#idk any weigh ins

[qprpbj]

somehow so far this fic has turned into paul’s granddaughter who works at the diner his son owns seating darry and somehow clocks that heeee is paul’s situationship and gets them to talk. like a wingwoman for the ancient. absolutely nobody will be sat and yet i love this fic so much already

[cookinguptales]

feelin kind of demoralized today, just gotta make a vent post

So... my actual job is related to the traditional & self-publishing industry. I spend a lot of time with published authors, trad, self, small press, etc. and I know the ins and outs of things pretty well.

I have also written since I was pretty young and, not to be an asshole, but I know that I'm fairly good at it. People usually like my stuff. I've won writing contests. But at the same time I know I just absolutely do not have the temperament for the industry, so I've never tried any kind of professional publishing for my work.

Some of it is that I truly do believe that monetizing all your hobbies is not a great idea, especially if you struggle with your mental health like I do. If you monetize all your hobbies, suddenly you have a lot of jobs and very few hobbies that you can actually use to unwind. Writing is really, really important to me, and I couldn't bear if it became a permanent source of stress like it is for some writers I know.

I know several authors who love writing, like love writing, but when your writing is connected to whether you have food on the table... it becomes easy to become very, very stressed with writing. Especially when dealing with the editing process, corporate bureaucracy, a nitpicky audience, corporate obligations, self-advocacy, self-advertising, etc. It can be a lot of work to make your hobby into your job, and that work can make something you loved turn into something that's weighing you down.

And being very real with you, I know my own temperament and I know the publishing industry would probably kill me. I'm not as much of a small, nervous dog as I was when I was young, but I still deal poorly with rejection and get demoralized easily. I'm very, very bad at advertising, especially self-advertising, and I'm pretty absent-minded. I love the writing part, but when you're writing for a living, the writing part is only a small fraction of what you need to do.

I don't have enough patience for editing and I get frustrated when things are going slowly and god, the advertising. It used to be that one of the biggest benefits of trad pubbing was that they'd at least do the advertising for you, but even big-name authors are having to pretty much do it themselves these days. And some people are really good at selling themselves and their work! But uh. I'm... not one of them. It is certainly not a skill that I possess. lmao

So... I recognize my weaknesses and I act accordingly. But at the same time, I do really love writing. And I do really want people to read my writing. Some of the stories I've written are so dear to me, but just getting people to read them feels nearly impossible.

This one, though... idk, AITNISTS feels different. It does feel more "important", somehow. I can't quite put it into words. It feels like I've put more of myself onto the page and like, for once, I've written something that feels really whole. And I want people to read it so badly. But I'm so ill-equipped for it!

I've tried to keep the main story as accessible as physically possible while still introducing something like Patreon to maintain... idk, an air of legitimacy? It's something that a lot of art has found success with in recent years, that kind of split model. Offering most of it for free to facilitate a relationship with fans but still being like "yeah, but this work has value and if you want all of it, you'll need to pay a few dollars."

And honestly, I've had a lot of success! AITNISTS is not pulling in the kind of numbers that my fanworks do, but it's doing far better than my other original work has. The people who've read it really seem to like it and are feeling the things that I want them to feel. But every time I post a chapter to absolute crickets I do have A Small Crisis lmao.

Y'know, the "maybe actually this story is terrible" and "maybe actually I'm not good enough" and "who am I kidding actually" kind of vibe. I know that you never really know what people on the other side of the screen are doing and thinking, but it's still so nerve-wracking.

I've had... let's just say many moments where I've considered just calling the whole thing off, dumping the rest of the story on the internet, and pretending I never started any of it.

(s/o to my friends who left very nice comments on my draft that I return to often when I'm feeling like I should just delete the whole thing.)

And I've had a lot of other moments like "god, no one is even READING the blogs, even the people who are paying for them, so why am I wasting everybody's time with all this?"

It's almost like... absent the presence of everyone else, I love this story. I love writing this story. I love writing the blog posts that supplement this story. But once you start posting all that and everyone just kind of stares at you in silence, you start to second-guess the value of all those things you loved. It's very hard to silence the voice in your head that's telling you that you're just annoying people and wasting their time.

It... has been both validating and frustrating to know that I was right about how I'd handle publishing, even if I'm doing a much more chill version of it rn.

But every so often I do get a comment or a message or a Patron and I'm like oh!!! they are reading it! they do like it! this person is getting a lot of value out of the blog posts!

And that fixes the problem until like. The next time no one says anything to me or reads what I write for two weeks lmao.

(And no, I am not ignorant to the fact that a lot of these self-recriminating meltdowns happen in tune with my hormonal cycle. I've had PMDD for many years and I know when it's affecting me. But I think it's probably a combination of real and imagined frustrations rn.)

It's frustrating because I'm a fairly logical person, but also just a deeply anxious one. lmao. So I can keep patiently telling myself all the things I know are true. Y'know, that the publishing industry and whether people find your work at all is based partially on persistence and regularity but if we're being real with each other, mostly luck. One person with a large following reading your work, loving it, and telling a bunch of people is generally the difference between your work becoming popular or falling into obscurity.

I keep telling myself that I'm getting quite a few hits (I'm averaging 100-200 hits per chapter now??) so someone must be reading it. And if I get zero feedback on a chapter, that doesn't actually mean that it's bad. Sometimes people don't have time to read it or don't have much to say or have stuff going on in their own lives.

Like... just because people told me they were excited about this story and told me they wanted to read it, that doesn't mean they are. That's just the way life works, unfortunately, and I've certainly experienced that in fandom, too. It's not like every person who told me they wanted to read it got a glimpse of the finished project and ran for the hills even if that's kind of how it feels sometimes. There's no such thing as a guaranteed audience, and just because someone reads all your other work, that doesn't mean they read this one!

(Dear self, they don't secretly hate you!)

I also keep telling myself that I love this story and a few of my friends whose opinions I value love this story. That's definitely not nothing. But I just very intrinsically find it difficult to find value in my own work -- which I know is a me problem -- and even though I know you're supposed to write for yourself, I just... god, I desperately want people to read this one. I want people to love these characters. Sharing this one with people does feel like sharing part of myself.

More than that, though... I feel like, while kind of niche, I still feel like this story is probably my best opportunity to find readers at all. Greek mythology retellings are pretty popular and are fandom adjacent, so that makes for an easy segue from my fandom persona to an original one. It's m/m, which makes it infinitely more marketable than my f/f, whether I like that or not. It's romance, which has a huge and very dedicated audience.

So I'll admit that a part of me is like "god, if I can't get people to read this then what hope do I have to get people to read the f/f witchy familiar shelter book? If I can't get people to read this, then what about the Medusa story? What about all the other stories that I want to tell that are even less marketable? Should I just give up on everything now?"

When I talk about marketability, i's not even about the money. Obviously the money is nice -- I'm a disabled woman trying to make accessibility renovations to my house and travel as much as possible in the limited time that my body will still let me, of course the money is nice -- but it's more that people read marketable stories. If I can't even get people to read them, how will I get people to connect with them?

I've made enough through Patreon to buy a couple books about Minoan Crete, which is gratifying, and used the rest to do a little bit of hesitant advertising in the hopes that more people will read this thing, but like. I am not good at making my own projects interesting lmao. And writing is a much harder sell than visual arts on social media these days. People do not wanna go to that secondary location lmao. Plus, attention spans are... not what they used to be, I say as someone who has written online and worked in the publishing industry for decades. It's definitely more difficult than it used to be to get people to want to read things that are longer than a paragraph or two. Every author I know is trying to find ways around that, but the fact remains. lmao

But I digress. To get back on topic... like, I know that seeing success in these things takes persistence and luck. Trying to get people to look at your art is always a gamble, and brother, I fucking hate gambling. Uncertainty makes me incredibly stressed out, and I guess I'm just feeling... uncertain. And kind of demoralized. Really kind of wondering what I'm even doing here and if I should just be putting all this effort into a different hobby or at least the work I actually get paid for.

But I guess all I can do is keep going. That's the persistence part.

Maybe I'll go write that blog post about Ancient Greek music... Maybe that will make me feel better. ;o;

It won't, but wallowing won't help me, either, so. I'm gonna eat a bagel and write a blog post. Come at me, Delphic Hymns. lmao.

[mellow-worlds]

I feel good with my ed. I don't want to kms anymore. I feel pretty good honestly. I feel alright. I think my progress with losing weight is going alright. I keep saying ed. I made a wager with myself that I can officially call myself anorexic when my lovely intermittent fasting app says I've had 80 fasts in total. My goal is to get to an underweight bmi which somehow is around 10kgs for me. I don't think I ever lost so much weight in any of my past runs. It'll be fine, though. I'm happy to try. I'll do it. 80 fasts in total should equal around three months. Time flies. So far I have around 30 fasts. Some are longer than 24 hours, so that's important to keep in mind. I'm kind of proud of myself. Kind of. I'm happy I'm below the redacted number of kgs now. I'm still so fat but I feel like it's a little more acceptable now.

I keep thinking about how lovely it'll be when my friends notice. It'll be so lovely to be underweight. It'll be so lovely to know that they're talking about my weight behind my back. It'll be so lovely to know that they'll see just how skinny I can be. Let's find out how skinny that would actually be. Can't wait. Can't wait. I'm a little hungry, but not enough to actually feel like eating. Idk. I could easily eat something and like 2 months ago I surely would've. But now? Haha, not with me. I'm a whole new person now. I have priorities now. My head hurts a little. I don't think it's because I'm not eating that much, because today I had 2 sandwiches and 1 GIANT piece of cheesecake. Kind of regret it. I should start eating healthier things. It's fine. I can do this. It's still not the calorie requirements for an adult person, right? So that means I'm fine. It shoudl mean I'm fine. I should be a little more careful though. I should buy some healthier foods tomorrow. I'll do that. Grocery shopping when ed is so exciting. I really love it. I should really find some things to eat. Here's some ideas: juice, apples, berries, yogurt, oatmeal, fruit bars, those bread things with cream cheese, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, paprika, milk bread. I should make my own sandwiches that are healthier than the canteen ones. But I like eating at uni. Hmmm. I'll figure something out. I'll be fine. I jsut really, really like food :) eating food is nice. But disgusting, kind of. Buying food I really like is actually kind of dangerous, but I'll just be careful and mostly buy the really healthy things like carrots and apples. I can always eat as many things of that as I want to.

I'm not really happy about being below redacted kgs now, I'm more just glad. It's kind of a relief. It makes me feel optimistic about the future. And I really want to keep going. I'm just so glad. It's kind of unbelievable. I've got to say, my urge to weigh myself is super strong, but I really should wait at least a couple of days in between weigh ins because I just couldn't handle gaining weight and real progress is only noticeable after some time. I should go work out. I said I would before my shower tonight. Still have uni stuff to do but it's fine. I'll work out, shower, and go to bed. That'll be nice. I won't exercise for long and it's a little frustrating to knwo that I'll never be a true anorexic because I don't excessively exercise, which only counts if you do it for like 3 hours a day, and I ain't got the time or will to do that. I'm just happy doing my crappy home workouts. It's something. I'm happy I'm starting to get back to exercising. It'll be lovely. Well, being thin will. And I kind of like to run. And like... P.... is so fit.... and strong...... and it's so attractive and I don't want to be a shapeless lump next to him. I also really should be careful about muslce loss, not that I actrually eat that little haha, but still. Exercising is just super important to 1. build muscle and 2. burn calories. Burning calories is the best hahahahahha what are you even talking about. It feels like I'm starting to lose it again. Nah, it's fine. My ed just makes me a little happy. Not really. But at least it's something in my life. I can always rely on it. It's always there for me and always will give me something to think about. Checking my intermittent fasting app to see how long I've been not eating really makes me kinda happy. Well, not happy. But it's like :3 every time more time passed than I anticipated. And speaking of which, it's been six hours. Most people would get hangry just about now. Not me B) staying cool and hungry. But skinny. Eventually. It just means I'm doing great.

[steelycunt]

hi! this is very unrelated to your blog, but you seem pretty reasonable, and everyone i ask for advice gives me different answers lol. i’m currently applying for internships and have been to so many interviews already that i’m quite tired of it.

i’ve been offered an internship at one place, and they seem very nice and accommodating to my needs. however, it’s an organization i don’t fully agree with because it’s in the agriculture business and isn’t very environmentally friendly. it’s kind of a political organization that is trying to avoid a climate tax and not deal with the climate crisis. i’m not a climate saint myself, but i do care and try my best, so i’m unsure if it would be hypocritical of me to work for a cause i don’t fully support. they even asked me in the interview how i would handle people reacting to my working there, which surprised me because i wasn’t aware people had such strong opinions (what if people judge me??)

i might be able to get an internship somewhere else (no guarantee), but the tasks sound less interesting, and they won’t allow me a day off for my therapy lol. pls help me and don’t judge me lol :(

hiya! must admit im extremely flattered that you find me reasonable enough to take your query too…adding this to my CV and saying it’s an advice column of mine.

as for your predicament!! i dont feel comfortable or justified in expressly telling you what to do and i can see that this is a tricky situation to be in…i suppose it’s a decision that just involves you weighing up your priorities at this point in your life and career and also how those priorities are best served in the long run. obviously i don’t know the ins and outs of this company, although the idea that they would ask you how you’d handle your association with them seems an extreme enough question to suggest that they’re pretty controversial?? if it’s something you feel strongly about to the point where it’s going to cause you anguish then id say don’t do it, because it’s likely to make you miserable as well as contributing to what appears to be a pretty unethical company. if there is a route that allows you to avoid being a part of that, that’s always going to be the desirable one.

on the other hand this is an internship rather than a job and as someone also currently looking for an internship or a job or anything at all, it’s kind of a beggars can’t be choosers situation for most of us, where to get any experience at all is quite a desperate ask. and at the end of the day getting experience and then moving on is the idea behind internships, so if you feel that getting that experience in order to go on to a job where you’re in a position to do that good is the trade off here that’s another way to look at it.

idk again without knowing the specifics im not comfortable telling you to go and intern for a morally dubious agricultural company, so if you feel theres a strong possibility you can find something else workable im inclined to suggest you do that, but i also won’t pretend i can’t understand why you’re conflicted over this. i can’t speak to the risks of people judging you and whatnot and i wouldn’t advise basing your decision on fear of being judged rather than fear that it would resonate with your own disagreements with the morals of the company. if you think people would judge you because you can see that it’s something that deserves to be judged, that probably speaks more to your own feelings and is an indication that you shouldn’t go for it. again i can’t tell you exactly what you ought to do, but those are some ways of looking at it and things to consider. hope you’re able to come to a decision that feels good!

[jellyfishlis]

Hiii so I have a teeny tiny life update!!!

I’ve been really off track lately and even tho I haven’t gained (thank god) I haven’t lost either. I tried not restricting for a few days so I didn’t binge (and it luckily worked) but because of that I haven’t made any progress. I’m going to start posting daily wieiads and weigh ins to keep myself accountable. After my 55 hour fast it’s been sm harder to restrict because for some reason I low key cannot handle hunger anymore so I’m trying to work on that 😭😭 Just btw my cal intake may not be super low at first but I’m really working on lowering it. If you don’t want to see that feel free to ignore those!!! I start ballet in 2 days after a 2 yr break and am very nervy (mostly because of my weight and absolute lack of talent 💀💀💀) but my studio is honestly not toxic and v positive sooo…..

I may post a bc for progress sake, but I’m not super comfortable with that so idk.

Anywayssss, a boy asked for my number 🤭🤭🤭 (not sure if he actually likes me or just wants to be friends but I’m low key delusional so…) I’m trying to use it as motivation but it’s low key just boosting my ego 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[latinozevran-archive]

youre too swayed by affection its your greatest sin cut away from the things you hold onto this is what you want isnt it this is what it means to die is truly the most insane quote like my god......... the climax of the story kikuhiko is finally gonna kill himself and rakugo together lovers suicide this is THE moment every second of the story has led up to carefully building up his resentment and his stubbornness and his deep deep sadness and yet it is not until this moment that you get the full picture of his motivations

like just the first half youre too swayed by affection its your greatest sin cut away from the things you hold onto…to have spent so long determined to punish himself and not embrace new emotions and remain caught up in memories forever yet thats simply not how it works with children despite his best efforts cut away from the things you hold onto the literal image of him holding onto baby konatsu to shield her from harm like he was never detached from anything at all it wasnt up to him whether or not he was loved and his attachments to ghosts could never be reciprocated in a way that would serve him

and it is just idk unbearably tragic that he spent nearly his entire life refusing to see or accept his daughter and her affection for him out of however many layers of convoluted reasoning he had for doing so... and i think even more heartbreaking is the fact that yotaro was the catalyst to slowly breaking him free of those boundaries he had held to for so long but not because kikuhiko loved him more than konatsu just because yotaro refused to take no for an answer ever unlike konatsu who had naturally developed parallel rejection mentalities to get thru having a childhood so lacking in open affection and now we circle back around to like watching the greatest love of kikuhikos life tell this character who has consistently been portrayed as cold and unforgiving and neglectful that being too swayed by affection is his greatest sin... like he has depth certainly ur never supposed to believe detachedness is the entirety or core of his personality but that line is still such a stark contrast to any expectations u would have for describing the essentials of his character. and i think the point of that is far from asserting that that is in fact his greatest sin AKDJFJKGKGK i can think of a number of others.

but whether or not you interpret the words as coming from kiku or the shinigami or tied into some insecurity of what sukeroku would say to him or all of the above i think it still embodies what he perceives as his greatest personal failure that despite the guilt and sadness that weighed so so heavily on him throughout his life he just couldnt die and i think this also explains his suicide attempt at such an otherwise peaceful time in his family life just like the paralyzing fear of happiness.. and all of this coming to him from the shinigami with sukerokus face and voice foremost object of his affections who he just couldnt let go of except now the foremost object of his affections is likely better identified as his grandson his world his favorite little person so like how do u reconcile that joy with the way misery has been so embedded into the way u see yourself and what you deserve………….

and idk going back to what i was thinking about wrt suicidal narratives the other day this is a very different route that this man lived his whole life wanting to die so badly and it wasnt until he realized somewhere along the line he had managed to become an old man with a whole loving family who cared for him and his desire to die had become a fear of wanting to live.. then and only then is he finally able to die

and it is not remotely tragic to me bc it ties everything together perfectly and i think leaves a very beautiful conclusion abt the nature of those lived experiences and ig subverting the narrative that the opposite of suicidal tendencies is the enthusiastic desire to live and not confronting the fact that death is inevitable but that fact isnt incompatible with living and loving and in fact quite the opposite that life is inherently a part of death and you cant die without having lived….

which ik is somewhat opposite of what i was saying the other day abt using suicidal characters to make a story about life instead of death but obviously sgrs is just obsessed with death from the title itself to the shinigami performance bookends and metaphors to very literal plot points could not be more heavy-handed with that lmao so this is tackling smth different but also in a unique way bc it still introduces the question of intention in the desire to live and plays with the concept of what it means to live a full life on a number of fronts between this issue and gender and non bio families and so on.

this is what you want isnt it this is what it means to die...... but it so obviously isn't what he wants like he spent so long fixating on what it meant to die that he forgot to consider what it meant to live and no matter how hard he tried or how much of his life he dedicated to it he was never able to see death for what it was bc he refused to see life for what it was and THAT is when the point of showing shinigami over and over again also comes together as kikuhiko has been performing this one piece again and again appearing to the audience as this agent of death honing the skill of playing the role but really perhaps he was always the human man in the story grappling with death and desperate to overcome it and forced to give into the fact that he cant… and he survives the attempt through the support of his family after yotaro finds him and that is the last time u see him perform it.

[organicfennel]

I'm so anxious for tomorrow to come, because then I have to weigh myself. If I weigh myself and the number hasn't gotten lower, I feel frantic and don't know what to do.

I'm eating 25g or less of carbs a day. I'm eating 450cals or less (total, not net.)

I'm starting to wonder if I should begin weighing myself weekly instead of daily, but the thing is, I'm EXTREMELY scared of staring weekly weigh-ins and then seeing little to no change. It would be devastating. At least when I weigh myself daily, I can monitor and figure out what to do.

Sometimes I get stuck at a weight on the scale for a few days or a week even, and then one day it will suddenly drop of a few pounds. Idk, I hope to god that's what is happening here.

Any tips?

[theradioghost]

so let’s say that Q. skybax is an animal of a similar size to something like Q. northropi or Hatzegopteryx -- basically, quite possibly the maximum possible size for a flying vertebrate. however, mark witton thinks that they were highly weight-optimized, and I trust mark witton with my life, so we take his weight estimate and say that despite being the size of a giraffe with a 10-meter wingspan, a skybax only weighs about 200 kg/450 lbs. cool.

the problem comes with the rider. first off, azhdarchids had tiny torsos, so tiny they don’t even look right if you’re not used to them, so the saddles definitely need a redesign, plus heavy leather is probably a no go. second, the rider is also going to need to be weight optimized. my thoughts immediately go to horse racing. jockeys are fucking tiny people, because ideally you want your jockey to weigh down the horse as little as possible. it’s why jockeys have weigh ins like fighting athletes do, to make sure horses are carrying the same weight.

so, skybax riders are short and slight. this is where I bring in some speculation: the largest flying animals today are all vultures of one kind or another, and vultures can eat huge amounts of food in a sitting. a turkey vulture can eat 20 pounds of food in a day despite only weighing about four pounds itself. while azhdarchids weren’t necessarily scavengers, they did probably hunt on the ground, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also inclined to big meals. that’s what their ability to carry a rider is going to hinge on: the fact that they’re adapted to be able to fly even after being weighed down with food.

result of this? both skybax and riders are essentially athletes, and they live by their diets. maximize caloric intake while minimizing weight; you can’t carry your partner and a heavy meal through the air, and you can’t afford to weigh down the guy carrying you either. scavenging and foraging skills are probably paramount because supplies would need to be kept to a minimum. also I can imagine that between 1. water heavy, no time to sanitize what you find in the field when you’re carrying a life-or-death message and 2. living in a desert, half the population of petros is stubbornly chronically dehydrated and the doctors of canyon city are tearing their hair out.

BUT ALSO. now i’m not saying that an azhdarchid pterosaur is an easy target for literally anything that has ever lived. that’s a fucking dragon, bud. that’s a giant murderstork with a six foot long beak and no inhibitions. they’re ground hunters, even. but if a skybax is ever vulnerable, then it’s more vulnerable on the ground than anywhere else. now if i know short people, they are also angry people like 80% of the time (source am short). what you’ve got here is a tiny angry cross between a jockey, a fighter pilot, a flyweight boxer, and a mailman. i can easily imagine skybax riders being intensely protective of their partners in any scenario where they can’t easily take off.

idk man I just love imagining the practicalities of this stuff. science marching on is an opportunity and I for one am thrilled by it

[georgemackayhey]

hi love, first off I wanted to say how much I love your writing! secondly, and idea for a blurb: breaking up with George and meeting him again after a few months/years and maybe going back together? idk I want something angsty

Much love 🤍

Hi nonny dear!!! You're much too kind! Despite having writen something like this before I'm obsessed with the idea so here, have this!

You were together for a while. Long enough to go on holiday with friends but not long enough to meet the parents or anything. During the while you and George had spent the majority of your time together, the thing that weighed so heavily on your bond that it broke, was the time you spent away from each other. With his job, and all the travel, and the way your life had been working out, neither of you had much time for each other.

When George finally got back home, he arrived to the news that he'd been cast in another role that required his presence in an all new country, far from home as ever. And just when you were all eager to tell him about the new path in life you'd been gifted the chance to take. Suddenly all the good news seemed more bitter than sweet. And during the week you and Geogre devoted to spending entirely together, you both slowly came to the realization that that week would be your last. 

It wasn't easy to decide. George kept approaching the subject, but couldn't say the words. You kept pretending to listen but would cast your gaze to the nearest corner, unable to bear the reality of the truth. And finally, after a shared bottle of wine and a long bout of quiet that settled in after the film you were watching faded to black, you cried and called it quits. 

You stayed together that night still, before you gave each other some encouraging parting words, half-heartedly hoping the best for one another. And then you went on your entirely separate ways.

Life was cruel that way. It tore you from the things you thought you wanted more than air. And after a couple of weeks of wallowing in your pity, right when you'd gotten used to being on your own again, you ran into George. He was home for the holidays, out to dinner with his family where you waited to meet friends at the bar. 

It was an utter delight to see him, and he reached to hug you like no time had passed. Just as quickly George introduced you to his folks. You gave them each pleasant and warm greeting before meeting up with your friends at the bar, while his crew shuffled to find a table. 

Back to feeling sorry yourself it was, especially when your friends shot you knowing looks on your walk to meet them as planned. 

Life moved on though. You worked and lived without fighting the flow, and only saw George if a mutual friend dared sneak a snapshot of the fella to post on social media. Years passed just like that. Months of hard work. The occasional tragedy, or miracle throwing you a bit off rhythm. Parties and funerals and holidays and stormy nights.

And then you saw him again. At a resort, in a city neither of you lived in. He shouted your name from across the lobby of a fancy hotel and you abandoned your date to go rushing to George for a hug, his arms already outstretched, welcoming as ever. 

You laughed hard about how you'd ended up in the same place, at the same time, out of all the places and times in the world. And then you floated your separate ways like always. Somehow, beaming and aching in ways you hadn't been before running into the well built, soft-haired guy.

Your date was a little pissed that you'd failed to introduce them to George in the couple of minutes he'd graced you with his presence. You spent that vacation making it up to the date that ended up ghosting you a week after you arrived home.

Life went on like that. Failed dates. Birthdays. Brunch parties, and deadlines. 

And then you saw George again. You'd actually seen him throughout the past year or so, shopping at the same markets, and going out with the same friends. He was always kind, and cared enough to ask after you. 

"You're both absolute idiots." A friend rang, after you'd run into George at the park, and shared a chat before he reluctantly continued his mid-morning run. 

"I'm sorry?" You choked on a small, fauxly offended laugh as you strolled sleepily at your friends side.

"Why don't you just date?" She exasperated. Like the sight of you and George apart personally disgruntled her.

"You know we tried." You pointed. Trying not to let too big a frown pull at your lips. "Isn't it obvious we're better as friends?"

"No." Your friend called back, shooting you a look. She scolded you a bit longer about not letting Geogre get away the next time your paths crossed. You hadn't ever seen it that way. You thought your run ins with George were small bonuses granted on account of your decision to stay apart. You feared approaching the chance of being with him again would only result much like your last and only effort.

And then you saw him again. At that same mutual friend's wedding. The worst occasion. As if you weren't already worked up by the speech your friend had given you, being in the midst of the most romantic setting wasn't going to help you start any kind of conversation with George. 

It was an intimate affair. A backyard ceremony and an in house reception. Foods and wine spread across the roomy, yet quaint ranch style home.

"Here, for you." George was at your side as one slow song faded into another. In his hand, your drink of choice. 

"You didn't have to-" You started to laugh a little at his greeting, an offer you didn’t have reason to refuse.  

"I did actually. It was the last one on the tray and you don't look like you're having any fun. So here." George gently shoved the glass to your chest and lifted his own chute of champagne to toast. You let out a sigh and gave into his very generous demands. 

"How's it you look better every time I see you? Isn't getting older supposed to turn us all grey and sad?" You joked, taking into account Georges tailored suit, the structure of his face, his smile. It hadn't been too long since last you'd seen him across traffic and lifted a hand to wave. But it had been a year or two since last you'd stood close enough to study the loose fit of his tie, and the wave of his hair. 

George rolled his eyes and let his grin grow, before lifting to sip from the drink in his hand. And for a while you stood there like that, trading small talk about life and where it had taken you. And then your dear friend, the bride, the woman of the hour, marched over to meet you and George.

"If anyone dares upstage my wedding, it'd better be you two." She declared, reaching for your wrist, and then George's. "Now get out there and dance together so none of us have to listen to you idiots complain about how you miss each other and wonder what the other one is up to."

You'd barely accounted for the song playing, or the other people pushed close together on the dance floor, as you were flung to join in. Before you could even find your footing, George was pulling you a little closer, out of the way of a great aunt who was only capable of repeating a drunken version of the charleston. 

He placed either of his hands on your waist, as yours found his shoulders, and then you looked right at George, and you realized your friend was right. 

"You still ask everyone how I'm doing?" You wondered in a whisper, peering into George's ocean eyes. He only kept his gaze fixed, and his lip between his teeth, and nodded his head. You were entirely entranced, and one thousand percent at a loss. Where did you turn now? What did you ask? What if what you wanted wasn't the same...

But you didn't have to ask. Because Geogre leaned in, and kissed you like he used too. Like you hadn't stopped sharing kisses since the short time you used too. He held you near, his fingers pressing ever closer. He still smelled like you remembered, so sweet and warm. He still let out a delighted little hum before you parted for air. And George still smiled at you like he used too, like he always did, when you gazed back up to him, unable to hide your blush. 

Maybe no one noticed the pair of you slip out of the party early. Or maybe your friend had been counting on it. Maybe you and George were always meant to be together. Or maybe that time apart wasn't wasted, between all those run in's and hello's throughout the years. Maybe life together would be just as tricky to navigate together as it used to be. But you weren't going to let George get away this time, and he'd promised the same thing, unprompted and often.

[thedustmylove]

cognitive dissonance is such a powerful thing like wow, i can literally feel my brain flip the switch to the “everything is fine” mode

like i literally didn’t make the connection between my eating disorder and my inability to climb two flights of stairs without my heart racing. like it literally just click like three weeks ago. like you know what probably has more of an affect on my inability to do mildly physical tasks, the fact that my body nutrients on a consistent basis. i always thought it was cause i’m a lazy fuck that barely moves (which also might play into it, but like not the only reason)

also my psychiatrist was like you cannot loose anymore weight and i’m like.... cause i weigh less than what i originally told her i’m like around 100 lbs idk though. I told her 105..... (hey three more pounds and i’ll be underweight) *nervous laughter* Part of brain is excited other part is concerned because I really don’t want to end up in an inpatient facility; mainly because that’ll fuck with college classes and shit.  

like i’ve talked about it with my therapist and just like a large part of my brain is like “you don’t have an eating disorder; like okay sometimes i engage is disordered eating habits, but it’s not a full blown disorder. everything is fine, everything is under control” 

part of it is like it’s not bad enough for me to need help and the fact that i’m seeking help before it’s “bad enough” means i’m faking it and just like attention seeking so like there’s that...... like i just want people to be concerned about me .... because like i went as far as to shoot myself in the foot and bring up eating disorder to professionals and parental fill-ins but like i’m at crossroads not sure what to do...

Like honestly, I told them because I was scared, at the time it was really bad and my vision would go blurry if a stood up to quickly, in chem lab I leaned against a wall with my sample waiting for my vision to return. but like it’s not that bad now so it’s fine. like i feel like a fraud cause i’m too much of a baby to commit to either seeking treatment or just going with the disorder until i have no other choice (its only valid if i require inpatient because severely underweight like muscle mass is questionable, and/or almost blacking out every time i stand up)

like my therapist was like it’s early on enough in treatment that my metabolism probably isn’t completely fucked so i should be able to maintain where i was ~110lbs (cause like i have an irrational fear of gaining weight and the idea of if it eat anything i will gain weight and i should always be a little hunger) so like theoretically (cause i was actually starting to have a normal food routine over the summer) my metabolism hasn’t been so fucked up that i actually do not have any legitimate idea where the fuck my body weight would settle. 

I think the fact that i’m at the early enough that it’s not critical means it’s not valid to be but the point is to catch stuff early on before body starts to eat muscle... it’s not that bad but it’s bad enough.... it’s bad enough that my psychiatrist is really alarmed and so are friends that i’ve started to talk to more candidly about this.... so that’s something,,,, it starts to put cracks in my delusion that “it’s not that bad”....

also the fact that the body will break down cardiac muscle is really fucking stupid from an evolutionary perspective just saying 

[princessnijireiki]

what were the details of nk & mepoc? i rmbr smth happening but cant rmbr details

medievalpoc had just gotten a book deal so ppl were basically pointing out how that was ridiculous since she's not a solid researcher + doesn't have enough of a bg in history or art history to accurately describe art in the context of what was actually being communicated, or who its subjects were, or even like a solid understanding of how definitions & delineations of what race IS or how it's depicted change over time & based on setting, esp for art depicting people the artist had never seen before, or for example treating textbook orientalist art as a positive thing when it's meant to dehumanize subjects either as exotic objects or stand-ins for conceptual "foreignness," etc

and on top of that it was suggested that m.poc's work was basically cribbed together from other people's blogs, esp since her own page took (maybe still takes idk) submissions & she was (allegedly) including submissions + reblogs uncredited in her book

and on top of THAT, she was also inconsistent abt her own ethnic bg on her blog, which is a common enough thing (esp for mixed people of color & the fact that it's… a personal blog on tumblr dot com) that it's nbd, EXCEPT that she claimed a position of authority based mostly on being a PERSON OF COLOR due to a lack of academic credentials & like based on "oh I see this bc I'm coming at art history from a lens outside of the white hegemony" or whatever.

so it suddenly made those inconsistent claims BECOME a big deal & an actual issue when "random blogger gets book deal" didn't HAVE to turn into "random blogger gets book deal on sole 'credential' of ethnicity," esp when iirc she alternately claimed mixed romani or mixed native american heritage— neither of which are like uncommon or inherently suspicious things to be or lack 'documentation' for! just that they are also HIGHLY common choices for self exotifying white people to feel ethnically special™️ and as "get out of jail free" cards re: defending against accusations of racism… and so ppl began scrutinizing her to see if she was faking, and if she'd conned her way into a professional opportunity by claiming a diff race.

nk got pulled into it bc she either had just gotten an award or was publishing a new book around the same time, and they were gonna be presenting together on a panel abt authorship as people of color (iirc), and people were like, "damn, they're apparently friends & if nk doesn't address this that just gives tacit approval to everything going on," which is ofc stupid bc nobody weighs in on coworkers like this in real life or needs to judge others in their field, bc like… obviously that's not her job.

m.poc's angle, iirc, was to not address anything but the racefaker claims to be like "damn that's hurtful wtf" (which: fair if true! but also conveniently & deliberately sidesteps every other issue at play), which in turn made it seem like nk was being asked to be the racial arbiter & be like the black woman designated as a race cop and gatekeeper to bully or quiz or reject someone she'd seen as another person of color, and erased ppl's other legitimate complaints into sth like "this person only got their job bc of affirmative action."

which is calculating regardless of m.poc's actual ethnic bg, bc that cherrypicking makes ppl outside the context of this tumblr baggage see her as a victim of racial bullying, and shuts down folks' willingness to listen to anyone's critiques as a result, bc then those people are CLEARLY just looking for ANY kind of way to tear poor medievalpoc down in this moment.

and then basically the public spotlight passed, talk died down on its own, people are still defensive of m.poc bc Mean Ethnic SJWs AND ~racists who don't want to see poc in the arts~ tried to tear her down.

and ppl who were here for the whole thing are left to be like "yeah they're a con artist & frustrating as all hell if you have ANY academic training in the fields they've finagled their way into a professional place in. but mostly m.poc is an annoying crybaby who definitely DID use race (their own or faked) as a stepping stone towards success, but since they will also milk any controversy for attention, there's nothing to be done for it bc she's liable to spin it for another book deal + call on friends to yell back at you & bully you if you do."

that's how I remember it anyway, there were ppl paying closer attention to it all than I was, but it was mainly just a whole fucking mess.

[greenteadreamsx]

Update

I used to share a lot of personal things on here but somehow I fell off and have only been reblogging thinspo. Well, personal post: here it is. 

I weighed myself this morning. I hardly ever weigh myself because I am absolutely terrified that the number will be higher and I don’t even know what I would do with myself or how I would feel. I always wait a pretty long time between weigh-ins that way I’m guaranteed to see a lower number. I was 110. I was 110 back in 5th grade, when I was 7 inches shorter than I am now. Wow. BMI 17.2. Being dangerously underweight isn’t too far off, and that scares me. It scares me because I look in the mirror and I see a thin girl, but I always see room for improvement. That’s the thing, I don’t even have a goal weight at this point. My account says 109 but I just keep lowering it; I know that I won’t be satisfied.

Other little things that have been happening: I’ve mentioned my FWB on here before, and I’ve been seeing him more regularly. He’s been commenting a lot on my body, and fuck it’s been so triggering. Never any negative comments; they’re either observatory or praiseful. The other day, I went to the beach and got a terrible sunburn, and afterward he was putting aloe lotion on my stomach and was like, “Wow, you’re so skinny. I never really see you naked at this angle, just when you’re lying down.” Or last week, he made some comment about, “my skinny little model body.” He even said that my ribcage is slender (?) Idk it just makes me think like See!!1 I’m attractive only when I’m underweight!!1 although I know that isn’t the case at all. I can’t remember any particular instances when I was a healthy weight when he commented on my body, but that’s probably just my ed blocking out any praise I got when I was healthy and focusing only on the praise I get while underweight, trying to prove some point to keep me sick.

Idk. Just a little update.

[lucysweatslove]

Weekly Weigh-In #2: 1/19/2020

Content/trigger warning: body numbers including weight and weight loss and body measurements. Usually any talk of that stuff is put under a “read more” so you won’t see it on your dash if it triggers you, but I don’t do that for my weekly weigh-ins.

Weight: 170.8 (-1.8 lbs) So this is exactly half of what I lost last week, and it’s not exactly what I wanted to see. I mean, it’s close to 2 lbs, but I was really hoping for two pounds or if I was really lucky finally be back out of the 170s. It’s okay though. Weight loss isn’t a perfect function, and any loss is good at this point. Also, it fluctuated between 170.2, 170.6, and 170.8 before decided on 170.8. Idk what that means but to me it means I might be closer to 170.7 but because a tenth of a pound isn’t very big or accurately measured it rounded up.

Body measurements: 

Natural waist: 35.25″ --> 35″ (-0.25″)

Low waist: 40″ --> 40″ (no change)

Hips: 42″ --> 42″ (no change)

Thighs: 25.5″ / 25″ --> 25.25″/ 24.5″ (-0.25″/-0.5″)

Ribs: 34″ --> 34″ (no change)

Bust: 42.5″ --> 43″ (+0.5″)

Energy balances: Remember that these numbers are a very imperfect science. I look at it as a “big picture” and not an absolute

Weekly balance:  -9414; if this was “perfect science,” this would be about a 2.69 lb loss, but again, not absolute. I guess I’m okay with 1.8.

This balance is mostly bc I had no appetite for half of the week. Yes I had “good” active calories burned too I don’t want people to think this is because I exercised a lot or whatever. I don’t want to have no appetite and thus this balance number is not a “goal” for me to reach. I try to aim for maybe 7000.

I’m not going into energy in/out specifics this week (if you’re interested, that discussion is whisperposted)

Workouts:

Cardio: Just one, 30 min + 5 min cooldown on AMT.

Strength: Just one, about 50 min, upper body only.

Additional: None, though I did run in place for a while on Thursday to get my steps in. It’s been too cold to go on proper walks with Oreo (I won’t take him out for a long walk below freezing due to concern about his paws), and I’m still a bit salty that I can’t do proper yoga (my left hand is not weight-bearing; I have a mysterious soft-tissue injury which despite OT is not resolved).

Additional thoughts: 

I’m trying to not get too discouraged. It’s not just that I didn’t lose 2 lbs this week. I can handle that; I know how weight fluctuates and how loss isn’t linear and while I can’t say I’m thrilled with that number (and I don’t think it reflects what I did this week entirely), it’s still a good downward shift. What gets me is the measurements.

Besides minor soreness in my abdomen, none of the spots I’ve measured today would be impacted by my workouts (artificially inflated due to water retention and inflammation). It’s weird that the weight mostly decided to come off of my thighs, though I can’t be too surprised because my body has always stored its fat first and foremost on my stomach. I wonder when I’ll see more movement around my mid section.

That said, I also know that my “low waist” is prone to other types of fluctuations, and the fact that my breasts “grew” half an inch this week makes me curious if I’m starting to gain hormonal water weight. I’m not exactly sure when my next period is due (long story short, husband has a vasectomy and while I use NuvaRing for other issues, I forgot to put it in after my last period and thus I have to wait for my natural cycle). If I had to guess though it’s either this week or next. So I am trying to look at my measurements through PMS-bloat lens.

Which tbh might be why I didn’t lose 2 lbs this week anyway :)

Things I need to consider/remember:

It’s okay if I have a low appetite, but I shouldn’t count on those numbers consistently.

Look for trends, not absolutes.

Everything fluctuates

It’s better to lose a bit less but eat more to fuel workouts because my heart needs to be happy and muscle tone will help my body confidence immensely.

The honeymoon is not the end goal. It’s one motivating factor on the way.

[woildismyerster]

Crutchie's mouth was on your neck, and your brain was foggy with his scent. THIS IS SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL LIKE IDK IT'S JUST A MASTERPIECE PLS DO MORE CRUTCHIE

This kind of turned out,,,, angstier than I usually write.  Bizarre.

“Finch,” Jack said, and it felt like the group collectively sighed as they fell into the regular routine.  

Wednesdays nights, for as long as the weather permitted, was a baseball night.  Anybody could come, though new people were seldom invited.  Jack and Crutchie were the team captains, and they always chose the same two people first.

(Davey had looked between the two captains, confused, the first time he played.  “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

Jack tutted, shaking his head.  “Geez, Dave, I thought you seemed alright.  I would never have invited you if I’d known you had something against disabled people.”

“I thought we were friends,” Crutchie had said, the slightest tremor in his voice.  Davey, aghast, looked a little faint when the boys burst into laughter.

Jack ruffled his hair.  “Crutchie has the best throwing arm in the group.  He’s pitcher.”)

“Y/N,” Crutchie said, and you rolled your eyes.

He chose you first every week, though you weren’t anywhere near the best in the group.  You didn’t deserve to be chosen first, but he unironically chose you every week.  You sometimes wondered if he felt like he owed you for something, but nothing came to mind.  It was a predictable, unexplainable act of kindness.

“Bad call,” you mumbled to him while Jack chose.

“I’m going to win,” Crutchie whispered back.  “You’re my lucky charm.”

“How’s that work?  Do you make a wish?  Rub me real hard?”

Crutchie grinned, ears going a little pink.  “Think that would work?”

You smacked him with your glove.  “Why, Crutchie, I do declare.  Not in front of the boys.”

He laughed, and though you stood by your belief that he should have chosen somebody else, you were pleased that he chose you first.

Race squirted you with his water bottle.  “Ask Crutchie out.”

“Is this supposed to be, like, a psychology thing?  ‘Cause it feels kinda good, so it won’t work.”

He sprayed you again, and you tried to remember if there was a spare shirt in your backpack.  Maybe not?

“You suck at baseball.  You suck serious balls, Y/N.  He only picks you because he wants his balls and bat to see your diamond.”

You wrinkled your nose.  “Gross.”

“Please.”  Race rolled his eyes, blond curls matted to his forehead with sweat.  “You want him to take you out to the ball game, too.”

Not like that, you didn’t.  You wanted to hug him when you won a game without wondering if it was lasting too long.  You wanted to embrace teasing about being chosen first, and you wanted it to be safe to believe that the guys were right about why.

“Not if you talk about it like that, I don’t,” you said.

“Aye!  Crutch!”

The boy in question turned away from a conversation with Mush, eyes lighting up.  “Yeah?”

Race grinned, crooked and cunning.  “Did you know that Y/N likes ballgame food?”

“Christ,” you whispered.

“Everybody does,” Crutchie said, frowning.

“Ask what Y/N’s favorite food is,” he urged.  “No?  Fine - your weiner.”

You groaned, Crutchie’s face glowed red, and Race chortled.

You weren’t sure that you were making Crutchie feel so lucky now.

“Y/N!  Hey!”

You grinned at the sound of Crutchie’s voice, stomach kicking with delight when you saw the grin on his face.  He was scrolling through his phone, maybe to show you something funny he found online earlier -

“Awe,” Romeo crooned.  “Look how happy they are to see each other.  Adorable.”

The smile slipped off your face, and you saw Crutchie’s falter.  You tried to smile when he showed you a meme he liked, but it felt false.  Maybe all of your happiness had drained when the embarrassment set in.

There were still butterflies in your stomach, but they had more to do with the eyes on you than the boy you were standing with.

“Concept,” you said at school.  Crutchie was by the vending machine, weighing the pros and cons of buying his daily soda in the morning instead of the afternoon.  “Instead of hiding some stupid prop in Mush’s locker on Halloween, you hide in there.”

“If I don’t have caffeine now, I might die.”

“You’ll be in some creeptastic costume.”

He rubbed his face, weary.  “If I don’t have caffeine later, I’ll die.”

“Well,” you said with a warm smile, “since you’re dying either way, there’s no need for a costume.  I’ll just put your body in the locker.”

“Are you talking about some weird sex thing?”  

You cringed when Morris Delancey came up behind you.  “Do you need something, Delancey?”

“I need your boyfriend to get out the way,” he said.

You didn’t bother saying that Crutchie wasn’t your boyfriend.  That being said, you couldn’t look at Crutchie, either.  There was a painful, dull sickness settling in your chest, and you couldn’t even look at the friend who was going through the same thing you were.

“I want you guys to stop teasing,” you said firmly.  “About Crutchie and me, you know?  It isn’t cool.”

Katherine bit into an ice cream sandwich, chasing a bit of cookie that threatened to fall.  “Why?”

“Because it’s embarrassing.  Because it makes it hard for us to spend time together.”

“Stop being cute, then.  Stop reacting.”

You scowled.  “Please, Kath, I’m serious.  It’s making me sick.”

She looked at you then, smile fading.  “Ask him out, then.  That’ll stop the teasing.”

What she was saying, you gathered, was that there was nothing she could do.  The teasing had become an essential part of the group, and it didn’t matter how much damage it was doing to the relationship your friends were pushing for.  If you couldn’t preserve the relationship by stopping the teasing, you would have to stop the teasing by stopping the relationship.  It was the only way to keep Crutchie as a friend, however different the friendship may be.

You couldn’t even ask Crutchie to meet you after school without there being wolf whistles.  The lines around his face, usually so cheerful, were bleak when he agreed.

You felt utterly nauseous when he met you at the back of the school.  So unhappy, overwhelmed by something almost like pre-regret, and already nostalgic for the days when you were too young to be teased about dating.

“I think we need to stop hanging out so much,” you said.

Crutchie blinked, and though he didn’t look too surprised, you thought that maybe he had been expecting something different.  “What?  Why?”

“I miss you,” you said plainly.

“So we need to stop seeing each other?”

“I can’t even look at you without people teasing me about liking you,” you said, and your voice went thick.  “Everything we do, people are talking.  It makes me nervous to be around you, and I don’t want to be.  Maybe if we just - if we take some time apart, or make it clear that nothing is going to happen, people will just - they’ll stop.”

He frowned.  “That seems like a lose-lose situation.”

You threw up your hands.  “Yes!  I know, everything sucks.  But if the others give up, you and I can try to salvage whatever’s left.”

“It got hard,” Crutchie said slowly, “so you want to give up.”

“No, I want the others -”

“It got hard,” he said again.  “And you decided that protecting your image was more important than protecting our relationship.  Our friendship, I mean.  Because, apparently, the idea of us in a relationship is so abhorrent to you -”

You listened, horror dawning where the numbness previously resided.  You started thinking that maybe you had misread something somewhere down the line - that maybe the both of you had assumed the other was bothered by the teasing because it was unfounded.  Maybe he was embarrassed because it was true.

“Wait, Crutchie, do you -”

“Fine,” he said.  He rubbed at his face, furious in a way that made you wonder if he was wiping at tears.  “Fine, we can stop hanging out as much.  I hope it makes you more comfortable.  Truly, Y/N, I just want to you be happy with the way things are.”

You weren’t.  You really, really weren’t.

“Why weren’t you and Crutchie partners in English today?  You guys are always partners,” Race said.

“Because you guys are douches,” you said.  “Because you guys were so relentless, so thorough, that we can hardly speak to each other anymore.”

Race blinked, surprised.  “We were just telling the truth.”

“You made it impossible for us to figure out the truth for ourselves!”

“You already knew the truth,” he shot back.  “You and Crutchie are crazy about each other, and you both know it.”

“I didn’t know,” you snarled.  “I didn’t know he liked me, because you guys made it impossible for us to have a conversation without it being some big thing.”

Race’s jaw worked, but you saw a hint of shame flicker across his face.  “What did you do?”

“I told him I need a break.”

“Idiot,” he said.  “Oh, you idiot.  You probably broke his heart.”

“Believe me,” you said.  “Not more than I broke my own.  Next time, keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“Y/N,” Crutchie said, and your head shot up.  Nobody blinked twice when you walked to stand by your team captain, but you had to actively try not to gape at him.

He wouldn’t meet your eyes.  You stood to his side, a few steps behind, and wished you could hold his hand.

“Bad call,” you whispered.

“You’ve never failed me before,” he said quietly.  “I’ll always want you on my team.”

You had to blink back tears.  You hadn’t realized you were near tears in the first place.  The feeling was mutual, and maybe you hadn’t wrecked the possibility as thoroughly as you had thought.

You watched Crutchie during the game, and for the first time, he didn’t watch you back.  He studiously kept his eyes on the game, pitching perfectly inning after inning.  

He had listened to you.  He had been angry, yes, but even in his anger he wanted you above all others.  He was embarrassed, but not so embarrassed that he hadn’t been willing to tough it out to be near you.

You were the one who hadn’t been able to handle the teasing, and Crutchie was the one who had to deal with the brunt of the damage.

There were butterflies in your stomach when he gave Jack a cocky grin, and it had nothing to do with anybody who might have been watching.

Jack struck out, just as Crutchie had known he would, and your team won the game.

“Good game,” you said to Crutchie, several feet out.

He looked surprised that you talked to him, but pleasantly so.  “Yeah, well, I had my lucky -”

You got to the pitching mound, wrapped your arms around his neck, and kissed him.  

There were wolf whistles, but they paled in comparison to the sharp inhale Crutchie gave when you pressed yourself against him.

There were jokes, but that had nothing on the sound of his cane hitting the ground, his hum of relief, his clothes rustling against yours.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled when you pulled away.  You didn’t move out of his grip, opting instead to press your face into the side of his neck.  “I was a jerk.  I liked you that entire time, and I should have told you instead of freaking out.”

“I should have said something ages ago,” he said.  “I could have prevented all of this.”

“So could I.”

He shrugged.  “Guess it doesn’t matter now.  It all turned out the same.”

You smiled.  Of course he had forgiven you immediately.  You hadn’t forgiven yourself - you would be such a good date that it would wipe all other relationships out of the water.  “It turned out okay.”

“Turned out perfect,” he grinned.  “Ready to face the music?”

“Are you kidding?”  You pulled back, grasping his hand.  “This is my favorite song.”

[heyteebs]

cousin dies of an overdose and another cousin has a daughter an incel man plows into ppl in a truck in toronto mostly women and there are something like 7 million more men than women in India and China and it turns out a literal part of roy’s heart has died it says in the echocardiogram he got before starting a new ADD med but it’s fine he just needs to eat more salad and mamihlapinatapai is the most precise word according to linguists bc it means something like when two ppl look at each other and the look is that they both know what the other shd do but neither wants to initiate and wilkes says john krazinski is the shortest of three brothers the others are 6′8 and 6′9 and i start to palpitate and my booty falls  the fuck off on the link light rail on the way to drop off my stuff at rich’s in cap hill before making a zine with aidan at cold cube and IMAGINE BEING THE MOZARELLA IN BETWEEN THAT FUCKING SLICE OF BAGUETTE ARE YOU KIDDING ME  6′8 AND 6′9 I NEED TO BE IN A SMALL CLOSET IN A SHOE BOX APARTMENT IN THE STICKS LIKE TOTALLY BY MYSELF SUFFOCATING INTO A PAPER BAG and jess texts me she’s got a mass inside of her the size of an orange and she’s going in next week and I’m practicing lines for when I officiate Becky’s wedding some kind of grand metaphor about the golden hour and wanting to experience things vs dissect them and someone tells me they used to say you shd wait five years before publishing yr next book like seriously what’s yr rush it’s encouraged and I’m like did u not just read? my cousin died today he’s only two years older than me like binch i would LOVE to imagine being alive in five years but I have these bones u feel me? and just like that i’m writing a poem

again

I will always remember you

on the drive to seattle, platelets in the artery of the 5 shunting into the city’s heart bc usually I take the bust bc of course usually I’m by myself and the bus meanders off the freeway and comes in on the sneak, dropping me in the international district like a side piece and this is the last sentiment abt boys I will ever write bc I’ve already written those poems I mean those books lol Connective tissue wears down over time causing all sorts of problems, including________

I’m hungry and I said it and I’m not taking it back I guess time really has passed even though now it feels like gurgling rainbow sprinkles I remember being a common teenage anorexic in the throws I mean the throes of whittling myself invisible and saying “I’m Hungry” was like saying “Kill Me Slowly With Blunt Force Trauma You Fucking Dog Bitch” and while I’ve gotten better at saying the word and in fact all words and in fact it turns out I have a very loud ass face buried under the mirepoix of self-censorship and extreme doubt and cool ranch doritos I don’t know what it means in the sense that I’m hungry like is that something I shd take care of with food?

Okay. Yes. Got it. But pizza nachos or a salad and like life says do both do it all stupid or none of it and I shame face still embargo fashion magazines and as self actualized or whatever as i can get I still can’t step on a scale without invoking somewhere in my ankle chakra the weights I would wear at weigh ins so my mom would feel okay at the tail end of their marriage and when the suns set on our family And later Rich and Willie and Chase talk about the ProudBoys stalking up to Cap Hill 70 strong twice the size the were last year “not to fight” chase says intones that they’re mostly non violent frat boys just trying to disrupt the community and I feel disrupted and disrupted is the literal outcome terrorism Not like Syria or Pakistan where the journalists lay or Mogadishu bustling city center bombs or ICE at every 

turn targeting churches Sanctuaries and sanctuary cities and ppl targeting Michelle Wolf for calling out liars at the WHCD in the corrupt regime like arent we supposed to be rallying around her? Where to we place the feelings of white women over literal families being torn apart and the the bombs and the bombs and the bombs in other countries 

and murdered and missing indigenous women never get an article on any paper its like idk if I’m even here  

[asking-the-death]

I’m so alone right now,, I’m eating the bare minimum and cutting again,, I’m so so suicidal and if I tell my therapist about it she’ll tell my parents. And I’m shoving weights in my bra for weigh ins and idk what to do. I haven’t been to school in 6 months and I’m starting somewhere new in 2 weeks and I just want to start already.

But what makes you feel such suicidal? You need to let out your feelings, you won’t get any better if you just keep hiding it!