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randomwriteronline · 1 year ago

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Warriors wasn’t exactly well known for being incospicuous or particularly quiet in his movements.

He had a tendency of stomping his feet a lot - walking like he thought he was running, ending up too heavy on the soles of his boots, which were thankfully less likely to fall apart than his old ones were. It was one of many not necessarily healthy quirks he hoped to unlearn now that the war was dealt with and there was no longer a constant need to sprint from one place to the other.

But if he wanted, and if he put a lot of thought into it, he could will himself into a perfectly relaxed stride; and, if he put even more effort into it, he could even become quieter than a mouse in a barn.

Still, he knew better than to scare a hare by getting the jump on it from the back, so he opted to knock gently on the wooden table instead.

Ravio turned around without actually looking, used to the signal enough that he didn’t even flinch upon hearing it - though he did startle a bit when the face that greeted him turned out to be indeed fairly similar to his own, but not as perfectly identical as he’d naturally assumed it would have been.

“The well-off relative!” he squeaked with a small smile, seeming a bit nervous.

Warriors grinned back: “The very same,” he replied with a wave that was more of a flourish and half a curtsie.

His relaxed appearance eased the tension in the merchant’s shoulders as well as he chuckled a little bit, playing with one of his long sleeves more out of habit than to dispell his nervousness. The captain eyed the tic fondly, and the familiar motion gave him just enough courage to try his luck.

If it was too early for it... Well, he hoped he would at least still manage to make a good first impression.

“I couldn’t help but notice your hood earlier,” he said simply, leaning a little on one side as if that way his antsyness would just seep out of his foot: “It has a peculiar design, doesn’t it?”

“My...? Oh, yes!” Ravio remembered. His fingers grabbed the portion of cloth immediately, without thinking, but for some reason he stopped himself short of pulling it over his face, fingertips playing with the gold trimmed edges. “Made it myself, see?, as we all used to do in my family. We’re pretty good tinkerers, my aunt would say way back when, but even better tailors, eh...”

“Might I see it?”

“Pardon?”

“The design on it,” Warriors repeated: “Might I see it again? I didn’t get a good look at it back then, but it seemed beautifully embroidered.”

Maybe to comply, maybe to hide a slight rush of blush on otherwise almost squalidly pale cheeks, the other man blinked once or twice and then pulled the hood right back up, hiding away his entire head beneath the rabbit face as though it had never even existed in the first place.

Knowing full well he was being seen, the captain made a big show of holding his chin in his hand and tilting his head thoughtfully.

“My,” he started off with, “I was right, that is an awfully impressive work of art. Look at those golden details around the eyes - lovely colors for them, by the way, you’ve got quite a lot of taste - and those teeth even, not to mention the ears! If I’d only heard of rabbits and never seen any I’d mistake you for one.”

The weird compliment worked, as a little laugh accompanied delighted fingers drumming against the purple fabric.

Warriors smiled fondly; then suddenly he sighed, shaking his head: “Ah, but I’ll admit, it gives me the weirdest kind of feeling - like I’ve seen a hood made just like that before, like I know it well, you know? A sort of deja-vù...”

“Well that just ain’t possible,” the merchant replied quickly as his shoulders straightened in pride: “This one’s a Ravio original! Trademarked and all! Only one you’ll ever find around! Save for any mediocre imitations you might’ve had some sleazy retailers sell you for the real thing, that is, but I’d bet those pale in comparison to the genuine article as I’m sure you can see for yourself here right before you.”

“It’s certainly very distinctive,” the captain agreed, subtly stepping forward.

If Ravio noticed that, he made no comment on it - perhaps too busy patting himself on the back as he goaded: “Of course! Gives my brand a real distinct image, don’t it? Really makes it clear you’re dealing with the one and only! Sorta like, uh, that scarf of yours, if... If I may.”

Even despite those unmoving embroidered eyes covering any semblance of expression Warriors had the distinctive feeling that the man behind them was getting a little redder beneath the shade of his hood, as he could parse from a small nervous movement of his fingers as the hero smiled wider and absentmindedly passed his thumb over the blue fabric gently settled around his shoulders and neck.

“One of a kind too?” the Lorian asked, not without a certain cautious fear.

“You’d be correct,” the other replied.

The amount of fidgeting with purple fabric increased steadily as a cascade of rambling left the hidden mouth: “Ah, yes, yes, I imagined - I mean, with that red trim over there at the end and that emblem on it, clearly something made for royalty or the like, see?, and the quality - no way some imitator could make something like that without putting in way too much effort or doing just a plain bad job, right? But, uh, ah - well ain’t that awkward now, I think you’ve put a bug in my ear ‘cause now I’m thinking I’ve seen that before, like you’ve seen my hood, but, eh! Eh, but that can’t be now, can it! Eh, nope, no, cannot be like that - but it really does look like I’ve seen it, I swear! Maybe a little dirtier, some splotches on it, some grass and, and, well and stuff that maybe I shouldn’t be talking about in a kitchen, ah ah, you understand? But it’s, it really... It really does, uhm... It... Really... Looks... Like...”

By the time he hushed, Warriors was standing a mere few inches away from him, the not particularly large difference in height between them magnified slightly by the merchant’s slouch as he’d closed in on his own shoulders a little, looking up at the grin on the rosy face. It would have definitely seemed like an intimidating scene, and by all means it was; but the tilt of the hodded head was more expectant than scared, and the little nervous smile peeking from beneath the gold trim of the fabric didn’t come from any fear.

In one swift motion the hero pushed back the hood, cupped the other’s face in his hands as though it would have escaped him, and landed a chaste kiss on his cheek with as much passion as possible.

Surprise tore a laugh out of Ravio and had his arms wrap in a bout of euphoria around the captain’s shoulders, bending his neck under the pressure of a mouth smacking into him over and his back over a hug that ensnared his waist tight enough that he could have been lifted at any moment.

Then he recollected himself, and pushed the other’s face away with a nervous chuckle: “Hey, hey - this is a kitchen!”

“Oh please,” Warriors huffed playfully, rolling his eyes, “There’s eight more people in this house including your ‘landlord’ and you think I’ll lay you for the first time in the middle of the kitchen?”

Instead of answering, Ravio decided to slip right through his grasp and scuttle away between his divaricated legs, making him stumble (since he’d put his entire weight onto the merchant) and grab onto the counter just a moment before his face collided with it in a less than graceful manner.

“Maybe!”

“Come on, I’m better than that!”

An airy laugh came from behind him with a quick squeezing hug: “You are,” the merchant reassured him, though he was very much still smirking dastardly. “And besides it wouldn’t be your style - I mean for cryin’ out loud, you took your sweet time tellin’ me you were who I thought you were right now, didn’t you?”

“What!” the captain argued back, snapping around to face him with a wide smile: “I couldn’t well just kiss you on the mouth out of nowhere!”

“I can promise you I wouldn’t have complained.”

“Time’s a fickle thing, you know that - what if you hadn’t met me yet? You would’ve thought me a maniac!”

“But I hadn’t ever seen you before I ended up on that battlefield, Lily-of-the-Valley,” Ravio reminded him as he tried to grab his nose between his index and middle fingers, “So we sure couldn’t’ve met earlier than that, don’t you think?”

Warriors lifted his hands in defeat, gently swatting the merchant’s own away in the process: “You got me there.”

“Course I did,” the other gloated: “I’m the brains and brawn after all.”

The flick of a wrist had his hood right back on his head: “Harr harr,” he heard an amused fond grin say, “And even if it were true, pray tell what I’d be left with?”

Without missing a beat, Ravio tapped his nose: “Beauty, of course!”

He counted the little snort as a victory.

“Don’t push it,” he was still playfully reprimanded.

The merchant chuckled in response, shoulders jumping a little with his voice. His gaze grew unbearably soft for a long, interminable second; then, with a sharp sigh, he allowed his forehead to fall forward so that it would on the taller man’s chest, and with his eyes closed he savored the solid reality of that contact together with the faint press of a hug.

He took a deep breath, catching a scent much more pleasant than the one he’d grown to expect to cling to that scarf, that tunic, and exhaled: “I missed you.”

Warriors leaned enough to press a kiss to his dark hair: “I missed you too.”

The rabbit in his grasp hummed very, very softly.

All of this - that voice, the pressure on his sternum, the quiet between them - was distinctly, sweetly familiar.

He wished it didn’t bring back memories of laying on the ground, both soiled with sweat, dirt, blood and varied other disgusting elements after the horrid symphony of clanging steel had finally quieted down across the fields, breathing heavily, trying to stifle the adrenaline making his heart explode at least enough to properly feel the body breathing heavily as it laid almost draped across his chest; but it also brought back the silence of peaceful nights, of trying to fall asleep to one another’s heartbeats, and he focused on that, drowning the worse recollections in those hushed breaths in the dark.

His musings were interrupted as he felt the other wriggle in his loose grasp ever so slightly, and he undid the fastening of his arms around him to let him pull back in case he needed it.

Ravio waited a little before doing so, maybe to try and commit this moment to memory better than all the other ones he had alowed to simply slip by, as one can never know when the chance to encounter a lover from a different time once more might happen - a thought that hadn’t struck him until only after they had bid each other a barely adequate goodbye for what could have very likely been the last time they ever saw one another again.

“I’ve been, ah--” he stammered a moment as he pushed himself back up on his own feet, “I was tryin’ to, ah, find a way back to you, actually, y’know? I mean, I found one for here, so, there oughta be one for there, don’t you think? It’s - ah, ahah! It’s a weird situation, my whole...”

His hand made an incredibly vague motion in the air, pointing all at once to everything that might have been both in the room and outside of it.

The information made Warriors furrow his brows slightly and tilt his head not unlike a dog that hadn’t understood the command: “I thought you were pretty homesick, back then,” he muttered, a little confused.

“I was! Goddesses know I was!” the other was quick to reply: “And I was so glad to be back home even though I had... A lot of stuff to handle still like you know, my house being a mess and everything else, but I was happy! I swear! But, eh, I’m here now, right? And it’s ‘cause I... I got homesick for here too, if you can believe that? And so I came over because I missed this sun and this house and, and then I got homesick for your place too, or maybe, maybe just for you, I think, I didn’t really - sorry if it’s rude, but I don’t got really good memories of, you know, er... But, but the point is - I keep gettin’ longin’ for all these different places all at once and so I end up makin’ myself scramble all over all the time, it’s - it’s a mess, is what it is, but I can’t help it! I don’t know how! I can’t - I can’t choose, I guess? I want t’ be in Lorule, and also here, and also with you, and it just sends me runnin’ in circles over an’ over an’ over an’--”

"Hey,” a quiet voice reached him together with a hand on his shoulder, and his rambling came to a halt.

He sunk in the collar of his robe: “Sorry,” he peeped. “Got carried away.”

“I missed you so much.”

There was no follow-up.

Ravio realized his vacant stare had been fixed a little above the captain’s belt buckle for a while now, and raised his head. Link was looking at him without any real feeling, his expression set on a near total, mildly relaxed neutrality - which made the vague air of melancholy bubbling in his eyes a little harder to spot for someone who might’ve notbeen looking for it.

Without really thinking, the Lorian put a hand to one of the somewhat squallid sienna-colored cheeks. He felt it sink into his palm.

“You thought of comin’ to see me?”

Warriors just nodded.

He laughed gently: “Well, I oughta made your job real hard then, huh?”

The other shrugged with a small smile: “Didn’t do much about it, actually,” he replied, a little sheepish. “I got cold feet about asking. Since...”

“Hm,” now it was the merchant’s turn to nod, “I get it.”

He gently squished the captain’s face in his hands a little tighter, causing him to huff through his nose as he attempted a smirk. Emboldened by the power of being able to do whatever he wanted without repercussions, Ravio swayed the blond head left and right with his fingers as his soft grimace turned into a more mischievous grin.

He only stopped once he heard a muffled ‘watch it’ that made him giggle a little as he raised his arms away from the captain in a show of innocence.

Dusting his palms on his robe as if to better hide the tender playfulness of the gesture (though it was an action not at all motivated embarrassment, but merely yet another of his many nervous quirks) his voice suddenly turned casual, as if he were a humble innkeeper addressing a customer: “So how long will you be stayin’ over?”

Warriors shrugged again with a weary sigh: “I’ve told you, time is a fickle thing,” he answered, “Who knows where and when we’ll be told to leave.”

“But you do stay around a while, right?”

“That we do.”

“So maybe we could work together, no? To, ah - figure out, maybe, kinda, a way to make this... Not, the last time we meet?”

Green eyes gleamed at him hopefully.

“Because-” Ravio added quickly as he waved his hands about to try and mask his eager antsiness, “-If there was a way, y’know, to come see you anytime, or even just some specific times, but surely, for certain, without fault... Y’know. I’d hop right on it.”

The captain smiled.

“I would too.”

A bucktoothed grin shined right at him: “So we should get to work, eh?”

“I reckon we should.”

#tloz #linked universe #hyrule warriors #warriors lu #ravio #raviolink #random writing #did you know that hw link has a skin with yellow undertones?#my boy is out there lookin like a cheese sculpture #anyways remember my post about hyrule warriors flavored raviolink bc this is that #also wars still feels hh abt the sorceress of time due to You Know (her wanting to get in his pants and almost destroying the world abt it)#which is why he never went to her and asked if she could let him see him bf again #sorry for the abrupt ending i dont know how to continue it :P

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dandunn · 11 months ago

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Fic author interview tagged by @vampirenaomi

1 How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

728,089

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Fic that annoys me so much I disabled comments (go find it yourself lmao), Marked for Death, Tiger by the Tail, What's coming through is Alive, The Sea is Getting Rough Again

my one piece fics all have way more kudos than my recent stuff basically

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i do sometimes, im usually tired from writing and editing so sometimes ill just say thanks lol

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i wrote a fic anonymously which is horrendously dark and doesnt have a happy ending but I think most other fics i write at least have a bittersweet or happy ending hdfgb

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

uhhhhhh i dunno man I like the ending of the fic i wrote where goemon threatens to cut one of jigen's exes' dicks off and then they go hang out by the pool. that was fun :)

7. Do you write crossovers?

not really, I've had a few ideas for them but they're hard to write and wouldnt have worked out

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not... really? i got a really weird backhanded compliment where someone talked at length about a ship i dont like (the fic wasnt about that couple) then said the first chapter was alright apart from being painfully slow (thanks) and then accused me of virtue signalling because of the difficult topics i handled in the fic.

It was really, really strange like I genuinely think they were trying to pay me a compliment but they were incredibly shit at it lol

And then in another fic I turned off comments because a minor started bitching at me about the porn I wrote not being sexy enough and when I told them to go away they harassed me for a little while. That was fun.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeas. I prefer it when smut is incorporated into the story because I kind of need the emotional stakes to be high enough otherwise I kind of lose interest. Smut without feelings is just kinda boring to me. Of course I have some exceptions but those are rare nowadays.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, though it's on wattpad apparently so I have no idea if the person doing it credited me because I dont use that site lol.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah and I dont recommend it. we only wrote like 2 chapters of it but i no longer speak to the co-author and the whole thing ended up feeling a bit disjointed and weird.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Uhh I have a couple, zoro/luffy, ace/sanji, jigen/lupin and jigen/goemon

zolu probably wins here because i have not so far written a 200k fic about anyone else lol

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

*gestures weakly at literally everything in my google docs*

I forgot how to write sorry

15. What are your writing strengths?

*tv static noise*

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

i cant speak english

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don't know whether its bad or just handled badly by a lot of writers but I don't like it. Speaking as someone whos been learning japanese for the past 2+ years I hate it when I come across a word and have to either look it up myself or scroll to the bottom of the fic for any footnotes there are to explain it. Gonna use myself as an example for how I go about this kind of thing:

Fujiko tries to smile at his robotic, overly formal speech patterns, when really it's a little off-putting. She hasn't heard anyone use the word sessha, 'my humble self', for themselves outside of a period drama.

each to their own but i prefer putting in a small aside like this rather than shoving in foreign words and expecting for the reader to go and break the flow of the writing by looking it up for themselves.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

id say pokemon mystery dungeon but the first fic i wrote i instantly deleted after getting one negative comment, i think one piece is more where i cut my teeth

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

i dont really know? ive gotten into a couple of new things recently but they havent triggered my "oh i gotta write something" reaction

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i dunno man i dont like my work very much right now heres an image if u read all of this

#thanks 4 the tag #long post

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everybodyshusband · 1 year ago

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About the fic ask thing:

All your work is amazing and I love reading anything you post.

The last thing on your "husband writes" tag (doesn't have a name, it's regressed rain trying to hide his regression from dew) is so interesting to me. (full disclosure English is not my first language and I'm taking about stuff in unfamiliar with so I'm sorry if I say something wrong) First of all it's so we'll written it really takes me into Rain's head. I love your style of writing so much because everything is always so nicely written. This fic also feels que insightful into something that I don't experience and I love reading stuff that I'm not personally familiar with. Like I spent the whole time trying to figure out what rain wanted exactly and I'm not sure I got it but I've still come back to read it several times. I understand he did want comfort but there's a part where I just struggle to understand if he does want dew to discuss "grown-up stuff" when he is little or not (I think this might just be because I'm not a native English speaker). Idk if this makes sense, I guess in general any extra info you are willing to share about that fic I would love bc i genuinely like it so much. But I read it was kind of a vent fic so I would understand if you didn't want to expand on it. I will try to educate myself on regression tbh bc I'm not very knowledgeable and maybe that would answer my questions, so I won't really bother you with any specific ones. Just if you have anything else you'd like to share regarding that fic.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this, and I'm sorry rambled on for so long!

I hope you have a nice day 💖

i'm going to skip over your lovely, wonderful compliments, my dear anon, not because i don't appreciate them, but purely because i don't know how to respond without getting all mushy and aragrhhrg <3

in terms of the part you don't quite understand, that's not a problem with your english at all !! i tried to write it in a way that wouldn't really make sense :0 in my mind, rain gets frustrated when he's regressed because even though he's lived through so many experiences, the other ghouls won't talk to him about half of them when he's little (simply because the nature of these experiences could be distressing to him, even if rain doesn't think so). part of him knows that talking about it will make him feel worse, but with the mentality that he's in, he doesn't care, and sees their unwillingness to talk to him about certain issues as a way to channel their dislike of him, rather than them trying to help him be more comfortable. ...i hope that helped it make a little bit more sense ?

more under the cut because this got a little bit long :0

in terms of general ramblings about that fic (anon, please know i love you for enabling me to do this) i have so much to say but so little words to phrase my thoughts in the way i want to :0 i think the main thing i want to ramble about is rain's tendency for negative thoughts while he's regressed. i won't go into the specifics because i don't want to have to put any trigger warnings on your lovely ask, but in the scenario he was in in the fic you're referring to, he was regressing involuntarily.

something happened before the start of the fic that caused rain's mentality to slip into something even more awful than usual, and so his brain made the executive decision to shove him into a regressed headspace in order to keep him safe. the only problem with this is that when this happens, rain doesn't magically feel better; he feels just as awful as he did when he wasn't regressed, but the chances of him acting on those dangerous thoughts are lowered (although i definitely do want to write a fic/ficlet about rain doing exactly that one day, but that's a ramble for another time, haha !!) he so badly wants dew's comfort, but he can't manage to convince himself that he deserves it, and he's certain that any time dew spends with him is time wasted :(

i think that's about it for general rambling that i can think of for the moment, but i could ramble on about this fic (and any of my others too, to be honest) for days and days ! so please please please bother me with specific questions if you'd like to, haha !! i love answering them, even if it takes me a while. (and don't you dare apologise for coming into my inbox and sending me an ask that has made me smile every single day since you sent it >:0 thank you, my dear <;3)

fic ask game :>

#i am so ARERHGHNGHTNGNGHGTNTHNHTHRGFDB <3 KDJSBFDKSJFBEKGJKDSHHGNGNHGN <3 <3 KSBFKDSFDJSHDK about this ask do you understand #anon you're so lovely thank you thank you thank you <3 #ask box #husband rambles #🐝 anon

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imthehero-of-this-story · 1 year ago

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I'm sitting at work and I had a fellow actor text me and ask me how my experience was doing Shakespeare for the first time. And it gave me pause because...it was indescribable???

I always assumed doing Shakespeare as an actor would be so difficult and it was but I severely underestimated myself. I threw myself into this because I wanted to be in this show so badly. A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first Shakespeare show I wanted to do because it's my favorite, almost every member of my family has been in it and also I knew I wanted to be Hermia. I wanted that part so so badly I almost let myself not believe I would ever get it.

When the director called to offer me the role (which, he did and I got so excited I fumbled my phone and hung up on him) he said that I "gave the best reading for both Hermia and Helena" and it was "the most difficult choice of the casting process to decide which part to give you" and ultimately they gave me Hermia and like...I'm sure everyone who plays Hermia feels this way but the line "Though she be but little she is fierce" just really describes me? And to play a character who stands up for what she loves, who loves her friends and boyfriend so deeply, who's not afraid to fight for what she loves, there's something so deeply cathartic when it comes to that.

To play a character that I felt so deeply, that has such a rich history and has been around for a hundred years to put my own mark on it is, indescribable. I feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself.

And maybe part of it comes from getting compliments from a ton of people saying I "made Shakespeare understandable" that I was "a natural at Shakespeare" and getting praise from people who STUDIED this and got advanced degrees in it is...there's no words for it.

To know that my work paid off, to know that I was able to leave an impression on people, to know that maybe I am good at this, I am talented at this, I've checked out so many more Shakespeare plays from the library to read and immerse myself in because god I get it know. I understand it and every single Shakespeare play I can be in, I want to be part of.

There's also the cast. The bonds we made, the fact that I've worked with so many of these people before. The people I haven't worked with the fact that we bonded almost instantly. That I've made lifelong friends with some of the people. The fact that I have a COMMUNITY.

This time last year I was standing on the edge of a pier contemplating if it would be worth it for me to continue living. And now? I have a support network, I have people in my corner, I have something that is truly so special to me. Something that lets me create, something that lets me follow my dreams, that lets me do what I truly want to do, that lets me make bonds with people who I genuinely love and respect. I just feel so extremely lucky for this experience and the people I've been able to meet and hang out with. I love them so much.

I just feel so so grateful I stuck around to see how good things can be. Are things perfect? Not yet, but I feel like I'm finally starting to truly build the life that I wanted, not the life that everyone else thought I should lead. And that's huge.

#Hero has a story #personal

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situationandmetropolitan · 2 months ago

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About False Synchronicities

This week, let's take a trip down the memory lane.

My friend had asked me to travel with her to a nearby city for her tattoo appointment. With nothing better to do with my life, I gladly went along. What was scheduled as a 3-hour appointment has extended and extended, and extended some more to a 9 hour process. Thank god I brought a new book with me or else I'd either die of boredom or went blind with mindless scrolling on my phone. It was 1:30am already when her immaculate new floral tattoo had finished, cognizant of the time and us two girls traveling in a new city alone, the tattoo artist kindly offered us a ride to the coach station.

He drove a dark blue tesla, and put his Spotify on shuffle. His music taste could be described as basic urban straight man. Exhausted as I was, my mind was slowly drifting away to dreamland, and that's when Starboy by The Weeknd came up the stereo. For reasons I couldn't explain, it woke me up with a sudden stream of memory of this guy I once dated, and whom I haven't thought of in a long while.

Let's call him, Mr Suitcase.

Like any modern day big city dating stories, Mr Suitcase and I matched on a dating app. We exchanged numbers shortly after and he started to text me on WhatsApp. He had tried to arrange a date on the first weekend, but I was busy, so it didn't happen. He then tried again a week later, I was caught up with work, so I had to politely decline yet again. Week three, the same thing. I thought he might, as many man I have encountered would if in the same situation, just forget about me and move on. But he didn't. Week four, I finally said yes to a Sunday night date.

At that time, I had already started seeing another guy, whom I for sure will write about in the future, so I was expecting this to be a throwaway date, and I'm only going because I applaud his persistence.

When I arrived at the rooftop of the cafe, I was taken by surprise by how gorgeous he looks, partly because I had completely forgotten what he looked like in his dating profile. His curly dark hair voluminous, his skin smooth and radiant, his eyes deep blue with slight sparkles from the reflection of the fairy lights on the rooftop, and his cardigan cream and extra cosy, he gleamed with warmth. "What can I get you for drinks?" He asked. Without a menu at hand, I panicked and went with the most basic drink choice that popped in my head, "Gin and tonic, please. Thanks!"

Moments later, he returned with two drinks in his hands. One liquor glass with fizzy transparent liquid barely covering the ice cube, adorned with a quarter slice of a lime; another hidden in a paper coffee cup, which felt out of place for a first date past 8pm. "What have you got there?" I asked. To my utter surprise, he responded with genuine wholesomeness, "Hot chocolate."

That opened my line of questioning. Mr. Suitcase was the first finance guy I voluntarily went on a date with, ever. I realized way too late the harsh truth that in this city that's thriving on finance industry, if I were to stick to my golden dating rule of no finance bros, I would've had virtually no one left to date. His hot chocolate went against every finance bro stereotypes that I have chose to avoid till then, which intrigued me. He said he doesn't drink at all outside of work, he doesn't enjoy drinking, he do it too much for work, so on his own, he would choose to stay away. I was skeptical, and till this day I don't know how much truth is there to it.

He was quite a chatter, the conversation went super smoothly, he asked me plenty about myself as well, which was a pleasant surprise. He had this undeniable confidence and comfort, to the extent that at one point he grabbed my hand to compliment my rings. However it caught me by so much surprise that I don't know if he's flirting, or was just being comfortable.

Just as I was enjoying our conversation and trying to get to know him better, he abruptly said "Right, I won't keep you any longer, shall we head out?" It was phrased as a question but the tone left me no room to say no. As we were walking downstairs, I checked my phone, 9:02pm, I was 2 minutes late to the date, the entire evening was timed 1 hour on the dot. I thought it was nothing more than a coincidence, without knowing at that time, that this should become our norm.

He gently hugged me goodbye. A notification showed up on my WhatsApp before I even made my way acrossed the street. "Hey thanks for coming out tonight, I kinda like you :)". Which brought a smile to my face, and I texted back, "Thank you for the positive feedback for our interview." as a joke.

We went out again the following weekend. Same bar, same terrace, same seat, same drinks. This time however he came straight after work, with his dark navy suit that accentuated his well maintained figure, and the color brought out the blue shine in his eyes even more. I've always had a weakness for beauty and optics, and his suits tickled something in me.

"We could make this our regular you know, every Sunday, you, me, some gin and tonic and hot chocolate." He said with a bright smile. However I had my skepticism. This was only our second date, we know a lot about each other only on the surface level. I don't know if it's my past or insecurity projecting, or my gut feeling protecting me, this type of familiarity talk raised a red flag, which of course I ignored because his face and suits made me to.

And again, as I was checking my phone making my way back home after we hugged goodnight, I realized this date was also 1 hour on the dot. Red flag, ignored again.

We went on one other date in the coming weeks before Christmas. My friend bailed on me, so I asked him if he'd like to join me to watch some horse racing.

At the race course, he was wearing the same cream cardigan as he did for our first date. That day he showed me more about him, his love for nature, animals, and animal conservation work. He told me he would like to be a naturalist if he weren't in finance. It hit a soft spot in my heart and I truly started to see him a little differently outside of the cardboard cutout finance bro.

Everyone was betting on horses, so was I, but not him. I tried to peer pressure him into having some harmless fun, but he insisted not to, even after I won a staggering 2 dollars. The minimum bet could barely buy you a bottle of water in this city, so it's certainly not about money. No alcohol, no harmless gambling, who is this finance guy?

Our third date had finally lasted longer than 1 hour on the dot. At one point I noticed his hair was slightly messy which I ran my finger through and adjusted for him. Even then, he didn't once tried to kiss me. "I'm trying to taking it slow." he told me. "I'm ok with slow." and for once I was.

He flirted through texts with me everyday, not too little, not too much, just comfortably at an arms length, before he left the city to go home to South Africa for Christmas, he even sent me selfies of him on the plane. This inconsistency had me convinced that he actually liked me.

The reason why The Weeknd reminded me of Mr Suitcase was, one night when we were texting, he was back in his hometown, out of the blue, he sent me a song on Spotify - Moth to a Flame by The Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd.

In retrospect I think it stuck with me because a. guilt. During that time I was also dating this other guy, whom I for sure will write about some time in the future, but I was certain Mr Suitcase couldn't have known given our pattern and level of involvement. So I wasn't sure whether he was trying to say something through the song, or he just likes the song so much that he wanted to share. And b. confusion. He couldn't have been jealous could he? We've seen each other merely 3 times in the spam of 6 weeks since we first met, added total less than 4 hours, during which we had never shared any physical intimacy. Either way, ever since that exchange, I, someone who barely listens to any The Weeknd song that doesn't have an Ariana Grande feature, have somehow subconsciously and unintentionally started to associate The Weeknd with Mr Suitcase.

During his holiday away, he had showed me his family porch, his dog, and his Christmas pajamas. I had showed him the red panda I barely saw during my trip to Ocean Park, my bunny ear for my Disneyland trip, and my cat sitting with me while I played Spider-Man 2 on PS5. "Oh you can't be playing that surely." He texted. Sometimes I forgot he was several years older than me. "Why not it's one of my hobbies." I replied, taking slight offense.

We had another terrace gin and tonic and hot chocolate date after he got back to town. During the date he sharply noticed my new necklace. "Who got you this necklace I'll kill him." He asked, jokingly, I think. "Oh c'mon why such aggression?" I replied, shamefully feeling a little bit validated by his possessiveness, "Also why did you just assume someone else got it for me? I bought it myself as a 21st independent woman thank you very much." "It's real diamond and gold! How much money do you actually make?" He laughed in awe. "Definitely not as much as you." I gave him a side eye.

I went in this date thinking, surely he's gonna try to kiss me this time. And that expectation built up exponentially after his flirty banter. But to my disappointment, he didn't.

In the following weeks, he would text me almost daily, but never setting up any dates, however he did mention he was really busy with work and had sent me some work selfies wearing glasses, which I've never seen before, and so happens to be another one of my weakness. I grew slightly agitated. Patience has never been my strong suit and my obsession had somehow made kissing that man a mission to accomplish, and my long trip to the UK was coming up shortly, time was ticking.

So one weekend, I decided to ask him out. He agreed but instead of going out, he proposed to have me over for dinner and Netflix, which, as a 30 something year old woman, the implication was loud and clear. I had put some thoughts into what to wear. "Just a heads up, I am literally living out of a suitcase, so my place is not cozy at all." He told me. So I went with a casual T-Shirt and jeans for comfort, and matching lingerie underneath, for just in case.

He didn't come downstairs to pick me up, red flag. However just as the pattern goes, I quickly brushed it off when I saw him waiting for me at his door in a half sheer white t-shirt emphasizing his sculpturesque figure, hair still wet from shower.

He wasn't exaggerating when he said he was living out of a suitcase. The apartment, which he had told me he was borrowing from a friend, would be a normal family-sized in any other city, but in this one of the most expensive cities in the world, it was luxuriously spacious, and, empty. The two piece suits that once struck my heartstring were laid on the table, unremarkable, his cardigan dangling from the back of the chair, stiff. There's no cushions on the sofa, no tv, no rug, nothing of any level of coziness. The apartment was bare aside from the absolute essential and built-in furnitures.

We ordered take-out sushi and ate at the dinner table, sitting next to his suits. No music. Red flag.

Afterwards, he invited me back to his bedroom. "I'm not suggesting anything, just there's nothing in the living room, so I normally just hang in my bedroom." He ensured me. I followed. The bedroom is consistent with the style of the living room - bare minimum. White sheets, white duvet, two of the saddest pillows I've ever seen in my life, soggy, flat, and of different shapes that clearly don't match. I stood in the room awkwardly as he sat in his bed. I was, and still am, quite aware it's not respectful and sanitary to sit in someone's bed in your jeans, however I also didn't feel comfortable taking off my jeans without any alternative. Mr. Suitcase seemed to have caught my thoughts, "Well I did tell you to wear something comfortable, but come on, you can wear your jeans it's alright, get comfortable."

He didn't have a laptop so we browsed Netflix on his iPad. It was unconventional, unromantic, slightly awkward, but I didn't mind that much. Because I came with one mission and one mission only, to know what he tastes like.

His Netflix history was as predictable as it gets for a finance bro - Suits, The Wolf of Wall Street, and American Psycho. But to my insistence, we put on The Bold Type.

He seemed off the entire time. Jittery, on edge, unsettled. One moment he was putting his arm around me, next moment he was holding my hands, the next he tried to hold my thighs. As if he couldn't decide on a comfortable position and trying new placement every 20 seconds, which would be understandable if it didn't went on for 20 minutes. Any other self-respecting woman would've left right then and there, lucky for him, I am not that type. Instead it triggered my I-can-fix-him complex. "Are you ok?" I asked, "Did you take something? You can tell me you know." "Nah," he brushed it off, "I'm just under a lot of stress at work recently, and the adrenaline is still rushing through me." I was on the fence. But instead of drilling him, I gently put my hand on his head, gently stroking my fingers across his forehead and through his hair. "This feels nice." He said. "I know, I'm trying to calm you down," I said, "I'm nice like that." He then suddenly turned around, arms around me, hands in my hair, pressured his lips onto mine.

I remember thinking, no, this is not supposed to be like this. It felt abrupt, distant, pragmatic. There's no romance, no spark, no butterflies, nothing like what I expected, not at all. However I still went with it, put on my best performance, encouraged the kiss to go further and further. Then he stopped. His jitter didn't go away just because we were making out. He continued to twist and turn every 20 seconds, kissing me, dropping me, stroking my face, kissing me again, turned away again, stroke my hair and call me "petal", kissing me again, grabbing my ass, dropping it, turning away again. I was confused the entire time, not knowing what he wanted. The code that's supposed to be as clear as "Dinner and netflix at mine" couldn't be any more complicated. Perhaps for the first time in the history of online dating, this man genuinely meant "Dinner and netflix at mine" when he said "Dinner and netflix at mine".

10 pm, his bed time. Without taking things any further, he called me an Uber, walked me downstairs, gave me a cuddle and a kiss, and bid me goodnight.

And that was the last time I ever saw him.

After I left that day, I naively categorized that as maybe he was just having a weird day. So as I arrived home, I bought him a blessed red string bracelet online (It was the year of his zodiac sign and it was Chinese tradition to wear red string bracelet to fend of any bad spirits on your animal year, and he always wears a handful of handmade bracelets of different meanings). We tried to arrange another date at my place before I left for my UK trip, but he was too busy to make it.

The text frequency had fell off noticeably when I was in the UK, though still very flirtatious. When I arrived at Brighton from London, he asked me to show him around. I sent him a video of the gorgeous Brighton beach sunset, with murmur of birds swirling against the golden lights of sun, to which he never replied. Few days later I checked in on him, and to my surprise, but not really, because I felt it in my gut something was off, he told me he had gone back to his ex girlfriend. I wished him well and we left it at that.

I never felt sad or heartbroken, or even shed a tear for him. I barely knew him and never quite understood him. So I just put our chat in the archive, and moved on. Until last week.

I had just started to watch this HBO show called Industry, the main characters have the same job as Mr. Suitcase. I didn't think much of it at that moment. Days later, in my friend's tattoo artist's car, The Weeknd suddenly came up on radio, that moment, I thought of him. A day after that, my friend asked me what do I want for our dinner date, I went on Google map, and the first dot that I clicked on, was a South African Restaurant. It can't be, I thought, is the universe sending me a sign? Days later, I was going on a book reading brunch date with another friend. Where did she suggest? That cafe, with the terrace, gin and tonic, and hot chocolate.

This isn't happening. I thought. In the spam of a week, the amount of cues that specifically reminding me of Mr. Suitcase has been staggering. Do you know that feeling when even though practically you and the other person are fully done, but deep down in your guts, somehow, against all logic and reason, you just feel like it's not finished, not completely. The synchronicities had me convinced that whatever I felt was still there was not just my imagination. A few months ago I dreamed of him being my boyfriend out of no where. I never got rid of the red string bracelet I bought for him. The show, the songs, the restaurant, the cafe, they're all so specifically him.

So I was sure, this weekend, on my book reading date with my friend, I was going to run into him, we were going to reconcile, rekindle, reconnect. But of course, I was delusional, and wrong. Or else the title wouldn't be called "false synchronicities".

We sat downstairs in the cafe for brunch, then moved up to the terrace I was so familiar with for more coffee. Four hours of us being there, until it started pouring down, no sign of him, not at all. Of course not. Why would he be there? Because I listened to too much Invisible Strings by Taylor Swift? Because my brain is wired to draw false connections? Because somehow for some unknown reason I haven't fully let him go? Because I've mistaken my frustration of an unaccomplished mission to gut feeling of affection?

The universe is chaotic, unplanned, unconscious. The signs we see are just reflections of our state of mind deep down. It has nothing to do with the universe, the grand scheme of things, the other person. It never did. A thing is just a thing, nothing more, nothing less.

One day I'll be able to listen to The Weeknd without automatically thinking of the confusing Mr. Suitcase. Even though I don't think today is that day.

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realfactsnlogic · 6 months ago

Text

In which I write this because this post is *genuinely* not good for Twitter’s word count…let alone Twitter itself

‪I saw a post about a trans woman sharing her thoughts about the doomposting by newly out or closeted trans women who tend to start off being insecure about passing and essentially hinge on the perceptions of strangers.

Me, not realizing I am a trans man commenting on a trans woman, I shared my thoughts, agreeing with what she said in her thread.

Someone saw my comment and said that while the fact that I’m a man commenting on a woman’s post was initially irritating, he checked my profile and saw that I’m like a parallel universe version of him.

At first, I didn’t know what to say. It felt like a compliment. Not backhanded, but not the superficial, hugboxing, ego-boosting kind either. It just felt “good.” Now that I’ve typed this out, I’m thinking…holy moly am I a masochist getting off to this kind of thing?

Digression aside, I get this logic. Trans men are men, and trans women are women, right? (Spoilers: yes, that is true, and nobody will change my mind on that.) I saw a tweet going around one time that said “trans men are the Men of this community” — of course some of the trans guys I’d see on the For You TL got upset about this, maybe some trans girls too. But despite being a chronic grass toucher due to my job, I somehow had a basic grasp the reasoning behind the belief.

The reasoning, in short terms: men suck. Especially of the white, cisgender, heterosexual kind. Or even any of those combinations of the three. So yes, I get it. I get the so-called “man hatred” online. I talk with feminists IRL, and call myself one, for the sake of all that’s holy. Of course I’d know what the patriarchy does to an mf.

I may be a man now, but as I settle into my 20’s, I’m still getting used to This Whole Being a Man Thing — I’m new to this concept about being perceived as…well, a man. To be a little bit more personal, I can be considered a “trans kid” or “trans youth” considering I came out when I was 13, but that can entail being raised in a pretty patriarchal environment. Still, my backstory doesn’t excuse the fact that I *do* hold privilege. *Acquired* male privilege, as I like to call it.

While trans men can be oppressed for being assigned female at birth (misogyny), oppressed on the basis of being trans (transphobia), we’re still men at the end of the day. And men (can) suck.

I really don’t want to bring race to this conversation, but if we’re gonna get intersectional: I an Asian trans man, was commenting on a white trans woman’s post. I’ll put the race thing on the table. Both of us have went through gender affirming medical care.

So when it comes to this thing about gender—this reinvented Gender War between trans girls and trans guys and non binary people — what takes precedence? I wish I had the answer aside from wanting everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbayah.

Maybe I should make my own thread one day, but I want my status being an open secret kind of thing. It’s being “Stealth Lite”.‬ My trans status should be known on a case by case basis. I consciously chose this, even if it was slightly motivated by fear of being mistreated for being trans. Yeah, that’s my passing privilege showing, but hey. I’m doing my best to use it to defend the people who lack it.

To any trans guy who finds this: fellas, i know it’s tough that people are realizing that “trans men are men. and since men suck, we should be including them” or whatever. I get it. It does hurt our egos when “trans men are men” is a phrase being used to mock the shitty nature of many (cis and mainly hetero) men. But we’re men, right? We straighten up, stiffen our upper lips and move on.

I know that last sentence is problematic. And to clarify, I don’t mean it sarcastically. But I hope you can understand what I meant to say.

To put it bluntly while also softening my “tough love” language: a lot of men, especially the cis and mainly hetero ones, tend to have fragile egos. This is especially applied to the trans men I’ve seen who have lived as men since they were in their teens.

When we see the complaints by trans women online, especially those of colour, and especially if you’re a white trans man reading those tweets—listen. Don’t get defensive. Learn something from your trans sisters.

i certainly will, and will continue to do so. check your privilege, including the ones you’ve acquired.

everyone has to. even me.

*drops the mic*

#morning ramblings

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weapon-ish · 9 months ago

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alright long long sappy weird post incoming abt my own personal story of being an ao3 author with a "sorry i haven't updated in a while! [some of the wildest shit you've ever heard] haha i should be back at it more regularly soon though! thanks for your patience!"

for context i last posted a fanfic, my first and only one i published, TEN YEARS AGO. like almost ten years and one month to the day. i was fourteen?! and it was well received and boosted my confidence a lot - several writers i really admired complimented me, and a few artists even made fanart of it (and ALL the art was amazing!!!!!!!!!) it absolutely blew my mind. like, people were so freaking nice to me about my very first published fanwork, and it really really meant a lot to me then and still does now, that people cared enough about something i made to make something in response.

but also it made me nervous to put out anything else. i had other stuff i'd already written, and i had more ideas. but what if i just got lucky the first time? or the semi-sequel i was planning just didn't live up to the first one? all kinds of stuff that i think is probably really really normal for people to feel about Sharing Their Work. but i was very in my head about the whole thing. if i couldn't do it just as good or better the next time, i didn't want to do it At All.

and unfortunately, in the most typical fashion for an ao3 author, i had a life-altering medical emergency almost immediately after publishing. i had been sick for a while, trying to hide it. but it turns out i was, like, dying sick. like "i'm now permanently disabled" sick. and i'm okay enough now, but. life got significantly harder after that. many days i barely had the energy to watch television from my bed, much less sit at my desk and actually Write Something. my brain was fried and scrambled. my body was wrecked. i was deeply traumatized by my experiences.

(i will never, ever forget the kindness of one of my favorite fanartists; she drew me a card with my favorite characters holding balloons that spelled out "get well soon!" i didn't cry much in the hospital, but i cried a lot about that. i looked at it every day that i could physically operate my phone. i still have it saved. she sent it the first week i was in and i looked at it as much as i could for the next month i was there.)

for about a year, i didn't leave my house except for medical appointments, or maybe to visit my brother, and those visits were mostly just us sitting on the couch and watching things together. even that was hard, i'd fall asleep. but he was good to me.

and even when i got a little better, i still couldn't really leave the house, i could just sit at my computer. but i started making friends on the internet, actual good friends, people with similar experiences and interests. and when i was sixteen, after i finally got another surgery i really needed, i went on my first trip in years to visit an internet friend. i flew to another state by myself to meet a person i met on tumblr. crazy, right? but it was awesome. we're still dear friends. and a little later, another friend rode a bus halfway across the country to stay a week with me over a school break - and they were amazing. i met both those friends again, i even saw one of them last year, we still love each other so much.

having my brother and those internet friends genuinely gave me will to live. they saw what i was going through, and loved me relentlessly through it. they were completely understanding and accepting of my disability, even the objectively gross parts of it, and never made me feel bad for it. they showed me that my life, while radically altered, was not anywhere near over - that i could be disabled and also extremely happy. i didn't know that. in that hospital, i was so close to being entirely hopeless about anything ever being good again. on that airplane, at that bus station, i was so full of excitement and elation to be living. even when we weren't together, there was promise for more chances to see each other. even if i was tired, or in extreme pain, or nervous, i had love. so much love.

but i still lost a lot. head still scrambled, brain fog constant. i fell out of touch with creative writing, which was something i had loved since i was a small child. i mean, how do you write when it's hard to even read? i was a voracious reader as a kid, but not so much After. i say After because even though it all happened when i was just fourteen, i felt like i lost any chance to be a kid. like i lost a massive part of who i was, because i was used to who i was being what i could do, and i suddenly couldn't do those things. not the same way.

i was afraid to even try anymore. my skills had degraded and the prospect of having to truly work at what was once so easy, so natural to me - it seemed absolutely insurmountable. chatting about headcanons, sure, easy-ish! stream of consciousness. writing? actually writing things to show people? much harder. i even wrote my diaries in cryptic ways, strange fonts and multiple things overlaid in different colors, just to make sure nobody could judge the quality of - of my writing to myself.

and then, yknow, other life things happened. trying to graduate. getting a job and working myself to death to impress people (who did not care in the slightest about how hard i tried, and tossed me away like trash for being disabled.) the death of a very important person in my life. moving out. a string of questionable relationships and one actually really really bad one. trying to recover any of my sanity or self esteem after being abused by someone i trusted. bouncing between housing situations and sleeping in my car. finding love! the real deal! surviving the first half-year of the pandemic as an immunocompromised person with six roommates all working service jobs. multiple other devastating deaths. yknow, like? other insane shit? just really truly bonkers shit?

and in the last two or three years, i've gotten a chance to... relax. slow down. i live with just my wife now, in a decently sized place. i repaired my relationship with my parents. i have a polycule of extremely wonderful people, and really incredible friends. i'm not afraid of my partners. i'm respected by the people in my life. i'm allowed and encouraged to like things, to really like things, to not be ashamed of being autistic and having special interests. i'm encouraged to be creative in any form i want to try. my physical health isn't great, but it's stable. i'm stable.

and i decided... i wanted to write again. to try. even if it wasn't easy like it used to be. even if it wasn't "as good" as something i did ten years ago, nearly half my life ago. even if nobody cared except my friends. to just do it because i have thoughts, and feelings, and they're bouncing around inside my heart and my brain and my soul and i want to let them out! i want to share. i've decided that i do not have to be afraid of sharing.

and, like, is that kind of a silly point to come to? that i lived through hell and now... want to be unashamed to write and post fanfiction? maybe, i don't know, maybe a little bit.

but also, it's been almost exactly a decade since i got my shit wrecked by my own biology. i wrote and shared that first fanfic while i was trying to hide an extreme illness from my family - i had been getting sicker for months, and i didn't know why. but i didn't want help. i was deeply convinced it was better to die slowly than inconvenience anyone.

i wrote and published a silly fic to distract myself from something horrifying that was happening to me. and few weeks later - shit well and truly hit the fan, and i did die multiple times, and then i got to live with the consequences of not asking for help when i needed it. (and the consequences of medical malpractice! that's a big one too. not everything was on me. like, definitely some of it, but not all of it.)

and now i'm, like, pretty happy with my life. i have so much good all around me. i actually want to live, i have plans for my future, i have goals. and. i have the kindness to just. let myself enjoy things, process things creatively, think more kindly about my own work. be less hypercritical of myself and less fearful of judgement. so. i want to write? about things that interest me? not to distract from something awful, but purely as an expression of something inside me that wants to connect to the outside world. as a means to get back to everything i (intentionally or unintentionally) cut myself off from. it seems right.

in conclusion. earlier today i posted my first real live actual fanfiction in over ten years. and that's on the spiritual healing powers of being gay & transgender

#personal

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diamonddstudded · 10 months ago

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Hi I would really appreciate it if you could give me your input/thoughts into the situation I’m in💕 so I’ve been talking to a guy Over a year long distance we met on bumble...from the start I told him my intentions was a relationship and he said he wanted the same and was very persistent with me from the very beginning (talking everyday, very complimentary of me constantly swiping up on all my stories I posted of myself) he seemed to be very interested. We were talking for months even prior to me going to see him (which I was already going there for my birthday with friends) so we finally meet I ended up going alone because my friend got sick and at that point I was just wanting to meet him. So I travel to see him take the plane and what bothered me was he didn’t take time off of work so majority of the time I was there I was alone in the hotel, we really didn’t do much because he was working and he also said he was broke he kept trying to hookup with me but we didn’t fully hookup ...so I met another guy that I ended up having fun with, he we went out to bar, got dinner with and went to the beach with. I was honestly really upset about the guy I was talking to for months because I went there for him....he found out that I met another guy he was mad at me and said “he couldn’t trust me, that I had to prove myself to him” I told him how I felt and why I did that and he seemed to think it wasn’t justified...so we talk more he expresses to me how he wants a relationship again making me think he’s really interested by how much attention, consistency and overall compliments he gives me. I go there again, we drink and hookup but he leaves me without any explanation later he gets back into communication with me (after blocking me) saying I was talking to him about another guy when I was drunk that’s why he left...at this point I’m really upset by the way I am being treated and it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I ask him if he has a girlfriend he denies it...I go there again months later and same thing we drink and hookup again but I don’t even remember it. I wake up and he’s gone again and he has me blocked...I finally get in contact with him while I’m there and he tells me how he saw my phone and saw I was talking to other men that’s why he left called me “dirty and a hoe” but I expressed to him that I didn’t know how it was going to go that’s why I was potentially going to meet another guy. I was blocked for the rest of the trip....I put so much time, energy and genuineness into it with him and he would constantly lie, flip it on me making it my fault when it was never my intention to hookup with him...so I don’t know why he would do this to me. I really don’t get it. We get in contact again like 2 weeks later when I get back from the flight and he again is expecting me to apologize to him, made me feel bad about it all he said we were supposed to do way more then he saw my phone...I was going to go there again but then I get a call and find out he’s had a girlfriend this whole time...I told her everything sent her over 30 screenshots of it all (which described it all, our conversations that talked about it all...) she was so calm saying “hes had his sides before he’s just immature” where I was very upset...and confused as to why she even reached out to me at all? She said they broke up but then months later contacted me again asking if I was still talking to him...and how he was talking to her. Anyway, he’s still stalking my profile everyday many times a day, still trying to see me while still with the girlfriend I don’t get why he would do this and continue to do it...he even called me pure after the first time meeting. He’s been reaching out to me asking me to come I asked him to call me because I said he’s being aloof, send him one word responses he goes “I’m sorry but maybe soon” but doesn’t...but expects me to come?? I know I shouldn’t be so hung up on it but I honestly put so much time, energy into it. We had countless conversations of me being so upset with him, telling him my intention and he would have me come

Hi, okay so this sounds kinda challenging for you.

Tbh this guy's behavior looks like a big redflag!! He appears inconsistent, disrespectful and very manipulative.

If I were in your situation I would just block him and cut off all contact.

I think you deserve a healthy relationship, please prioritize your own well-being.

And I’m sure that someone better will come your way!!

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dzpenumbra · 1 year ago

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8/19/23

Alright I'm just gonna start this by saying... I'm really not pleased with how Instagram works. I don't know if its the design of it (algorithms)... if it's the fact that I don't use the app to interact with other peoples' shit that often... or that others don't use it the way that I do? Or a combination of the three? I don't know. But I really... ugh... I'm tired of blaming myself for something that's clearly not my fault.

You can't fucking say something "isn't a career", and then even remotely insinuate that you are required to devote at least an hour or two a day to merely just browsing fucking social media and commenting and shit... when that isn't even in your fucking job description. I'm just venting because I put up not just one... but two posts today. And so far? 3 fucking likes. I doubt people have even seen it. And for those who did, it's just another thing for them to scroll past. My more impressive piece... somehow has just gone completely unnoticed because I posted it first... and has gotten zero interaction. My deer drawing on my pants. My realistic deer drawing done in fabric ink on my cargo shorts, that I'm really proud of. Zero interactions.

Here, I will show you exactly what Instagram has deemed is just... not fucking worth even looking at.

It's so deeply demoralizing to be just... completely unseen. For years. For over a decade. It fucking sucks. (I swear, if I hear "you just need to put yourself out there" one more fucking time...)

I truly have believed for so long that like... the mark of a true career artist is not their skill, it's their passion and their perseverance. It's their ability to endure, because what the fuck else are they going to do?!

I don't want to go too deep down a rabbit hole of existential dread here, because yeah... This is really the reason I struggle to regularly post on social media. It's really like having a small gallery showing and inviting all your friends, and fucking one person shows up, looks at one painting for 5 seconds, says "I like the colors" and then "I have to go pick up my kid, keep up the good work!" I'm under no delusions here that I'm not going to get paid for that. I'm not going to be able to pay my rent on that. And I won't be able to put out a solid body of work if I reserve my art time for a few hours on the weekend. This deer took a total of close to 10 hours in 3 sessions. So... what took 3 days here... would take 3 fucking weeks if I was working some side gig. Try keeping up with Instagram's algorithm demands at that motherfucking pace. The deer isn't even the whole fucking piece, this is just the start.

So... I'm a bit upset. Did you notice? XD I guess just kinda frustrated that like... I spent my whole life working and training and I got really fucking good at something... and I'm incredibly inspired! And I'm working myself to the bone! And I don't even need compensation to keep me productive, I don't even need reception to keep me productive, because my inspiration flow is external and continuous. I just need to keep my arms in shape so I can work for more than a handful of hours at a time without burning out my arms and fingers. It's deeply deeply painful to put this much time and dedication into something that is... so all-encompassing to my purpose on this planet... and to get so many fucking genuine compliments of awe-struck people completely baffled that I, myself, with my own hands, created that from nothing. Reactions that people can't fucking fake, so I know they're real, I know I have talent. And this... all of this... means absolutely nothing. Because I can't pay rent with compliments. And my rent is through the roof. And I'm not willing to sell my soul. And my process does not work by trying to second-hand decipher someone else's inspiration, it works through direct connection to something beyond me. My own inspiration. That process is all I know, it's what I have trained for over 15 years.

I know very well... that if I spend the majority of my time behind a fucking desk or a counter or a stove somewhere just trying to keep the lights on... my connection with my inspiration will wane... and I will get physically sick... and I will feel completely detached from myself, lost, aimless, purposeless. I will dissociate, I will go into crisis mode. Just like I always do, every time I ignore art.

I literally tried to stop myself from going down this rabbithole and then just swan-dove down it anyway. XD

Welp, good thing we live in a society that is driven by popularity and wealth rather than skill, passion and integrity. It really seems to be doing a lot of good for us...

Okay, I promise I'm done. I just needed to get that out. I really don't want to dwell on that because I had a good day today, despite it raining all day.

I've been super hungry today... I woke up 4 hours into my sleep cycle, downed a heaping bowl of raisin bran and went back to sleep for another 2 hours... and somehow woke up starving. Depression, maybe? Not sure. Maybe my dinner last night was just much lighter than I thought. I started the day full-on consumed by the idea of reaching out to the friend who Facebook messaged me 2 years ago, whose message I just discovered last night. The friend that I drove 12+ hours and crashed on her pullout couch on my first time meeting her in person, who I used to play minecraft with back then. She has an Instagram that I discovered a few years back and she does really well-made cosplay stuff. Yeah. She's art-inclined. She was in school for Engineering when I met her. I have no idea how she makes it work, but she does it. And... I hope I'm not selfish for thinking this... but reconnecting with her could really change my life... because we already have some form of established relationship, and she could possibly help me find a place to fit my skills that will actually help pay the bills. Or hell, maybe even she herself needs an assistant, who knows? At very least, its rekindling a friendship from a decade ago.

I messaged her. Instagram does the whole... message request thing, so I could only send one. I wanted to send her a picture of the pristinely preserved poster that she gave to me when I visited her in her apartment when she was in college, that has been sitting in my acoustic guitar case ever since she gave it to me probably over 10 years ago at this point. I thought that would be the fucking coolest way to announce who was contacting her. But... I felt like sending an image as a first contact... if it wasn't an image that's shown... to a woman... yeah... Didn't want to risk getting screened there. So... I announced myself the boring way, told her I just saw her FB message (without saying "sorry", proud of myself for that) and said "tag, you're it". Still waiting to hear back from her, but it's Friday night so... yeah.

The other thing I decided to do spur of the moment? Contact the "former friend" who commissioned the logo design from me. Finally. Just... sending the text that I had prepared. Just pushing the green send icon. To tell him I'm not the right guy for the job. And I'll tell ya, it was not unlike doing a shove it when I was skateboarding the other day. I even said audibly to myself, "just jump forward". The advice I give to myself to get myself to land it when I do shove its. (I also didn't say sorry in this message, which was tremendously difficult and a very big accomplishment for someone who deeply struggles with a fawning response.) I got a huge shot of adrenaline when I sent that message. I haven't felt one like that in a while. But I just put my phone away and immediately went over and started to heat up my clothing iron to heat-set the paint on my pants.

I heat-set both the jeans and the hoodie. It took like... a minute, each. I was just like... "why the fuck did I stress about this so much?" XD I hope I did the right heat, I tried to follow the labels on the clothes. I hope I did the right time, the paint said 30 seconds... and I did a minute or more just to play it safe. I honestly have no way to tell if it's heat-set, I guess I'll have to find out the hard way.

That's what prompted the Instagram posts. Because my skating jeans and my shorts are going to have to go in the wash. My jeans because they're getting kinda nasty from me sweating in them and I need them for skating. My shorts with the deer on them because I need to test just how permanent these paint markers really are... Yep, that deer was a fucking test run. That wasn't even a finished piece. Imagine what a finished piece would look like...

So... I decided it would be wise to take some pictures of what I've been up to the past few weeks and share them. I did the shorts first, got a really nice photoshoot of them. I wrote a really well thought out description and added about 10 hashtags... not that it really seems to make a fucking difference... it's super rare that hashtags get me any new attention. I posted, then did the jeans and repeated the process.

The rest of my night was yoga, showering, prepping homemade salsa - which was very short on tomatoes, and the habanero that I got was really mild for some reason... so it did not come out nearly as good as was hoping... - then cooking dinner, eating and... here I am. Yep, that was my day. I didn't even draw anything today, unfortunately. I did take the trash out, that was good. But I did not end up doing laundry. The night just got away from me with all the prep and cooking and all that.

This kinda brings me to something I've been wanting to do before I end this journal project, it's been running through my head all day. One story that I haven't told. My side, at least. I'm sure I've told bits of the side effects, the traumas caused. Visiting Facebook last night brought it back, and I just really want to get it off my chest to prove to myself that it's really not as bad as I think. The quote my therapist and many others have thrown my way, that I seem to perpetually forget and remember over and over - "you were doing the best you could with what you knew at the time."

I was listening to a Don Quixote audiobook while I was making dinner tonight. At least... I was trying to. All I managed to get through in my over an hour of cooking was basically the life story of Miguel de Cervantes; translators notes, I think it was? I knew nothing about this story other than its legendary satirical status, and the iconography of a flamboyant and... I guess stupid?... knight who fought a windmill thinking it was a dragon or something. Thus... why I wanted to actually absorb the actual tales, because culture is important and I wanted to actually know the actual stories, not just second or third-hand recaps. Welp, with my extremely limited knowledge of Don Quixote, this was my personal story that I equate in my memory to that.

It was summer 2019, as a lot of my traumatic experience stories tend to date to... I was smoking a lot of weed back then, for the first time in over 10 years. It started as a way to make getting off of Xanax easier, and to help with sleep, then it sorta became more of a spiritual and creative tool, and eventually it just became something I did regularly as though it was tobacco, because almost all of my tobacco was mixed with weed. I stopped buying weed from dispensaries because my brother wouldn't go on trips to pick up with me anymore, and I really felt weird leaving my dog in the car while I waited in line for up to an hour, it really didn't feel right... and I didn't want to leave her alone at home while I drove for like a 3 hour trip just to get weed. It was a whole thing. So I ended up buying this absolute dogshit gutter weed from a guy I used to go to high school with, who lived up the road. He... yeah, you can form your own judgements on him in the next "scene".

So... he came over to my house and smoked with me on my porch, he brought his small dog with him too. My dog and his met, it was fine and uneventful. His dog was getting old. We smoked and I got pretty high, and I am just flat-out not experienced at all with being high around other people, much less around people I don't entirely know or trust. It is not a muscle I have flexed, and I get really freaked out. Well... I started freaking out a bit. Mostly because he was sitting on my porch telling me... my "parents were right" and I should give up this art dream and go get a "real job". While he was day-drinking on my porch and smoking with me. And that just sent me immediately into surreal "you are not safe" mode. Which... guess what? Was a correct reaction! That was not a healthy situation for me to be in, with someone calling their self my "friend", and yet again... placing judgement over what I do with my entire life... my career... based on zero knowledge or even interest in what I do, or what I plan on doing. Ignorance. And siding with my parents, knowing absolutely nothing about them or their perspective... that was nothing short of foolish.

I somehow managed to handle that anxiety attack. I came back from it and did not spiral. I don't think he even goddamn noticed. The conversation just moved on. I don't know if I confronted him, I very very likely did not. What ended up happening not long after ended up snapping me out of it anyway. His small dog, a Toto kinda dog but greyish white, rolled over onto his side and started yelping uncontrollably and grinding his ear into the concrete slab floor of the back porch. I was so insanely overwhelmed, and the dude just got up and treated it completely normally, like this is a regular thing. And started talking about how his dog had ear problems and he had no idea what it was and it was really "annoying" and shit like that. I remember he was talking about pulling like... really long strings out of his dog's ears and not knowing what was going on. And I was like... dude, I'm really high, don't talk about this in that kind of detail... XD It was really freaking me out. Also, go to a vet!!!

He ended up leaving not long after, his dog somewhat recovered enough to go home peacefully. The thought of ears stuck with me. What caused that? What made it come on so suddenly and so severely? Could I help him by figuring this out?

I'm not sure if I was experiencing it before, but I definitely experienced it after that incident with that dude's dog - I was having my ears pop constantly that summer. I really couldn't figure out why. Maybe humidity and pressure changes? Maybe because I just started to be hyper-aware of my eardrums and kept just compulsively trying to pop them... like when you're really high and you suddenly become aware of your breathing, and you have to like... manually breathe... and you get afraid that you might have "forgotten" how to automatically breathe, and if you stop manually breathing you might asphyxiate... Honestly, it was probably just one of those things. But I started to become hyper-aware of that all the time. And the big one... the one that sent me down the rabbit hole... I saw my dog, my retired service dog, my co-pilot, rubbing her ears a lot, and rubbing them on the carpet. That set me off.

I was never taught how to groom or care for a dog. Because my family did not take good care of their dogs, and were too prideful to ask for help or instruction, or go to a groomer. They still are to this day, it truly pains me to see it. When my dog died, I gifted her grooming tools to my mom and actually took the time to like... give her a little clinic on how to use them right there, on her dog - not asking if she knew how to use them, just going straight into showing, so she didn't feel ashamed. But I was never taught how to clean my girl's ears. And she has been very prone to ear infections since a young age. I had to learn how to clean her ears on my own, which is fuckin spooky when you have a German Shepherd and she starts grunting like she doesn't want you in there anymore. And, I hate to say, but in my deeper stages of depression and... what the fuck is the term for when a counseling center misdiagnoses you and puts you on trial runs of medications for conditions you don't have for 2 years while you're in an unfathomably toxic relationship, do they have a word for that? Well... in my deeper stages of that... I didn't take good care of my dog. And she formed a blood clot in her ear from scratching at it. And she had to get surgery for it. The surgery left a big scar and left one of her iconic pointy German Shepherd ears floppy for the rest of her life. I... still haven't forgiven myself for that, even though it really isn't fully my fault. But man, it still... the guilt. Yeah.

So... seeing my baby... rubbing her ears again... And feeling my own ears popping in sync with it... And feeling this eerie, spooky feeling like I was in a haunted house or a horror movie or something... and not being able to see any visible wax buildup or anything in her ears... It was too much. Nothing was making sense and I needed answers. And I started connecting dots to this video I had watched not long before by the YouTuber Adam Neely, who does music theory videos, he's really good. He did a video on infrasound, which... maybe you've heard of something called a "mosquito alarm" or something to that effect, it's a machine that makes an extremely high pitched sound that only young people can hear to deter them from loitering (aka to hurt their ears or upset them so much that they won't stay there). Infrasound would be the other side of the spectrum. Infrasound is very low frequency sound that is sometimes used in movies or... get this... haunted houses... because it is often imperceptible in our conscious listening, but we still process the sound... and it tends to produce a feeling of unease, and induce anxiety. In my scientific mind... it ticked all the boxes. I could explain away my ears popping as anxiety or hypervigilance, I could explain away my surreal, horror movie feeling as anxiety, but I couldn't explain my dog's reactions, or the other dude's dog's reactions either. And this, felt like it could explain all of it.

I remember that day, I went out to the stream at the edge of my yard. I was making a Zen Garden in the stream, I would go out there every day. I would sort through the gravel for beautiful stones, and I would make different shaped pools, and contour the stream, and dam and dry flooded areas, and make waterfalls. I even got to the point where I started trying to control the pitch of the waterfalls by making small pools where the water fell into, and adding or removing stones to alter the pitch. Then I tried to get the waterfalls to either be in tune, or harmonize. It was a really fucking cool idea that I really want to revisit someday. Anyway, I went to the stream, and went out to the pond edge of it to just kinda chill and reflect before the sun went down, and I looked out over the pond and what did I see? The new windmill they put up, on the far side of the small neighborhood directly across the pond. Pointed directly at me and spinning.

My gears started turning... I went... wait... do those things make sound? I mean... it's gotta make sound, it's like a giant fan... Do those make... infrasound? Go Google it for yourself. They absolutely do.

I started going into science mode. "I need evidence". I can't fucking test it, by like... asking the dude to turn it off or something, see if my dog feels a difference... I ended up finding an app that claimed it could record infrasound. Still don't know if it's legit, but... I did it. I recorded samples from my porch and yep, that thing was definitely showing infrasound readings clear as day.

This is where my embarrassment starts. Where the shame stuff starts. And the big thing carved in my head from therapy environments because of how lifechanging it was for me: trauma = shame. Shame hits people with PTSD different, from what I've seen and experienced. And at that phase of my life, I was much more concerned with safety and moving life forward, rather than letting fear of Judgement or Shame rule my life. Well, Judgement and Shame had other plans, and what ensued still haunts me to this day.

I drove over to my parents' house... I think the next afternoon. I walked in and insisted to talk to my mom. She refused to talk to me and started getting visibly angry with me, started yelling at me. I had multiple articles bookmarked on my phone, I had the recording, she did not want to see fucking any of it. She got mad and told me to leave her house immediately. I still don't understand that reaction, it had to be panic or trauma or something, it just makes no fucking sense to me. You see your adult child really scared, but just looking for a second opinion on what they've found before actually believing this theory. And you get angry and refuse to listen or look at what they found, and tell them to leave your property. Hindsight? Kind of a red flag...

I, lifelong PTSD-ridden as I am, naturally blamed myself. Yes, me going to my family for a second opinion was "clearly" an act of aggression. Yes, me seeking support in a time of crisis was "clearly" an imposition on them. Yes, me showing up at the house I grew up in unannounced was "clearly" uncalled for and invasive. What was I thinking?! You can tell a bit about my history given that these sentences were not sarcastic in my head at the time, I only shook this cult-like brainwashing very recently, within the past few years. I still struggle with it.

Now I was on my own. But I needed to do something. And my dog and cat were still at home alone. And that windmill was still spinning. And I needed to figure out what to do, what was even happening. So... I... went home. I passed a neighbor's kid on the way into my driveway, he had gone fishing by my house before, I offered his mom to give him guitar lessons if he wanted but they never followed up. They were cousins of the guy whose dog freaked out with the ear thing on my porch. I told the kid about the sound and asked if their dogs had any problems with their ears too. The dog thing? I figured dogs were more sensitive to sound than humans... I don't know, I was grasping for straws. I didn't really get much out of that, but in hindsight... it must've been weird for the kid to be flagged down and talked to about windmills and sound waves and shit. This kinda "tinfoil hat vibes" stuff pre-Covid was kiiiiinda embarrassing. (I mean, it's still embarrassing, it's just more people are publicly doing it now and it's getting oddly normalized.)

I ended up calling my vet that was around the corner. I pleaded with them to just tell me if this was a thing that other dogs in the area were dealing with, if there was a pattern. They told me... HIPPA. They fucking HIPPA'd me about general info whether there was a pattern of dog ear problems in the neighborhood. And I got a bit upset about that, I was legit just trying to gather scientific data. Honestly, this entire time... all I fucking needed was someone to fucking talk to. Someone to just make sense of what was going on and try to find some kind of answer, because it's one thing for me to suffer... I'm not going to sit here and do fucking nothing while my girl suffers. She doesn't deserve that.

Sounds like I'm still there. I'm absolutely reliving this right now. So... that's what led me to... Facebook. The last place I could think of. None of my "friends" would talk to me, they already lost their shit on me and peaced out because I asked them to show their support of my art/streaming career in a time of need. I was well and truly isolated. And I really needed someone to help me get perspective, to help - and I say this dead serious, I was literally saying it verbatim the whole time - to help prove me wrong. I was begging literally anyone to prove me wrong. Help me find a narrative that makes more sense than this, that has more evidence than this. From the very beginning, I did not want the windmill theory to be the truth. Because that meant I had to fucking move, and I had no plan whatsoever. And I was still detoxing off of meds and shit, I was in no condition to be moving. But I wasn't about to just sit in that haunted-ass house and watch my dog suffer every fucking day if there was something I could do about it.

I got off of Facebook in 2016 - meaning... my account was inactive. My ex and I got back on FB and posted a tiny bit when our relationship was doing okay. I used to fish back then, so I'd post fishing pictures and pictures in my garden and all that. But that stopped very quickly with how toxic the relationship was, and I never went back. Welp... I went back. And I posted about the windmill. And I wrote the most honest case I had. That this was my theory, this was the evidence I had found, can someone please prove me wrong? I don't remember if it was that day, or a later point... but I can actually hear in my head the dude who sold me weed saying on the phone to me "you really need to delete that post man, people are gonna think you're nuts". Or something, like he was "looking out for me". Again, little seeds planted along the way. I swear his fucking voice is like the embodiment of my anxious and self-destructive thoughts, like a fucking demon, man. What a dick.

I remember my former best friend in middle school commented on it. The first time I had heard from him in years, and the last time since. He commented something level-headed about how he would look into it and get back to me, and he didn't. That one still haunts me. Like... I'd really like to reconnect with him now that I'm a much more... complete person. Now that I actually know who I am. But I'm just so worried that he's going to look at me like some delusional nutjob.

It is so fucking hard to type when you hear what sounds like a bluefin tuna flopping on the floor above you. Especially when it's a sensitive topic, and it's 2AM. It makes me physically jump. If it continues happening past 3, I'm 100% calling the on-calls.

Anyway. Yeah. I did go back and delete that FB post. Pretty quickly. And I never went back to Facebook. All of my social contacts accumulated throughout my life were left behind because of a panicked attempt to keep my adopted animal daughters safe, and just try to understand what was happening around me. That moment was... what I equate to my solo-pandemic. It was the same exact feeling for me as the beginning of the pandemic, except it wasn't happening to anyone else and everyone around me was being aggressive insensitive assholes and telling me it wasn't real and I was crazy.

That night... was very bad. I'm not sure if I deleted the post the next day or that night... but I spent a huge chunk of the night just pacing around my apartment. Good lord, it's all flooding back, that night was so fucking cinematic I can't even put it into words. It would honestly make a good comic strip or short animation or something. But it would honestly just look like a garbled dream or something, like... it would be too strange for fiction. It would make too little sense and be too unbelievable to be presented in that medium.

It was past midnight. I had made it several hours of not having anyone talk to me, but it was just spiraling, I was completely alone, I had nothing but silence and space to think. And my dog kept fucking rubbing her ears. And I just hit a breaking point and said "I need to find a place to stay tonight that isn't here, I can't subject us to this anymore." I saw it this way... If it was physically affecting me and my dog? We were away from it for one night to see if it made a difference. If it was in my head? At least we were in a safe place, with "supportive people".

I got my dog ready, I got a small bag packed with essentials. But... I couldn't bring my cat. I couldn't get her to go into her crate. And that... I mean... it was fucking horrible, man. I was on my knees in the living room crying next to the crate because I had to leave my cat behind. This panic just kept pressing harder and harder like the house was on fire and I was just subjecting my pets to essentially low-grade torture being in that home. And the more I thought about it, the more I inflated that narrative and it kept feeling bigger and bigger and more imminent and more urgent. In the past, I would have been too ashamed to talk to anyone about any part of it, and I would have distracted myself with TV or video games and just let my pets suffer. Like a sociopath. Out of fear, out of shame. I was trying to overcome that. To not let Fear rule my life. And somehow... I put the steering wheel right back into Fear's hands, quite literally.

I left my cat behind. I took my dog out to my car. It was probably around 1 or 2AM. We got out to the car and, I shit you not, there was a fucking possum between us and the car. Big guy, hissing and everything. And Cer shockingly didn't bark. She was just like "what the fuck is that thing..." And it took off, luckily. I was already committed. I got her in the car and started driving. It was foggy. I was calling people, trying to find a place to stay. There weren't a lot of numbers to call. There was the number of a nurse that I knew at the retreat the consoling center sent me to, she seemed nice enough to potentially offer me a roof over my head. But she lived almost 2 hours away. There was a guy I used to live with for a very short period of time in the city, we tried to join a band, but he wasn't answering.

I drove to the dude who sold me weed's house since it was just up the road. I sat in his driveway for like... 2 minutes? I don't know if I called him or not, but I ended up leaving without even knocking. He gave me hell for it the next day because he had to go to work the next morning. At a gas station. You know, priorities... It's not like the entire thing was caused by him freaking me the fuck out, telling me my parents were right, telling me I was going crazy and yelling at me while I was high.

Then I went the only place left in driving distance. My parents' house. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of options. My younger brother, who I thought I was close with, lived in their house at the time. He hadn't taken over the garage that I used to live in yet. I parked in the driveway and left my car running. I called my mom's cell. Nothing. I called the landline. I could hear it ringing from the car. Nothing. I called at least 3 times. Mind you, this is the house that I grew up in since I was 11. My former bedroom there was still unused and had a fucking bed in it that was prepared to be used (and never was used) as a guest room. I... honked my horn. That was enough for a light to finally go on in the house. In my brother's bedroom. I don't remember if I called him or if he called me, but we were on the phone shortly after. I told him it was me. He was very clearly angry. Very obviously angry. And he said "you better not wake up mom and dad, they're going to be furious with you." ... Like I was a teenager or something. And I told him very fucking clearly, very articulately - "I am deeply scared and feel unsafe right now. I don't know what is going on and I just need a place that feels safe for the night that is not my house. If what I am afraid of is real? I need a safe place to stay. If I'm just freaking out? I need a safe place to stay. Please let me and my dog stay here tonight." He refused to let me into my family's home. He refused to hear anything more I had to say. He told me I was crazy, I was freaking out, I'm scaring people and I need to go home. And he fucking hung up on me and turned his lights off.

All he had to do was unlock the door and go back to sleep, and I'd leave a note saying "I stayed the night in my old room because I was alone and detoxing off of meds and deeply scared, and I just needed a place that felt safe for the night. I will leave without disturbing any of you in the morning. Signed, your son." But no. He hung up on me. And told me to go fucking home and go to sleep.

I left. I drove. It was like probably 3AM at this point. I connected with the nurse person, she helped me calm down a little bit. She was blown away at how my brother treated me, and she wished me good luck in finding a place to crash. I surprisingly got another call back that I took. It was from the guy I lived with and was trying to join a band with back in the day. I remember vividly as I was driving back on the road that led to my house... the phone cut out and I lost service, and I saw a fucking shooting star moving super slow across the sky in front of and above my car, going north. It was huge. Another surreal moment, it felt like... you know in books the illustrations at the beginning of chapters? I felt like the possum was one, and the shooting star was the other. And it started to snap me out of it a bit. I remember thinking of how cool it would be to find a meteorite, or to make jewelry out of one, or just to polish one as a precious object.

I got service back when I got back by my house. It was kind of a... crossroads. The kid on the phone said I could go and talk to his dad. His dad lived 15-20 minutes up the road. I had never met him before. Despite how me and this kid had a big falling out years later, that was a really thoughtful thing to do. To call his dad who I found out later he did not get along with... to wake him up... to say "my friend is freaking out and just needs someone to talk to and help him calm down and feel safe". That should really be a more normal thing to do... Weird that the kid himself didn't offer that considering we were supposed to be friends and he was already on the phone with me... but, I'm sure he had his reasons. So... I said "fuck it". And I drove to his dad's house.

I got there, I pulled in the driveway. It was awkward as fuck. I had my dog with me. I introduced myself. We sat on his porch and I told him a super condensed version of where I was at. I'm having weird ear popping shit and surreal feelings. My dog having ear problems, my "friend's" dog was having what looked like similar but worse problems. I didn't want my dog to end up like that. I had a theory it was infrasound, and that it might be coming from the windmill. I took a recording, here's the data. He looked at my phone like it was in Japanese for like 5 seconds and faked interest, then handed it back to me. He said the results were nonsense, that it doesn't mean anything. ... I... don't really know how he came to that conclusion... but yeah. Probably just acting confident to make the situation end quicker. And he just echoed the same shit the others said to me, just... in a less aggressive tone and with slightly more of an appearance of compassion. That I was being paranoid and this isn't a problem with the windmill, it's all in my head, I just need to go get some sleep.

After the way I had been treated so far that night, that was the kindest anyone had been to me. To tell me that this physical evidence of at very least a contributing factor (maybe the infrasound wasn't even coming from the windmill, maybe it was another source, who knows?) was "nonsense", and without any other credible connection... I guess GG? And I just resigned. I had no explanation, somehow less evidence than I started, and no theory at all about what was going on with my dog. He proposed "allergies", because... he had allergies and there was a lot of pollen that year. And I guess it was good enough for me. We said our goodbyes and I got my tired and confused pup back into the car and we headed home as dawn broke. I remember very clearly the color of the sky and fog rolling over the fields as I drove back home. Daylight definitely eased the fear.

Yeah. That was... that was a very defining moment in my life. A very small moment that came from just... normal everyday interactions... and then my trauma was set off... and I tried to be responsible and smart and use science and logic to provide security, to assuage the panic, to seek answers rather than jump to conclusions. I still feel like this was absolutely the correct way of handing that situation, over 4 years later. Then... in response to my trauma being set off... my healthy methods of addressing those trauma responses were met with... trauma. I was yelled at, threatened, gaslit. That fucked me up in ways that... I really struggle to put into words. It was like... that summer? It was like fucking They Live or something. I keep using the term "Twilight Zone" because it's the franchise like this I'm most familiar with that is the most similar. That summer was legit like one gigantic Twilight Zone marathon. Where I just woke up and every person in my life was suddenly just saying shit to me that made my jaw hit the floor in disbelief. "I just told you I'm having a panic attack... and I just need a place to crash where I feel safe... and you're telling me... to get over it and go home?" Like... Those moments, and that many in quick succession... it fucking rattled me in ways I am just now recovering from. It went right past anxiety and panic responses. I was straight up in shock. I wasn't angry. I wasn't scared. I wasn't nervous. I was completely and utterly in disbelief. I struggled to process how it was really happening, whether it was actually reality. I was looking at the equivalent of some 3000 ft tall octopus god that materialized out of the fog and my mind just... couldn't process what was happening. It was just... still. In disbelief. Shock. I really don't know how to articulate that feeling clearly. It really did feel like... "Lovecraftian", like the kind of horror that your brain and body just can't really process at all. It just short-circuits your brain and you just kinda... almost go catatonic for a bit there. Then you need a forklift to get your fucking jaw off the floor.

So yeah, not long after that I was seeking sanctuary of any kind. I didn't give a fuck about the windmill after that. I discovered the real threat. The real danger. It was under my nose the whole time. It was the reaction to my fear. It was how others around me would react to my anxiety and my trauma responses. My anxiety was never the problem, me not expressing my anxiety outwardly my entire life - instead internalizing and suffering great mental distress, fucking up my entire life and permanently physically damaging my body - that was never the problem. It was a symptom. It was a symptom of an environment where it was not safe to express fear. Where expressing your anxieties without zealous conviction of them being absolute truths, rather being inquisitive and seeking support to form educated, informed decisions... was viewed as... delusion? Somehow? Or... a threat? I legit do not understand it at all. But I have verified this in spades over the years since.

So... yeah. On one hand... I would do anything to go back in time and just never connect the dots between that dude's dog's ears and my dog's ears... and connect that to my feeling of surreality in that house... and connect that to infrasound. But, on the other hand... that cinematic journey... was probably one of the most important catastrophes of my life. Because it illuminated exactly how unhealthy not just my family was, but the other people around me as well. How damaging that environment was for someone who had been clinically diagnosed with PTSD for several years at that time, who was tapering off of medications alone, who no one would check in on despite living less than 5 minutes away from him, who no one believed in, who no one supported. It is very lonely out here, starting from scratch and being in a new city. But holy fuck, I feel so... so much more free. I feel safer being my authentic self.

Which really makes me dread... having to give that up. And I really do fear that giving up my art as my primary time/labor sink... will turn into me losing myself. To someone else's will, I guess. Or, like... I lose my agency in my life. Or like all of this was for nothing. Just because I was too scared to go out and meet the right people, or too scared to apply to galleries, or too scared to reach out to my old teachers or something. I don't feel like it's too late for that. I don't feel like it's time to give up yet.

I have come so far and sacrificed... nearly everything... to get where I am today. And there are really two things outside of material possessions that honestly... they're all a coin flip, I don't really care too much, very few are essentials... two things that I have left. My idea of who I am and what I want to do with my life. They're not that different, either.

But I'm not here to talk about my career, because that's a bit much for tonight, I've already stopped myself like 4 times before that fun campfire horror story.

There's a reflex that kicks on whenever I think about related jobs, or something to just pay the bills. It feels like giving up. It feels like turning into the people who treated me like shit, like I'm doing what they did. They all fucking gave up. Or never even tried. Taking the easier route and learning to love it. Yeah, I could be an artist... or I could just go be an artist's assistant or a teacher. And then do that for 10 years... and then go... "remember when I used to make art?" "Yeah, I still do it in my spare time, but man... I'm just so busy nowadays, who has the time?" Kinda like the way I treat video games nowadays, there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I could mentor or tutor. I could teach private lessons - art, music, art history, you name it. I could host events for intuitive and improvised drawing, teaching the meditative techniques that I've learned, the kinda occult shit you won't learn at the community college. Come by the studio, smoke a bowl if you want, maybe break out some wine, or meditate or do some breathwork first, get yourself in The Zone however you like to, and we're going to do some fun art experiments. I could read tarot. I could do art pieces on peoples' clothing, like tattoos. I could sell jewelry. I could sell carved staves, walking sticks, even carved and decorated wooden wind-chimes was one I really want to do. I can sell mini Zen Gardens, and cool little accessories for them, like hand-polished stones, or hand-made mini rakes. I could also finish my abstract series and submit it to a gallery, or submit my bird illustrations to a gallery as a series as well. I can paint peoples' grip tape. I can do all of these at the same time. All I need is to find people who are actually interested in paying for these things. And with that big of a menu, it's really hard for me to believe that I won't be able to pay rent. Like... if I charge $50 for a 3-card tarot reading (which is cheap)... I'd need like... 60 readings per month make a profit. That's an average of 2 per day, every day. I'm never going to get that many, I get that. But... with other forms of income added in? If I offer more comprehensive spreads for higher prices? If someone there wants to buy crystals or minerals from my display case, or a necklace or talisman or something? It could make up the difference. But I really think if I can find a way to do private one-on-one art/music lessons, group activities with a ticket fee, and tarot readings... I could stabilize on that. I think I could. All I really need is... to get connected socially. Because streaming and social media are very unkind to people who don't have built in social networks.

So... that's the next step. So today, I was in social "fuck it" mode. I reconnected with someone I know who, in my life, is the closest person I've ever met to a female Adam Savage. If we synergize, this could be life-changing. I'm planning on going to the nude model drawing session at the local art collective this week, and I'm planning to email the person who runs it to see if I could just meet up and talk about the local art scene, maybe before the session? Or after? Or another day? Just to make a one-on-one impression and get to know them.

So yeah. A lot is turning around and I'm very grateful for it. And I really want to say this before I go. Thank god for skateboarding. I had a lot of mental health tools in my pocket, skills on deck, ready to go. I just... didn't have a place to go to socialize with people similar to me that didn't cost fucking money. And... the skatepark is exactly that. It accepts all kinds. Skateboarding is the true American spirit - give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We all just want to feel some wheels under our feet and push ourselves to take a leap of faith. And to feel the rewards of taking those leaps of faith, that rush of accomplishing something you previously didn't think you were capable of doing, that you battled over. That's what skating is all about. Now that I've gotten over my insecurity about being "bad"... mostly... I actually feel like... a local skater. People recognize me. I'm a regular. There's a place that people can expect to see me. And that's how things start. Skating helped me break through and get there. And it would've been much fucking easier if one motherfucking person would've gone with as support and just sat on the sidelines and watched. But hey, all's well that ends well.

It's late. I gotta turn in. If you stuck through to the end here? Thank you for reading this story. It's... not the happiest of tales. But let's consider it a cautionary tale. You never know what someone else is going through. My brain just kinda... ground to a halt here. Like I was going for some mic-drop ending and just kinda... sputtered out. Just... you never know when you might need a shoulder to cry on, or when you just suddenly feel like a scared 6 year old who had a horrific nightmare and just need someone to talk to about it, or someone to just silently pat you on the back for a few minutes, to help you feel a sense of comfort and safety in a world that can feel so infinite and empty and cold and mindless. You never know when you might need that. So... don't be afraid to offer it if you can, because you might be that person for someone else. That's what community is about, that's what friendship is about, that's what relationships are about. Give and take, mutually support each other. Compassion. That. That's really the most loving and kindest thing we could all do.

Good night!

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of thoughts #stream of consciousness #ptsd

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blackbird-brewster · 2 years ago

Text

I posted this quickly on giftmas but now I have a bit more time to explain just how special this gift was to me....

So I used to write Jemily fic nonstop through about 2014-2015. I was one of the most prolific Jemily authors at the time (when we had less than like 100 fics on AO3!!) But I lost all interest in writing due to some personal circumstances that turned my passion into a tedious chore and just ruined the writing experience.

Following that, I sort of fell out of the fandom too. Through 2014-2016 this fandom/writing truly saved my life during the hardest years of my life. Writing was my outlet and coping mechanism and when I lost that enjoyment it felt like there was a hole in my life.

I attempted to write new stuff a few times over the years, but it was never anything worth posting. Writing used to come so very easy to me, but it no longer felt like that -- when I tried to write again it felt forced and tedious and unenjoyable. I truly thought I'd never write fic again. I made my peace with that.

Then in July of this year, I got a random comment on my first ever fic (not even CM fandom) and it wasn't anything particularly special, but it did led me to go back and read that fic (it's uhhh not great). Then that next led me to re-read some of my old Jemily works and that just flipped a switch in me. I said 'Damn, I'm actually a really good writer!?'

This rabbit hole eventually led me to reading old headcanons and such in my personal archives and I came across an idea to write a Jemily version of 'Imagine Me and You'. The outline was set for it to be a 3 chapter fic, basically a scene for scene remake of the film. I even had two chapters already written!!

For whatever reason, after seven years of having writer's block...finding that skeleton idea for a fic inspired me to flesh it out into something actually coherent...and that's how [Fooled Around (and Fell in Love)] was born. Prior to FAAFIL my longest fic was 40k word count.... FAAFIL is nearly 180,000 word count!!!! The scene for scene 3 chapter remake turned into a 2 part saga with nearly 50 chapters total.

I was REALLY scared to start posting on AO3 again. It felt so very vulnerable to put myself out there again after being 'retired' for nearly a decade.....but within ten minutes of posting chapter one of FAAFIL, I got a comment from a username I recognized from all those years ago....

I genuinely cried seeing this comment. It made me less nervous about posting again and now, since July I have published over 50 NEW new works!!!?!?!?!?!

For my partner to recognise how important writing has been to me since coming back five months ago is so precious to me. They are truly my #1 fan. They haven't even watching Criminal Minds, yet they read ALL of my fics and are very invested in JJ/Emily/Tara now. Honestly, no higher compliment than someone who's never watched this show to be fully invested in these ships. What a joy!!!

I NEVER expected to come back to writing fic and I really never expected to come back to this fandom, but the past five months have been so magical and special. I have met so many new friends in this fandom, I've reconnected with old friends, I've reconnected with my old readers....it's been so humbling.

This mug and the meaning behind it were truly the highlight of my gifts this year. <3

This is so friggin special!!! My partner got me an AO3 mug!! The tag read:

Dear The Best Author,

All the fluff & angst to soothe and break my heart forever

Love you,

Your #1 Fan

Also a tag for another gift said... To: Blackbird-brewster From: (Anon Icon)

Miri Kirihimete to everyone who celebrates.

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate.

Happy Sunday to everyone else 😘

#about me 2k22 #my writing #Doom Them

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bakuthedeku · 4 years ago

Text

their everyday game

Read on AO3

Words: 3,000

Chapters: 1/1

Summary:

Things Midoriya Izuku is: A student, a sugar baby, a boyfriend, a brat.

Things Midoriya Izuku is not: Patient.

Or: Izuku wants attention from Kacchan and he is going to get it.

A commissioned fic for @insinirate !

Clack clack clack. The room is silent but for the steady breaths of its occupants and the rhythmic beat of fingers on plastic. Clear, wall-to-ceiling windows wash the sun’s gentle light into the room, and reveal a picturesque view of the sparkling city, looking like something straight out of a magazine.

Izuku glares at the extravagant view. He bets Kacchan is writing another one of those stupid reports of his.

Buzz. The clacking halts and Kacchan glances at his work phone for but a moment before the typing resumes.

Izuku takes a deep breath. Holds it. Puffs out his cheeks.

He slumps over in his seat and sighs obnoxiously.

God, he’s so damn bored.

Kacchan said he had to get one more hour of work done, and then he’d take a break. That had been almost three hours ago. ‘One hour’ had turned into two when Izuku left Kacchan to get ready for their lunch date and had foolishly gone straight to the cafe instead of meeting up with Kacchan at the office first. He’d waited all of ten minutes at their usual table before calling a company car and returning to find Kacchan still working in his office.

If not for Kacchan’s genuine surprise at the time and his gruff, yet sweet apologies, he would be a dead man already.

But Izuku still isn’t satisfied. Kacchan needs a break, and Izuku needs attention, stat. There’s only one solution: Izuku’s gonna annoy the shit out of Kacchan. So Izuku sucks in another breath and pouts at the ceiling. “Kacchaaaaan!”

Kacchan sighs, but he doesn’t respond. The silence in the room grows thick with expectation; Izuku’s long-perfect attention-seeking tone signals the start of the game they play every day.

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the clack of keys and occasional buzz from Kacchan’s work phone. Izuku wriggles against his plush seat, making the leather squeak obnoxiously, and clears his throat daintily, earning himself a glance. “Kacchan, I’m hungry…” Izuku peaks at Kacchan from beneath fluttering eyelashes.

Kacchan shifts his eyes back to his computer and types another line, pointedly loud against the room’s still silence.

When they play this game, whoever breaks first (or whoever wants whatever they’re after more) will relent and go to the other, so this can go one of two ways; Izuku will pull himself from his lounging position to drape himself over Kacchan, or Kacchan will pull himself from his work and lavish Izuku with the attention he deserves.

Today, Izuku takes it upon himself to move things forward—Kacchan is in one of those moods where it could take hours to break him down, and Izuku needs results now.

So with an impatient, gusty sigh pulled deep from his lungs, Izuku heaves himself up and slinks over to Kacchan’s grand desk, stalking up from behind him. When Kacchan makes the mistake of glancing at Izuku from the corner of his eye, Izuku pounces.

Izuku wrenches Kacchan’s chair around and jumps into his lap, laying himself over Kacchan as well as the plush arms of his chair. Kacchan grunts out a quiet oof at the sudden weight but wraps an arm around his waist nonetheless.

“I’m working, Deku,” Kacchan says dryly.

“Actually, Kacchan, I think you’ll find that you’re cuddling me and giving me attention right now, and I can’t imagine why you’d want to stop.”

Kacchan exhales quietly and wrestles down the corners of his lips—it’s not quite a smile, but it’s a good enough start for Izuku. “I have a lot to do, so as much as I’d love to keep giving you all the attention you desire, I really do have to get back to work.”

Izuku wraps an arm around Kacchan’s neck and pretends to think, then shakes his head solemnly. “Unfortunately, it’s a no from me. I’m hungry and I want lunch.”

“Then go get lunch.”

Izuku gives Kacchan a look for being deliberately obtuse.

“I’ll order in for you, then,” Kacchan offers.

Izuku huffs and pushes himself away from his comfortable spot against Kacchan’s broad chest. “Not good enough, Kacchan! We organised a lunch date, so I am getting a lunch date. Now.” Izuku sticks out his chin and dares Kacchan to say no.

Eyes lock. Izuku stares with determination, burying his will into impenetrable crystal red and steadfastly ignoring their alluring pull. Kacchan makes an aborted noise in the back of his throat, as if he was about to say something stupid but thought better of it, and finally sighs.

“Half an hour.”

Izuku smiles sweetly. “Two. You’re late, so you’ve accrued interest.”

Kacchan decides to focus on their negotiations over Izuku’s mockingly business-like tone: “Forty-five is the best you’re going to get from me.”

“An hour, not including travel time, or I’ll get our contract from your room and tear it up myself.” Izuku juts out a petulant lip. He’d never do it, but it gets his point across—Izuku isn’t budging on this.

Kacchan stares hard for a moment, then sags and rests his head in the crook of Izuku’s neck. “You’re such an annoying little shit,” he murmurs, warm against Izuku’s skin.

Izuku hides his smile in Kacchan’s hair and holds him tight. Another victory secured.

/-/

The cafe is a relaxing, familiar space for Izuku. He’s been a regular since before his arrangement with Kacchan began, and when it breached the confines of Kacchan’s highrise office, it was only natural Izuku would drag Kacchan to his favourite little spot.

After enough of their regular visits, the staff have stopped staring at Kacchan and his crisp suits and shiny Rolex watches, and they interact more or less normally with the pair when they stop by.

They place their orders, as usual, and Kacchan pays, as usual, before they settle in their favourite corner, waiting for drinks and food.

Izuku relaxes into his plush chair. He breathes in happiness, the scent of sugar and coffee and Kacchan’s handsome cologne, and breathes out his worries. He’s already plotting ways to extend the hour he was so graciously granted.

On the table before him is a generous slice of cake, which is ‘not a meal,’ according to Kacchan, but Izuku wanted it and he doesn’t care what Kacchan has to say about it. Kacchan is still waiting on his own food; some kind of salmon dish, which is about the fanciest thing he might be able to get his hands on at a casual place like this.

Before Kacchan can grouse at Izuku further, Izuku digs into his treat with no regard for manners, or as Kacchan calls them, “basic fucking social etiquette.” Whenever Kacchan attempts to spout this particular kind of bullshit, Izuku rather enjoys pointing out the hypocrisy of Kacchan of all people criticising other people’s social graces.

Izuku glances at Kacchan and licks his lips before he fills his mouth with fluffy, sugary goodness, making eye-contact with him as he lets out an exaggerated moan. “So good,” Izuku takes care to lick his lips and smiles, warm and sweet like molten honey.

Kacchan rolls his eyes, but he swallows like his mouth is dry. “You’re a damn menace, you little brat,” he says hoarsely, despite the way his eyes have been stuck on Izuku’s lips since he licked them.

“Hey!” Izuku kicks out with all the gentleness of a fussy toddler, landing a solid kick on Kacchan’s shin. “Don’t be mean. You would’ve missed our lunch date altogether if I hadn’t dragged you here.” Izuku tilts his head and gives an Oscar-worthy kicked-puppy pout.

“Deku…” Kacchan obviously misses the point of his pouting by a mile, because now he just looks sad, and that is not what Izuku was going for! “I’m sorry I forgot, baby. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you, it’s just...”

“You’re busy,” Izuku finishes for him, and leans across the table to (affectionately) swat his dumb boyfriend’s head. “I know. I’m not mad, but I do want your attention right now, so cut out the sadness and shower me with compliments like you’re supposed to.”

This earns a snort of laughter from Kacchan, who finally catches on and plays along with their usual game. His whole face brightens with his smile. “Ah yes, of course, dear. How could I spend even a second not overwhelming you with compliments?”

Izuku nods seriously. “Exactly. I’m just so shocked. You should know better than to neglect me by now,” Izuku winks, “Daddy.”

Kacchan makes a point of rolling his eyes, but he’s smiling broadly now, all teeth and crinkled eyes. “Alright, you’ve made your point, asshole. Eat your stupid cake already.”

/-/

Once they’ve eaten, and the redundant alarm Kacchan had set goes off, they return to the car. It’s time for Izuku to execute his plan.

Before Kacchan can put his belt on like the square he is, Izuku swings a leg over his lap and wraps himself around his boyfriend. Kacchan raises a questioning eyebrow before Izuku makes his demand: “Take me shopping.”

Kacchan smacks his head back against the headrest dramatically. “You have my card. I’ll have the driver drop you off wherever you want to go, okay?”

“I said take me shopping, not send me. You have to be there or there’s no use! Kacchan needs to come with me.”

Kacchan looks sad, then, and the stupid man has apparently learnt a thing or two from Izuku, because he’s got the bestest, heart-wrenchingest puppy-dog eyes without even trying. Resting his forehead against Izuku’s, Kacchan sighs softly against his lips. “You know I spend as much time as I can with you, baby. I can only ignore my work for so long, for you.”

Izuku aches, sudden and raw. “Oh, Kacchan… I know you’re busy, you work so hard! Kacchan really is amazing. But sometimes I want to be selfish and snatch up more of your time. You put too much pressure on yourself at work. You have so many employees so you don’t have to run yourself in the ground.”

“There are things my employees can’t do-”

“Like stopping you from working yourself to death? Right, that’s my job.” Izuku wiggles in Kacchan’s lap and captures his lips in a whisper-soft kiss. “So let me take care of you.” Izuku flutters his eyelashes and pulls his trump card. “Please, Daddy?” he asks, words sugar-sweet on his lips.

Cheeks glowing a suspicious strawberry red, Kacchan huffs and grabs Izuku by the waist, easily picking him up off his lap and depositing him on the seat next to him. He waits patiently for Kacchan to break, all the while butterflies dance in Izuku’s belly at his Daddy’s casual display of strength.

“The hell do you need so badly anyway?”

Truthfully, Izuku has no idea what he would wish to buy. Spoiled as he is, there are few things he’s wanted through life that he doesn’t now own, thanks to Kacchan. “I saw this gorgeous lingerie set and I just have to try it on before I buy it. And I need you there to tell me how good it looks,” Izuku states matter-of-factly.

Kacchan clears his throat and pinches Izuku’s cheek. “Fine. Let’s go look at this lingerie, then, baby.”

/-/

Izuku drags Kacchan out of the car by his hand and refuses to let go even after they’ve made it inside the shopping center.

“Come on, come on, I wanna see what this store has!” With Kacchan in tow, Izuku makes a beeline for his favourite lingerie store.

Izuku chatters away as he makes his way up and down the store, fluttering about pretty displays and shiny, luxurious lingerie sets hung up on the walls. He semi-consciously gives Kacchan a consistent stream of observations, rhetorical questions and mumbled postulations about what Kacchan might like best. He picks out half a dozen sets in just a few minutes, handing each one over to Kacchan for him to judge and/or hold like a handsome sentient display rack.

Soon enough, Kacchan flags down someone from the store to do the grunt work for him as he follows Izuku around the store like a loyal dog, face warring between fondness and annoyance.

Izuku is quite certain that the fondness far outweighs the annoyance, though. Izuku is, after all, impossible to hate.

After completing one circuit of the store, Kacchan interrupts Izuku before he can begin on a second. “What happened to the ‘one’ set you wanted, huh?” The man crosses his arms like a brute, biceps flexing handsomely as he pours disapproval into the question.

Izuku tuts at him. “There’s nothing wrong with browsing. Just look at how pretty this one is!” Izuku pulls out the dainty belt and harness set he was looking at, wiggling it around for Kacchan’s judgment.

“Mm,” Kacchan acknowledges, carefully collected as he judges the set. With his nod of approval, Izuku gleefully adds it to his soon-to-be-towering pile of things to try on, heedless of the fact that Kacchan immediately passes it off to the poor retail worker trailing after them.

Kacchan crosses his arms. “Don’t think I don’t realise what you’re doing, baby boy.”

Izuku ought to feel sheepish at being caught out so easily, but it’s to be expected when he’s trying to con Kacchan. Instead, he tilts his head and bats his big, round eyes, the perfect picture of innocence. “But Daddy, what exactly are you going to do about it?”

Kacchan crosses his arms, but Izuku’s got him there. Kacchan wants to see Izuku in this lingerie just as much as Izuku wants to try them on. And if all of this has the bonus of Izuku keeping Kacchan to himself for a little longer, then they don’t need to talk about that, really.

“I don’t know why I put up with you,” Kacchan says, and Izuku giggles, wrapping his arms around his Daddy’s neck.

“I can think of a few reasons,” he laughs. “Now come tell me how pretty I look in these!”

/-/

The driver has to help them get everything into the car. As soon as they’re in, Kacchan orders the driver to start the car and get them back to his work quickly.

It’s cute that Kacchan thinks they’d be going anywhere near his office if not for Izuku allowing it.

“Are you satisfied now, brat?” Kacchan asks, pulling on his seatbelt only after the car has started moving (ooh, rebellious).

Izuku hums. He takes a long few moments to rearrange the copious amount of bags around him, just because he can. He pretends to think very hard about it before nodding exaggeratedly. “Yes, I think I am. For today, at least.”

When Kacchan groans, Izuku shuts him up with a kiss, and they smile like kids in love against each other’s lips.

/-/

Deku seems to have tuckered himself out during their shopping trip, which is understandable considering the sheer amount of clothes he insisted he try on before making Katsuki buy everything for him. He spends the car ride back draped over Katsuki’s side, giving a docile little mumble every now and then when he sees a dog on the sidewalk or a pretty flower that apparently reminds him of Katsuki’s eyes.

(How can the fucker get even cuter than usual just because he tired himself out being a whiny brat all day? How is that fair at all to Katsuki’s heart? Not to mention his wallet...)

(It’s not like Katsuki can’t afford it, but damn, lingerie is surprisingly fucking expensive.)

Katsuki carefully shakes Deku awake when they arrive, because he has learnt the hard way that if he leaves Deku to doze or wakes him too quickly, there will be hell to pay. So he accepts Deku’s blindly groping hand into his own and leads him into the building, where Izuku says something vague about harassing his friend in reception and stumbles off, bleary-eyed.

Katsuki has some interns come down and transfer Deku’s things into his private car so he can attempt to get some work done before Deku makes it upstairs. Deku usually settles down after a few hours of monopolising Katsuki’s time and attention, but with the mood he’s in today, Katsuki doesn’t like his chances of getting anything else done.

He’s gotten as far as opening up an email from a partner company when the door clicks open and Deku sashays in like he owns the place.

And, okay. Katsuki owns the place, and Deku has him wrapped around his pinky finger, so he does own the place in every way but name. But only Katsuki is allowed to know that, god damn it.

“You look like a bumbling fawn like that,” Katsuki informs him, just to see Deku’s sleepy eyes flash with indignation, and watch his cheeks glow a pretty, flustered pink.

Deku’s response doesn’t disappoint, and his nose even scrunches up like a disgruntled bunny, but Katsuki’s gone and shot himself in the foot because now Deku is stomping up to him in a way that says he means business. Deku collapses heavily and claims the space of Katsuki’s lap, steadfast in the fact that it is his and his alone.

Deku slaps him petulantly on the chest. “Meanie,” he mumbles, and curls up on Katsuki’s lap, nestling his head beneath his chin and settling against him, a puzzle piece slotted perfectly in its place. “I’m tired,” Deku says, as if that isn’t obvious already.

Kastuki huffs, presses a feather-soft kiss to the crown of his head. “Just rest, idiot.”

“‘Mkay Daddy…”

Katsuki strokes his fingers through the softness of Izuku’s hair and cradles him as Deku’s body relaxes into Katsuki’s own. “Good boy,” he murmurs.

Pressed tenderly together, Deku continues babbling quietly to fill the peaceful sunset air. Katsuki nods along and holds his baby securely in his arms until he floats off into sleep.

Clack clack clack. With a watchful eye on Deku, lovely and sleep-soft against his chest, Katsuki quietly gets back to work.

#bakudeku #katsudeku #bnha #my hero academia #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #sugar daddy AU #my fic #commissioned writing #commission #post #long post

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