#i genuinely woke myself up because of how funny i thought this was in the dream

[saipng]

had a completely incomprehensible dream where this image was the big new meme but every time i tried to search for it to show someone, google would instead come up with photos of crumbling graves and twisted tombstones

[idkwhatever580]

Karma’s A Bitch

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Prompt: Natasha pranks reader without knowing r is petty and will double back on the prank war with much more force

Warnings: angst, some crying, fake blood, fake period, pain, pranks :)))

Pronouns: unspecified I think? but AFAB

A/N: I definitely did not take inspiration from a certain person that totally isn’t named jojo siwa 😅 guys I swear I think I’m funny

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/n’s pov

Natasha and I got into a little bit of a scuffle earlier. I finished off the peanut butter and she couldn’t make a peanut butter sandwich (gross)

So I kinda was a little bratty and she was mad. I feel really bad now and I know she won’t be mad at me because that’s just how we are but I’m going to apologize.

I walk to the living room where she and Wanda are not really watching a show. Well. Wanda is crocheting and Natasha is playing on her phone. So I walk to her and sit on her lap.

She looks up at me and I say

“I’m sorry nat. I shouldn’t have gotten so stubborn about the peanut butter”

She smiles and I know I’m in the clear and she says

“That’s okay baby. Thank you for apologizing and I also want to say sorry. I realize that it’s not that big of a deal.”

I smile and kiss her and say

“So we’re all good?”

She nods her head and says

“All is forgiven.”

Natasha looks at her watch and says

“Oh! I have to go”

I furrow my eyebrows and say

“Go where?”

She moves me off her lap and says

“I have an appointment at 12:00”

I nod my head and pout my lips for a kiss and she leans down to softly kiss me goodbye

“I love you”

I say as she leaves and she says

“Mhm bye babe”

I furrow my eyebrows when she doesn’t say it back and I think maybe she didn’t hear me

“Nat? What time are you getting back?”

“Around 1 or 2 o’clock”

I nod my head and say

“Okay be safe, I love you”

I put a bit more volume to the I love you. And she nods her head and says

“I’m always safe. Bye. Bye wanda”

She waves bye to Wanda and walks out without ever saying i love you back to me

I try to think why she would do that. Before I can dig myself too deep into my thoughts Wanda cuts in and says

“Uh- what was that about?”

I look at her and say

“I don’t know. I tried twice and she wouldn’t say it back”

Wanda sits up and sets her crochet down

“Is she mad at you? Is everything alright?”

I shrug my shoulders and say

“You heard her, she forgave me. Did it sound genuine?”

She nods her head and says

“She is also not the type to just leave without saying I love you to you. At least I don’t think so”

I shake my head and say

“No. Even if we’re fighting she always says I love you. She never leaves without resolving it. I know she’s only going for an hour but still.”

Wanda shakes her head and says

“Well. Maybe she forgot”

I nod my head trying to convince myself of that too but I leave to my room and spend the whole hour overthinking about it. I end up crying from all my overthinking and Natasha walks in an hour later and says

“What’s wrong baby?”

She immediately runs to me and holds me and I sob into her neck and say

“You don’t love me anymore!”

She shakes her head and says

“No baby! No I was pranking you to get you back for eating my peanut butter!”

I sniffle and tears are still running but I look at her and say

“Really?”

She nods her head and says

“I love you so so much baby. I just wanted to mess with you a bit”

I shove her shoulder a tad and say

“That was mean!”

She chuckles and I glare at her and say

“Did you forget what happened to Tony when he pranked me?”

Her eyes widen and her face goes a bit pale.

Last year Tony thought it was a good idea to make me think I was getting kicked off the avengers. He brought fury into it and everything.

Obviously it ended in tears and stuff.

The next morning after the prank he woke up with no eyebrows and green hair. And I keyed one of his hundreds of cars. And wrote “fuck you” on it. (One of the cheapest cars he owns don’t worry I’m not crazy)

It was really funny to me and the others but he never messed with me again.

I smirk at her even though my eyes are still a bit blurry from crying and I say

“You should have thought about that one.”

She shakes her head and says

“You can prank me back as long as it doesn’t involve breaking or ruining something”

I nod my head and say with an evil grin

“Deal. But you’ll never see it coming and don’t forget. The wise JoJo Siwa once said ‘karma’s a bitch. You should have known better’”

She pushes my shoulder and says

“You’re so dumb”

I giggle a bit at my joke and Natasha joins in with laughter until we’re laughing a lot.

——————————————————————————

It’s been a week and Natasha finally let her guard down. She thinks I forgot or something. I didn’t. I’m getting her back today.

I know it’s kind of insensitive to do this prank but it’s the only one I can think of that she won’t immediately guess it’s a prank.

Yes. It’s a period prank. I know what happened in the red room but she says it doesn’t affect her. Like the period part.

I feel like it’d be different if I was like making fun of her or something but I’m just gonna pretend I bled a lot.

Natasha had only a few periods before the “ceremony” she doesn’t actually remember any of it. So she doesn’t know much about it other than from what she’s seen with me and Wanda.

Usually my periods aren’t bad. Thank goodness. Yeah I get cramps but I don’t always throw up. Okay maybe they’re bad. But it’s really the cramps that are the bad parts. I usually have like a regular to super flow.

I woke up early for me. Natasha is already training at her usual time. I have about thirty minutes until she comes back after her gym shower.

I get up and grab the fake blood I bought earlier and I wipe it on my shorts. I put it all over and then I sit down on the bed where I’m gonna be “sleeping”

I make it look like I’m bleeding out or something serious and then I hide the fake blood bottle in my bedside table. Thankfully I didn’t get any fake blood on my hands so it doesn’t give me away.

I lie down and pretend to sleep. Then Natasha comes in and does her morning routine with me. She comes over and lies on top of me softly to wake me up.

I immediately cringe in feigned pain and she pulls back a bit. She hovers over me and brushes my hair out of my face and says

“Baby? Are you okay?”

I don’t answer and she says

“Y/n?”

I open my eyes and pout at her and try to say something but I grab my stomach in pain and groan

“What’s going on baby? Do you feel sick?”

I shake my head and frown and say

“Cramps”

She sighs and nods her head and says

“Have you started?”

I shrug my shoulders and say

“I think I start tomorrow”

She nods her head and says

“I’ll go get you a heat pack”

I nod my head and she pulls away and kisses my forehead and says

“I’ll be right back okay?”

I nod my head and she walks to the bathroom to grab my heat pad.

Once she’s out of sight I pull the covers up a bit to make it look like I just looked and I say

“Nat!?”

She comes in and says

“Yeah?”

I put on my best panic face and say

“Natty I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to!”

She comes over to me quickly and sees the blood and she freezes.

“Nat?”

She clicks into her help mode and says

“Okay baby. Something is wrong. We need to get you to medbay”

I shake my head and say

“No I just- I just bled through my shorts.”

Natasha shakes her head and says

“No y/n. That’s not just bleeding through your shorts…”

She hesitates

“Right?”

I shake my head and say

“It’s fine nat this has happened before”

Her eyes go wide and she says

“You mean this exact thing has happened more than once?!”

I nod my head nonchalantly and say

“Can you just help me get cleaned up?”

She freezes trying to make sense of everything and nods her head.

She picks me up and carries me to the bathroom.

“Do you need help?”

I shake my head and she steps out. I smirk knowing I put another bottle of fake blood in the bathroom and I quickly grab it and sit on the toilet and pour some in there to make it look like I bled even more. I put the bottle away and sit down and prepare to freak out.

Natasha barges in and says

“I just called Wanda and she said this isn’t normal. Why would you lie to me?!”

I take this as my chance and I look up at her with a dazed frown and thankfully I somehow managed to make myself look sickly. She furrows her eyebrows and says

“Y/n? Are you alright?”

She walks up to me and I show her the toilet and she gasps.

“Is it bad?”

I ask. Before she can respond I sway a bit to the side to make it look like I’m about to pass out.

Wanda bursts into the room and comes close to me as Natasha grabs me softly to help balance me

“Oh my god! Y/n! Natasha this is not okay we need to get her to medbay immediately!”

I grab Natasha’s arm and say

“Why am I bleeding so much?”

She looks at me and says

“I don’t know baby but this is serious. Let’s go”

She tries to pick me up but I push her hands away and say

“Let me get up. It hurts to be carried.”

She reluctantly nods her head and says

“Wanda get Bruce to get ready for when we get there.”

Right before Wanda leaves I say

“Wait!”

I stand up tall and then randomly start doing the jojo siwa karma dance and say

“Karmas a bitch! You shoulda known better!”

And Natasha and Wanda look at each other then back at me and I say

“You just walked the prank!”

Natasha stands up and says

“What?”

I look at her and say

“It was a prank dummy. I told you I’d get you back. You know I don’t mess around with pranks”

She lets out a sigh of relief knowing I’m not actually dying and she then gets a bit mad and says

“You got that shit on everything! You’re so dead”

I giggle and say

“But it was a good one right?”

She glares at me but when I give her my puppy eyes she kind of scoffs with a smile and looks away and says

“Yeah. It was pretty good. Even if I thought you were bleeding out”

I smirk and say

“I’m sorry. I love you baby”

I go for a hug but she stiff arms me and says

“Not until you clean every single thing you got blood on up”

I drop my head and say

“Okay. You’re not mad at me are you?”

She laughs a bit and says

“Oh no I’m pissed. You’re sleeping on the couch for that one”

I pout and nod my head and Wanda says

“By the way. You’re a bitch. I thought you were actually dying. I still love you though hoe”

I giggle at my best friend and say bye as she leaves

Then I look at Natasha and say

“I love you”

She nods her head and says

“I love you too baby. Now get cleaning or else you’ll be on the couch for a month”

I widen my eyes and run to clean myself and everything else up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I finish cleaning up and I go out to the kitchen and sit next to Natasha on a barstool who is now eating a peanut butter sandwich.

“Are you still mad at me?”

She looks at me surprised and says

“Why would I be mad at you?”

I furrow my eyebrows and say

“Because I did a mean prank?”

She chuckles a bit and says

“Oh. Yeah I was a bit frustrated but I was never mad. I don’t think I can be mad at you for that. I should have seen it coming”

I smirk and say

“Yeah. I did promise that. But thank you for caring about me.”

She smiles and says

“I really thought you were crazy when you said it was normal.”

I smile and say

“I am pretty crazy”

She sets her sandwich down and says

“I love you baby”

I smile and kiss her softly and say

“I love you more”

She smirks and says

“I love you most”

We’re in a battle for the love now. But I have the winning hand

“I loved you first.”

She frowns and says

“Dang it. That’s unfair. You can’t use that against me!”

I smile and rub my nose softly against hers and say

“Yes I most definitely can and I just did”

She narrows her eyes and says

“Fine. You win this time!”

I giggle and set my hand on her leg and say

“I win every time.”

She crosses her arms and says

“Yeah you do.”

I smile softly and then I get an impulsive thought and I jump up and Natasha starts

“What are you doi-”

I shake my hand down and stomp my foot and start yell singing

“KARMAS A BITCH I SHOULDA KNOWN BETTER!!”

She shakes her head and says

“What am I gonna do with you?”

I shrug my shoulders as I sit back down on the barstool.

“Throw me in the trash?”

She thinks about it and says

“Although that would be fun I think I might just throw you on the couch”

I smile and step back and say

“You’ll have to catch me first!”

Then I bolt and she says

“You’re never gonna win this game!!”

——————————————————————————

A/N this is totally off topic but I think I’m going to stop posting for a while. I’m having a hard time with family and stuff going on and I am about to graduate so a bunch of things are coming up. I love yall so much and I am still taking requests I just might be taking longer to post them. <3

[allied-mastercuntputer]

unexpected.

after your planned date with tim takes an unexpected turn, you show him just how full of surprises you are…

word count: <500

warnings: not proof read…i kinda raw dogged this :p no use of y/n

notes: omg first thing of writing on here…im an autobiographical writer, haven’t touched fanfic since i was like 10. with that being said if i proof read it i won’t have the guts to post it. there will be better writing on my blog i promise. also super late for valentine’s day but it rained when i love the day of and no other day of the week n i thought it was funny.

“You told me you checked the weather Tim.”

You had called your boyfriend to let him know that a picnic wasn’t going to work. As soon as you woke up, the noise of rain pattered on your apartment’s roof, hitting you with the reality that being outside wasn’t an option.

“I did! Today is the first time this month it’s rained! But uhhhh should we do the Mary’s?” He tried to remedy the situation with the Italian restaurant in your university neighborhood.

“We go there all the time, can we do something special since it’s Valentine’s Day baby?” You smiled into the phone receiver. You knew he melted into man pudding when you called him baby and used that tone.

“Oh uhh-“ evidence of your work, “Anything you want. Maybe the rink and then hot chocolate after?”

“It’s a date.” You smiled, perfect time to show Tim what he didn’t know about you on the ice.

❅ ❅ ❅

Tim came to pick you up, you made sure to put on a raincoat. Not only to protect yourself from getting soaked, but also to reveal your outfit to your boyfriend in the car.

“Oh look at you, expecting to get some laps in?” He joked at the expense of your lululemon attire

“I like my pink define jacket, thank you very much”

“Hey! I like it too, definitely…tight. Hugs the right pla-“ You slap him on the shoulder, “Ow! Do you even know how to skate babe?”

This was your moment. Should you lie and wow him? Or should you tell the truth and loose your novelty? You lie.

“No actually, you’ll have to teach me.”

“That’s great actually, then you can’t let go of me-“ he smiled like an idiot before you interrupted him

“Don’t push it”

“Yes ma’am”

❅ ❅ ❅

You try not to be suspicious. ‘Act like you’re nervous, get shaky the first few minutes-‘

“Hey babe, need help with your skates?” Tim is an angel. As much as he likes to talk dirty, he genuinely cares and you always know it.

“Oh uhm, yes please”

“No problem.” he got on his knees and laced your skates up, “They need to be super tight, but not so tight you can’t bend your knees beyond a certain point.” Nobody could wipe the smile he had off his face. He was just happy to be teaching his girlfriend how to skate on Valentine’s Day.

“Thank you Tim. I feel like Cinderella, only my shoe has a sharp blade on it and my prince charming doesn’t know how to check the weather.” You giggle at his expense

“Im sure I’m a much better prince charming than whatever that guy had going on. Now stand up and see if it’s comfortable.”

“Perfect! Oh! I mean uhhh-“ You can’t let the jig be up, “Ouch super tight but I’ll be okay!”

Tim looks at you funny, but thought nothing if it, “Alright let’s go.”

❅ ❅ ❅

You can’t even stand it. You’ve been pretending to be awful at skating for almost 30 minutes. The real truth? You were on a figure skating scholarship just like how Tim was on a hockey one. You’d been skating since middle school and it had become a sport you loved deeply. You and Tim had been together for eight months, but the topic never really came up due to you thinking there were far more important things to your character.

“Can I try by myself?” your posture was awful, but it as about to be perfect in about 5 seconds

“Remember what I taught you about falling on your butt and not your face?”

It took so much not to roll your eyes, “Ill try not to fall because you like both of those things about me. think I’m okay.”

“Great! Let’s see you do 5 feet ahead. Go at any pace you want.”

You nodded, kissing him on the cheek. You immediately shifted into better posture, stopped shaking , and started skating at the pace you wanted, like he said. You begin with fluid crossovers, transitioning into quick footwork. With a push, you launch into a simple jump, landing with precision. You could feel the air whipping past your face as you gained speed. Your body twists and turns effortlessly, soon you’re skating circles around your boyfriend, who couldn’t do anything but look at you in shock. You stop right next to him.

“Was that okay?”

“Was that okay?? What are you doing studying here! People get injured all the time at the olympics I’m sure you could fill in and it would make no difference” He laughed in complete shock, “How long have you been skating for?

“More than 10 years”

“We should definitely take this to my place. You’ve won my heart. Not that you didn’t before I just- let’s go babe.”

“No I’m actually having so much fun!”

[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

Docm77 as well as MANY other have fallen face first into this media-related ragebait and I'm here to explain why you shouldn't be mad at Doc/be upset but not "wish ill things on your child" upset, which yes. I did see. Shame on you person. Shame.

Ahem.

So upon waking up in the UK/Europe, we didn't necessarily have the build up to the presidential election due to timezone conflictions, so for many people (myself include) 6am to 9am we woke up to Trumps victory speech on the trending tab. I'm not joking, that's how people going out and how I found out

There have been a mixed bag of reaction but Doc is getting hate for saying, and I quote "Lol... Really USA? This is what I wake up to?"

Alot of people say this was insensitive, and excuse my language and I don't mean to upset, it's because they're Americans and (again apologies) Americans have been socialised into to being quite emotional about politics and read into everything that happens regarding it. Which is something that the rest of the world kinda looks down on America for, because it makes you look like 'cultist' (this isn't my viewpoint however we do discuss this alot in certain class and this is how other people see you)

Doc's reaction is not trying being insensitive, because to literally anyone else it's a reaction of speechlessness and confusion. Which the majority of people saw it as.

Because we all woke up to that.

Doc isn't trying to be insensitive, but I do understand why people think he's being insensitive, his confusion and speechlessness is being written off as dismissive.

People are saying the word 'lol' is worth cursing at his family over

1. That's not tolerated here. Don't be sending threats or harassing him.

2. Lol, has cultural differences in meaning.

In the US countries, it means 'haha funny!' or it can be a dismissive reply (in text format)

But in other countries, lol, is also used as a 'your joking right?' or 'pretty funny joke'. An example being 'lol what?' (funny joke, but what does it mean)

Many people think the lol is dismissive but it's not. He, along with many other actually didn't believe Trump had won yet and learnt about it in the worst way possible

Secondily he made a comment about dealing with "another 4 years of insanity" which people also thought was rude.

But sadly, it's actually true to alot of people outside the US. We only see the "funny" or mildly annoying bits of your media (because of filters and blockers) and sadly, I'll admit we don't know the full picture other than the Americans insanity over politics

It's literally what your known for in the UK.

So the '4 years of insanity' is definitely an exaggeration but is definitely true in some way. We get the bud of all the "Americans drama" and it's mostly the insane stuff, heck that's how flordia man and ohio became memes. So it's not unrealistic for us to see the next year's as insanity because it is. Just very dramatised

Also quick point, people are saying that because of this he doesn't support the LGBTQIA+ and to that I say; Rendog + his entire fanbase respectfully

Now the big boy issue. Doc said he won't talk about politics and Palestine yet talked about politics now? Why?

Why didn't Doc talk about Palestine?

And for similar reasons as to why alot of other people didn't talk about it, including myself. Not out of fear or something. It's because of the scams.

Being "late" to new media is frustrating especially when it comes to supporting people, and genuinely by the time I heard about Palestine I saw the scams first.

Doc HAS a younger audience demographic, who are more likely to get scammed because they do look very realistic and they even have fake followers and everything.

Why not get one from a reliable source? Well what is a reliable source? Because if something goes wrong people will blame you because you endorsed them.

Why not go to charities? Sadly their are now currently many scummy charities that do take alot of the donation percentage. (including some gofundme pages)

So to address this, Doc just didn't address it. And YES he admittedly should have explained why, instead of leaving it up to people to infer because as we can see, some people took it the wrong way. And I can see how they took it the wrong way, he didn't communicate it very well.

But to me and many others, the intentions were clear and that's why their were no comments made. However I do believe he shouldn't have used the excuse about not wanting to talk about politics, because that does have consequences long-term. And that why I'm here today

And this brings me to my final point.

People are forcing opinions out of other people and when their opinions don't aline they get mad about it. So to avoid this people either refuse to comment or have their own methods of tackling it or simply blurt it out because of pressure.

A modern example of this would be Kim. K and her son (ik shocking). Her son talked about supporting Trump and she got mad about it, told him to take down the videos and allegedly made him sign a contract saying to never make a video about politics.

Kim. K is actively avoiding being pressured into speaking by not responding and keeping it in.

However, another example of this would be Vivziepop. Due to recent events regarding her shows being leaked and the recent elections that damaged the integrity of women's rights and healthcare, she broke down on twitter.

Letting some of her frustrations spill out. This was encouraged by people personal targeting her, and basically harassing her to the point of breaking down.

These same types of people are trying to do the same to people like Aismey, Doc and even Jimmy Solidaritygaming because of thier social media presence, and when they have a reaction but then change their opinion it's suddenly a "well you didn't say that before!"

So to be clear, the circumstances of Docm77 is brought upon by miscommunication and ragebaiting. Dont go and threaten his family, voice your concerns respectfully in this troubling time (even if you're frustrated, you should project that onto someone else)

IF YOU SEE ANYONE RAGEBAITING REPORT IT

And have a good night ya'll

[insanitybl00m]

Tales From Underneath The Wisteria Tree Chapter 12 - Nightmares and Flowers

Phil took a deep breath. “So Missa…”

“What is it querido?” The sweetness of his voice. The sweetness Phil didn’t deserve. He was a terrible person for lying to Missa. A lie by omission. 

He paused, and faltered before letting out a deep sigh and finally coming clean. Finally removing the weight off his chest. “I’m a fae. I didn’t mean to—“

Missa took a step back. His face was one of pure disgust. “Get the hell away from me.”

“Missa I—“

“Don’t say my name, I never should have told you it.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—l

“I Said. Get Out.” Missa yelled.

Phil ripped off the emerald necklace and left it on the table. He left, tears falling down his face. Hiccuping sobs were uncontrollably taking over. 

He was alone again. All the hope he had was squashed. You’d think after hundreds of years Phil would be used to the aching pain of loneliness but the black void was eating at his heart.

But there he was. 

Crying.

Alone.

Desperate.

So why was the breeze still warm? Why didn’t it blow cold? Why didn’t it sting his tear stained cheeks? That’s what he deserved. He was a terrible person. He was a liar. He deserved all of the pain he was feeling because he hurt Missa. 

Then the breeze rubbed away his tears and quietly whispered:

“What’s wrong querido?”

Phil blinked his eyes open. Missa? Missa was mad at him. Missa wanted him to leave and never come back. Missa told him to get out. 

“You had a nightmare Philza, you woke me up because you were crying. What happened?” Missa continued to wipe away the tears that refused to stop falling. 

“I thought it was real—“ he buried his face in Missa’s chest.

“The nightmare?” Phil nodded.

“Oh querido I’m sorry.” Missa rubbed his hands up and down Phil’s back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’ve been hiding something from you and I told you and you freaked out. You told me to leave and never come back.”

“Do you want to tell me? I promise nothing could make me leave.”

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” Phil murmured. 

“Oh querido,” Missa whispered before he kissed the top of Phil’s head. “I’m not trying to make false promises. I genuinely cannot think of a single thing to make me hate you.”

Phil was still sobbing into his chest.

“You don’t have to tell me but I just want to be here, is that ok?”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

“I can’t tell you…”

“That’s okay, you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Right now I’ll just hold you, is that good?” Missa felt Phil move against his chest, pulling himself even closer to Missa. “Do you want me to just talk? I always find someone just talking to me to be soothing. It helps me ground myself in reality, you know, to confirm that the nightmare wasn’t real.”

“That would be nice.”

“Well, most of my stories are about my son so I hope you don’t mind stories of him as a kid.”

“How did you know he was a changeling?”

“Well that’s a funny story, are you sure you want me to share it right now? We’re both tired, you might fall asleep.”

“I won’t.”

“Ok amor, I’ll remind you of that tomorrow.” Missa laughed as Phil made a little ‘hmph’ noise.

He thought up how to best explain the moment he first met Chayanne. As he continued to run his hands up and down Phil’s back he started to smooth out the little feathers that trailed from his wings onto his shoulder blades.

“Well my son was about three when I found him. He was in a little bush and he had blueberry juice all over his face. It looked a little like blood so I rushed over to see if he was hurt.”

“Like juice was just spread across his face?”

“To be fair I was far away and it was red. But when I noticed it was just juice I cleaned up his face. He looked at me with these baby eyes and clung to my leg when I tried to stand up. I wasn’t planning on leaving him, I just tried to see if I could get him help. So instead I picked him up and I noticed he had a tail.”

“Tallulah has a cow tail like a huldra, she just wraps it around her waist when she’s around humans.”

“My son doesn’t have wings like her, is that normal?”

“Normal enough, most changelings have wings but roughly ten percent of them don’t.”

“Oh thank the stars, I didn’t even think that it could be a problem before right now. Anyway, my son had these bright purple eyes, like mine. And I just kind of knew he was mine, or at least meant for me. He was my gift from the stars.”

“We’re going to get him back.”

“I know. I’m not going to just stand around and wait though, today we’re going to the pixie fields.”

“In a bit though, you need more rest. I’m sorry I woke you up with my silly nightmare.”

“It’s not silly. Are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go back to sleep amor, we can probably get a few more hours of sleep before Tallulah wakes up.”

“Good point.” Missa felt Phil pull himself out of his arms. 

“Where are you going mi querido?”

“I hate sleeping on my back, my wings feel trapped. I need to adjust.”

“Oh. You’ve slept on your back the past few nights, I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine, just something else I never told you…” Phil murmured.

“Ok but I need hugs from you to help me sleep, how else am I supposed to help you if you’ve had a nightmare?” 

“Uh—“

“I know!” Missa got up and shifted the pillows before laying back down. “Rest your head here,” he gestured to his shoulder. 

“And lay on you?”

“Mhm! Cuddles and you’re comfy.” 

Missa kept him safe, Missa instantly took care of him when he expressed discomfort. So why the hell was he still so scared of Missa’s reaction to him being a fae. 

Still, Missa’s suggestion to help him sleep better worked. He was laying on Missa and as soon as he managed to stretch out his wings he fell asleep.

Missa didn’t sleep. He told Phil to sleep and he had every intention to do the same but he couldn’t help but stare at Phil. 

His golden hair was just faintly visible in the darkness. The rise and fall of his chest pressed gently against Missa’s. His warm breath floated across Missa’s collarbone.

He was calm, he was at peace. Phil’s wings were spread out across the bed, soft pillows of feathers. He ran his hands through them.

“Mhm… comfy…”

“Is that good mi amor?”

“Love.” Was that an answer? Was Phil translating the nickname? Was Phil saying he loved him? 

“Keep sleeping, I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

Missa felt a small kiss placed on his shoulder before Phil drifted back off. He smiled down at his angel. His feathers were soft and he clung to the sweet sounds Phil made despite him still being asleep.

He clung to his husband who was humming again. “What time is it?” He murmured.

“Awake time.”

“Are you sure? I thought it was cuddle time.”

Phil could practically hear Missa’s smile. 

“You’re extra clingy when you wake up, huh, last night you even called me love.”

“I what?”

“You woke up briefly after I started brushing out your wings, you said love and fell back asleep.”

Phil reached up and kissed Missa. When Missa started laughing, Phil started trailing kisses down his neck. 

Missa ran his hands through the feathers of Phil’s wings and he moved off of Missa’s chest. 

“You’re warm, why’d you leave?” Missa asked as he tried to chase after Phil. 

“I wanted to look at you pretty boy.”

They heard shuffling from the other side of the room. “Apa is Papa awake?” A bleary voice asked.

“I am.” Phil scooped Tallulah up from her bed and placed her next to Missa before he sat next to Missa on his other side.

“Hola mi niña, how did you sleep?”

“Bueno!” 

“We’re going to a flower field today, are you excited?”

“Flowers? Really Apa?” Phil let the two of them talk about their plans as he took a little nap on his husband. 

“Ok querido it’s time for you to wake up.”

“Papa! Papa!” Tallulah bounced out of Missa’s arms and started shaking Phil.

“Huh, what?” He muttered, only moving slightly, still resting his head on Missa’s shoulder.

“Apa Missa isn’t a pillow!”

“He’s my pillow Tallulah, so technically you’re wrong.”

“Papa! People can’t be pillows! Pillows need to be soft.” Missa laughed and ran his hand through Phil’s hair. 

“Cmon querido.”

“Apa Missa will give you kisses if you wake up Papa.” 

Philza shot upright. “I’m awake.” 

“Good, you can do the fancy braid for me and then Apa will give you kisses.”

“That wasn’t the deal.” Phil pouted, trying to worm his way back to laying down on Missa’s shoulder.

“I want the fancy braid with the ribbons!”

“How about this,” Missa cut in. “I’ll give you one kiss before I go shower, and while I’m showering you braid Tallulah's hair. When I get back I’ll give you more kisses.”

“More.”

“One. You get one.” 

“Papa, you are going to get more later!”

“But I want Missa to stay here with us.”

“I’m going to shower, I’ll give you a kiss now or you can wait until after you braid Tallulah’s hair.”

“Yes! You’re the best Apa! See Papa, Apa knows how to make you do things.”

“I’m just tired, why are you two being so mean?”

Missa laughed and leaned over to kiss Phil. “I’m not being mean, I’m just making sure our daughter gets her hair braided.” Phil stole another quick kiss.

“Apa go shower before Papa distracts you.”

“Yes Lullah.” Missa kissed her forehead and headed off to shower.

“See Papa, he loves you.”

“He what?”

“He loves you! Nobody would put up with you if they didn’t love you.” She teased. 

“We like each other, I wouldn’t say—“

“You two love each other and you’re idiots if you think otherwise.”

He ignored the slight insult. “I love him but—“

“Then tell him Papa! Tell him you’re in love with him.”

“It’s too soon.”

“It’s been like ten moons, that’s forever in human terms.”

“Tallulah no, he thinks it’s been ten days.”

“What do you mean Papa? It’s been ten moons since you met him.”

“Well yes but he’s bonded to me, he’s started to perceive time differently.” Phil weaved in the ribbon and continued the braid.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s my beloved Tallulah, you remember what that means right?”

“He’s a human you chose to be my other dad.”

“Sort of, I chose him but for our clan we have to have a mutual claim on the other. He has to agree to be my beloved.”

“But he already is your beloved.”

“Not officially, the bond isn’t sealed yet.”

“Then he isn’t your beloved. He’s purely human.”

Phil sighed, the magic was weird even for him. “He’s started to become my beloved. Magic-wise. I’ve bonded with him but he hasn’t bonded with me.”

“I think kissing should be classified as bonding.”

“Humans can be tricked into accidental bonding if there isn’t more than one bonding ritual. When the bonding ritual was only the exchange of names humans often trapped themselves with a fae for life on accident. But because I started the bonding process he’s started to be affected by it.”

“How?”

“Well, the obvious part is that he’s perceiving time differently. He’s adjusting to the effects of immortality, at least from you know, natural causes. He’s still vulnerable to death but it’s a lot harder to kill a fae than it is to kill a fae’s beloved.”

“So Apa Missa will live forever like us.”

“Unless something bad happens but yes.”

“What else?”

“He’s going to need to eat more, the only food that will make him feel full for longer is fae food.”

“Oh because human food doesn't last as long because he’s thinking it’s a day when really it’s a moon.”

“Exactly, and sometimes other things can happen but they’re rarer.”

“Like what?” The water turned off, Missa would be out of the bathroom soon.

“I’ll explain later, your braid is done, I even braided in some purple ribbons.”

“Thank you Papa! Apa can give you more kisses after all.”

Missa changed into the spider silk clothes, just in case. 

“I’m not going to ask Missa for kisses, Tallulah.” Missa heard. He smiled at the sweet scene and opened the door.

“Ok, Tallulah, is your braid good?”

“Papa did a good job!”

“Perfect.” He walked over and sat down next to Phil. He started braiding Phil’s hair. His hair was glowing but the small strands that kept blowing in his face were covering his emerald eyes.

“I thought I got kisses.” Phil complained.

“You will. I’m braiding your hair to keep it out of your face as well, besides I thought you told Tallulah that you weren't going to ask me for kisses.”

“I never did, she wanted me to knock on the door and ask for kisses. I waited. Because I can be patient for maybe… two minutes.”

“Wait a little longer and you’ll have a pretty braid and then I’ll give you kisses.”

Tallulah laughed and pulled sweet food out of her bag. “Papa, you can have food while you wait.” She handed over a sweet roll, it was slightly squished from being in a bag for three days but it still smelled delicious.

“Fine.” He took the roll and started eating it while Missa continued to braid his hair.

“All done amor!” Phil turned around and pulled Missa into a kiss. 

“Stars above, that scared me, give me a little warning first cuervito.”

“Warning.” He said before pulling Missa back into a kiss. Phil melted into Missa’s arms.

“Ok, ok enough.” Missa finally said with a laugh. Phil smiled at the shining star in front of him. 

“It’s flower field time! C'mon Apa!”

Missa got up and picked up their little girl. “It’s flower field time!” Philza grabbed the bags and left the money on the counter as they left the inn.

“I want to see all the flowers!”

“We’ll get there niña, it’s still a little bit away.”

“How long?” 

“Maybe an hour.” Phil said.

“That’s so long Papa, why can’t it go faster?”

“Because we have to walk Tallulah.”

“Well walking is boring when you two are just holding hands and staring at the sky.”

“Hey we’re cloud-gazing you little shit.” Phil said, scooping her up and tickling her.

“Stop- papa— stop.” She said between laughs.

“We’ll be there soon Tallulah, you want to look at the clouds with us? You can sit on my shoulders.” Missa offered.

“Really? Yes!” She climbed over, swinging her legs over Missa’s shoulders and nearly kicking him in the face.

“That one looks like a crown!”

“Find one that looks like a flower niña.”

“Ooh! Up there, a sunflower!”

The three of them continued walking, looking at the sky until the flower field was visible on the horizon. 

“Apa! Look, the flowers!” She started shaking around on Missa’s shoulders and he lost his balance. 

“Tallulah calm down you nearly made your Apa fall.” Phil said after steading Missa.

“Apa let me down!” She said, nearly squealing at the sight of the rainbow of colors in front of her.

When she was set in the ground she pulled off her boots and ran towards the flowers. Poppies sprung from each step.

“She’s powerful.” Missa said, taking back Phil’s hand since he no longer had to make sure Tallulah was steady on top of his shoulders.

“One of the most powerful changelings I’ve seen, she needs to control her emotions though or else she could really hurt someone.”

“Well controlling her emotions isn’t the healthiest, she just needs to learn to manage them. If you control your emotions then you aren’t allowing yourself to feel things and you can’t bottle everything up.”

“I know but she could really hurt someone, she could grow flowers with sleeping pollen or vines with sharp thorns without even meaning to.”

“Well she’ll learn to control it. And we’re looking for pixie dust right?”

“Oh yeah, here.” Phil reached into his bag and pulled out a small hourglass attached to a string. “There's a little swinging latch that you can open and put the pixie dust inside and once you have enough you close the latch and tip it over. When the dust falls to the bottom of the hourglass a pixie should be trapped at the bottom.”

“We’re specifically looking for the black pixie dust right?”

“Yeah, it should be towards the forest areas, anywhere where there is shade, the underdark pixies can only come out in the shade.”

“And can you help me find the pixie dust?”

“No, the pixie dust needs to be gathered by a singular person. Besides I really don’t want Tallulah to run into a dark pixie. Their bite is venomous and it can kill fae.”

“So you’ll watch Tallulah and I’ll gather the pixie dust.”

Phil reached back into his bag. “Eat this if you get hungry, it should be enough to keep you safe.”

“Ok, where will you be? Where should I meet you when I’m done talking to the pixie?”

Phil looked at his feet. Silence. He fidgeted with the emerald necklace. “Try to meet us here, but we’ll find you if you aren’t here by sundown. I’ll come find you.”

“The woods are towards the east right? So you and Tallulah will stay here while I go East.”

“Yeah, and if anything goes wrong I will burn down the fucking earth to find you.” Phil whispered as he clutched Missa’s hand.

Missa laughed. “Thank you amor, I don’t think that will be necessary though.”

“I know but please be cautious Wisteria.” Phil was serious, the words were laced with care and concern.

“I will querido.” Missa was pulled into a hug, Phil’s wings wrapped around him. Phil pulled him into a soft kiss before he pulled away and with a small wave headed towards the edge of the flower field. 

The forest! He had been walking for what felt like ages, Phil and Tallulah couldn’t even be seen on the horizon that’s how long he walked for.

The black pixie dust. 

A few grains here, then there.

But there was a lot resting on a stone covered in black rose petals. Well that wasn’t ominous at all. But he needed the pixie dust, getting immortality from a pixie would be hard enough; and this was just laying right in front of him.

He dropped them into the hourglass which glowed a faint blue before the latch locked itself. 

“What the hell?” Missa murmured. He flipped it over like Phil said to. Grains of dust rushed to fill the empty space and before long the last one fell.

A large crack echoed in Missa’s ears. A pixie was banging against the glass of the hourglass. “LET ME OUT YOU MOTHER FUCKER!”

“Who are you?”

“Like I’m giving—“ the small man made eye contact with Missa. “Holy shit you’re hot.”

“Thank you?”

“You want my name? I’d love to give it to you!”

“That was a quick change of heart.”

“Well I’d do anything for you baby.” 

“I’m not your baby. Don’t call me that.” Missa said, pulling his bangs out of his face.

“Hmm, do you like magic? You summoned me for a reason right? I can show you some cool magic but you’re going to have to let me out of this glass cage.” The pixie grinned showing off sharp teeth.

“I summoned you to get immortality for my boss.”

“Oh. Well I can’t do that from inside my cage.” He kicked at the glass and yelped. “Ow! What did you spell this with? It’s got traces of fae magic—are you fae?”

“No? Why would I need immortality if I was fae?”

“I don’t know, you could be indebted to a human, you know, you’d need help from me.”

“Well I’m just human.”

“Can you let me out already? I’ll take you somewhere where I can get immortality for you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise that I will get immortality for you.”

“Deal.” Missa unlatched the hourglass opening and the pixie jumped out and landed on the ominous looking rock.

He shifted form until he was larger, although he was still much shorter than Missa, he was a pixie after all and they were known for being tiny. His eyes turned black then a harsh red then to a deep brown with dark slits for pupils. 

He had yellow duck wings, making him look almost like a young changeling. You would never be able to tell him apart from one without the noticeable bags he had under his eyes. They highlighted the slight differences that made him look much older than a child changeling.

“Much better, now let’s go!” He snapped and Missa fell to the ground. His vision blackened as a pit opened up in front of him.

[dudeshusband]

Title: You're My Treasured Work Of Art

Ship: Mike x Dude

Words: 680

Description: A narration of Dude's favorite things as he goes about his day with Mike.

(No dialogue at all. A rare one for me. I just wanted to look at myself from his perspective, for comfort reasons.)

Dude liked to steal glances as Mike went about their day. He could never seem to get enough of them. He liked the mornings when he woke up first and could watch them sleep for a while. It was them at their most peaceful. This was rather funny to him because Mike tossed and turned in their sleep unless he held them tight. They were also a notoriously light sleeper so he had to be silent and careful as he watched the rise and fall of their chest. He couldn’t always stop himself from kissing them though, and that’s how they awoke on mornings like this. 

He liked to watch them get ready for the day. He watched them slip out of their nightgown as surreptitiously as he could. He knew they’d get shy if they caught him staring. The shyness was cute but the way they walked around when they thought they were not being watched was better. He liked the length of their legs and the extra chubbiness on their hips. He liked watching them tie their hair to wash their face, revealing the back of their neck. He liked the way they looked before they fully buttoned up their shirt, the softness of their belly and the pale skin up to their neck. They pulled on pants and tied a bandana. Dude watched their hands. Eventually they’d be washed and dressed and they’d return to wake Dude up. He would pretend to be asleep so they would wake him with their gentle morning voice. 

If the day was slow, work might not separate them in a town as small as this one. He could watch them stand guard at the Hotel Alamo from the jail, or from the start of town. They fiddled with their belt buckle and were generally restless. If nothing was happening, he walked over to talk. If something happened, the moment was over. 

They took all of their meals together in the dining room at the hotel. Mike enjoyed cooking when Consuelo let them use the kitchen. Dude enjoyed eating Mike’s food. It made them happy to share meals with him and it made him happy Mike cared so much. He liked their genuine smile, the one with teeth showing and prominent apples of their cheeks. He wanted to be the reason for that smile. Maybe he was. 

He liked returning to one or the other’s room at night. He liked the sleepy voice Mike had and the way they became clingier when tired. He liked when they watched him shave, pure adoration in their eyes. They liked to caress the newly smooth skin of his cheeks right after. He liked how gentle their hands were. Mike stared at him every time he undressed. There was no denying that he enjoyed the attention. He did it slowly so they’d watch longer. They blushed deeply if he caught them staring. He always made it obvious he caught them staring. 

Mike was the cuddliest person Dude had ever known. There was nothing Mike ever wanted more than kisses and cuddling. It was nice to be pulled down onto their chest and kissed on top of the head. Nobody had been so gently affectionate with him as Mike was. He could listen to their heart and have his hair played with. Mike loved his hair. Dude liked that Mike loved his hair. They’d listen to him talk if he was up to talking or he’d listen to them talk, never having to put a single word in. Often, he’d look up to watch them talk. They could be very animated and Dude basked in their excited glow. A smile played on his lips. Mike stopped talking to kiss that smile. He kissed them back. 

Mike was slow to sleep. Dude tried to stay up with them but often couldn’t. He fell asleep laying on their chest or pressed into their back or nuzzling their neck. The sleepiness and comfort of Mike always overtook him. He’d come to know though, they’d be there when he woke up. He could look at them all over again tomorrow. 

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

Everlark (The Hunger Games, Ch. 20)

(in which they easily fall into being a married couple)

"getting the broth into peeta takes an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, and yes, kissing" - this is so funny. threatening?!

it's like once they've started kissing, they can't stop. like it's an absentminded habit

katniss gets into the sleeping bag with peeta and it's "toasty warm" and she "snuggles down gratefully"

she acknowledges that by teaming up with him, she's made herself much more vulnerble but decides to trust the "instinct" that made her go looking for him even when she knew he was injured (i thought you said it was so the district 12 people weren't mad at you, katniss?)

"i woke up and you were gone... i was worried about you" peeta got his girl again and decided that's it, we can never be separated

peeta's capacity to flirt with/tease katniss while possibly dying is truly remarkable. his humour is really something special and so easy in such horrific times for them. never forget what the movies took from us

"he catches my hand and presses it against his lips. i remember my father doing this very thing to my mother and i wonder where peeta picked it up" - three things: one, peeta resembling her father again; two, peeta showing her love and she recognises it as love; three, her wondering where peeta got this from lol

as she lies to sleep, peeta brushes the hair off her forehead and this seems to be a specific thing they do for each other (my mind is brought to her doing it to hijacked peeta to help him sleep), but it starts right in this little cave, their little treasured intimacies. katniss notes that unlike the staged kisses/caresses they've had so far (how many of them were really staged though), that him doing this to her is natural and comforting and she doesn't want him to stop. she falls asleep as he does it.

peeta "brightening" when katniss returns even though he's miserable. he is so obsessed with her

so far katniss has been thinking peeta is acting with her but she chooses not to tell him a happy story involving gale because she thinks it won't go down well with him (or the audience) - so in some capacity she must sense that he is legit 'competition' for gale and that he doesn't like the idea of gale and her together.

the whole conversation about peeta saying he's gonna pay for himself since she's saved him and her asking him what he cost her again (a bit flirty maybe hm) and him saying a lot of trouble but that she'll get it all back. they're too much. flirting in a cave while all this (gestures to the games) is going on

him knowing when she's lying. which is interesting because at the end of the book when he finds out she was acting, he's caught off guard. and katniss isn't a good actress which leads me to believe whatever he's feeling from her is pretty damn genuine

the movies really took away so much of peeta's character traits. like boy is stubborn, he won't go down without a fight and they made him a damsel in distress and a weak one at that (think of the magic josh hutcherson could've worked with a better script)

"'what am i supposed to do? sit here and watch you die?' he must know that's not an option. that the audience would hate me. and frankly, i would hate myself too, if i didn't even try" - so here we have her going into a bloodbath alone just so she can try save him. she could win the games alone and no one would be mad at her for it all things considering but she cannot let him die. like she can't bring herself to even think of it

the whole bit where she feeds him the syrup berries and he realises and tried to spit them back up but she clamps her hand over his mouth to make him swallow. these two. "a stray berry stains his chin and i wipe it away" more casual intimacy

[elldritch-horror]

So, there's this post I've been mentally drafting for a bit, which in its simplest terms boils down to:

broke: people at work asking 'how was your weekend' are genuinely interested in the minutiae of your weekend

woke: people at work asking 'how was your weekend' are doing so as small talk, and don't care about your weekend

bespoke: people at work asking 'how was your weekend' are probably not explicitly and specifically interested in your weekend, but they probably are interested in you, and in fostering a social bond with you

I think there's a tendancy among those of us for whom Small Talk is not a native language to get stuck at the realisation that we aren't as interesting as we thought, and Janice in marketing doesn't sit there with bated breath waiting for us to come in on a Monday morning so she can hear about the pizza we had for dinner on Saturday night. It kinda hurts, and feels like everyone around is disingenuous, and just pretending to care about us when they don't.

For me, it took me a long time to realise and properly internalise the idea that small talk isn't pointless noise, just because it doesn't mean what it says on the tin. People are interested in you! Just maybe not in the exact ways you thought. They're probably just as interested in you as you are in them, and this is their way of extending an invitation to connection.

That was going to be the whole post, but then my brain did that thing where it connected some dots which probably aren't really dots, and don't connect at all, so take the following musings with a big ol' helping of salt, but...

In autism assessments they ask about trauma. As I understand it, they ask this because autistic and c-ptsd traits overlap so much it can be hard to untangle exactly where those traits are coming from.

I was thinking about this, and I got to seeing a kind of logic to the groups of people for whom 'lovely weather today, isn't it' is a typical social opening gambit, compared to the people for whom 'hey, here's my childhood trauma wrapped up as a funny anecdote' is a more solid introduction.

Maybe, if you're the sort of person who is privileged enough to be able to assume that your basic self will be largely palatable to most people, the relationship model of gradually increasing intimacy makes perfect sense.

If you're someone who can't make that assumption, either because of being part of a marginalised community, or because of trauma, then that simple path towards a relationship becomes a trek into unfamiliar wilderness, where you have no way of knowing at the outset whether the road leads you somewhere beautiful, or around a blind bend and straight off a cliff. You don't want to invest weeks or months talking about weather and weekend plans before you find out that Janice in marketing is actually a white supremacist or terf.

Why does all this matter? Well, maybe it doesn't. But I've been really fucking isolated for a good few years now, because I figured out that people didn't care about my weekend plans, and I got stuck there, and spent my time exclusively interacting with people who matched my internal model of relationship building by starting deep. And don't get me wrong, I built myself some wonderful relationships, but not many.

Recently I've been trying to broaden my horizons, and build bonds with people who aren't exactly like me, and there's so much joy in it, y'all! Sure, it's a bit of extra effort to consciously walk myself through the conversational template of 'question?' 'reasonably brief answer with reciprocal question' etc, but I've met some people I really like, and I'm excited to spend more time with.

And when you're doing these things consciously, you have the option of asking for a map, before plunging into that wilderness. Maybe when they ask about your weekend, the part of your weekend you highlight is one that subtly points at whatever topic you might feel unsafe about, in a non-confrontational way. You saw a drag queen when you waiting for the train. You gave a fiver to the homeless lady outside Morrisons and had a chat about the book she's reading. In a lot of cases, you can weed out the people you really don't want to be cultivating early on.

I don't have a clever and pithy closing statement, so I'll go with awkwardly earnest, instead. A lot of the people I'm building bonds with aren't going to ever become my closest confidantes, but that's okay. We need best friends, but we also need acquaintances. We need whole communities. Sometimes love is lying in bed with someone at 3am discussing your deepest hopes and fears, but sometimes love is also the woman twice your age at the local knit & natter who remembers that you like sugar in your coffee.

[sirensplayhouse]

hii it’s ‘🪦’ anon. i wanted to come back for a quick second and share some stuff. recently, i’ve manifested so much stuff since i first sent an ask and even before that with only being in this year for two months.

month of janurary in order:

- my parents divorce being over after years (everything working out how we planned). this was also the reason i had got into LOA all those years ago, so i did cry for like a day straight, it was really my wakeup call.

- 2 week vacation to my favorite tropical area for the month of feburary (i just got back from traveling and i enjoyed myself sm)

- i tapped into the void state about two times that month as well. i affirmed for always being aware of when i’m in it.

- a healthier relationship with my family. the past few years i did struggle with feeling close with them but we’ve grown so much in a short amount of time now.

- 300 dollars worth of clothes + a skims dress (the package was gonna be way more and i had already spent a lot of money for the vacation in advance)

- three new pairs of desired shoes

- this was random but, my mom always gives me money monthly to spend freely or to save but i had already gotten that months worth. so i was like my mom is gonna give me more money, not even 30 minutes later she’s asking how much i wanted?? 😭😭

month of feburary in order:

- over the years my family has definitely gotten more lenient especially since i’m damn near grown LMAO but it feels nice to do stuff without feeling like there’s going to be consequences, so i manifested for my family to be more lenient with my desired things.

- to get rid of my cold/flu a few days before vacation. i had gotten “sick” (like a common cough and runny nose) from a family member. i haven’t been sick in years so i was genuinely pissed about it. i affirmed one night when i was sleepy to wakeup without the sickness, and when i woke-up it was gone.

- my sister got paid earlier than she expected. and the amount was a few more thousands than she normally would get. it was funny when she came to tell me because she always has to make a joke out of everything. 😭

- my mothers approval for more piercings and maybe even a tattoo? (probably not, i’d def pussy out LMDAOO)

- so this was the biggest one besides the divorce but we got offers for two homes. the same homes that we looked at years ago and it honestly freaked me out. i genuinely did want to move again so i could be closer to my friends house to hangout more (we both met through LOA about three years ago and just so happened to live almost an hour away). i glanced at both house listings online after talking to her and i believed that i was gonna move. NEXT DAY, MY MOM AND SISTER GOT TWO CALLS BACK TO BACK. so now we’re moving into both homes because of something that happened 😭 it’s not bad but it was funny. i’ll be there in less than a week so i’m excited!

- another thing that happened was earlier this month. i tapped into the void for fun through this guided hypnosis video post made by gorgeouslypink and i was curious. i didn’t have any intent on manifesting anything there nor did i actually think i was gonna go through with it. i laid down right after and i tapped into it immediately while following the last speaking. personally, i don’t feel the need for the void because at the end of the day, ts is a deep meditative state inside of me. manifesting in the void is instant, and so is manifesting any other way. i also texted my friend right before and after. she thought i was gonna do it another day by u disappeared for like an hour or two and she was shocked. i was gonna send proof of everything but idk how to do this shit through anon but changing the font tbh this is sad.

all of the stuff that i mentioned within these two past months were all manifested without using the void. i hope that this can bring more positivity and enthusiasm for a lot of people who’ll see this post. ofc you can use the void but realize your power, it all starts with you and ends with you. don’t forget that you promised yourself these things so give them to yourself. sending love 💓 i’ll check back in monthly probably bc this is fun sharing my experiences and using the pink font color 💟 see you next time!

babes……. HELLO YOU DID THAT🥺i’m so proud and happy for you ! 🫶🏾 you’re only gonna get better and better and i can’t wait🥰i hope you enjoy all you’ve manifested 🕺🏾and have an absolute ball

[00towns]

sleepworld, from typhoon 10

The thoughts I had this month drove through the Highway 80 in my brain without stopping for a bathroom break, so all I have to share is some fumes and crumpled wrappers. I offer this pot pourri from the endless rain of Typhoon Shanshan.

Recently, I fell asleep on the couch after dinner and dreamed that I was in the honeymoon stages of a blossoming relationship with Mark Zuckerberg. In this dream, he was taller than me, and wearing one of those textured Lululemon athletic shirts with the gridded stretch pattern, which I remember clearly because I was resting my forehead on it. It was surprisingly intimate – we were figuring out how we were going to act towards each other with a shared group of friends, who had yet to learn about our new status. Would we arrive together? Would we hold hands? I woke up genuinely nauseous, and a little dazzled. Out of respect for the fact that I can identify exactly when and where this particular anxiety comes from, I won’t name it. 

In another dream, I was sitting barricade at the Eras tour, and Taylor was getting the audience to cheer for different liberal and conservative opinions that she was yelling (yelling) between songs. At the end of the show, she formally announced her endorsement of Harris, and all of the liberal side’s lightsticks (?) lit up in yellow, and the conservatives in the crowd got to beat up everyone holding a yellow light – topical! 

One night, I dreamed that I was visiting New York City with my rich friend K. She was taking me out for a night with her friends, and I was playing it cool in that ‘I still live at home and you’re all unimaginably wealthy’ way. There was a huge smear campaign going on against her on New York influencer Twitter, TikTok, and /r/NYCinfluencersnark because she was spreading lies about the dates of Fuji Rock Festival, but I went out with them even though we were getting papped. She took me to a bar called Drunk Tattoos, where when you order a drink the bartender gives you a tattoo, so the bartender gave me a cute little fine line circle around a mole on my left forearm, handed me a lemon drop in a Dixie cup, and then charged my credit card $1200. I started freaking out, but all of K’s friends just laughed at me, so I went outside and ran into (a different, very dear) K, who was very pointedly ignoring me because I was still getting papped. This was the most distressing dream of the three, and it’s definitely the closest to reality. 

On the other side of sleep, I once woke up in the middle of the night swaying back and forth from a mild earthquake. It wasn’t the motion that woke me, but the sound of my clothes moving on the rack at the foot of my bed. It sounded like the rustling of someone in my room. There’s not much to do in that situation except wait for it to end, and then lay motionless in hyper-aware silence waiting to see if another shock will hit. Since then, I occasionally snap out of half-sleep into overwhelming consciousness with the phantom sensation of tremors, and it takes my nerves a few minutes to calm down. It’s a little silly to imagine myself from a birds-eye-view: whether there’s an earthquake or not, I wake up with a start and proceed to do absolutely nothing at all. If dreams are anxieties and these three examples are about being in a half unsettling, half boring, mostly funny reality, of course consisting of the trifecta of relationship/scene/milieu, then I fear I shall be jolted awake anytime now, the Itch revving in my chest like a chainsaw, fraught with the realization of how I am living.

relationship: i love you, my friends friends

A few years ago in B’s tiny apartment in San Francisco, having spent days on end together and running dry of things to discuss, J and I started trading stories about our friends, ones that the other had absolutely no relationship to or background knowledge on. She would get to the end of a long story, and then remember with a start, oh! This is the same friend as from [earlier story]! The network began to construct itself then, a careful cobweb of locuses, centers, and intersections to which I was beginning to feel extremely privy to. These were no longer strangers in Instagram-story anonymous soup – they were emerging as fleshed out characters. These were my friends-in-law. 

Since then, my friend’s friends have become one of my favorite can of worms to open. One that particularly makes me blush is “I think you and ____ would get along.” What a fantastic thing to say to someone! I’m immediately primed to learn more about why you think that. Am I reflected in them? Are you seeing them reflected in me? What moments, beats, portraits are making you think that? I’m often sad that I live in a different city than almost all my friends, but the friend-in-law makes reunion feel like homecoming. How are my in-laws doing? Have they been treating you with care? How have our networks reoriented since we last met? I want to know how the other people who love my friends have been loving them in the time since we’ve been apart. I want to connect dots, tie ties, bridge bridges. I want to feel closer to someone by virtue of someone else who loves them. Selfishly: could I, too, be a part of that networked gathering? Could a story involving me have been traded over the dinner table, a dot hung in the air only to be connected in a few months’ time? It’s better than any juicier disembodied gossip¹; their characters are vivid, dramatic, and story-relevant. 

This summer, I spent a lazy, domestic week in Seoul with a dear, dear friend’s family and became enamored with the trifecta of her, her sister, and her mom. A few grazed meals over the kitchen island and movie nights was all it took to see where the idiosyncrasies I love her for laid out like a breakfast spread shared between the three, each morsel a delight. I got a taste of what instincts, anxieties, responses of her closest loved ones are reflected in her, ones that I learned outside this intimate context. On one hot afternoon, we visited a show² where several of E’s mom’s art pieces were being shown, and stood in front of the pieces for a few minutes just absorbing them. She listened to passerby comment in Korean on her mother’s work, I listened to her, watched her glow with pride as we turned corners to see her mom’s art hung in gorgeous museum lighting. I think it was the closest I’ve ever felt to a friend. A few days in, E was feeling under the weather, so I went on a walk with her mom, just the two of us. When I came back, she was surprised to hear what we had chatted about – the history of their neighborhood, her work with local artists, her love for the range of mountains they called home. I laughed at her for her shock. “It was kind of just like talking to you.” 

For closer friends, there isn’t a greater privilege than learning about their families. L told me recently that at a certain level silliness can feel more intimate than seriousness; I interpret the question “tell me about your family” in that same way. It’s a question that begins as biographical information, but opens to so much more; it’s a question that means tell me about your family until it means how do you live. I’m happy to learn about your siblings, I’m happier when you can begin to refer to them by first name only and I can watch as you continue, knowing that I know who that is. It’s humbling to be placed as a single dot in a network of relationships that shape my friends, it’s a joy to be included in it at all. As my travels across Asia bring me closer to some locales and farther from others, I’ve come to understand the intimacy of my friend’s families, and even more so the question of how they ended up in America. It’s a secret, selfish sort of question, as I learn more about Asian immigration history and my community becomes a reflection of what I’ve learned. My friends are jarred treasures. I’m not sure that there’s any better way to begin to thoroughly understand someone than to engage with the context that shapes them, and the mobility to do so now feels like peeking over a wall into a secret, lush garden. City that raised my friend, how can I thank you enough? 

On the day before I left Seoul, E’s parents took us out for a nice meal. At the end, the staff chased us down to take an ice cream bar each. We stood in the parking structure, almost already too full but unable to waste them, giggling while eating with torsos stretched forwards to avoid drips on our shoes. Dear my friend’s friends and family, are the things you love them for the same ones I do? Won’t you like to share, so we might have twice as many? 

shoutout P, who is about to combine the two! can’t wait for your episode of normal gossip xoxo

Korean Embroidery in Modern Times: The Birds Trying to Catch the Sun [Exhibition]. (2024). Deoksugung Gallery, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Seoul, South Korea. https://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/exhibitions/exhibitionsDetail.do?exhFlag=1&exhId=202302150001630

scene: looking up, moving on

a bit vague and very dramatic, i am still, as noted below, processing and processing, over and over.

This feels out of the canon of things that are supposed to happen here. It’s the lamp in the corner of the party that looks weird¹, the one that signals the beginning of the end. I am waking up in mourning for people that never existed. I’m wondering if this is a party I should have left a few hours ago, while I was still enjoying myself off the warm buzz of my last shot and the music hadn’t yet made my head pound. I feel discomforted by what has happened, I feel silly for being discomforted, I feel deeply that I should have made a cleaner exit several drinks ago. 

In my defense: what happened to controlled release? It feels sometimes as if news is something that sits on my chest while I’m sleeping, waiting for me to wake up to it staring down at me. People have become crass and awful about discussing troubling headlines, as if shock is something that happens once. I torture myself with it too, over and over, iterative and needling, as if once wasn’t enough, as if the same information will bleed any more emotional catharsis on the fifth, sixth time. I’d like to be sat down, with the exact cliche demanded of tragedy, and spoken to softly, broken news to gently, treated like a person. I’m afraid that I’ve been put down and no one will ever pick me up again. 

There are several memories that I have frozen at the moment that I heard about bad things². When my grandmother died, my parents told me and my brother in the early morning, sitting on the floor of the computer room of my childhood home. I was wearing Cinderella pajamas. On January 6th, my dad and I sat for the entire day in front of the TV in our pajamas watching the news as across the world, about thirty minutes drive from that same house, the Capitol was attacked. I had eaten a Bodo’s bagel, smuggled in my luggage from DC to Tokyo, with a not-quite-ripe avocado for breakfast. I was driving down Route 50 to my favorite dimsum restaurant when D, scrolling through the news, read out the headline that over a hundred people had died in my old neighborhood in Seoul. I think I’ll remember this, too, sitting on my brown couch in my little apartment as it dumped rain outside in the early winds of 2024’s Typhoon 10, receiving a series of misspelled one-word texts from my increasingly grating coworker, and switching immediately to Twitter³. Do you notice how these have become increasingly impersonal, increasingly cold? I have. 

It will be a while before I can move on. Too much is out of my hands, or lives in the past, or is irreparable. I’ll take this as a reminder, then: a reminder to tend towards softness, that terrible, terrible things are around every corner but our context can help us bear them together.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/30t9kd/repost_a_parallel_life_awoken_by_a_lamp/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory

 I said I’d be vague, but I have to keep going on this point. Some ugly, crass people sent me some messages that would be the type of garbage included in a 2020’s teen movie montage after the main character does something that ‘goes viral’, full of shitty react faces and clickbaity question marks. I know this doesn’t sound very damning, but I hope you can understand how shitty this made me feel, and how insulting I intend this to be, in the same way that I mean ‘tone-deaf’ to be one of the most catty, insulting terms possible. You are content and your attention is fodder. 

milieu: culture vs. content

i. it's all content

Recently, I was sharing updates with L on our (mostly shared) in-laws when the subject of content creators came up. Mid-complaint, she interrupted me with a surprisingly cold take. “Gabi, you make content. You write.” I can’t ignore this point, even though I would like to be able to argue that what I write isn’t content – more reflective, time-intensive, personal than ‘content’ would suggest. But as usual, she was right. Everything is content, in both the descriptive and prescriptive sense. This is content, because I’m writing it, and this is content, because you’re reading it. 

Taken optimistically, I interpret L’s condemnation of my writing as content not to mean that what I write is drivel, but instead to mean that not all content is drivel. Content is everything. Every piece of media ever produced, with or without the intention of a consumer, becomes content the moment it leaves the hands of its creator. This feels like an important starting point, although I plan on taking it more as an acknowledgement than a practicable analytic. According to L, the yin to content’s yang is culture, and it’s a distinction that I find to be practical to make, although not quite fair given that they are in effect the same thing. I think it’s not a stretch to say that most people can distinguish between content and culture, even if their personal opinions on exactly what is what may differ. 

If the metric on which content and culture are differentiated is to be decided by something other than ‘I like this’ and ‘I don’t like this’, which I did suggest and was quickly shot down¹, a new metric should consider that content and culture exist on a sliding scale. There is culture-y content, and content-y content. I think some of best and worst of what the Internet has to offer exists in this central half of the scale – at its worst, attempting to scrape at the audiences for both sides, which in themselves often overlap, while trying to remain as inoffensive and palatable, at its best, blending together cliche yet well executed entertainment and art without underestimating the viewer. And, I have a renewed respect for those who can wholeheartedly state their love for both sides: content-y content (I love you, Never Have I Ever), and culture-y content (I love you, Tar). This is not a condemnation of taste, nor is it an attempt to defend content, but I wanted to think about why something feels to me like content or not². 

As a general starting point, I think culture/content can be broadly mapped onto form – an Instagram reel will be innately more content-y than a novel. ASMR soap cutting videos are not shy about their high-contrast, bass-boosted clickbait designed to be viewed in a loop. However, more complicated examples exist. There are carefully composed and thoughtfully written short films that just so happen to be made in vertical and posted on Reels, what about movie-length, artistically crafted video essays that get clipped up and uploaded short-form to direct more attention to the longer piece? Clearly, there’s no simple definition for which is which. If content is a feeling, then I’ll place myself in the dichotomy to argue that the divide between content and culture maps much more closely onto the work’s perception of its consumer (me) than any objective measurement, in line with that old coastal elite tendency (also me) to constantly be assessing the positionality of what we consume. Content seems to view me as a tool for its own virality and growing social capital; culture-y content seems to try and hide this fact. 

A good example of this is Saltburn. Film critic Peter Debruge argued in his negative review that the film fails to go beyond ‘basic’ story, and parrots other, more successful films with the addition of a ‘distinctive, splashy look’ to capitalize on filmmaking trends and virality³. In terms of the content-culture scale, Saltburn content-ifies The Talented Mr Ripley’s culture through its ‘big on style, thin on substance’ approach. Saltburn at times seems to be made for thirst trap edits of Jacob Elordi, hazy fancams of purple and blue gel-lit hedonism intercut with the unspecific grandeur of New England, and fantastic party themes. It’s why it birthed such a specifically counter-thematic and cringey short form trend of rich people dancing through their houses – the film seems to treat me not as an intelligent, autonomous, responsive body, but as a tool for the films own virality and marketing, hoping that I would do the work of entering the film into the zeitgeist without doing the work itself. Debruge cites Saltburn’s ‘savvy about loading the film with salty one-liners and visual zingers’ in order to ‘[oblige] [audiences] to discuss with others’ as hallmarks of what I’ll argue is why Saltburn is almost textbook culture-y content. It’s why the shock value moment holds almost as much weight as the rest of the movie: ‘Have you seen Saltburn? No, but I know about the one scene…’

Unlike Debruge, however, I think it’s a bit myopic to think this necessitates a bad rating for Saltburn, instead, I think it’s a more useful analytic when looking at our conversations surrounding pop film and the coastal elite zeitgeist as a whole. This is where it becomes useful to return to the foundation of this entire line of inquiry: everything is content, and despite any attempts to beg otherwise, the bleeding together of mediums has made it so that the screens that Saltburn may appear on are the exact same ones that might instead show endless Subway Surfers videos, Chinese mobile game ads, and stream highlights. The algorithm is less of an advanced mathematical model and more of a Nutri-Bullet set on high. The rhetorical tools that Saltburn uses on its viewer are more interesting when taken as determining factors of how it emerged as a dominant movie-flavor in the content-smoothie⁴ than just reasons why the film isn’t very good. 

 I feel like this is the divide: what constitutes content-y content and culture-y content while accounting for a vast range of individual perspectives is how the media thinks of their audience. What do creators imagine what I will do with their work? I think this analytic also works on the small scale end of content. I’m a reader of a Twitter personality-turned-Substack writer named Britney, and even had a pleasant exchange with her over DMs one time after enjoying a surprisingly candid piece of hers where I found we had a lot of shared experiences. What I was perceiving as esotericism, and my subsequent belief that her work was and would remain accessible to me, felt like an exercise in culture. I was engaging with a small (I mean small) Asian American woman writer far outside mainstream publishing who I had some things in common with. I felt engaged, responsive, and seen as a reader. Then, she did a series of increasingly corny shit online, then described me (amongst others, I assume) as ‘"fans” who formed adulatory parasocial relationships with the veneer of my personality that I parade online’⁵. When she put into words her perception of her reader – something that I feel any editing eye, or even friend, would advise strongly against – it became clear to me that this creator’s perception of her reader wasn’t really one of a thoughtful equal. Her audience is mostly their relationship to her – which is fine, sure, but does kind of irreversibly turn her work into a tool for its own promotion. Britney also seems to come to terms with this, noting ‘I’ve invested a lot into the internet, and the internet has invested back in me. For some reason, I thought this might win me some points at [large, in-person social gathering].’

If content vs culture is a feeling of interpellation by media, emphasis on feeling, I feel as if Britney’s work is content because I no longer feel like she primarily thinks of her reader as intelligent, autonomous, and with agency. It feels like content because it writes for the audience of content, seeking its own dissemination through networked publics before seeking me, its reader. After reaching a certain scale, it seems like this becomes true of all content. Because a work is indistinguishable from its proliferation, I guess it’s content all the way down. I am an extremely avid consumer of content and this is in no way a condemnation of what people, especially on the independent level, are creating. Every time I catch myself looking to hit a self-imposed deadline just to be able to say that I have, or wondering why on earth I’m on Tumblr instead of Substack, I am reminded that I too am creating content. Perhaps I shall be kinder to the GRWMers, dance challengers, and outfit of the dayists among us. 

I took an anthropology class at UVA about doing ethnography on the Internet. It was objectively one of the most interesting classes I took in the entire major, and had a fantastic reading list that essentially tackled the question of online discourse. The professor would probably find this entire project unintelligible garbage, but I just feel the need to shout Michelle out. If this writing project is content, and I am a content creator, then I must also contend with the question of what I anticipate my handful of readers will do with what they read. I don’t know if it helps or hinders that I would describe most of you as close friends, people I already respect and love. Hi, guys! Miss you all!

ii. lightning round⁷! submit yours here!

 at time of editing i think i may have ended up doing this anyway, i promised i liked saltburn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

Debruge, P. (2023, September 8). “Saltburn” review: A vicious “talented mr. Ripley” knockoff from the director of “promising young woman.” Variety. https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/saltburn-review-emerald-fennell-barry-keoghan-1235705894/

christ

https://www.booritney.com/p/vibecamp-3-and-me

im going to ai generate an ai thinkpiece and its going to be better than a lot of ai thinkpieces

thank u, L, for most of these thoughts + poking me hard enough on this to actually think about it

[atopearth]

Amnesia: Later Part 4 - Kent Route

I'm glad Kent addressed that it feels inappropriate to take the heroine randomly on an overnight drive haha, I would be very worried as her mother! I 100% trust Kent though. I love how well Ikki understands Kent that he can help the heroine decipher him haha. So cute how he told the heroine that Kent was really happy that she chose to sit next to him in the car. I know Kent only left for like 10 minutes but omg if I was left in a forest by myself in the dark, two minutes is already too much lol. I'm glad he understood how worried she was and apologised. They were cute though after he said he won't leave her again haha. Aww Kent was so excited to meet the heroine, he woke up earlier than usual and went to their meeting spot super early because he couldn't wait to see her, that's so adorable hahaha! I was about to say I can't imagine Kent wasting time though so I'm glad to know he was doing something productive like looking through his presentation he's going to be giving soon hahaha. It's always so nice to see the parents so accepting of the heroine. It's kinda funny to think that Kent is incompetent with household chores haha. It was quite endearing to see him work so hard changing a futon cover, he really tries his best in everything and that's nice.

Honestly it should be expected, but I guess considering how Kent lacks common sense, it was sweet of him to go pick up the heroine and carry the ingredients back with her to learn how to make nikujaga. Their innocent relationship is honestly so adorable but seriously!? Can their second kiss not be interrupted?! I love how because they were both embarrassed so they agreed to both close their eyes at the same time and kiss hahaha. I swear their second kiss better be perfect if it keeps getting interrupted! It's so sweet how Kent told her he asked her to come over because he just wanted to see her and that he didn't have a particular reason haha, him blushing is key, how could you get mad at that even if he's busy?! Anyway, Kent working hard looks hot anyway, I could stare at him all day🤣 Omggg, Kent blushing and smiling at the thought of spending time with the heroine in the house and thinking this is what married life every day would be like is so adorableee! I'm glad Kent knows to apologise when he's too harsh, the fact that he recognises he's been harsh and understands her feelings is great improvement! I forgot that if Kent moves to London, he won't have Ikki around to do his puzzles with, that's so sad, I love watching their silly shenanigans! It was so funny to see Sawa and Mine try their best to hide from Kent so he won't find out about the heroine preparing for his birthday haha. It's so nice that the heroine has such reliable and fun girl friends. Seeing Kent so genuinely happy that the heroine put so much effort into it this whole week was sweet, definitely worth it! It was so him when he nonchalantly remembered that it was actually his birthday haha. Awww it's so sweet how Kent has actually been practising baking this whole time and baked a cake for the heroine! It really is the perfect occasion hahaha. Lmao at the heroine reading out Kent's ideas on how to propose hahaha. It was nice to see how cute they are in London.

Overall, Kent's route was nice but kinda boring. I guess it's because it's all about them just spending time with each other, which was nice and cute but I wanted something more. It just felt kinda bland that they did everything that is "natural" after dating I guess haha. But considering it's Kent, it's a pretty big deal haha, especially with the learning how to cook, being more considerate of others and just overall trying his best to be romantic, Kent definitely tries the hardest to do the simplest couple things haha but that's cute in its own way. Basically, if you want to see the two of them prepare for living together in London in a shy and innocent way then yeah it's a great continuation of their story, but I honestly wanted moreee, still good though!

[runninguplenorahills]

Lenora you’re back!!!!!💕💞💕💞

How have you been?

Heyyyy✨🌞

I’ve been doing pretty great honestly. I got through my finals and I actually did quite well :)). I didn’t take the biology exam though because holy fuck I can’t even do simple math and we were supposed to do crazy equations, no calculators allowed💀. So yeah, didn’t study at all and woke up in a cold sweat like three days before the exam and quickly set myself on inactive because I would’ve definitely fucking flunked it. But English went great, got one of the best grades out of the entire course for my presentation I was sweating buckets over beforehand, linguistics went well as well and the rest was just pass or fail and fortunately I passed but I’m still waiting on a feedback for my pedagogy portfolio. Speaking of waiting, I spent weeks in February working on my art portfolio and applied for art school and I’m waiting for a response to that, too.

I also finally read “The song of Achilles” but it sadly didn’t earn its place next to my favorites, like, it was actually only three stars for me if I’m really honest. Currently I’m reading “Persuasion” (I’m about half way through) and that books actually pretty great but the first like 80 pages are just like, set up lmao. But after that it quickly gets better!!! I haven’t continued reading in a couple of days though which I should absolutely do soon because the new semester starts in two weeks and then idk how much time I’ll have to read. I’m actually taking British and American literature classes in the new semester which I’m pretty excited about!!!!

Oh boy, I also finally watched s5 of Miraculous and the alternate universe Paris special and the movie and bro, s5 was an absolute dumpster fire…. Actually fucking insane. But the Paris special was kinda entertaining lol, and I can’t lie…. the movie was pretty good. Like… it was honestly great hahahah. I also watched Cars btw! I have watched the first part before but never the rest and then my sister wanted to watch Cars so we did and yeah, Cars is amazing ofc. I also finally watched But I’m a Cheerleader which was all over the okays but it was funny and I loved the ending. I’m trying to remember what else I watched but I don’t remember anything else… hmmm… Oh!! Omg, I watched Christopher Robin and I didn’t not except that movie to be as good as it was. I was in genuine tears over fucking everything and yeah, very enjoyable. I also watched The Sixth Sense which was good, did not see the plot twist coming though, Like, spoiler! I literally remember thinking “oh.. so he survived I guess” when it says “next fall” like a fucking idiot 😭. I don’t think I watched any other movies though.

Wait, I also read the entirety of Jackson’s diary on webtoon and it was a fucking roller coaster.

Other than that I’ve been hanging a lot with my friends, especially those who moved to another city for university. There’s this café we always and in the past two weeks we’ve gone three times and you can borough games to play and we usually play scrabble which is always sm fun!

Oh and holy shit, I turned fucking 20!?!?! Absolutely batshit insane, I cannot believe it.

Also, I just kinda left tumblr very like, impulsively because I had finals coming up and thought it’d be distracting, but also, tumblr tends to suck the life out of me sometimes so I thought taking a break would be worth it either way. After finals where over I then had to work on my art portfolio and I have a huge procrastination problem so I stayed off tumblr because I knew it would make it worse and so I just left and didn’t reply to anyone, which, I’m sorry, I missed you and the other mutuals so much but I also don’t think that many people even noticed that I took a break in the first place. Anyway,I’ll probably dip when Uni starts again as well but I thought it’d be nice to catch up with y’all before that happens.

How have you been doing :))💓💗💓💗💓

[acidh2otoby]

Something to Live For

Jake Muller x Male!Reader

Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, slight angst

Won 8th place from this post.

You felt tired but couldn't fall asleep, being locked in a cell where the only color was white and the lights constantly being on made it very irritating to do almost anything. The only color there was was the skin color of Jake, but he wasn't in the room currently so everything was basically a blinding white aura everywhere you looked.

The cell door opened and Jake came back, you chuckled a little as the doors closed. "Still no shirt?" You joked, seeing Jake still in just white sweatpants.

"Very funny." Jake snapped back, sitting down on his bed across from you.

When you both originally woke up in the cell, one of the first things you both noticed was that you had a white tank top but Jake didn't get any shirt. You both started coming up with joke reasons instead of actual reasons as to why that was a thing, but it seemed that Jake was starting to grow tired of them.

"Are you trying to sleep?" Jake asked, realizing that you were laying on your bed with your eyes closed.

"No, just giving my eyes a break from hallucinating things." You said, rolling over so that you were on your back now.

Jake sighed a little before he also laid down and did that same thing you did. "How old are you?" Jake asked, clearly not wanting a second of silence.

"I'm 22. Why?" You asked, finding the question odd.

"Nothing, I'm 21." Jake replied, a few seconds of silence later, he continued. "How long have you been a mercenary?"

"Uh... maybe eleven years?" You said, not entirely sure what day it even was anymore.

"Damn, and I thought I was bad." Jake muttered, your response shocking him a bit.

"Oh yeah? How old were you?" You asked, sitting up and looking at him.

"I honestly don't remember, every day has felt the same for most of my life." Jake said, shrugging a little.

"Got that right..." You muttered, laying back down.

"So why'd you become a mercenary?" Jake asked, clearly either extremely bored or genuinely curious.

"I ran away from the orphanage I lived in for years and found myself hanging out with the wrong people. You?" You explained nonchalantly, not wanting to go into heavy detail.

"My mother was sick and I was trying to get money to help her. It didn't work out in the end but can't say I didn't try." Jake explained, sighing a little.

"Why did you stay?" You asked, knowing a lot of people would rather be yelled at by an angry person over food than be in literal life or death situations almost every day.

"Money for myself, honestly. And what about you? Why'd you stay?" Jake asked, he chuckled a little when he responded.

"Me? Well... If I die in battle then people might actually care about me." You said, deciding to just be completely honest.

Jake was silent but you heard him shift on his bed, you sat up and saw that he was staring at you with a blank expression. "What?" You asked, not understanding what you said to make him react like that.

"So, the whole reason you stayed was because you wanted some sympathy?" Jake asked, not really believing what you said.

"Not exactly." You said, now you had to explain exactly. "It's easier to accept death when someone else puts the bullet through your head or when someone hangs you or cuts open your throat. It also doesn't put the blame on you if you go out that way. Why do you think I let myself get hurt so bad when I fight something?"

Jake continued to stare at you but with a little more worry in his eyes. "Your... suicidal?" Jake asked, he sounded a little worried.

"Yeah, and? Let's be honest, I'm just a waste of air." You said, shrugging.

Jake got up from his bed and sat on yours in front of you. "Stop that." Jake said, it was almost like he was ordering you to do as he said.

"Wha--?" You got cut off.

"You're not wasting air and whatever the hell else nonsense you just spit out of your mouth. Look, believe it or not, but I am inspired by you. I think you're the coolest person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting." Jake said, these words surprised you.

"What are you saying?" You asked, getting a weird feeling you've never felt before.

"I'm saying that... that I... well..." Jake trailed off before he shook his head before kissing you.

The shock you felt would've been enough to maybe give someone a heart attack but the weird feeling seemed to grow, it was something you hadn't ever felt before but you kinda liked it. Jake pulled away but didn't go too far away, he rested his head against yours.

"I was not expecting that." You muttered, not being able to look away from him.

"I wasn't either, guess I went on autopilot or something." Jake joked, making you chuckle. "(Y/N), if I can't give you a good reason to stay alive, can I be your reason?"

Those words did it. That was exactly when you realized that you were in love. You had always felt weird around Jake but thought it was because prior to this, you didn't talk to him a lot but would overhear him talking to other mercenaries.

You nodded before kissing him again, feeling a little more relaxed this time. When you pulled away, Jake made you lay down, you were a bit confused until he started to cuddle with you. It was a nice surprise and you loved it, it made you feel loved and that was a first.

[todayisafridaynight]

hey, i hope life's treating ya well this week! i finished y6 yesterday and came to share some thoughts if you don't mind :)

i think kiryu tried to project on his kids what he wanted kazama to be like as a father, but ultimately kazama'ed all of them, especially daigo. i found the ending of y6 very touching, but that's because i like daigo in all of his bland npc glory, and i agree with a lot of criticism of that ending being somewhat weird, especially when we had so little interaction with haruka, who just. you know. woke up from a coma. i wrote this already in my blog, but i'll repeat myself: that ending would've made much more sense if we had just more of daigo in general amd/or saw his transition from his y2 version to his version later in the series. like, we know haruka and kiryu are close, and we assume daigo and kiryu are close too, but i'd love to see more evidence of it in the actual text. that one substory in y0 clearly wasn't enough. i wish we could have more of haruka, MUCH more of haruka, too. the lack of her agency in y6 after y5 felt frustrating

i did enjoy the game, though. i really liked the callbacks to the previous games. as for side activities, it never seizes to amaze me how the eroge minigames are become just more and more unhinged. but all the missed storytelling opportunities, man

(it's also v funny that daigo's sr card code in clan creator is kiryusavemepleaz. i don't speak japanese and therefore haven't played rggo, but i know about a story where majima lets daigo win him on purpose or something? also the situations daigo's often put in (which are mostly near death experiences), him never getting any kind of resolve with ryuji as well... i think yokoyama kinda hates daigo lmao)

Heya! I sure love thoughts and I sure love talking about Daigo :]

On the note about 'Kazama'ing his kids, I'm going to be ugly and take a minute to interpret what that means if you don't mind.

When it comes to what Kazama did to his kids, he allowed Nishiki and Kiryu to join the yakuza despite knowing the dangers of it at their insistence. Ergo, we see Kazama prioritize the yakuza, telling Kiryu to leave the Dojima situation in Y1 alone. Moreover, despite Kazama lacking faith in Nishiki's abilities as a yakuza, he still expected him to be able to lead a family by himself while he took care of Yumi in hiding.

As for Kiryu and his kids, it was evident Kiryu wanted to be able to parent the kids at Morning Glory- to speculate, maybe as a way to atone of Kazama's messy paretning without outright admitting Kazama had faults. However, his bond with those in the yakuza inevitably kept him coming back, especially in regards to Daigo (who, of course, we find out he sees as a son. In this, it's a case of Kiryu still wanting to be a good parent, but the priorities aren't exactly there). In this (and I've discussed this in a post prior), Kiryu's attempting to spread himself thin when it comes to his family: he wants to help the Tojo, if not predominantly due to Daigo's presence there, but he also wants to father the orphans at Morning Glory. Unfortunately, since Kiryu can justify leaving the kids as Okinawa's a safer setting and he's admittedly at his best in a fight, he ends up leaving for Tokyo every time action's needed.

It's actually Kiryu's constant leaving that had me assume he was writing his letter to Haruka at first during Y6's ending, specifically when he was talking about how he lamented not spending more time with her. On the subject of Haruka, Y6 really did her disgustingly: as soon as she was of age, she becomes a mother and, on top of that, she gets hit by a car and is in a coma the majority of the game and doesn't even get to properly spend time with Kiryu before he vanishes. I genuinely wish and- foolishly- hope one day Haruka can actually get the respect she deserves after having been such an important, prominent, and interesting character throughout this franchise.

To talk about Daigo and Kiryu, the main subject of this ask I feel, I think RGG did as much as they could when it came to demonstrating Kiryu and Daigo's relationship. In Y5, it's revealed that Kiryu believes that people who become close to him suffer (and in this scene in particular, he's referring to Daigo after he gets shot on the roof)- how long he's had this mentality I couldn't definitively tell you, but I wouldn't be surprised if this has been a thought since everyone's deaths in Y1. Because of Kiryu's fear for others' well-being, it can be reasoned that Kiryu might have wanted to keep his distance from Daigo as much as he could lest something go wrong (but of course, he also feels responsible for protecting others, leading him to take action where he should probably leave things be). In Y4, we can see the buds of Kiryu regretting not being there for Daigo when he needed him most, outright apologizing to him for putting him in the position of chairman without any proper training or time. Considering all of this, Kiryu's letter to Daigo aligns with what we've seen: even if Kiryu wasn't able to be close to Daigo and properly guide him like he should have, he still confesses that Daigo was incredibly important to him and he regrets letting that fear stop their bond from deepening.

Daigo on the flip side, we become very aware that he values Kiryu immensely. To return to Y5, at the end of his taxi ride he tries to reassure Kiryu that he's able to carry himself without his help (i.e. 'I'm trying my best to walk this path' after Kiryu kicks him out of the car). Daigo's need for Kiryu's approval is also evident in RGGO: the story with Majima you're talking about is one of his character stories where he first becomes chairman. In this story, Daigo struggles to understand what Kiryu's intention was entrusting him to the Tojo Clan, but once he realizes it, this is his turning point to stop being the brute he was in Y2. To extend on RGGO shining light on Daigo's feelings for Kiryu, during his initial meeting with Mine in Mine's story, he lets Mine know he was so ardent in watching the Tojo at first so he could make 'the man' who put him in that position proud, and later during their bar conversation in another one of Mine's stories, he lets Mine know that while he doesn't consider Kiryu family at this point, he still considers him someone incredibly close to him (and as we see in Y6, Daigo will do a hard 180 on this and proudly call Kiryu his father). To jump back to Kiryu for a second, we can argue that Mine's whole 'what could Daigo see in a man like you' line could have contributed to Kiryu's want to distance himself from Daigo. Because what if Mine had a point: what WAS there to admire in Kiryu? What could Daigo POSSIBLY like about Kiryu, and would it not just be better if he wasn't in his life after- inadvertently- getting him put in a coma? To end this segment on a goofy note, Daigo's clan code being 'kiryuhelpmeplz' is super funny with the father/son lens: Daigo's gotta call his dad to help him out </3

EDIT: In regards to the RGGO story I mentioned here, I misremembered the exact quote and that drastically changes the scene and meaning I'm referencing, and significantly portrays the relationship between Daigo and Kiryu differently from what I've said. For the correct quote and sentiment, please refer to this ask here (x)

In all of this, it's reasonable that RGG couldn't expand on Kiryu and Daigo's relationship, but that's what makes Kiryu's letter so significant. We see from Kiryu and Daigo's sides individually that they saw each other as family, but neither of them were able to confront that fact directly for one reason or another (Kiryu, again, with is fear of hurting those he loves and his general inability to express his emotions perfectly. Daigo might have thought seeing Kiryu as his dad was inappropriate, especially after having had to believe he killed his actual dad). Kiryu lamenting the bond they could have had wouldn't have had the same merit if Kiryu and Daigo were actually able to bond more, but because they didn't and we see they still cherish each other, the impact's there.

My long ugly ramble aside, I'm glad you still enjoyed the game! I don't know if you have any more of the games left to play, but if you ever get around to them I hope you enjoy them!

[gojonanami]

Dear Sab,

I am so sorry I responded to you so late.

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing that I did was check your page to see if you’d finally uploaded the Professor Geto fic that I was so looking forward to, and to my utter delight, you did.

I read it straight away, in bed, enraptured and entranced.

I loved it, truly. 

Personally, I think this is your best work by far.

Your prose was captivating, concise, clever and witty. You laid out the scene very, very well—your characters are believable, the dialogue feels authentic and real, and the plot is highly engaging.

I loved your work—truly. And to me, the way you tackled the subject seemed fantastic. I know you said that philosophy and ethics is not your area of expertise, but I think you tackled it very well. To me, philosophy and ethics is a subject that’s accessible to all, and I think the topics that you chose to focus on showed that.

I think Scanlon worked really, really well. Seeing ‘What We Owe to Each Other?’ really gave me flashbacks back to when I studied it and it made me grin uncontrollably. I liked your take on it.

And when you made that dreamscape scene in which she confronts Professor Geto about it in his dream? Brilliant. I was fully enraptured. I was literally reading it, biting my lip, barely suppressing my squeals, completely and unabashedly captivated by your writing. I loved the way you wrote that scene. It lingered in my mind many hours later.

I just loved the undercurrent of sexiness that ran throughout this story. The tension was sizzling—it was so sizzling that I felt it through the screen. I loved that you chose to portray their attraction through dreams—I thought it was so clever.

And I loved when her dream mirrored reality as she stood before him once more in an empty lecture hall, worlds colliding and dreams and reality mixing into one.

(And the quip that you made about vibrator not ailing the situation but rather contributing to it, making an appearance in her dreams made me snort. I loved it. Genuinely so funny and it worked so, so well.)

I really have to say that I really enjoyed your writing in this fic. It felt slick—concise in the best way possible, but also lush with stunning descriptions. It was captivating from start to finish, and as I was reading it, I was almost lamenting the fact that I was reading it because I wanted to read it again and fall in love with it anew.

I loved the confrontation scene at the end. I loved the comment that he wrote at the end of her paper. The nod back to ‘What We Owe to Each Other?’ is incredibly clever. I loved that. I love that they owe each other a drink—it’s brilliant. Truly. 

And I loved the raw passion behind this scene. The way you wrote the kiss was fantastic. You could feel the passion behind it—it was gripping, sexy and so incredibly captivating. 

And I loved the ending.

I truly, truly loved it. I can’t quite find the words to capture how excited I felt when I saw that you uploaded this fic. I was literally squealing and I had this huge smile on my face, and my good mood was so evident that my mum and my aunt asked me about it, wondering what could’ve possibly happened to make me so visibly happy. 

I really, really enjoyed it. If I could make this work have as many notes as possible, I would.

It’s really, really good. A bit too good for Tumblr, honestly, and this is not meant to be taken as a diss at others who publish on Tumblr, but rather as a compliment to you as I really do feel as though you have a real knack for writing.

And so I wouldn’t be surprised if later in life I found myself in a bookshop, idly picking up a book and seeing a bestseller with a pretty cover that’s nominated for the Booker Prize, and unbeknownst to me, it’s you whose book I’m holding, completely unaware of our past connection on this little site.  

I know I can’t give you hundreds of notes—I would if I could. But I hope that at least my message will give you a little reassurance. You did well. You wrote well. You are a good writer. You tackled the ethical and moral dilemmas well. You wrote Suguru well. Your formatting is great. Everything is great.

I owe it to you—to reassure you.

I tracked the journey of your creation of this piece. I read your responses to all those asks. I looked forward to this piece. I checked your page every day. I thought about your fic constantly.

I am sorry I can’t do enough, but I hope that at least this message will reassure you that someone, somewhere on this planet absolutely and completely and wholly loved your work and was completely and truly captivated by your writing and you. 

What do I owe you? In my mind, I owe you a lot more than this message. You took time to write this story, edit it, look over it, think about it, format it, and publish it. You took your time to respond to all those asks and you always responded so kindly. 

I owe you a lot—your work gives me an insurmountable amount of pleasure, and I will read it again and again as my comfort piece.

I look forward—greatly—to read the second part of this story.

Sending lots of love your way ❤️

hi bb oh my god I read your ask like four times lol. It literally made me so so happy. thank you so much — I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! I was having so many doubts writing it haha. I wasn’t sure if it was coming across right or doing justice to all our discussions over the last two weeks or so.

I’m so happy that they felt believable because I was trying hard to toe between the line of witty and “who talks like this in real life?” lol which is a difficult line to balance sometimes.

ok it makes me so happy that someone who actually studied ethics / philosophy and scanlon particularly thought my take was accurate. honestly I chose scanlon because of the good place. which deals with a lot of ethical / philosophical issues and one of the core questions the show deals with is the same one scanlon poses which is “what do we owe to each other?” and when I was trying to think of what I wanted to write about that question kept sticking in my head. I did do my own separate research aside from watching the show (hence me whipping out google scholar on New Year’s Day just to read about scanlon and his take and criticisms of the social contract). I’m glad you though my take was good and not laughable (which I was lowkey concerned about).

The fact a scene I wrote lingered in your mind makes me literally want to squeal while I lie in bed typing this response (!!!). I’m so glad the dreams came across well!! That was another concern of mine because when plotting out the fic, I was like well technically no real intimacy happens — except at the end, and it’s interrupted. so I was worried that the dreams wouldn’t be enough to portray their attraction outside of just chemistry but I’m so glad the dreams hit for you!!

I’m really, really glad you liked my descriptions haha - dialogue comes a little easier to me than description. I have to try super hard when it comes to that stuff. So the fact it did makes me thrilled honestly. The owing each other a drink came to me while I wrote the note and I also kept hearing a Taylor swift lyric in my head (“we can’t make any promises now can we babe? / but you can make me a drink”) and that also partially inspired it I think haha.

writing kisses is so hard for me because obviously there’s such physicality to it, it’s impossible to encapsulate that in words. I always try to think in senses when I write a kiss but also in feelings so I’m very very happy the passion came across the page.

Literally it makes me so so unbelievably happy that my writing put you in a good mood. like since I was a kid, I always loved making people smile (perhaps the people pleaser in me hahah) so hearing that my writing did that for you makes me deliriously happy.

that’s so so sweet of you to say that my writing is that high caliber in your eyes. I’ve always wanted to be a published author (I’m working on two books currently) and it touches me that you think so highly of my writing.

your message means literally the world to me and I’m sure I’ll look back on this and read it whenever I’m having doubts about my work or my quality as a writer. That’s the whole reason I have a sab [praise] tag because I can always look back on all the lovely things you and all the other wonderful people have said about my work.

You owe me nothing but I really really appreciate you taking the time to first of all check my page for updates, for reading my fic, and for sending this really really incredibly kind and sweet message to me. I love you - I honestly don’t have words to thank you with that would be adequate to convey how much this means to me. Sending so much love to you as well ❤️❤️❤️

[westcoastrae]

i been so emotionally drained today. i just cried to my mom and now i am crying again so of course i am about to rant on here.

i woke up this morning and got on tiktok just to see my ex looking at my things again. in a way i find it funny because i gave him 5 years of my life to get it right, to treat me the way i wanted/deserved, and now he clearly regrets fucking up so many times. but i mostly just get overwhelmed and angry by it. it feels so disrespectful. the way i would sob to this man, i’d cry and beg for him to be the man i thought he was and knew he could be. i spent so much time wondering what i could fix and change to be better for him, wondering what was wrong with me that he didn’t want to love me properly, feeling like i wasn’t worth being treated with kindness or even being given the bare minimum. i just find it so disrespectful he cant give me peace after all this time. i’ve worked so hard to let him go, it took so much strength to leave him for good and not go back to him or get stuck in that cycle with him again. he would cry over how badly he felt for making me feel the way he did and now that i am clearly doing better and i’m happier without him he wants to start looking at my things again? it just feels like he assumes he will always have access to me and we will always be in the cycle we were in. it hurts that someone i considered my best friend treated me the way he did and continues to make it known he doesn’t care about my feelings, only his own. i’m angry that his actions have affected me so deeply that i have a hard time in my new relationship and feel like i need to build up walls. i’ve found someone that, for whatever reason, loves me so genuinely and unconditionally. he is patient with me when i allow my past relationships to affect how i go about things in our relationship. and i find myself wanting to correct negative behaviors, i want to be better in this relationship because thinking of losing him breaks my heart. i feel so safe and comfortable around my boyfriend now. he makes me so happy and makes me feel loved and feel beautiful, he never does anything to hurt me, he never tries to do things to punish me for my feelings like my ex did, he is quick to talk things out and apologize when he’s wrong and forgive me when i’m wrong, he listens to me when I’m expressing myself even if i don’t know how to explain myself well, he makes me feel like i can be open and vulnerable with him. i trust him so much. i’ve never been able to say i trust my partner until i met him. i’ve never been able to say i felt like my partner truly loved me for me and accepted my flaws and wanted to build together and become better together. i really do love this man so much. i just want peace, i want to be left alone, i want to continue to be happy with my boyfriend, i want to unlearn all the bad coping mechanisms, and i want to start taking down walls. i’m so tired of being drained like this over stupid shit that stupid people did  to me.

march.10.23