I was 10 thanks to my dad teaching me (he's a pokemon professor btw). Thanks mom and dad!

But anyways here's my team!

Phoenix the Blaziken ♂️

Move set: Flamethrower, Blaze Kick, Stone edge, Thunder punch

I had Phoenix ever since he was a little pokemon egg. My mom rescued the egg from a forest fire and knew when the egg hatched it wouldn't be able to survive because the eviorment got destroyed and couldn't find it's mother so she brought it home and later hatched into a Torchic. Me and Phoenix are really close and he helped me a lot during the gym challenges. He sometimes acts like a older brother figure to the rest of my team and is really nice, patient and smart!

Siren the Milotic ♀️

Moveset: Hydro Pump, Bubble Beam, Disarming Voice, Aqua Ring

I got Siren from a pokemon breeding center after I got my first gym badge. She's quite shy but loves it when I groom her. She also hates it when she get's dirty but is sweet nonetheless.

Cloudy the Altaria ♂️

Moveset: Mist, Dazzling Gleam, Dragon pulse, Draco Meteor

Cloudy was a present I got from my mom when I was 9 years old. He was a swablu at the time. He's really energetic and loves to play so he's really productive. But sometimes he can be gremlin and loves to bother my other pokemon just for fun.

Aurora the Gardevoir ♀️

Moveset: Prismatic Laser, Energy Ball, Physic, Light Screen

I caught Aurora when she was a Kirlia back when I was on my way to the 3rd gym. I managed to complete the gym in one sweep thanks to her. (She's one tough cookie!). Aurora acts like a older sister to my team so she gets along with them very well. But she doesn't tolerate Cloudy's antics and scolds whenever he does something stupid.

Apollo the Absol ♂️

Moveset: Shadow Ball, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam, Swords Dance

Apollo was another pokemon I got from mom as a present on my 11th birthday. I always gushed about having an absol because I thought they were so cool. I didn't know what to name him so my dad recommended the name Apollo. Apollo also helped me a lot on my gym challenges so I'm really grateful for that. I knew that Absol's dislike fighting so I only used him if my other pokemon had fainted and he was the only one left and mostly use him for contests. Apollo is a bit more reclusive than Siren but still he's nice!

Angel the Sylveon ♀️

Moveset: Fairy Wind, Attract, Swift, Moon Blast

Last but not least Angel! I got Angel when she was an eevee. Poor thing was bullied by a bunch of mightyena so I drove the pack away with Phoenix and Aurora. I guess I got my 'helping pokemon' genes from my mom. Since then she started to follow me everywhere and I didn't wanted to leave the cute thing alone so I decided to catch her! Since then I have been taking of her with proper care, love and attention and then she evolved into sylveon and gotten much stronger. Like her name suggests she is a huge sweetheart and loves to be productive❤

Other:

Via the Shiny Beautifly ♀️

Moveset: Shadowball, Pollen Puff, Silver Wind, Morning Sun

This is Via our newest member of the pokemon peforming team! She is sooo beautiful, precious and I caught her last week! She is a bit shy and not much of a battler like Apollo but a kind-hearted darling♡ I am going to take good care of her!

Well that's all! Also I really have to thank the power of friendship for the evolving Angel into a sylveon!!

Rules:

-I am a minor and this is SFW blog.

-If I see anyone being homophobic, xenophobic(racism), pedophilic I will block you.

-I will not tolerate any kind of bullying or any kind of harrassment.

-No spamming either. I will post here and there so please be patient.

-We all have different opinions about something related to pokemon like 'this pokemon is the best or this pokemon is not the best'. So please respect each other's opinions even if we don't agree.

That's all!

[borkborkheresadork]

checking in on friends, mutuals and following list, How are you? feel free to use this ask to talk about recent life happenings, something you're passionate about, or anything <33 remember I and I'm sure others care about you and your posts <33

I'll start with the good bits.

The semester is officially over for me and once i finish up work and once I go on break next week, ill have 3 weeks for break. I get to meet up with a online friend irl and spend time with my family and friends during that time so im actually very excited to go back home for so long! Also, I just gained 2 boyfriends and am in a wonderful throuple now :3. Next semester I'm taking classes that are easy but also fun and are less focus on my degree and more focused on my interest, so I'm hoping that will help with my burnout. Over the course of the semester I also got involved with a progress group up here and have been assigned to be their mutual aid coordinator!

I started writing more (nothing that will be posted to this blog) both with music and fanfic. It's nice that I'm at a place where i can (mostly) freely write my ideas.

There's a lot of bad bits, though.

So I've come to the very difficult decision of cutting off my mom. After break i'm going to get a bank account separate from hers and cut contact. There was a bit where we were both communicating well, but I got into a fight with her after she tried to guilt trip me into calling her on thanksgiving (I wasn't talking to her outside of documented forms of communication since she is a habitual gaslighter and likes to say she didn't say things when she very obviously did, and I like to have my receipts when I call her out). After idk maybe like 10 years or something she finally admitted I'm on the spectrum but only because it was convenient to aid in her argument of 'you never understand me and thats clearly because you're autistic and not because im in the middle of a manic episode and i'm not being rational'. So that will be fun to deal with, especially since I'm worried for her safety if I do cut contact, being her only child and her telling me pretty consistantly throughout my life that im her only reason to live. Scary stuff, but necessary for me to stop holding on to that guilt and working through a lot of trauma.

I finished my semester withdrawing from 3 classes and likely failing another, and feeling burnt out to keep going. I need to go to college for a lot of reasons (degree required for the job I want, first gen student/family pressure), but im considering taking it at a considerably slower pace.

I just got on testosterone but thanks to an insurance complication I might have to go without it for a bit. I was previously getting it through my school, but I just got on state insurance and that fucked with my access to it. The good news is that i will likely have a lower co-pay, the bad is that I'll probably have to wait another month to get back on it. One step forward one step back.

The person I thought to be my best friend dropped me out of the blue, which sucks on its own, but the fact that it's been a consistent pattern of people in my life ghosting/dropping me with very little reasoning or with one's ive not found to be true just sucks. I think I'm a loving person in my own way, and the fact that I was called selfish when I A) show a lot of affection towards my friends and B) know my own boundaries when it comes to my relationships with them, it makes me upset. The other person wasn't entirely at fault, I did handle the situation kind of poorly, but I also contributed more to that friendship then that person ever did. I bought food. I made the plans. I hosted. And I thought when the argument that broke us up happened, we just needed space from each other. I guess that wasn't the case and it's sad that the person couldn't communicate their needs earlier so we could have resolved the situation. That being said, on a less neutral perspective. Fuck him. He claimed to be loving and whimsical and had no patience for anyone. Everything pissed him off and he didn't cope in healthy ways and when I tried to help him he didn't take it. He was uncommunicative and disrespectful of other people's boundaries and expectations for friendship. I wish him the best with the realizations he's going to have later in life.

Even though I'm excited for family during the holidays, my dad is coming to town and I'll have to navigate them with him. I stay with my grandmother during breaks, so I'll have to look for another place to stay while he's in town and crashing with her. I feel a little ostracized knowing that they'll accept a bigoted abuser into their homes and make me wait upstairs until he's gone.

Then there's everything else. I live in a country that refuses to care about it's people. I'm one person dealing with a world full of struggles. Those previous things are nothing compared to what's to come, and I'm shocked that I'm rethinking my morals to live and feel safe. I'm a trans guy fresh on T, who, for years thought guns needed to be restricted, and i plan on strapping up over the break. Everything feels broken and I've been dealing with a lot of suicidality since probably late september or october. The horrors are persisting and I don't have much silly in response. I can't even scrape by with my job. And my physical health is catching up making things worse. I don't think I've thrown up this much since I was getting bullied in elementary school. So, uh, yeah.

Not to e-beg, but if you've read this and wanna help me out my venmo is in my bio. I don't have the energy to link anything rn but there's that.

Thanks for letting me rant o7

[the-entity-down-the-street]

Y'know it's been a hot minute since I made a post about witchcraft on this blog, and a lot has changed since my beginnings back in 2019, so I think it's time to share some thoughts.

MY MAGIC AND AUTISM:

One of my discord friends was talking about possibly being an empath, and at first I didn't say anything, but eventually I decided it'd be better to inform them that a lot of the "empath/indigo child/sensitive" stuff is just spiritual talk for neurodivergency.

I'm autistic myself, finally got diagnosed in 2022 a few days before my 25th birthday. My mom told me that we were empaths when I was growing up, that we were sensitive to the feelings of other people, and that's why we both ended up shouldering other people's problems. She tried to teach me how "block" energies, but that never really worked for me. In part, this is because it was an abusive household and there was no escape from the negativity, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.

As it turns out, there is a way to block negative energy, and it's called setting healthy boundaries with the people around you. Y'know, talking with your friends, making it clear when you don't have the energy to listen to them vent. If you have good friends, they'll be happy to listen and respect your wishes. If you don't, well, I cast the spell of "bye."

Having access to therapy, learning interpersonal skills, and (eventually) going on antidepressants was more helpful for getting rid of negativity than any amount of purifying crystals/blocking techniques.

In fact, getting my mental health in check allowed me to *really* start my spiritual journey! Parsing out what was in my head and what was really, genuinely mystical was crucial for my craft. I could talk more clearly with my tarot cards, I was more in-tune with the messages the universe was sending me, and things in my life finally started moving forward.

This brings me back to the autism diagnosis. Having the language and clarification about how I experience the world really allowed me to flourish magically. You know why? Because through understanding how my autism influences my perception, I could find my strengths.

For example, I'm really good at picking out patterns, and I tend to make sense of life through the lens of storytelling, so I have a tendency to see thematic elements that carry through in my life. One of my dearest friends from college said that I did everything with a "narrative flair," and that's because of my ability to find narrative patterns.

This leads into how I picked up pop culture witchcraft. My strong attachments to my favorite stories, as well as my proclivity for picking up on themes, makes it the perfect avenue for performing witchcraft. Now I'm a fully confident witch with strong personal proof that magic is real.

Basically, what I'm saying is, despite the pervasive ableism that conflates neurodivergency with spirituality, there is a healthy way to have both simultaneously, by understanding how one influences the other. It can lead to a deeper understanding of yourself, as well as a deeper connection to the divine! Don't be afraid to be yourself, neurodivergent witches!

[lomagiffing]

hi hi folks, this is a thank ou post for all the support with commissions as well as a update on my glasses' situation:

i did in fact went to the optometrist (which is covered by my insurance), and found out all the pain and itch I've been feeling is from an allergy. we don't know the cause of it (since it could be a variety of stuff), but I'm using three different meds for it, and they've been helping. the doc checked my degree and it barely went up, so she advised i waited to the end of treatment to make new glasses, if so needed, which is great news. on the downside, tho, i found out i have chronic migraines and had to go to a neurologist for it, he medicated me and things have been going well.

now you may ask me, if I'm not making my glasses now, what will use the money for, and the answer is a pretty short one: ill be saving it up.

normally i try to keep most details from my personal life away from this blog and focus solely on gifs, but honestly, i need to vent a little. my mom and i have been stuck with my abusive father for more than two decades now. she quit working when i was about five years and never managed to get back to it again, which led us to rely solely on his income. although he was never physically violent, he was mentally and emotionally abusive in more ways that i could probably put here. the last year, she planned to go back working and ask for divorce, as she finally found strength. but then she got news of her cancer, and we were forced to pull back. although she is now healed, she hasn't managed to get back to working, and although we imagined we could pull trough and remain we him sometime, a recent fight between them made things even more strained. he basically threatened to kick us out by december if she didn't behave (did whatever he wanted). my mom is very tired and so am i, unfortunately we can't pay for rent here in the city we live, so we'll most likely move close to her dad up north so he can help us out. the money I'm gathering will at least help with tickets and other basic stuff we might need to get there eventually.

i just wanted to thank for all the help, and let everyone know that you all mean a lot to me. once we get close to moving, ill make an update!! gifs and packs will come out normally <3

this is a smaller vent to say that ill probs have to break up with my boyfriend to move and i don't know how to cope with that yet.

[allys-diary]

stories i om-nom-nom'd :: april 2024 (week 2)

I honestly didn't nom through too much because this week was mostly spent on my 'main' blog which is by the site's terms my side blog but let's be real, that's where I'm most active, it's my main blog 😤 Anyways, most of the week was spent reading through my friends' and fellow writers' stories and progressing my Tumblr TBR, writing my own stories, and also downloading and posting all the photos that came out this week from the events that Tom Hiddleston attended (legend has it, I'm still downloading).

As always, spoilers, thots, and thoughts all under the cut

documentaries

The Antisocial Network

I wasn't expecting this to take the turn that it did, documenting the butterfly effect of the creation of 4chan and how it snowballed into January 6, 2021. I ended up liking this a bit more than I expected going in, but I also have a little bit of an opinion…some of these guys really shot themselves in the foot revealing themselves to be a part of Anonymous because now…well they're kinda the opposite 🥴

Quiet on Set: Breaking the Silence

The check in with the people that were interviewed felt like a necessary part of the entire process, but honestly…there was something in the vibe of this episode's execution that felt off to me. It was like the host was putting on a performance like they were filming in front of a studio audience and the tone just felt like it was too chipper if that makes sense? Like you're supposed to be checking in on them and asking them how they've felt since the documentary came out and how their lives have been since, so why are you sounding like you're reading them today's headlines? Like I can't believe I'm even saying this but Trisha Paytas did better--

It just felt a little heavy-handed to me, but I can get behind the concept of having this follow-up episode that addressed the absolute garbage fire of a video that Foot Man put out into the internet trying to do damage control but honestly should've just been titled "Dan Schneider digs his own grave even deeper for 20 minutes straight".

books

games

Delicious: True Love

Stage 5, Day 1: Emily arrives back home to her restaurant/apartment in Snuggford and the poor beb's so heartbroken and hyper-focused on that, that she doesn't even notice there's a big gaping hole in the middle of her restaurant, with a burst pipe making an accidental water fountain. Patrick only sees her going upstairs to unpack and assumes that her trip went well and basically declares to her family and her best friend that now that she's got her love and she's happy, there's no more reason for him to stay.

Dude no, we've officially entered idiots in love stage. 😩

The day ends with Emily sobbing the second her mom goes up and checks in on her. I'm gonna say one more time for good measure, if OG story Jean-Paul has zero haters, I am dead.

Stage 5, Day 2: Emily's parents are worried about her since she hasn't come back down from her apartment, and Francois gives her some tough love telling her to at least show up for work because he won't make excuses for her absence. Nothing much happens on this day, since she goes straight back upstairs when the shift's over, other than her mom Evelyn basically saying she should have meddled in the beginning by never giving her the letter to begin with.

All I'm gonna say is…remake Evelyn is definitely the better Evelyn 🥴

Stage 5, Day 3: Patrick reveals that he's moving to New York since his business is growing and the new shop's gonna need his attention. Then Angela, Emily's little sister, shows up with puppies and asks her all about Paris, which causes Evelyn to shout at Angela rather than just calmly tell her that it's a sensitive topic (Clear to see where Evelyn's playing favorites). Angela leaves the restaurant but instructs one of the puppies to stay behind with Emily, which kicks off our side quest for this level where we call back the pup when he strays from Emily's side.

The day ends with Emily keeping the pup with her for a day or two, and talking to her mom about what happened in Paris.

Stage 5, Day 4: The big hole in the middle of the restaurant's all fixed, and it's bringing in more foot traffic to the restaurant. Emily makes a note to call to have the floors polished, mentioning she likes the floral scent, and Francois tells her that Patrick's moving to New York. He also accidentally kickstarts the dreaded miscommunication trope because he said "something about someone needing his attention there".

Gotta love them himbo besties 🥴

Stage 5, Day 5: Emily gets to see more of Patrick's green flag status when he tends to a kid that hurt herself when she tripped, taking the kid's mind off the pain and giving her a little flower and doing a magic trick. Then he confirms with Emily that yes, he's moving to New York because "it's time to move on", and I wanna bonk some heads together all over again. Francois tells her that she and Patrick have been flirting for so long that it's like "watching the same car crash on repeat" and he tells his therapist about it sometimes, and then accidentally breaks the vase that Patrick put a rose he set aside for Emily in, scattering marbles all over the floor and giving us our side mission for this level.

The day ends with Emily turning down an offer for a girls night out, and holding on to the rose from earlier.

Stage 5, Day 6: We officially unlock this stage's Entertainer, which is Francois with Emily's new puppy from Angela. Not much happens other than at the end of the day, the previous owner of the restaurant Mr Farrell visits the place to reminisce, and he talks about his "one that got away" because he was a teenage boy that fapped over Marilyn Monroe (my words, not his). Then one day when he finally came to his senses, the girl already stopped showing up at the restaurant.

Stage 5, Day 7: Emily's heart's finally starting to heal and she wakes up realizing that her apartment's a total mess ever since she got home and started her one-woman misery party. She still has the rose from Patrick at the center of her living area, and she reads a card that basically boils down to "Emily babes wake up your true love's been right in front of you literally giving you flowers every day". Unfortunately, that last scene from the previous day feels like heavy-handed foreshadowing because Patrick says goodbye to Emily after giving her one last delivery of fresh flowers for the restaurant.

The day ends with Mr Farrell bidding Emily and his old restaurant goodbye since he's moving to Florida to stay with friends, and a regular customer Gladys walks in looking for her purse, and wouldn't you know, it's Mr Farrell's TOTGA, and she moved back to Snuggford after her husband passed away so she could be closer to family. This makes Mr Farrell decide that he doesn't wanna move to Florida anymore.

Undercover: Blood Bonds

Chapter 10: Vera clocks in for the morning shift and finds Bluejay in Club with her pajamas on, finding out that she doesn't have a place to stay so she's been sleeping in the backroom. Vera offers her to move in so she doesn't catch a case for breaking in. At the end of the shift, Jericho reveals he has mind control powers and he used them to make Crystal exit the room before he ordered Mr Smirnov to get rid of Vera because she's asking too many questions.

Chapter 11: Vera meets up with Hank at a pub called Smokin' Wheels, and he tells her that Mr Smirnov's on a mission to get her sacked. Lilly's ex boyfriend Sam shows up and Vera spends that shift trying not to get noticed by Sam. At the end of the shift, we get a flashback of Sam being overprotective but concerned about Lilly coming home late and he pulls the "you're mine" card, while Lilly walks away going "You don't know anything".

Pretty sure the cops are wrong that Sam's the culprit and it's actually Mr Mind Control with the glowy red eyes Jericho that they should be looking up.

stories to om-nom-nom next

The Tortured Poets Department

I'm already sharpening a pitchfork with Joe Alwyn's name on it.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure: Imagination Celebration Event

I have no idea what this side story's gonna be, but all I know is that they made my precious bb Kuromi the villain of the event, and ngl I'm fuming. My sweet mischievous baby deserves better 😤

That's all for this week. See y'all next week unless I fall into a rabbit hole of planning out new stories for the WIP pile because I up and decided to Phase 1 plan for a "The Tortured Poets Department Collection" 🥴🫡

[lilisouless]

Hello, love <3

First of all, I want you to know that You. Are. Not. Alone.

I've felt like how you feel for most of my teenage years, (I still do sometimes, because life is hard), and I know that it doesn't feel like you have support. That no one understands you and you're left alone in the darkness. You are not, I promise.

I wanted to kill myself, too. I was going through life as an empty shell of a human, trying not to cave under all the pressure of just being alive. I felt like no one would care if I was gone, or that I wasn't important. But that's not true. And it isn't for you, either. You deserve to live.

There's no one like you out there, there's only one of you, and you're perfect like you are.

Su*cide is not the answer. Because you don't deserve that. You deserve a life full of love and joy, and although that may seem impossible as of right now, I promise you that you will have it one day.

I feel like a failure, too. I never finished 9th grade and got kicked out of high-school because I didn't attend due to mental and physical conditions. I'm dependent on my family, I would never be able to get a job without qualifications.

I don't know why you feel like you've failed, but it will get better. And I know that that's hard to believe right now, but it does.

You're not a failure, the path you take is just different from others. Yours has hills and valleys and bumps in the road, and maybe isn't smooth and straight ahead like you want it to be, but you will get through it.

And if you even need one reason to stay, I'll be that reason. I smile everytime I see your blog. I have no fucking idea what's going on with Shadow and Bone, but I enjoy your posts whole-heartedly.

You are loved. I'm telling you all of this from the bottom of my heart, because when I felt like this I would've needed something like this.

I hope you feel better soon. I'll try and check in with you, if you want that.

Just don't take your life. It's too precious. You are too precious.

Life is fucking hard, and it can be miserable. But I'm telling you that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

It won't just happen immediately, you need to heal, and that takes time.

But you will heal, I promise.

I strongly believe that you can survive this.

You're stronger than you think. You're still here after all.

You can always reach out to me for whatever reason. You're not fighting this alone.

My words might not mean much, but I just want you to know that there's someone out there who knows what you feel like.

Stay strong, okay? <3

Hello, i know this has been in draft for a long while already , since its been weeks since my breakdown. I didn't awnser because i didn't want to give a half heartfelt short anwser, i needed time for finishing the problem, the job that made me had this deppresive episode. It´s already done so i finally have time to respond, i did saw them back then btw, just wanted to read the whole think without having a second breakdown in reminder of the first one (like, right now i am fine and i am close to tear up)

First all , thanks for taking time for all that. Don't know if it matters but i am not a teen, actually my depression started at 19 more or less, started to live with it on my twenties, i had an hormonal inbalance and was getting controlled but hit back again. Just wanted to clarify because i am realizing maybe i am acting like an inmature teen.

The words do matter, specially since, being strangers on the internet, its the only thing we can do, so i really appreciate it. I am not in danger, the most that happened that one time was that i tried to call a suicide hotline, no one reponded but i made a step and talked my mom about it, talking my problems out loud made me see there weren't that bad. Still, thanks for taking your time to talk to me❤

[thesillyphilly]

Hey! Sorry if im bothering you but can i get some more information about the new found family AU it seems really interesting so i scrolled through your blog but didn't find really much information and stuff, i know that bee and soundy were bio brothers and that their parents got killed so they ended up in an orphanage where they met the seekers and cliff and became a family together. But that's basically it

Could you maybe write a fanfiction or something? I've seen as post about you thinking about it but are you going to? Sorry for asking so much!

Good question. But sadly i suck at writing and didn't bother too but if someone wants to, go for it. and the reason why there isn't much was because it was still in progress but now i have some down. Now like i said in mostly all of my post, this is an human au too. Just want to clarify. And somethings may have changed i don't remember-

Soundwave and bumblebee:

Sound and bee parents were killed in a breaking and entering. They had haerd glass being shattered downstairs and thought it was of their kids(bee was a toddler like 5 1/2 and sound was a almost teen?, 9-10 years old). Their father had went down to go check if it was and was met with a bullet in the head. Their mother had heard this and ran to her children room (sound and bee shared a room). She had put them in bathroom and told them to keep quiet as she trys to go downstairs and call the cops. When she had called them saying someone was in her house with her and her kids and had killed her husband, she was found and met the same death as her beloved. Bee was crying and sound was trying to keep him quiet hoping his mother would come back (they heard the gunshot but don't know she was killed nor that their father was either). When the cops arrived the person that broke in had already escaped. One of the cops had found little sound and bee and took them out of the house. Now, bee was to young to remember but sound remembers everything to the sounds of gunshots to seeing his mother and fathers lifeless bodys on the ground. They didn't have any other family members so it was the orphanage

When they had arrived the first few weeks were hard. Sounds didn't want to be there. He wanted to be home with his mom and dad but he knew it wasn't going to happen. Bee had a hard time too but found a liking there. He had became friends with star who was a year older then him and yk little siblings, they introduced all of their friends to ya so they and the seekers had gotten closer to the point they are never apart. A couple of years pass like 3 or 4 and someone has been picking on star and bee and one of the new kids, cliffjumper, had step in. By starting a fight with the bully and of course he got in trouble. Star and bee had thank him the next day and they just bacame a trio ever since which meant cliffjumper was all of a sudden part of a little made up family.

The day sounds and bee found out they were going to be adopted, it hurt. Because that would mean their have to leave their family behind and they didn't want to do that so the couple that were only adopting two kids ended up with six.

The seekers:

When sounds and bee arrives at the orphanage, Thundercracker and skywarp are twins (8 years old) and starscream is the youngest by two years (6 years old). Not much is known about their parents but they were left at the orphanage at a young age. They lived there for most of their lives now. When bee and star became friends, sky and t.c got to know about him and his older brother a bit more since sounds didn't really talk to anyone. When cliffjumper became part of "family", they would get in so much trouble.

Same thing when sounds and bee were gonna be adopted, they were hurt because they would have to say goodbye

Cliffjumper:

When he arrived, he was 12 1/2 years old. 3 or 4 years after sounds and bee arrival. He didn't really talk to anyone either but after seeing some kid picking on some little ones and throwing hands, he became more talkative. His family wasn't the best and that was the main reason he was there. His father was alcoholic and his mother did drugs and stuff. He wasn't ues to family love so when he suddenly became part of a family. He didn't know how to act or anything because he didn't have an family. Or just a loving and caring family.

When sound and bee were getting adopted, he wasn't suspecting to get adopted too

[andnowanowl]

Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.

RIYAM KAFRI ABU LABAN

Chemistry professor, blogger, 36

Born in Amman, Jordan

Interviewed in Ramallah, West Bank

Riyam Kafri Abu Laban was born in Amman, Jordan. Her father was one of thousands of Palestinians not allowed to return to their homes after the Six-Day War of 1967 —marking a second wave of Palestinian refugees after the massive displacement of 1948. Riyam's parents waited for the opportunity to return to the West Bank instead of leaving to pursue lucrative jobs elsewhere. They finally returned to the West Bank in 1980, after years of legal wrangling. On returning to Palestine, they settled near Ramallah.

We interview Riyam in her spacious kitchen in Ramallah. As she talks, she stirs pots, washes dishes, and checks the oven, effortlessly putting together a dinner for six as she tells her life story. We learn that this kind of multi-tasking is normal for her. She is the mother of twins, teaches organic chemistry at Al-Quds University, and she helps to run the university's liberal arts program (designed in conjunction with Bard College). She also writes a blog with a fellow professor, and her posts are sharply observed explorations of daily life in Palestine.

Writing is Riyam's passion, but she came to it later in her career. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and had the opportunity to live a comfortable life in the United States. She chose instead to return to Palestine where she started teaching, and she found her voice as a writer in describing life as a resident of the West Bank. She writes that Palestine is "like a distant land that inhabits the warmest chambers of one's heart, so close yet so unattainable.¹

A DESIRE TO LIVE JUST LIKE ANY OTHER TEENAGER IN THE WORLD

When the war broke out in 1967, my father was an electrical engineering Ph.D. student in Germany. After the war, Israel gave ID cards to Palestinians. The cards were required for them to remain in Palestine, but since my father was abroad at the time they were distributed, he wasn't able to get one. My mom, who hadn't yet met my father, was in the West Bank at the time and was able to get an ID card. A little after dad moved to Jordan. Later, he met my mother while she was traveling through Jordan to visit a relative. My parents were married in November 1977, and then they started working immediately to return to Palestine. At first they thought that since my dad was marrying someone with an ID card, it would be easier for him to apply for one as well. But the Israeli government said that they needed to have a child to prove that the marriage was real. They got pregnant really quickly and I was born nine months later, in Amman, Jordan, in October 1978.²

After I was born, my parents continued their pursuit of an ID card for my father. This time, the Israeli authorities told my mom that she needed to have a boy, because a girl didn't count. Who knows what their reasoning was. My mom had to make the choice to get pregnant as soon as possible again, so that she could try to have a boy and reapply for an ID for my father.

An opportunity came up for my father to help build a new university out of a technical college that was located in Abu Dis.³ So we moved to Palestine in 1979, even though we didn't have an ID for my father yet. We didn't stay long. The faculty named the new university Al-Quds.⁴ Al-Quds is the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem, and the name drew a lot of attention from the Israeli authorities, who assumed the founders were implying that the city belonged to the Palestinians. Some professors were arrested, and my dad was sent back to Jordan.

The next year, my mother was pregnant with my brother Muhanned, and we tried again to live in the West Bank. My father had found teaching work. This time, we settled near Ramallah.⁵ Finally, my father was able to obtain an ID card not long after my brother was born. Then after he got his ID card, he helped found the engineering school at Birzeit University.⁶ My mother was a teacher, and later a principal, but she took some time off after the birth of Muhanned and later my sister Duna.

I grew up in a politically active family. I also grew up with parents who thought that their children had to leave a mark on society. We were raised to think that we had to live with a sense of purpose. And the main purpose, the underlying goal, was always to serve Palestine in one way or another.

I was sheltered from some of the problems many Palestinians have, but I can't say I grew up completely sheltered, because I was educated about the Israeli occupation. You know, I grew up during the beginning of the First Intifada, so the entire atmosphere was different.⁷ Everyone, from teenagers to adults, was more aware of Palestine, of the political situation, of the prisoners and arrests.⁸ Demonstrations took place right outside our home, since we lived in a central area of Al-Bireh, just outside Ramallah.⁹ One of my earliest clear memories is from the start of the Intifada. I was eight years old, and I spoke to a BBC reporter. I told him, "We're not just throwing rocks, we want our freedom!"

The demonstrations during the First Intifada brought the neighborhood together. At that time, women would knit navy-blue V-neck shirts that they could send to prisoners. So that's how I learned knitting. The prison would only accept that color, and it had to be V-neck, and it had to be plain—we couldn't even use any stitches but the most basic ones. And my mom was part of a women's group that would go into refugee camps to visit prisoners' families, and they would also collect these knitted shirts and send them to prisons.

I don't remember much about my first couple of years at school. Actually, the Israeli military shut down most schools in the area during the First Intifada. Schools might operate for only a few hours a week. So we did distance learning. I was enrolled at the Friends School, and I'd go once every two weeks to drop off my assignments and pick up new ones.¹⁰ The first day of the year, we'd go to pick up our books, get our first assignments, and then immediately go home to start working on them. We were really responsible for our own education. Kids from all around would come to our home, and my mother would teach them. Finally, when I was around twelve, the school reopened. But even then it was only open for half days.

Around the time I became a teenager, the Intifada took on a different emotional quality for me. I wasn't just knitting sweaters anymore I was watching my friends get arrested. I remember the powerful desire to live just like any other teenager around the world, to spend my time listening to music and not having to care about politics. It was suffocating. I say this with a lot of humility, because I didn't even see what it was like to live in a refugee camp. So if I was suffocating in the middle of a city, with a home that had all the amenities that anyone could ask for, I can't imagine what it was like for anyone in the refugee camps. And then I saw this complete switch, with Oslo, around 1993.¹¹

Things started to open up more. We could get to places we couldn't get to before, including Jerusalem, and Haifa, and Jaffa.¹² By the time I graduated from high school in '96, even the topics of conversation with my more the day-to-day concerns with friends were completely different living and work. We didn't need to talk about fighting just to live and struggling just to exist. I could think about things like the New Kids on the Block, pop music. But even as a teen, I never trusted the Oslo Accords. We had peace, but it felt like an illusion, a hologram.

I WAS IN LOVE WITH THE CONCEPT OF A ROAD TRIP

I lived in Ramallah until I was seventeen. Then I graduated from the Friends School, and I received a full-tuition scholarship to Earlham College in the States.¹³ The Friends School had an arrangement where they'd send one or two graduating students to Earlham on full scholarship every year. I'd applied to a few other liberal arts colleges in the States, but I really wanted to get into Earlham, and when I got the scholarship, my family discussed it. It was a little bit of a conflict. It was very tough for dad, particularly. My mother is a very realistic woman, and she felt like her children leaving home was inevitable. But I think for my father it was harder. He viewed the United States as a country that helped Israel. It was a matter of principle that his daughter shouldn't leave this country to study in the U.S. Coming to terms with that was a huge adjustment.

In the end, we decided that I'd go with the idea to become a physician, and that I would return to Palestine after my education. My parents announced, "We'll allow you, our first daughter, to go to the United States on your own, only under the following terms—you will not return with a bachelor's in biology or chemistry, because you could always do that at Birzeit, and you will try to get into medical school." I would finish my education, and then I would come back and work here in Palestine.

All I knew about Earlham was that it was a small school, that I wouldn't have more than thirty or forty students in my classes, which was true. Except for introductory classes, I think most of my classes were like that. I think at seventeen you don't know what to expect out of college, and I soon learned that the school was extremely challenging. I worked really hard. But the social life was far better than I expected. The kindness of people on campus made me feel really cared for in a small setting. And Earlham was very pro-Palestinian. As a Quaker institution, they were very interested in educating Palestinians—they'd been accepting Palestinian students since 1948.

I took biology in the first year, under the assumption that I'd be a pre-med student. But I was broken by the anatomy and physiology course. I just couldn't do it—the smell, the formaldehyde. I worked so hard, and I could barely break a C in the course.

And in the meantime, I was taking organic chemistry, and I was practically sleeping through the course and I was getting an A, you know? And that's when things kind of shifted. I had a great organic chemistry professor, Thomas Ruttledge, who's still my friend and colleague, and I decided to become a chemist. And I thought, "Well, I'll get a Ph.D. instead of an M.D." And I wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry. That part really enticed me—the idea of creating things.

By the end of my undergrad experience, I felt very much at home at Earlham, and I do think those were the best four years my of entire time in the United States. You know, the one thing that fascinated me the most living in the United States was the ability to drive anywhere. I was in love with the concept of a road trip. I learned driving just to be able to drive out for endless hours, because it was mind-boggling to me that I could cross state lines and be in Tennessee for a couple of hours, and on the same day drive back to Indiana, no problem! That was new to me, and I loved traveling, even after starting my Ph.D. program.

I did my Ph.D. in medicinal organic chemistry at the University of Tennessee, and I focused on computer-based drug design and discovery. I learned to design compounds by modeling enzymes on a computer, which was a very cutting edge approach to medicinal chemistry at the time. I worked with a team that researched anti-HIV compounds and anti-cancer agents.

I briefly considered staying in the U.S. When you're in graduate school and doing research, all you see as important is the science that you're doing. And you don't have a concept or understanding of what life really is, right? Because for a scientist, life exists within the walls of the lab, and the library, and on your computer. And so for a while I really thought that I should stay for a post-doc there. But my parents weren't willing to live through another year of not having their children around. They were really adamant that we should all finish and return as soon as we were done.

Also, I started my Ph.D. program at Tennessee right before September 11, 2001. I remember the day of the attacks, I had to teach a class. As I walked into the classroom, I heard some students whispering about me, "She's Palestinian, they're responsible for this." I couldn't keep silent. I told the whole class that it couldn't have been the Palestinians, and that there was no way I would condone such an act. I told them I came from a violent place, but that all I wanted was for things to be easier for my younger brother and sister. I ended up crying, and a colleague came to the classroom and took over the class for me.

Later I experienced real hostility, even from some faculty, me questions like, "Why are Muslims like this?" I knew then I couldn't stay in the U.S. I couldn't go through life explaining myself to others. It sounds strange, but I thought then that if I had children, I'd rather they who'd askgrow up with the problems of occupation and know who they were than to keep having to explain themselves and their identities to everyone else in their community.

There is a lot that I still love about the U.S. and the South - I still make sweet potato pie every November, around Thanksgiving. But since September 11, I've known there is no way I could be happy living my entire life in the States.

So an opportunity arose in Ramallah at a pharmaceutical company called Pharmacare, and it sounded interesting enough. Also, I thought, If I'm willing to try living in the United States and adjust to its cultural values - the way it works, its social structure, everything—then why not give this chance to Palestine itself?

So after my Ph.D. program I returned to Palestine in January 2007, and I began researching the antioxidant activity of Palestinian plants with Pharmacare. It was part of a project where we were looking for anti-cancer compounds in traditional Palestinian medicinal plants. I worked with herbalists throughout the West Bank. We started the lab from scratch. Up until that point, all pharmaceutical companies in the West Bank were generic drug producers. Our work was the first to invest in innovative research in the region.

THERE'S A RHYTHM IN PALESTINE THAT REALLY GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN

Palestine had changed quite a lot since I had left. I had been away for the entire Second Intifada.¹⁴ I had never seen the wall. That was my first impression of what had changed. I had seen pictures, but to see it cut through terrain I remembered well—honestly, to this day I haven't resolved the feeling I had when I saw it. Passing into the West Bank through Qalandiya, I saw incredible poverty—Qalandiya looks like all the misery of the West Bank, including overcrowding.¹⁵ Then driving into Ramallah, I was amazed to see how things had grown. There were new tall buildings, signs that people were doing okay. The city was jazzy, sort of dressed up. Coming back home, it was as though that illusion of peace, the hologram, had shrunk to a bubble just around my hometown.

Still, being back in Ramallah was a challenge in some ways. Once you go to graduate school abroad, it's an entirely different experience living in Palestine. Believe it or not, the culture shock was easier to get over going to Earlham from Palestine than the culture shock that I faced coming back after almost eleven years of being away.

I can't exactly pinpoint what the reasons are for the difficulty. I think one of them is that I spent eleven years on my own, in a country that's fairly free and accepts anything and everything. And I learned to think for myself, learned to accept people for what they are and who they are, and not judge them for what they think or what they look like or what they believe. And I came back to a country that's fairly systematic. There's a specific, almost rigid, structure in society here that you have to fit into.

I came back here to Palestine, and I had social obligations and family obligations, and I was no longer able to read in my free time. Even the way I dressed had to change. So it was very difficult at the beginning.

But even in those early days back, I felt like Ramallah had a way of making me feel comfortable. And it's not just the city—it's the people. There's a rhythm in Palestine. Every country has its own rhythm, but there's a rhythm in Palestine that really gets under your skin, even with all the difficulty of travel, with all the difficulty of being stuck on the road in traffic. There's something that just gets under your skin, and it's very difficult to leave, once you start to get settled in here. I also finally found old friends, and a lot of my friends were going through the same difficulties. They'd been gone for a while, they were educated outside, whether in France or England or the U.S., and had returned. So we had something in common, and a common language, and that's kind of what's got me slowly coming back into living here.

OUR FIRST CLASS

I worked for Pharmacare for over two years, until around 2010. But there were several reasons why I thought it was not the right place. I was spending my entire time in a lab with only one other person, and I realized more and more that I wanted to work with people. And what does a Ph.D. do with people, other than teach, right? When I was nineteen years old, my adviser Thomas Ruttledge told me that I would end up in teaching, and I thought he just didn't know me. He said that I had it in me.

So in 2010, I applied to Al-Quds University and Birzeit University for teaching positions. Al-Quds had recently developed a partnership with Bard College in the U.S., where Bard would establish a liberal arts degree program within Al-Quds.¹⁶ And Bard thought I was the perfect candidate to teach for them—I was a liberal arts college graduate. I would understand the concepts and the teaching methods of liberal arts education.

Originally, it was a part-time position for a semester, so I only taught one class. After that first semester, Al-Quds and Bard immediately offered me a full-time position. They kind of took me in. They didn't care that I didn't have an extensive publication history or anything like that. It wasn't an old boys' club like Birzeit University.

I became a core faculty member and one of the founding faculty members. We had no program—only thirty students— and I remember running these internal transfer campaigns, where we encouraged students from Al-Quds University to give it a try for one semester. We basically opened it up for everybody, so good students and bad students were applying, and we accepted all of them just to be able to run a program. Then I started building the science program, and now we have the largest and most successful division in the entire college. I have sixty students who are hoping to complete their degree in either biology or chemistry right now. This year, at the end of June 2014, we were able to graduate our second class and my first class of chemistry majors.

I WORE A HEADPIECE THAT'S 200 YEARS OLD AND MADE OF GOLD LIRAS

In the spring of 2009, I met a man named Ahmad through a friend of mine who works with him in the municipal government. We saw each other occasionally for a year and a half, but I wouldn't say we were dating, really. I saw him once or twice, and I think we were both busy with our careers, and so it kind of just took its time.

We would send each other messages every now and then, check on each other. Then it took a more serious turn in the fall of 2010, in September. We started seeing each other among groups of friends so that we could keep it on the down-low, so no one would really catch who was dating whom.

Then in the end of December, we decided that we wanted to be together. He invited me to dinner on December 30 at his family's home. He said that after dinner he'd love to go to my parents' home—he wanted to meet them. From there, things developed really quickly. On Friday morning, New Year's Eve, he called me and he said that his older brother would like to talk to my father and that he'd like to make this official, which is the culturally correct way of doing things. And so they set a date to talk to my parents officially and ask for my hand in marriage.

The night of New Year's Eve, Ahmad surprised me by proposing in front of 360 guests at the Mövenpick Hotel New Year's Eve party.¹⁷ So, by the next morning, the entire city knew that we were engaged.

It was right at the beginning of the second semester for me, so it was a little bit hard to think about getting married during the semester, but semesters at Al-Quds University are never properly planned, because there are strikes, and there are closures and political reasons not to go to school. So we thought about April for a wedding date, and then it didn't work with one of his brothers, whose daughter was expecting a child, and they wanted to be with her when she had the child. We decided that it would have to be pushed till June, but his mother was not willing to see that happen. She felt like she was old, and you never know what happens, and she wanted to be there for the wedding. And so we actually ended up getting married in March 2011, on a very cold, rainy day.

We had a full-on traditional Palestinian wedding. I wore a traditional dress, and I also wore a headpiece that's 200 years old and made of gold liras—Ottoman liras. The wedding party was huge. There were over 700 guests. I should have known that my life would be loud after that. After the big wedding, we had a smaller wedding reception for the family and close friends.

Within less than a year, I went from being single and career-oriented to a wife, a pregnant woman, then a mother of two. I had my twins on November 10, 2011. I came from a small, nuclear family where everybody's educated, and we had a very quiet breakfast every Friday morning, and suddenly I shifted from that into this huge, clan-like family, with a whole lot of brothers and sisters who are all married with children, whose children were having children. Life with my husband's family was loud and lively, and I learned how to cook for forty people—while pregnant. And I found myself completely entrenched in Palestinian life in a way I hadn't been before.

I DISCOVERED THE WRITER IN ME

My husband worked as the mayor of Ramallah's right-hand man. When we married, in a way, I thought I was marrying Ramallah. My friends actually nicknamed me "Lady Ramallah," because I was everywhere, I would go to all the cultural events, always out in the city.

When I finally got to know my husband's family well, I realized that I didn't marry the city, I married Abu Shusha and Zakariyya, which were the two villages that his parents had left in 1948.¹⁸ I suddenly found myself completely entrenched in Palestinian culture that I've only read about the diaspora refugee culture. Now, my kids are descendants of refugees. It's been a total switch for me. And it was more eye-opening to me - there's real suffering in Palestine, there's real heartbreak. And it's a lot more than what people think it is. When I began to see these things, that's when the writing happened.

In July 2010, Bard sent me to the U.S. to do this writing workshop called "Language and Thinking," which is part of our core program for all of our students, and all faculty from all fields are encouraged to teach the course. And that's where I discovered the writer in me. At the Bard workshop, I discovered how much I love human beings and that I like to learn from them. That is when I started to write in earnest. Before long I had started a blog about Palestine called The Big Olive.

I started it with a woman I met at a wedding named Tala. I met Tala exactly two weeks before I went to that writing workshop, so all these things started to come together at the same time. Initially, the blog was supposed to be about Ramallah and about my return to the city, and how the city helped me really adjust. But it became more about growing close to this big Palestinian family of my husband's as well.

Another reason I felt I needed to write about the real Palestine was that I was traveling a lot through the West Bank doing school recruitment. I spent a lot of time traveling to the Abu Dis campus near Jerusalem, visiting Bethlehem, going from checkpoint to checkpoint. The blog became a place where I could examine what it was like to live in this growing, cosmopolitan city—Ramallah—and then going out and observing a culture that you don't see within the city.

Back when I was living in the U.S., I used to get asked about life in Palestine quite a lot by my friends there. I would tell them to imagine that you are commuting from New York City to a small town in New Jersey, which should be an hour drive. But in order to get there, you can't take the regular highway, you have to take all these back roads. And even the back roads aren't all open, and at any point in time, any of the state police might stop you and ask you questions for an hour or more without giving any reason. Suddenly most of your day, most of your work, has been commuting home. It's exhausting. That's what living in Palestine is like, and that's what I wanted to capture in my blog.

I'd always tell my American friends, "You take your freedom to move too much for granted." I remember being stuck in traffic going to JFK after my workshop with Bard in 2010. I was trying toget to the airport to go back to Palestine, and I was really getting antsy. I was with my friend, and I said something like, "Oh my God, I'm going to miss my plane, and I can't understand this traffic." And my friend looked at me and said, "What do you mean you can't understand this traffic? You're the one who lives it every day in Palestine." But that's the thing we take gridlock for granted in Palestine. It's possible to be surprised by terrible traffic in the United States. And so I think that's the difference between traveling here and there.

As Palestinians, we can't take any of our day-to-day plans for granted. I may plan to start my class at eleven o'clock, and on any day I could easily be fifteen minutes late, an hour late, no matter how early I left—for no reason other than a random pop-up checkpoint somewhere between home and school. There may not even be a tense situation or security reason for the pop-up checkpoint. It could be just because.

The stress of getting to work and then back home rules our lives. And now that I have children, I feel it's even further compounded. I have to get to daycare to get my children, and to bring them home so that I can have an hour with them during the day, so then I can put them to bed on time. And that's such a basic human want. That's something that working mothers all over the world have to worry about. But I have to worry about it several times over. Every day I have to figure out how I might improvise if I can't get to daycare to pick up my children on time.

This stress makes you age faster, I think. In certain areas of Palestine, you can cut the tension and serve it up on a platter. And it's because people are not able to be regular human beings, because they're completely controlled by these random obstacles that will stop life from happening.

When I was pregnant, I constantly feared that my water would break in Qalandiya and I'd be stuck. I had twins who were breech sideways, and so there was no room for them to come out. I couldn't have natural birth.knew that. And so, the last time I drove, I was about a week from giving birth. I went as far as making arrangements with a doctor in Bethlehem so that, should my water break, it would be easier to go to Bethlehem and give birth there than drive the few miles to my hospital. So I had a friend, and he agreed that he would have an ambulance on standby in Bethlehem that would come and pick me up at the drop of a hat and would take me right away to the French women's hospital in Bethlehem. He would also make sure that he was in contact with my OB/GYN, who could explain to him on the phone the details of my pregnancy. That's an extreme example, but the truth is that every time I leave the house, I have to have contingency plans. I never know how long it might take to run simple errands.

If you're in much of the U.S., you're pregnant with twins, and you work a few miles away from home and the hospital, you can get to any hospital at any time, no matter when your water breaks, no matter if your twins are breech, or both pointing downward with their heads and ready to be delivered naturally. You have that access. Here, you don't.

The only access from one city to the other is roads, and when those roads are blocked, then life stops. And that's how women end up giving birth at checkpoints. I wrote about giving birth at a checkpoint on my blog, and I was writing about my own fears. It was something that kept coming at me. And even when I was driving, I kept thinking, "What if I get stuck in this crazy traffic, and someone hits me, rear-ends me, and then I lose one of the babies because of the shock?"

For anyone who doesn't know the road Wadi Nar - actually, it's a little better now that the roads are a little bigger - but it's this winding, uphill road between Ramallah and the cities southeast of Jerusalem where trucks of all kinds and sizes and cars of all kinds and sizes are traveling two ways. There are no clear two lanes, and literally, when you are going up, look to your right, you're practically on the edge of a cliff. If your car gets hit, there's nowhere to go except down the valley.

I tell my friends that it's only by the grace of God that I make it from sunrise to sunset every day, and I go to Abu Dis, and I still have the energy to take care of two kids every day. The only way for me to de with this stress is to write. I've gotten such positive responses to the blog from everyone who reads it, but I'm not sure if I'm actually a good writer, or if people just want to be nice to me. And this is where one of my fears exists. It's not a fear, it's maybe that I'm not willing to believe that I'm good at something else other than science.

On the other hand, I found this open-armed place with this community where anything you write is up for discussion, and it's up for editing and up for improvement, and people are willing to read what you write. Because every time you write, you're putting yourself on that paper. And I'm always submitting pieces to an online magazine called This Week in Palestine, or just putting work up on the blog, and thinking, Dear God, please have mercy on me. There's a piece of me within those words. So don't let them batter it because it would break my heart. And so I'm in between, as a writer, I'm still searching for the voice. I don't know what narrative I'm going to take, I don't know what I am trying, I don't even know what story I'm telling.

So I'm still trying to find my voice. I'm not ready to give up science completely and just do writing. And at the same time, I can't just let the science take over, because I'm so extremely happy to finally have that part of me alive again.

THERE IS REAL SUFFERING OUTSIDE OF RAMALLAH

When the Bard program at Al-Quds was just getting started, we didn't have enough students to fill the classes. Besides teaching, I worked as a recruiter and traveled all around the West Bank to meet students. I traveled a lot in Bethlehem and recruited a lot of students from the refugee camps there. I also recruited quite a lot from around Hebron. Those trips were so valuable to me, because they reminded me that there is real suffering outside of Ramallah, beyond the day-to-day obstacles of checkpoints and uncertainty that I faced in moving around the West Bank.

I've seen that suffering touch my students. We recruited quite a lot from the refugee camps, and so I taught many of the young people I was recruiting. I remember one student took an intro organic chemistry class with me I always had to tell him to be quiet so I could get on with the lecture, because he was always asking questions. He was funny, sweet, handsome. One of the leaders in the program. Then in the middle of summer break, he disappeared for two weeks. His parents had no idea where he was—they just found his car abandoned in the street one day. He'd been arrested. And then when he returned to school in the fall, he was a completely changed person. He didn't say a single word all fall semester.

But I think the liberal arts approach here is valuable. The students really take to it—they flourish. We have students reading Greek philosophy, drama. And writing as well. I remember one assignment where students read the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet and recast it from a Palestinian perspective. The students shared their work in class, and the results were chilling and powerful.

I hope my students will have an easier time than my generation has had. I hope they make the Palestinian cause the way they see it and not simply follow leaders whose ideas have expired. And I hope they stay alive. For my children, I hope they find liberation through education, and I hope that they choose the pen and the book before anything else. For myself, I want to continue to write, though my hopes for Palestine feel more and more crushed. I hope to never forget for a moment that whatever peace and prosperity I have in Ramallah is temporary - an illusion.

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Footnotes

¹ From the appendices -

IN WAITING by Riyam Kafri Abu Laban

The following prose poem was written by Riyam Kafri Abu Laban and is included here to stand in for sentiments expressed to us by nearly every one of our interviewees, whether their narratives were included in this collection or not.

Welcome to the land of waiting. People here are born waiting. Waiting to return to a homeland lost, and, from the looks of it, in the most desperate moments, lost forever.

Waiting to return to a home they still carry a key for in their hand, and a memory of in their heart; an image hidden in the folds of their dreams, and which, sadly, in the most realistic moments they know no longer exists.

In Palestine you wait for Ramadan, just like you wait for a breath of fresh air in a crowded restaurant in New York City. You wait for a permit to travel. You wait for schools to open, for the strike to end, for the checkpoint to be removed, for the accident rubble to be cleared. You wait for the Allenby Bridge to empty, for the doctor to finally come in on time.

In Palestine you wait. You wait for your dreams to come true.

You wait to leave the refugee camp, you wait to leave the village, you wait to arrive in Ramallah, you wait for destiny to embrace you—but she really never does. In fact, at the first stop she slaps you hard in the face and leaves her mark on you, and then you spend a lifetime waiting for that wound to heal. It never does.

In Palestine you wait to graduate, you wait to find a job, you wait for the next job to be better than the first.

In Palestine you wait to get married, then you wait to have children, then you wait for them to grow. Then you wait for them to become doctors—but trust me, they will not.

In Palestine you wait in line endlessly to receive permission to see the Palestine that is yours. And after you finally get a chance to see her, you realize she looks nothing like what your grandparents described, and nothing like the country your mother cries over. You wait to see her, only to realize that she has moved on, and did not wait for you.

In Palestine you wait for the birth of a child anxiously, with the hope she will not be born on a checkpoint.

In Palestine you wait for the hunger strike to end. You wait for sons and daughters to be released from prison—only to be rearrested again, at the next checkpoint while on their way to find a job and start a life.

In Palestine you wait for your paycheck only to have it hijacked by hungry loan payments and red hot gasoline prices.

In Palestine, you wait endlessly in Qalandiya to get home. Keep waiting. This might take hours.

You wait for the summer to end in the hope that winter will bring more peace, and you wait for winter to end in the hope that summer will bring more warmth.

In Palestine you wait for everything and everyone.

In Palestine you wait for the next eruption, the next Intifada, the next incursion, the next war—which always comes.

² Amman, the capital of Jordan, is a city of over 2 million residents.

³ Abu Dis is a city of around 12,000 people just east of Jerusalem and the location of one of Al-Quds University's campuses.

⁴ Al-Quds is a university system with three campuses-one in Jerusalem, one in Abu Dis just outside of Jerusalem, and one in Al-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah. The system currently serves over 13,000 undergraduates.

⁵ Ramallah is a city of over 30,000 people. It has experienced rapid growth since it was adopted as a de facto administrative capital by the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo Accords. Numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and diplomatic outreach offices are also based in the city. Ramallah is located about ten miles northeast of Jerusalem, the city many Palestinians consider Palestine's true capital.

⁶ Birzeit University is a renowned public university located just outside Ramallah. It hosts approximately 8,500 undergraduates.

⁷ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."

⁸ Israel carried out the mass arrest of Palestinian citizens during the First Intifada. More than 120,000 Palestinians were arrested or spent time in prison from 1987 to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

⁹ Al-Bireh is a city of over 40,000 people just east of Ramallah.

¹⁰ The Friends School of Ramallah is a Quaker-run institution that was opened in 1889, during the time of Ottoman rule.

¹¹ The first Oslo Accords negotiations took place in Norway, the U.S., and France during the summer of 1993. The Accords outlined a plan for the Israeli military to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank in stages while further negotiations would be carried out regarding Palestinian statehood, security, borders, and Israeli settlements.

¹² Access to Jerusalem was significantly restricted to Palestinians from the West Bank before the Oslo Accords in 1993. Haifa is a city of 270,000 people in northern Israel. Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv in Israel, was home to many Arabs before 1948.

¹³ Earlham College is a Quaker-affiliated liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,210 students and has regularly accepted a large cohort of Palestinian students since the signing of the Oslo Accords.

¹⁴ Though a small portion of the barrier wall in the West Bank was constructed as early as 1994, construction of the wall increased rapidly in 2002.

¹⁵ Qalandiya is a refugee camp and city of nearly 30,000 located between Jerusalem and Ramallah. It's also the name of the nearby checkpoint, one of the biggest in the West Bank.

¹⁶ Bard College is a liberal arts college in Dutchess County, New York, on the Hudson River. It serves just over 2,000 undergraduate students. Bard formed an alliance with Al-Quds University in 2009, with the idea of bringing training in liberal arts education to Palestine.

¹⁷ The Mövenpick Hotel in Ramallah is part of a Swiss chain of international luxury hotels. The hotel in Ramallah was opened in the fall of 2010.

¹⁸ Abu Shusha was a Palestinian village of under 1,000 near the city of Ramla that was destroyed in the war of 1948. Zakariyya was a Palestinian village of just over 1,000 north-west of Hebron that was destroyed in the war of 1948.