#idk if i missed something i've only been here for a couple months

[alternautxyz]

i swear lmk distribution is cursed because for a good while it was barely accessible in places other than china. i get the show was made for china but it’s ironic the english version the show is originally recorded for is less accessible. then it starts dropping on the most random streaming services ever that no one owns out of nowhere which is the only legal way to find it. one of them was an old elsagate channel of all things, which dropped the entirety of season 4 with no warning. the english version of season 4 was still airing at the time. then happykids say they’re going to drop the specials in a week but proceed to only post the final episode of the special after like an hour. only one episode. out of 4. a week before they were supposed to. the exact day they announced it.

[strang3lov3]

Dirty Laundry

Joel's best kept secret is the washer and dryer he's not supposed to have. Your best kept secret is that you've been using that washer to get yourself off.

Tags - 18+, smut, fingering, cunnilingus, masturbation on a washing machine, dirty boxer sniffing (you fucking freak), fantasizing about a dirty old man, unprotected piv, creampie, curmudgeon joel talks you through knife safety, washing machine repairs, and overstim. 8k words, idk what the fuck happened. Thank you to @noxturnalpascal , @beefrobeefcal , and @papipascalispunk for helping me edit this monstrosity and @joelsgreys for letting me scream about washers and dryers for days <3 A/N - i have worked harder on this than my finals, but that should surprise no one. i only have one more left and then you should be seeing more of me this summer <3 i have a lot a lot a lot planned and I've been so excited to share new shit with you. Roman girlies, I haven't forgotten about you. He's up next. Anyway, you maniacs know what you’re here for, so please enjoy.

Joel’s best kept secret is his Whirlpool brand washer and dryer set, which is hidden deep in his basement. You stand before it now, loading your dirty laundry into it, using what is definitely too much of Joel’s detergent. 

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say his washer and dryer set was his best kept secret, until you came along and forced his hand. Everything was fine, and then you showed up, both yourself and your basket of laundry soaking wet, leaving Joel with no choice but to lend you a hand. Biggest mistake of his life. 

As great as Jackson is, it still comes up short sometimes. Not with everything; you’re beyond blessed to live in the safety of its walls. Just technologically, sometimes it can leave you missing the finer things. It's not Jackson’s fault society is twenty years into an apocalypse, thus running on twenty-plus year old appliances. The older ovens, refrigerators, and other appliances that were built in the seventies to the nineties or so are surprisingly doing alright, but the ones built when manufacturing began to take a turn for the worse around the later nineties and 2000s are beginning to crap out, especially the washers. God, you hate laundry day. The washers at the laundromat in Jackson always give you a hard time. Week after week, your chosen washer won’t start, or it’ll stop mid-cycle. The laundry attendant, Patti, often helps you wash your clothes by hand which is nice, but still frustrating for you both. 

On a busy and gloomy Sunday a couple months back, you were lucky enough to pick one of the less temperamental washers and hardly had to fight or beg and plead with it to get it to wash your clothes. However, your luck ran out when it came time to dry, your dryer wouldn’t run. Refused to start, even with Patti’s help. Worse yet, every other dryer was in use at the moment.  You were shit out of luck. Patti offered you a sympathetic smile and sent you home with a baggy full of clothes pins and a wagon to carry your basket of sopping wet clothes. The clothespins were a nice gesture, but didn’t help much as you didn’t have a clothesline. And - you had to laugh - most of them were broken. Oh dear, sweet Patti.

Once at home, you did your best to hang up your clothes on your porch, laying them out over the thick wooden railing, securing them with rocks. The wind was blowing something fierce that day, and then you felt it – a raindrop. And then another, and another. Before you knew it, you were caught in a torrential downpour, with your clothes blowing every which way. Working to gather your clothes as quickly as possible, you haphazardly chucked the rocks that were keeping them still in every direction, your neighbor Joel interrupting the task when he came outside and started to shout at you. Joel’s a man that can only be described as crotchety. A curmudgeon, even. 

“The fuck are you throwing rocks at my window for?” he shouted, but you couldn’t hear him over the sound of the wind and the rain smacking your porch. 

“What?” you yelled back, “Joel, I can’t hear you.” 

“ROCKS,” he shouted again, “Why are you throwi–” Joel realized it was a lost cause then. He could see in your face that you couldn’t hear him, you looked puzzled and annoyed for a moment before you returned to throwing rocks and gathering clothes. “Fuck it,” he mumbled to himself. Through the pouring rain, he marched across both his and your lawns and right up the steps of your porch. “What are you doing?”

“I was at the laundromat and the dryer stopped working so Patti gave me clothespins but I don’t have a clothesline so I tried to lay them out on my porch with rocks so they could dry but then it started to ra–” Getting the picture, Joel had stopped listening to you and joined you in gathering your clothes tossing stones back into the rock edging surrounding your house. “What are you doing?” you asked. 

“Nothin’, just– come on. Let’s go – we’re goin’ to my house,” he answered, dumping the last of your clothes into your basket. 

“Why?”

Lightning shoots from a nearby cloud, with booming thunder following suit. Joel’s soaking wet, as are you. His hair was dark and stuck to his forehead, his thin t-shirt clung to his body, outlining his soft, pillowy tummy and belly button and his thick, muscular biceps. “Go, go, go,” Joel shouted, waving you away. “Just go. Move.” he grunted as he lifted up your laundry basket and hauled it across the grass in quick strides. He held the basket on his hip as he opened his door for you, guiding you inside with a push to your lower waist. 

Your shoes squeaked as you followed Joel through his house. He took your basket down his basement stairs, “Be careful for me, stairs are steep,” he warned you, “Don’t need you crackin’ your skull open. Got enough shit to deal with.” It was sweet, knowing that he was looking out for you – even with the irritation lacing his tone. 

You couldn’t believe your eyes as you saw what Joel had led you to. A washer and a dryer, olive green in color. He opened the door of the dryer and shoved your wet clothes inside it, then took off his own soaked shirt and pants and tossed them in too. “They’re clean,” he told you. 

In another lifetime where the world doesn’t go to shit and fungus is the least of your problems, the mundane appliances in front of you would be the very last thing on your mind. You’d be focused on Joel, watching rivulets of water slide down his jaw, past his Adam’s apple and pool in the hollow of his throat. You’d be tracing the outline of his body with your eyes, following that thin line of hair that spreads down his lower stomach, disappearing under his boxers. You’d be eyeing his thick bulge and the way that if you squint, you could see the outline of his cock. But in this life, in this moment – where the world went to shit a long time ago – you’re more amazed by the washer and dryer he stands next to. “This is why I never see you at the laundromat? The whole time, you’ve had a washer and dryer?” you asked, astonished. 

“M’not supposed to, but yeah,” Joel answered, shutting the dryer door before turning to you with his chin tilted down, eyebrows raised. Don’t you go tellin’ anyone, now.”

“I’m gonna tell Patti.”

Joel looked betrayed and puzzled. “I’m doin’ you a favor,” he reminded you.

“I know.”

“You want me to dry your clothes or not?” You crossed your arms and bit the inside of your cheek as you shrugged. “Oh, Christ,” Joel grumbled under his breath. “Why the hell would you go and rat me out?”

“Because, Joel, ” you began explaining, “All of the washers and dryers are breaking and you’re hoarding your own? I don’t think so – if everyone else has to share the washers, then you do too,” you scolded. “It’s selfish.” 

“Life ain’t fair, sweetheart.” You stared at Joel for a moment before turning on your heel to go tattle on him, just like you swore you would. “Wait–” Joel grabbed your arm, stopping you. Despite being long gone from Boston QZ, Joel couldn’t quite shake those smuggling and bargaining habits of his. You were serious about this threat, and he knew it. You’d march your ass through the pouring rain to go snitch on him to Patti. And really, the worst that would’ve happened to Joel would be a scolding from Maria and the washer and dryer removed from his home and placed in the laundromat. It’s not like he’d be placed in a pillory and have rotten tomatoes thrown at him. But still. Joel liked his washer and dryer. He sighed. “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything, Joel. I just want to better our community.” 

Give me a break. “What do you want,” he repeated, his voice lower. 

You pressed your lips in a thin line, eyeing those pretty olive green appliances of his. It’s not a far walk to Joel’s house… And you wouldn’t have to wait in line to wash your clothes behind twenty other people. You did want to better your community, that much was true. But you weren’t opposed to bettering your own life. “Let me use your washer and dryer. Whenever I want.”

Joel was quick to counter in a stern voice, “Twice a week, tops.” 

“Three times,” you tried.

“Once,” Joel lowered his offer and then looked at you with his eyes squinted, his head cocked to the side. “Who does laundry three times a week?” 

It was a fair point. Even with your very own washer and dryer, you wouldn’t do that much laundry. “Fine. Twice,” you agreed, and Joel held out his hand for you to take and you shook on it. His palm was warm and calloused, his grip firm. In that moment you met his eyes, taking in the beauty of his face. Those sparkling, big brown eyes and the beautiful curve of his aquiline nose. Your eyes traveled lower still, and it hit you both at that moment - the realization that Joel was wearing nothing but his boxers, and that you were still shivering in your cold, wet clothes. Joel dropped your hand quickly and grabbed a clean t-shirt from one of his own laundry baskets on top of the dryer. “Here. You can change into this and toss your clothes in there too, f’ya want.”

“Thanks,” you said quietly, taking the shirt from his hand. “Do you have something to wear?”

“I’m a little behind on laundry, actually…” Joel trailed off, scratching the back of his neck. You scoffed and chuckled at that. The luxury of his very own washer and dryer, right in the comfort of his home, and Joel had the audacity to be behind on laundry. “Uhh, anyway. You just turn the knob on the dryer to ‘high’ and press the start button. I’ll give ya some privacy to change, you can meet me upstairs when you’re done,” he said, and then shuffled past you. 

Once Joel was up the stairs, you took off your clothes and put them in with the rest of the clothing in the dryer. You changed into Joel’s t-shirt, the fabric was soft with time and many wearings, and it smelled like him despite being washed. It was a muted teal in color, littered with a couple of bleach stains here and there. You liked it. 

Upstairs, Joel made a couple of mugs of hot tea to warm you both up. “Honey?” 

“Yeah, Joel?”

“N- no, like…Was askin’ f’ya wanted honey in your tea.”

“Oh.” Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Y– yes please. Thank you.” You felt heat rise to your cheeks. What a stupid thing to say. You watched as Joel stirred a bit of honey into your cup of tea, smirking as he then handed you the mug. Asshole. “Thought you were a coffee drinker,” you mused awkwardly, attempting to change the subject after taking a sip of the hot liquid, “You like tea?”

Joel grimaced in disgust as he took a sip of his own tea. “No. Just tryin’ to be polite for ya.” 

“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it, you know,” you smiled into your mug. 

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Aaand there it is. Curmudgeon Joel was back, Neighborly Joel never lasted long anyway. 

You sat on Joel’s couch, warming up with your cup of tea. Joel had noticed goosebumps on your thighs and pulled a blanket over your lap. He sat next to you with his mug steaming in his hands and just stared at you, not even realizing how deeply he was admiring the way his shirt hugged your curves just right, highlighting all the right parts of you. He jolted when he felt his cock thicken in his boxers, spilling his scalding hot tea all over his bare thighs. “God bless it,” he swore. Without thinking, he pulled the blanket from your legs and covered his own lap to hide his growing erection from you. 

“Joel, what the fuck?” 

“Nothin’. Just– m’cold,” he lied. “Jesus fuckin’- just - c’mere,” Joel huffed as he patted the spot next to him and urged you closer, then laid the blanket back over your legs. You sat shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh as you sipped your tea and Joel’s went cold. Dork. 

Moments passed. You sat in silence, the only sound was the rain pounding against Joel’s windows as your heart fluttered in anxiety, or maybe excitement. You might’ve even called it butterflies in your tummy. But you knew better. It was just the close proximity to Joel. And the fact that you were wearing his shirt, and he was practically naked. All of it pretty insignificant, honestly. It was basically nothing.

Joel finally spoke first, “Was thinkin’ it’d be best if you’d come by at night, when I’m on patrol or somethin’. Nobody’ll see you with your laundry and it’ll stay our lil’ secret, yeah?” You nodded, still a little bashful with everything that had happened. You aren’t often like that. It’s cute, Joel thought. “An’ you can use my detergent and whatnot. Whatever you need, s’yours.” 

“Thank–” an especially bright flash of lightning followed by nearly deafening thunder interrupted you. You startled and sort of hurled yourself closer to Joel, grabbed his forearm and held it tight. It was just a reflex, probably. Basically nothing. 

“It’s just a storm, sweetheart. Ain’t gonna bite ya,” Joel teases with a grin. 

“Oh, shut up,” you let go of his arm and missed the warmth of his skin beneath your palm almost immediately, but your longing for his touch was quickly soothed. Joel wrapped his arm around you and pulled you into his side as you listened to the sounds of the storm together. You stayed like that, inhaling the sweet scent of him, masculine and heady. He smelled like the rain, too, and the hair on his underarms tickled your skin but you didn’t mind. When your laundry dried, he carried your basket home for you. You thanked him and moved to shut the door, but Joel stopped it with his hand, “Washer can be sorta delicate sometimes, so just be careful with it.”

“Noted,” you replied. “See ya, Joel.”

“See ya, hon.”

A few nights later, you returned to his home with your basket of laundry. Joel was gone, on patrol as he often is at night. Doing the laundry was uneventful , even though you probably used too much detergent, but whatever. Joel didn’t have to know. The next time you did laundry, Joel was at home. He told you not to worry about whichever nights you come by, that he’d always leave the washer and dryer empty in the evenings for you to use. He was even generous enough to make you dinner that night. 

It all worked out. Joel’s washer and dryer stayed unknown to the rest of Jackson, and your laundry was cleaned in a much more efficient way. There really weren’t any flaws in your and Joel’s system, as long as you didn’t include the one laundry night where Joel was gone on patrol again, but had come home just as you were leaving. You bumped into him accidentally, causing a lacy pair of your panties to fall right out of your basket and onto his shoe. He bent down and picked them up for you, not even realizing what he was holding. “Oh. My bad,” he blushed, once he recognized the garment. “I’ll just…” and put them back in your basket. From that point forward, he was always careful to stay out of your way. Aside from that it really did all work out. 

-

After loading your clothes into Joel’s washer, you shut the washer door and turn it on. You make your way upstairs and there’s a note on Joel’s table – Leftovers in the fridge are yours if you wanna heat them up.

Opening the fridge, you see a neatly packed container of what looks to be chicken and vegetables. Yum. God, you’ll miss these vegetables when it gets cold again. You take advantage of the offer and heat up the food in a pan on the stovetop, humming to yourself as you stir the food to keep it from burning. A light flickers above you. Weird. It flickers again, and then finally goes out. But it’s no big deal, you’ve seen in Joel’s basement that above the washer and dryer is a shelf full of supplies and you know there’s a couple of bulbs there. You go back downstairs where the washer hums, working its way through the cycle.

“Hmm,” you hum to yourself. You’d never quite realized just how high up that supply shelf is. And the bulbs are in the middle of the shelf, so there’s no good way to get them without climbing on top of the washer, which Joel would probably kill you for doing. He did ask that you be careful with his fragile washer, after all. Whatever. It’ll take like six seconds, tops. You hoist yourself on the washer and first try kneeling on it to see if you can reach one of the bulbs. No luck. You stand on your feet then, raising yourself up carefully, slowly, feeling the washer shake slightly beneath your feet. Joel would be absolutely irate if he saw you like this now. When you finally grab one of those light bulbs, you carefully lower yourself to a seated position on the washer to catch your breath. You’re not usually prone to vertigo, but Joel’s wobbly washer brought the dizziness on. You know better than to try and move right now, so you just settle yourself down to avoid fainting.  

The washer vibrates under the flesh of your thighs. It’s a gentle sensation, lessened by the angle you’re sitting at. But if you focus really hard, you can feel it in your core. Curious, you spread your legs and turn to the corner of the washer, tilting your hips to the floor, and oh, this is it. You’re not even thinking about potential consequences when you shimmy your shorts and panties off, then find that sweet spot once more. The metal of the washer is cool against you as it vibrates, sending sweet little buzzes through your hot core. You’re not quite wet yet, just enjoying the sensation. Letting it build and build, seeing where it can get you. You let your mind wander, not really thinking about much in particular. The low hum of the washer fades away in your mind and you’re starting to become wet. Shifting your position, you extend your arm to find something to grab onto when you feel fabric. Joel’s clothes. He’s still a slacker with keeping up on his dirty laundry. Usually it would irritate you. It does irritate you, this exorbitant waste of an advantage he has. You look at the shirt in your hand, the same shirt Joel had lent you. You think back to that first time you did laundry here at Joel’s, how he sat next to you nearly naked. The feel of his skin and the smell of him - sweat and rain and musk. And Joel being the beautiful, incognizant man he is, probably had zero clue of how sexy he looked. Or smelled, for that matter. 

With Joel now on your mind and his shirt in your hand, you decide to experiment, create a better ambiance. You keep those images of him in your mind, those feelings too. You remember the low timbre of his voice, the rain splashing against the windows, the weight of his arm wrapped around your shoulders. And with his dirty t-shirt clutched in your fist and its armpit pressed against your nose you remember his scent. Smell is a powerful sense, closely linked to memory and emotion, his shirt and what it’s doing to you is a testament to that fact. Legs spread wide, your hips angled down with your clit pressed to the corner of Joel’s washer, the machine vibrating under you as you inhale his scent deeply - you’re back in that memory. And then some. 

In your mind, your back on Joel’s couch. You can smell him, feel him, and if you really concentrate, you can even taste him. You’re on your knees and he’s drawing lazy patterns on your back as you suck his cock and fondle his balls, and he’s moaning, grunting and whimpering your name. He tastes like he smells, heady and all masculine. He grips the back of your neck and lifts you up, guides you to straddle his hips. His forehead pressed against yours, he notches the tip of his cock inside you and pulls you down slowly, careful so as not to hurt you but it does, of course it does. Not that you mind, you love the stretch and the ache of his thickness splitting you in two. You rock yourself, grind your clit against that unruly patch of hair at the base of his cock. You’re coming, you’re coming, you’re coming. 

You’re coming. Loudly, whimpering Joel’s name as you rut against the vibrating machine. As you finish, so does the washer. It sings you a little chiming song indicating the load is done washing. You can’t help but giggle at that as you bask in the discovery of this fortuitous delight. You’ve got private access to a washer and dryer and a vibrator now too? Lucky, lucky, lucky. 

God, Joel’s shirt smells good. You inhale it deeply, wondering if he wears cologne. It smells almost woodsy…smokey, even. 

Fuck. You’re smelling smoke. 

You pull on your pants and sprint up the steps, racing to Joel’s kitchen only to find that the chicken and veggies you were heating up are no more. They’re black and shriveled, cemented to the stainless steel pan, and there’s no salvaging that. No amount of scrubbing can erase your masturbatory mistake. Fuck, Joel’s gonna kill you. Your only choice is to conceal the evidence. Surreptitiously, you take the pan and hide it under a bush outside Joel’s backdoor.

You’ll be more responsible next time - yes, there absolutely will be a next time. Gas off before you get off. 

The next time came and went. And the time after that, and the one after that. Laundry was always your least favorite chore, but with access to Joel’s washer and dryer and this new trick up your sleeve, it’s not so bad. Getting off on Joel’s washer has become a weekly thing and it’s been lovely, relieving, dirty, and exciting, but you’d be lying if you were to say it’s been perfectly fine the whole time. 

You’ve been abusing the poor machine. It’s no secret. You get every bang for your buck out of the washer, taking full advantage of Joel’s twice a week offer and then some. Some nights you’ll sneak over and do an extra load, wash a blanket or something just to make the washer run for your masturbatory purposes. And so, the vibrating sensation the machine produces has begun to weaken. In order to compensate, you’ve been rocking yourself harder on it, which probably isn’t helping. But it’s still washing your clothes, right? 

…Yes. Mostly. It still washes, but it’s become sort of finicky. And the door doesn’t quite shut the way it used to, and it makes an odd noise now that it never made before. 

Tonight you’re at Joel’s doing a double load of laundry. There were no ulterior motives on your part when you came over, honestly and truly. Your first load is drying, the second load is in the washer. Joel’s home tonight, he’s gonna cook you dinner like he always does when he’s around. For such a grouch, he wears his heart on his sleeve. 

It would be more accurate to say you’re cooking dinner together. Joel came home with a basket full of fresh vegetables from the market and actually put you to work, his reasoning being that he was starving and wanted dinner ready yesterday, and that having your help cutting up the vegetables for the meal he was making would have dinner ready that much sooner. He places a cutting board in front of you and hands you a knife, “Chop chop,” he says, then laughs at his own pun as he rifles through some cabinets. “Missin’ a saucepan…” he mumbles to himself. Oops.

You start by peeling the carrots. As you begin to chop them, you realize he didn’t give you any sort of instruction. “Joel?”

“Yeah, hon.”

“How small do you need me to cut the carrots?”

“Uhhhh,” he thinks. “Lemme see.” Joel turns around and watches you with a look of disappointment and repulsion painting his features. “What’s the matter with you?”

“What?” you ask defensively. 

“Why are you tryin’ to cut off your fingers?”

You look down at your hand holding the carrot and your other hand holding the knife, then up at Joel. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I’m not trying to cut off my fingers.”

“Sure looks like it to me. Is that always how you handle a knife?”

“Yeah,” you reply, “Why?”

“‘Cause you’re gonna cut off your damn fingers, dammit, that’s why. C’mere,” Joel stands behind you where you stand at the island, then lifts up your left hand and curls your fingers underneath themselves. “Keep your fingers like this,” he instructs. “Holdin’ your fingers out flat like that are a sure fire way to cut ‘em off. Now show me how you chop.” 

With your fingers in the proper position now, you begin to cut the carrots. They wobble beneath you, you hate the way Joel has you holding them. “This is uncomfortable,” you tell him. 

“You know what’s more uncomfortable? Missin’ fingers. Keep goin’.” You groan but keep chopping per his demand. He’s pressed against your back, one of his palms lays flat against the countertop, semi caging you in as he watches you work. “Okay, okay, stop. You’re makin’ me nervous. Gimme this.” Joel wraps his hand around yours on the handle of the knife. He moves the knife for you, cutting the carrot slowly, your hand securely in his. “You’re liftin’ the knife too much, sweetheart. Just rock it back and forth for me. Just like this,” he whispers, showing you how he rocks the knife in a fluid motion to cut the carrots. His hands are warm, his grip on your hands is firm. His breath is hot and tickles your ear, sending goosebumps erupting down the back of your neck. He chops the carrots quietly, and you feel him against you - the rise and fall of his chest and tummy with each inhale and exhale he takes, his wiry scruff kissing the side of your face. “That’s it,” he praises, “Good girl.”

Fuck. His words go right to your core. As if him holding your hands and caging you in to teach you how to cut vegetables wasn’t enough, he had to call you ‘good girl’ as well. That had to be deliberate on his part, you’re almost certain of it. And now you’ve got to pay his washer another visit. His fault, honestly. “Laundry,” you blurt out, pushing his hands off of yours and shrinking away from his hold. “Sorry. Gotta check the laundry.”

“Oh. Alright, then.” Joel watches you pace down the basement stairs and listens to you pretend to check on your clothes, opening and shutting the washer and dryer doors. He’s waiting for you to come upstairs, but you never do. “You comin’ upstairs?”

“Yeah, just a minute,” you call back.

“There’s spiders down there, you know. Big an’ fuzzy too.” 

“I’ll be fine,” you yell as you unbutton your shorts and pull them down your legs. “I don’t mind them.”

Your reply immediately has Joel feeling suspicious of you. Even a mention of a mere ant should have sent you running into his arms and pleading with him to get rid of it. On more than one occasion, Joel’s woken up to you pounding on his door in the middle of the night begging him to come kill a spider that’s in your bedroom. And he always does, of course, even when the spider is miniscule and simply minding its business in a corner somewhere. He’ll scoop it into the palm of his hand and set it outside in a bed of flowers, call you a wimp and be on his merry way, grumbling the entire walk home. He wonders why the hell you’re so brave all of a sudden. 

A loud, clunking noise interrupts the silence. “Oh, fuck,” you swear. And Joel’s deaf, but not deaf enough to not hear you. “What was that?” he calls from up the stairs. 

“Nothing!”

Joel knows it wasn’t nothing, it certainly didn’t sound like nothing. You quickly pull your shorts and panties back on when you hear him stomping down the stairs to investigate. Wracking your brain to think of a lie to tell Joel, you realize you’re fucked, utterly and completely. It would’ve been more appropriate to think of one before now, probably around the time the washer started to make weird noises. Now you’re faced with god knows what consequences. 

Joel greets you with a puzzled and angered expression. “What the hell happened?”

“I d– I don’t know. Just something… Happened, I guess,” you stutter. Subtly, you stuff the used pair of his boxers you were smelling down the back of your shorts to hide the evidence of your even dirtier secret. Joel sees that you’re avoiding eye contact, looking up and away, scratching your head. The silence hangs heavily in the air and Joel sees the guilt on your face and that your shorts are undone for some reason. “You have ten seconds to tell me the truth before this becomes a much worse day for us both.”

“Nothing happened–”

 “Nine, eight…”

You fold instantly. “I sit on it,” you confess, Joel exhales in frustration. “Sit? As in… this is a regular occurrence, you’ve been sittin’ on my washer,” Joel asserts. You nod in confirmation. “Why.”

 “I don’t know,” you shrug, another lie. 

“Well, how much have you been sittin’ on it?” 

“Just like…a lot, I guess.” You look down at your feet, shifting your weight from one foot to the other.  

“Why?” he asks again.

“It…uhh…sort of…” you mumble, picking at your fingernails. 

“Sort of what?”

“Vibrates.”

Joel’s face falls at the admission. “You’re not serious,” he says, but he knows you are. “Oh my god.”

“Stranger things have happened, right?” Your voice wavers as you try to soften the blow with a joke. 

“Unbelievable,” Joel pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “No. Stranger things than you have not happened, sweetheart.” After taking a few deep breaths, he pushes you to the side and reaches for the shelf above the washer for a toolbox. He takes out a putty knife and wriggles the front of the washer off, then drops to his knees to inspect the washer. “Did I not ask you to be careful with it?” It’s a rhetorical question. Joel groans when he sees what’s broken inside of the washer. 

“What is it?”

“Belt’s broken,” he answers. “You’re lucky s’fixable.”

“Oh,” you say. “Well, it’s good you can fix it, right?”

 “Oh, no. You are fixin’ it, my darlin’. You broke it.”

Joel’s out of his mind if he thinks you’re putting his washer back together. “I don’t know how,” you tell him. You’ll make it up to him in any other way than this, but there’s no way he’s serious. Besides, he’s now the first to know that your track record with washers isn’t to be trusted.

 “I’ll walk you through it,” Joel replies plainly. “Get down there. On your knees, sweetheart.” You roll your eyes at him. “Now,” he says, unimpressed with your defiance.

You drop to your knees in front of the washer, looking for the broken belt that Joel speaks of. You find one of the big and fuzzy spiders he was talking about instead. “Jesus!” you yelp, launching backwards and nearly knocking Joel over in the process “There’s a spider, Joel - kill it, kill it, kill it, Joel - kill it, please,” you beg. 

“Oh for Christ’s sake, it’s harmless.”

“Joel!”

Joel nudges you out of the way to find the spider sitting right at the bottom of the washer. He scoops it into his hand, then holds it in front of you, “I thought you said you didn’t mind ‘em,” he taunts. 

“I lied. Get it away from me,” You shove him away from you, and he clutches the spider more carefully in his hands, laughing. 

“Yeah, I know you lied. You’re very bad at it,” Joel opens one of the basement’s egress windows and sends the spider on its way, then closes it and returns to you, first grabbing what looks to be a replacement belt for his washer from a nearby shelf. Leave it to Joel to have the most convenient yet obscure supplies right in his basement twenty years into an apocalypse. “Back to work.” You’re in front of the washer once more, and Joel takes his seat right behind you. “See that black belt at the bottom of the drum?”

“No.”

“This thing here,” he points at it with his finger. “Take it off,” You reach for the belt and tug on it a bit, “Gotta wiggle it a bit,” following his instruction, you wiggle the belt and it falls off the drum. “Attagirl. Now put this one on,” he hands you the new belt and takes the old one from you. “S’gonna be snug.”

You struggle to stretch the rubber over the drum and it snaps your hands when it slips. “Fuck.”

“Keep tryin’. Put some elbow grease into it, hon,” Joel hovers over your shoulder, just as he did earlier in the kitchen. “M’just checkin’ to make sure you got it lined up properly,” Joel tugs on the rubber belt, making sure it’s sitting where it needs to. “So tell me again how long you been doin it for,” he whispers. “Long time?”

You answer cautiously, “Uhhh…a while now, I guess.”

 “Yeah, I figured. S’it feel good?” 

The question throws you off, makes you nervous. But his voice is low and gravelly, and his tone isn’t pointed or accusatory. He seems curious, but for what reason, you’re not quite sure yet. “It does.”

“Better than your fingers?” Joel tightens the belt a bit and leans back. He’s watching you, but you can’t bring yourself to look into his eyes. You gasp when you feel his warm palm sliding underneath your shorts. “What the–” Oh, fuck. Joel found his pair of boxers. He holds the fabric in his hands, a knowing grin on his lips. “These are mine. What’re you doin’ with my dirty boxers?” he asks. He doesn’t allow you time to stutter out an excuse. “You’re a dirty lil’ bird, aren’t you?”

“Joel.”

He tosses his pair of boxers onto the dryer and whispers in your ear again, “I asked you somethin’. My washer feel better than your fingers?”

“Yeah,” you answer, “Better.”

Joel hums in amusement. He slides his hand down the front of your pants, still unbuttoned from earlier. “Saved me the trouble, didn’t ya, sweetheart?” he breathes. Your breath hitches when his fingers find your mound, as he toys with the curls there. He traces over your lips, then dips a finger between them, circling your hole, then circles your clit. “Better than mine?” he asks, dipping a finger into your center and you moan.  He holds one hand on your hip as the other pumps in and out of your center, and you lean back into his chest, relaxing with his touch. You sigh deeply. “Don’t get all cozy on me, now. You ain’t done. Gotta put the front of the washer back on, should just click right into place.”

Joel pulls his hand away from you so you can lift the front piece of the washer. “It’s not–” you complain, struggling to click it into place the way Joel says it should. You push and push, but it doesn’t budge. “Joel, it’s not–”

“It will. Just try.” 

“I am,” you argue, shoving it once more but to no avail. You’ve grown frustrated by his washer, by the task Joel bestowed upon you in fixing it, and his teasing, too. In a fit of anger, you stand up and kick it.

 “Hey, easy,” Joel scolds. “Look, like this,” Magically, the front piece of the washer fits right into place, just like he said it would. He does nothing different than what you did, it just works out for him. Of course it does. “You’re impatient, huh?” he murmurs, moving behind you. You gasp when you feel his hands on your hips, tugging the fabric of both your shorts and your panties down to your ankles, he helps you out of the garments and tosses them elsewhere. His hands are on your hips again, this time guiding you, whispering, “Back, back,” as he positions you where he needs you, spreading your legs apart. You’re leaning on his washer and he’s on his knees behind you, using his nose to tease and part your slick folds. He inhales you deeply, taking in the sweet scent of your arousal before he tastes you. He traces your lips with a pointed tongue, up and down, before he dips his tongue into your heat, savoring you. 

“How ‘bout my tongue?” he purrs, whispering against your skin. You don’t answer, and it’s not like you could anyway, with the way he devours you. His arms are wrapped around your legs, his fingertips are digging harshly into your thighs like he means to bruise you, tear the flesh off your bones even. It’s possessive in nature, but not abusive or aggressive. You know his actions aren’t borne of anything except pure pleasure and you indulge in it, in him. He moves slow like honey as he tastes you languidly, kissing you. He laps your velvety heat, his tongue teasing all of your sensitive, slick flesh. Now and then the wiry hairs of his beard will tease and scratch your inner thighs, a sensation that tickles you and rubs you raw all the same. “Oh my god,” you moan, reaching behind yourself to take hold of his head, fingers tangling in his graying curls and waves. “Joel, oh my god.”

Joel takes your lack of a real answer to his question as a no, his washer pales in comparison to his tongue. Good. He bets you’ve fantasized about him, all those times you’ve used his washer for those needs of yours besides washing your clothes. And he bets that you probably grind yourself on it, picturing it’s his warm flesh beneath you and not the cold metal of the machine. He’d be right. He sucks your clit, circling the sensitive bud with his tongue. He nips at your folds, sucking one, then the other between his plump lips, then focuses his attention back at your clit. You’re moaning his name, the only word you know anymore. Joel keeps you still, held tight in his arms so that you can’t push your ass back and grind against his mouth like he knows you’re fighting to do. All you can do is take it, feel his perfect aquiline nose tease between your cheeks. He’s buried himself face first in your most private place as he consumes you voraciously, his tongue flicking and swirling and painting you. You’re biting into your own arm, seeing stars as you come on his tongue. It’s an elusive sort of orgasm, the kind where you don’t exactly know where it begins and it ends. All you know is that you’re sensitive, so fucking sensitive and Joel is relentless. Your knees buckle as he toys with your clit, gives you a break for a moment before he’s right back there again, continuing to eat you. He keeps going and going, repeating the actions over and over again just to make you cry and beg, “Stop - please - I can’t, I can’t, Joel. T-too much.”

“Know it’s too much, sweetheart, s’why I’m doin it,” Joel coos. But he obliges, places one last kiss to your heat, soaked by his spit and your own arousal before he stands up behind you. He wraps one arm around your stomach, pulling himself close to you. You can feel his hard cock against your ass, separated only by his denim as he uses his other hand to turn your face to the side, meeting him beside you. He kisses you, tracing his tongue along the seam of your lips, licking into your mouth. You taste yourself on his tongue, then feel his hand leave your face to reach for his fly. You hear him unzip his jeans slowly, and then he’s pulling his cock out, still kissing you as he lines up with you, first parting your thighs with a gentle nudge of his knee before notching his tip at your entrance. He finally pulls his mouth away from yours and gently forces your chest down toward the washer. He pushes himself into you, careful so as not to hurt you but deliberately so that you still feel that ache, the stretch of his thick cock separating your insides. Joel continues holding your body close to his as he reaches for your hand with his free one, interlacing his fingers in between your own.  “How about my cock, sweetheart? You like it better, worse?” he whispers, kissing, nipping at your ear in between words. He pulls out of you nearly all the way, then pushes back into your dripping cunt. 

You try to answer, “Bet - oh, ahhh,” 

Joel chuckles at the way he’s reduced you to nothing but broken syllables and moans. “Ohhh, listen to you. I think it’s better, huh? S’that what you’re tryin’ to tell me?” You nod frantically. “Yeah, I know, beautiful.”

His pace is slower to start, but it builds in quick time. You can feel he’s fighting with himself to be more gentle than he actually wants to be, his thrusts sloppier than he intends, like he’s losing himself in you. You’re lost in him, lost in the moment all the same. You take it all in, the lewd and obscene sounds of the pleasure he creates with you - his thighs slapping against yours and the gushing of your cunt on his cock. Your moans, your cries, all babbling nonsense. And Joel’s deep breaths in and out, shaky and stuttering as he does it. His grunts and his swearing, a whimper here and there if you listen closely. He fills you up perfectly, hits that sweet spot deep inside you over and over and over…

“You coulda had me like this the whole time,” he pants, “Didn’t have to go an’ break my washer f’ya needed somethin’ more than those fingers of yours, sweetheart. Know you been needin’ some lovin’.”  He reaches for your breasts, squeezing and groping the flesh, twisting your nipples and smirking when you twitch and whine. “All you had to do was ask.” You don’t respond, but he doesn’t expect you to anyway. What he did expect, however, were your moans of displeasure as he pulls out of you. He knows, oh, he knows how empty you must feel, you poor thing.  He’ll soothe that. He flips you around, seats you on his washer. “I’m gonna make you come again,” he promises, “I’m gonna watch.”

 “Too much, Joel, I can’t,” you cry. You want to come again, really. But you don’t think you have it in you, still so worked up, overstimulated by the endless teasing of his tongue on your pussy.

 “Oh, don’t cry. You can do it, hon. You can take it,” he says, “Open up those legs for me, darlin’.” Joel pushes your trembling legs wide so he can slot his hips between them, then wraps your legs around his waist before sliding his cock into you once more. He thrusts just once, rather harshly, before he’s met with another rather loud noise from the washer. Joel halts and scratches the back of his neck. God, he hopes he didn’t just do it in. “Probably shouldn’t…uh…”

“Yeah,” you agree. 

“Did you use my dryer too?”

“Duh,” you answer. “How else would I dry my clothes?”

Joel rolls his eyes, “No, smartass. Were you usin’ it for your dirty work, is what I’m askin’.”

“No.” 

Still inside you, Joel slides you over to his dryer. “Good girl. Poor washer’s been abused plenty by you already.”  

“But I will,” You whisper defiantly under your breath, wrapping your arms around his neck as he adjusts. 

“Wrong ear, sweetheart. My right one’s deaf. I heard that loud and clear.”

Joel’s back to fucking you in an instant. He wastes no time in making good on his promise, thumbing your clit as he rolls his hips into you. “See, look at you. Takin’ me just fine,” he praises.The way you squirm and take your shallow little breaths fills him with satisfaction and delight. He knows this isn’t easy, that you’re tired and sore and overstimulated. He’ll be done with you soon. “Come with me, wanna feel you come with me, sweetheart,” he says. “Focus here, eyes on me. You’re gonna come with me.” 

It’s a few moments of Joel painting your clit with those tight, steadied circles as he fucks you hard and deep. There’s a push and pull to it, where you’re not sure who this is for - yourself or Joel. Just like before, you’re not sure where it starts and stops, but you’re there. God it’s intense, you’re gonna break and you know it. Joel’s got his palm on the back of your neck, squeezing you. His jaw clenches and he’s coming undone first, but he never loses focus on you. His thrusts stutter as he milks himself in you but doesn't yet stop - he’s making sure you’re gonna come. “C’mon baby, c’mon. Give it to me,” he says. “One more for me. Last one.” 

His words are all it takes. You whimper and moan, cry his name as you find your climax. Release washes over you the way waves crash onto sand - it’s repeated, the way the tides push and pull. Deafening. Powerful. 

But there’s a calmness yet. The rolling of his hips slows, slows, stops. He presses his damp forehead against yours, breathing deeply. “You’re okay,” he murmurs. “You’re okay?”

You nod and smile, “Yeah, I’m good.” He smiles with you and helps you off of the dryer. Joel finds your clothes and dresses you in them, steadying your shaky legs. 

Joel tentatively restarts the washer. It chugs a bit, but makes all the right noises and he breathes a sigh of relief. You’re a bit startled when he takes you by the arm and marches you up the stairs. “New rule,” he says, “You stay with me when your clothes are washin’.”

You bite your lip to hide your guilty smirk. “Yes. Joel.” 

“And I still need you to cut them veggies for me, too.” 

I struggled heavily with this fic, comments and reblogs would be much appreciated if you were feeling so inclined🙏 they keep me motivated and I look back at your words when I’m writing to remember that I’m capable of pleasing you all

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Ahh it's the last day of 2023 already?

I am expecting a call from a friend although the possibility of this happening is very slim it always felt nice to hear the voice of an old friend ( I'm not a text person I've realised this over time but I am stuck to be a text person) .

I can't wait for spring to come in 2024 , spring provides an intense amount of healing to my soul.

The next four months are very crucial in my life if they go well I can survive the rest of the year, I have died a couple of times this year and I am amazed that I am alive i didn't honestly thought i would make it to the end of this year ( especially in the last 3 months , I badly needed help but i didn't wanted others to pity me so i spoke to none about it ) anyways I don't want to talk about it , i don't want to make it sound blue than it already is,a i am really sorry about the fact all my posts are blue I sincerely wish it wasn't that way( altho i haven't posted anything here with as much as devotion I use to do , partly cuz i created an Instagram acc but that's not all reason I ve been sad nonetheless) and sorry for all the "anon/asks" that i haven't answered

I have made no achievements this year and there is little to no progress towards my self love or self growth, but I think that's okay I can do it in the upcoming year, time flies so quick i can't believe Its been so many years since I was 16 I miss being 16 honestly I had more in me back then than i have now , i have lost of confidence my vision and my smile over the years it's as if I am very different person now , i certainly wish I wasn't this way i really thought i would be so much more and better in my early 20s but it is what it is , acceptance is haredest of all emotions in my opinion , you know things are harder to accept when you know you could have done better .

Just like in the last 2 years even this year I didn't make any real life friends with whom I can hang out with i think it's partly due to the fact some people are destined to be alone and I am afraid to admit I am one of them , I did make 2 online friends this year .

I don't want to share any life lessons i learnt this year but if there is something i would love to share is choose yourself one more time each time you feel it's the last time you are doing it , choose one more time to live,one more time to hope, one more time to have faith , one more time to start again [ the fact I am the one telling you this is rediciculosly funny ] .

Unlike most people i don't have a lot of goals for the new year I just got things i want to avoid ( idk if that's the same thing?) Avoid my leftover heart's heartbreak, avoiding what takes away my peace, avoiding what can cause me discomfort, avoiding things that make me question myself ( in any negative way) ,i think that's a little too much but that's it .

As I was writing this Google photos sent me a notification saying " 3 years back today with a photo of mine " and it broke my heart a little, now I am questioning myself how did i let so much happen to me , I wish I treated certain things as the last time instead of always stupidly believing in future ( my worse trait yes).

There is a lot to say as always, i wonder if I open my mouth i would never stop sharing things that go inside my mind , but i also know there is no use of it if i can't find people who can understand it , maybe that's how I end up ranting here .

Not to mention I love people who are patient, i believe in the near future i would only like to talk with people who could be patient with me and with my silence . I believe everyone deserves people who can be patient with them .

Nothing really matters in the end but at the same time everything you do matters ❤️‍🩹

[frecklystars]

I have no idea if I should come back online or not. I've been offline since. my god, what. fucking April? May?? My queue only has like 10 posts so I should refill that but tbh I don't see a point if I don't really feel anything. I am just a husk, I can't enjoy anything, I am just so numb all the fucking time. I have been doing so bad and nothing is helping and I am so fucking miserable when I can't self ship. I'm in pain all the time and I need my F/Os to help me get through the day but that's so hard when I look at them and watch the movies and feel absolutely nothing. I tried watching a bunch of ryan interviews/movies/shows for the last couple of weeks and there is just. nothing

September is my bday month and every year I try really hard to be extra gentle with myself. and I originally planned to stay offline for the entire month bc I just, I don't wanna fucking be here. I hate being on this hellsite. I hate feeling pressured to get back to so many people when my energy is so low. I don't find any joy scrolling through my dashboard. I don't find joy in making edits or drawing anymore. I don't enjoy my time on here anymore bc I cannot find joy in self shipping anymore. But I don't go a day without going into fight or flight mode, or having a nightmare or a flashback, or stress vomiting, there is always something, and my Ryan F/Os were really helping me get through it for at least a year, but now it's like... the last 4 months I've just felt nothing and I feel so utterly miserable

I can't afford a cptsd therapist anymore but I try to see my regular therapist once a month if I can afford it, and she said it's best for me to try to get back online at least once in a while, bc I'm just... rotting in my room and then going to work at both of my jobs and then coming home and missing my F/Os, unable to cope with triggers since I'm not able to self ship, and just rotting again. My sleep schedule is so fucked up bc of my nightmares/panic attacks I've had every night for nearly two years. I get zero to three hours of sleep every night for the last two years. I'm exhausted all the time and! it makes sense that I'm doing poorly bc your brain makes serotonin when you're sleeping! and if I'm literally never sleeping then ofc I'm not gonna have the stupid happy chemical in my stupid brain. and I'm not eating every day since I am trying so hard to save money, and skipping meals is obviously bad for your brain too, and I'm not socializing as regularly bc I'm so goddamn depressed. so my therapist said I should try to be online again even if it's just once a week, just to make F/O edits or something. fake it til you make it, try to build that habit again. but that feels so hard! I am so numb here! and I have so many bad memories associated with the abuse I've endured that I can't log into this hellsite without just feeling so fucking awful.

I am so tired of living in fight or flight mode and getting shaky from adrenaline rushes all the time and i'm so tired of not feeling like I can trust the people around me because of how much bullshit I've had to go through in the last two years of people purposefully being kind to me in order to betray my trust and manipulate me. I really wish I could publicly talk about what happened to me. I really wish I could publicly tell you all every single little thing that I have been put through in the last 2 years. I wish I could tell you who's doing it and I wish I could post everything... obviously not for witch hunt purposes, but just so people can know what's going on and idk help me, send me support, tell me "hey it's gonna be okay" literally anything, or at the very least just so I can warn you how fucked up a group of people are and say "hey don't interact with these people I've had to actually call the police on them bc they're Fucking Insane". but I refuse to talk about my situation publicly because it won't do anything but cause drama, it will make things worse in the long run, so I stay in my own lane, I just fucking sit here, I never talk bad about anybody anywhere even in private, I never name drop, I am just trying so hard to exist and stay in my corner.

I've been so paranoid for 4 months now bc of all of the stalking I've been put thru in the last two years. I don't trust people, and it bled into self shipping so I feel like I can't trust my F/Os. I know F/Os aren't real yeah yeah I know they're fictional, but idk how else to explain it. Think of the worst possible thing someone can do to you. anything you can think of; I have been thru it. online abuse and offline abuse. my F/Os got tied into that. I was conditioned to believe that these things that were happening to me would be my F/O's desires as well. that they'd want to abuse me the same way because they love me. that I am their "most special person" and that they'd feel an "urge to hurt me". especially if I was in a skirt. especially if I looked scared. blah blah blah all this shit I was told for months and months. endured in real time and then told my F/Os would want to do the same exact thing to me because they love me. that I am only loved through violence and manipulation. because of all of this I've been put through, I genuinely believe I am only capable of being loved if it's through violence whether this is IRL or with F/Os, and anyone who is being kind to me is secretly out to get me. this is such an awful way to live and I don't know how to stop thinking like this. I don't know how to shake it off. I'm so tired.

I want to stop having an immediate stress reaction, my brain spiking my blood with adrenaline saying "you're in danger!! you're gonna die!! you're gonna die!! you need to run!!" every time I see a stupid fictional robot, or certain clothes, or colors, or. whatever. I am so sick of it. It is exhausting dealing with so much stress and anxiety every single day!! every second that you're alive!! I cannot put into words how fucking terrible it feels!!! it isn't just a "eh this happens every once in a while if I just see my trigger" thing, it's a "I feel this every goddamn second that I am awake and even when I am asleep bc I'm having nightmares about it" !!! it's hard!! it sucks! it's hard!! I can't function if I don't have my F/Os and I don't have my F/Os anymore, not in the same way. I don't feel anything for my Ryan F/Os at all right now. Barbie doesn't make me feel safe anymore bc I don't feel anything when I look at her. I can't look at pink and think "ooh barbie pink" and try to get over that trigger. I just see pink and feel tense and like I wanna throw up. I don't see Barbie as a protector anymore bc I'm so numb. I don't see Barbie as a girl's girl who would look out for me, I see her as a potential abuser. I hate this. I miss her so bad. I miss feeling safe with F/Os. I am trying really hard to get that Ryan/Barbie hyperfixation train going again but I don't know how to do that when I am so miserable. I don't know where to start. am I supposed to fake it til I make it? draw and edit and listen to music and just try?? or do I just?? watch the movies? it's not working. but even if it's not working do I just keep doing it anyways? it's like there's a brick wall in front of me and anything throwing love/joy in my direction just hits the wall and I can't absorb it.

So anyway I'm sorry to rant. I've only slept 6 hours total in the last 7 days so my brain is like. suffocating. i'm probably almost done talking. being offline hasn't helped me feel better. I think isolating myself is, uh. not good. but I really don't have the energy for dms. I can try to answer maybe like... 3 asks a week if I push myself. I feel so bad that so so so so so many people reach out to me and I just don't answer. I don't do it on purpose I just genuinely have zero energy, or if someone sends a nice ask, in the back of my head I'm always thinking "nope this is a trap. I shouldn't engage with this" and like, what if it's not a trap? what if it's genuinely just someone trying to be nice to me? I don't trust it. i hate walking on eggshells. i hate that someone can send me "hi keri have a nice day :)" and my brain is like "ah this person is spending one whole entire year pretending to be my friend so they can betray me. they're secretly on the side of [abuser] so they can try to hurt me. don't trust!!!" like. hello. i hate that i've had experiences like that, so now any person who contacts me is automatically a "possible threat" ??? it is exhausting living like that. it's hurting me. i don't think this way on purpose! i am not trying to feed/fuel these thoughts. i have a literal stress disorder. this is part of the stupid complex post traumatic stress disorder. i am! stressed! to the point of this hurting me and i am unable to function! and! idk how to fix it. it's like someone planted poisonous seeds in my brain for 2 years that have sprouted into ugly huge trees and I can't cut them down. because the bark is too strong. or something. and now there's just poison in my head that I don't know how to get rid of.

ok sorry for rambling, I don't know if I am coming back online or not. I am supposed to! I should! I really should! but I really genuinely hate this hellsite after everything i've been put through. i never enjoy my time here anymore. but also my birthday is coming up and I deserve to enjoy my birthday. I want to enjoy it. I want to get better so bad, and if being online and making edits and drawing pictures is supposed to help with that then I will try. at least a little. I want to enjoy my birthday so bad dude. i hate my birthday, I have hated my birthday for years, but this year I am so... hurt, I feel like an open bleeding wound that cannot heal, and I want to be so gentle to myself this year. I want to eat apple pie at a diner and wear my drive scorpion jacket even if im numb the whole time. I want to go to the movies and bring my barbies with me even if im numb the whole time. I want to go rock climbing. I want to eat soft serve ice cream and not feel guilty. I want to learn how to watercolor paint even if i'm gonna suck at it at first. I have 3 F/O anniversaries coming up. K on the 1st, Driver on the 18th, Lars on the 26th. I should enjoy these days. I am not looking forward to any of it. I am just. numb. but I need to try. I cannot just sit here and tell myself it's hopeless. but then again I don't have energy to do anything other than that. but whatever, I will try even if it's just, like, one single day this month where I post art or answer one (1) ask. like literally anything I will push myself to do anything I want to get better SO bad

I'm gonna fill up my queue now, I'm sorry if it seemed messy the last month, I haven't checked it. I used to always organize my queue every day to post certain amounts on certain days, time it accordingly, make everything look all nice and pretty, but I haven't done that. I don't even know if ppl notice that kind of thing or not, I think it just makes me feel better personally when I know my blog is organized. I want to try to answer one or two inbox messages every once in a while. if I don't get to your asks or dms, I'm sorry, it is nothing personal I swear to god I literally am just a zombie right now barely alive and I am trying so hard to just. survive 😭

I love u. I'm sorry my tone in this whole thing comes off very bitter, I am genuinely just fighting to stay alive one day at a time for years and years and years and the cptsd made everything so unbearable and i feel like every single second im alive is such a struggle. I hate being so negative all the time I promise I am clawing my way out of hell to try to fix it even though it hurts the whole time. i want to get better not just for myself but also because i feel so bad that i make vent posts so often. i miss self shipping. im gonna stop here or im gonna spiral even worse. goodnight/goodbye ill touch base later

[decarabiandivorce]

Am i the asshole for staying behind on an uncharted planet

I (23M) have been a new hire at this shipping company for around three months and it has been absolutely horrible. The company has us work outrageous hours and there is only one other employee. A month ago that employee (my mentor) went on a vacation and ever since then the president had me switch over from simply organizing packages to making full deliveries. On my first trip, I was attacked by a group of space bunnies and the company was sent into debt because of it. They told me the route was safe and secure, however, it was clearly not the case. The important cargo was destroyed and the remaining debt is now more than a hundred years' worth of salary. The company is going under and the president is even accusing ME of doing something. I have no clue what he is talking about and am very frightened by the experience.

Now then my mentor (38?M idk) comes back and talks about how he was hit by a meteor and crashed. It took him a whole month to recover his parts and just barely made it back. Before he could even see his family the company's appraisal AI scanned a memento he yoinked from the crash site and now the president thinks its a great idea to send two deliverymen to search for treasures to sell. Why do we even have an appraisal AI I don't even know. So now me and this captain i've know for about two months is being sent towards an uncharted planet.

Then we crash. There was a blizzard and I am sent flying into the snow. I am tired, hungry, and lay down on the ground as I contemplate my life. A long story short we reconvened and it turns out this planet is FULL of hostile life! Creatures as tall as me just waiting to eat us. Holy fuck. My mentor is taking this as a normal occurrence???? He spent a month on this planet??? The hell????

So after fighting off creature after creature-some as tall as space pups while others as tall as buildings, we somehow get enough pokos to pay back the COMPANY'S DEBT. We weren't even paid overtime and I think my mentor GOT A PROMOTION? We barely had enough supplies for one person so I started taking back some of the local creatures to eat. (DM me if you want some of my recipes!) . We wake up as soon as dawn breaks and this planet's day and night system are so unlike my own planet. By the time it's 10 PM its Nighttime! Dawn is around 6 AM!

My mentor has been relatively nice. He gets my silence and for that, I am grateful he doesn't have me talk a lot. Cons: He forgets about me really easily. Usually, he has me just follow him while we explore and at some points, I feel as if I could have just stayed at the ship and slept and would accomplish the same amount of work. It is aggravating to be woken up so early and told to just follow him around.

After another long expedition I am about 10 seconds away from passing out our ship's appraisal AI (who has been so snippy with both of us) blares out that we should return home now. The thing is, after so long of being on this planet I realized that I prefer this planet more than slaving away at that delivery service. The same service that would send me straight first toward a hive of space rabbits for my very first mission. So I lagged behind a bit.

In my lagging behind, my mentor starts up the ship and leaves. At first, I am shocked. He actually did that. Holy fuck he left me on this planet. Sure our suits were upgrades to filter out the oxygen just before we left and I could last for months if not years....it was still shocking to me. I could not help but watch the sky as he blasted away. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise!

I walked for a long time, resting in safe areas to conserve my stamina and eating the creatures I knew were edible. There was a lot of experimentation here and there and I missed the spices of back home. I just knew that a certain creature would taste way better if I added in a couple more condiments! (Remember! DM me for my recipes!)

While exploring one of the caves, a giant spiderlike foe kidnapped me and placed me on it's head. It was so cute! Like riding a weird dog.

It was nice being with the big spider. It gathered some ancient technologies that were perfect for my survival. None of the other creatures seemed to bother the two of us and it was nice to know that there was someone else on this planet that understood us. Still, I was tired and after what felt like days, my suit's forced sleep mode kicked in. I have no clue what happened afterward nor how many days I was asleep but the next thing I knew was that my mentor was right in front of me making sure I was okay.

He says that he came back for me with the help of our boss, but I could see the poko in the president's eyes as the ship went over finances with him.

They killed the spider to 'save' me. The spider went on full attack while I was asleep on it and the appraisal AI thinks I was in control of it despite being unconscious. At least the captain think's I didn't do it...

They then told me that there was no third seat on the ship and that I will be sleeping in the cargo hold until they got every single treasure on this planet. I am pretty sure that's a space OSHA violation but at this point, I have been in so many life-threatening dangers that I gave up counting. At least they don't expect me to help out because I am 'recovering'. They are content to let me stay by the ship and I have been using this time to perfect my recipes with the supplies they got from back home.

[astronomic727]

Ngl I've been feeling a bit burnt out for a while, so I figured this may be a good time for me to start periodically posting old stuff from my Instagram and Twitter accounts that I've moved on from. There will of course be new drawings/posts in between too! Just gotta recharge is all. I guess for a bit of insight, and also story time I suppose, for the past few months I've been having driving lessons and I had my test a few days ago. Thankfully, I managed to pass but I think the stress of the journey coupled with pushing two videos out a week apart, and everything else that had happened in those months took some sort of toll on me overtime. So yeah, not taking a break or anything per say, just will be posting old stuff more often so it's all archived somewhere, and to take pressure off feeling the need to upload something here and there. With these old doodle dumps I'm also probably gonna give some insight into how I feel about them from an artistic standpoint. I may have not much to say, or I may have a lot, who knows lol. Anyway to begin with the stuff in this post, it's all fairly recent. Some were Insta posts, others were Insta stories. We have Via messing with a cranky Kayleigh, the sister's parents when they were young adults (Evelyn is dirty from working on her motorbike, and Vance is working towards his degree in Astronomy), sleepy Via helping Kayleigh get ready for school, young Via and Orion, and the duo again but in 2 memes lol For how I feel about these, it's complicated... this technically goes for like most doodles I've done up to now too, but I'm not fully satisfied. I'm happy with my full illustrations, but I feel as though my doodles miss the mark. It's like a weird perfectionist mental block or something, these are only meant to be sketches but it takes me forever to do them for some reason, and also (what is probably the reason why it takes so long) that along the way my sketch lines somehow turn into lines of line art quality. But I feel this over cleanliness sucks the soul out of my doodles and makes them feel flat. More recently to combat this, I've tried to give slight shading to these doodles whether it be cel or gradient shaded, like the Fortnite or Streetview meme posts I did, but I feel like I need to embrace sketchiness more, for both time saving sake and for appeal. Maybe I also need to do some experimenting with new brushes too, idk. Maybe I'm being overdramatic lol but that's just how I've felt for a long time, and just felt like getting it off my chest. Anyhoo, enough rambling... boy, you thought I had a lot to say here? Just wait till we get to the older stuff lmao, but anyway, I'll ponder on these thoughts, but see you all until then :)

[sleepis4theweak]

Hiya! I’m kind of a small creator on here and trying to get my rottmnt fic an audience but no matter what I do as promo material (art, skits, rambles) nothing ever works to get more than like 2 notes max. I’m confident in my story’s quality so I’m fairly sure that’s not the issue. I was wondering if you have any advice or anything like that? Your stuff is lovely and get a lot of community engagement so I’m curious if there was anything you actively did that helped you grow! I hope this doesn’t come off as rude or desperate, I just wanted to know if I was missing something since I’m pretty new to Tumblr. Enjoy your day ^^

Don't worry! You don't come off as rude or desperate at all!! <3

But tbh... you are asking the wrong person here...

I'm going into marketing, and I spent a full school year in high school doing an independent study on social media algorithms. So I know a LOT about how to grow social media followings- specifically instagram accounts.

But I never actually studied tumblr. I used to use instagram as a platform, but knowing how the algorithm worked was too stressful for me... I'd post stuff and be like "the algorithm won't like this because blah blah blah." Eventually I was drawing for the algorithm and not for me, and so I quit because it just wasn't fun anymore...

Which is why I have very specifically not studied Tumblr's algorithm, because I don't want it to turn into the same situation as with instagram. So I don't know a ton about how to grow a following... and also I've only been on tumblr for 5 months...

THAT BEING SAID: I can walk you through my tumblr and how it's grown!

My very first post was of a meme redraw with the 2012 turtles. I think it got around 1,600 likes?

I posted a couple more things, with varying amounts of likes and such. My first comic (which I never actually completed past the first part) got a total of 7 likes within the first months of posting it. Only when I got more followers did the like amount change.

When I posted my first chapter of the Flashbacks AU, I had 33 or so followers. I think I got to like... 300 followers from that first chapter alone. From there it was just... a steady growth of followers I guess. And with followers comes more reblogs, and with more reblogs comes more followers.

I have around 1,600 followers now. Not everyone is gonna like my posts, I think I get around 20 for responded asks and 100-300 for random pieces of art. Comics get closers to 600 or so. It depends on the content.

I think there are a couple of universal things that help grow an account:

1- Making sure your content is reaching the right people. Put the right tags in. Go crazy with them in fact. If I'm posting a piece with Rise Mikey in it, Im gonna tag: Mikey, Mikey tmnt, Mikey 2018, ROTTMNT, Rise Mikey, etc etc. On instagram they are currently trying to get people to limit their use of tags, but I don't think the same thing applies here. Even tho tags don't help as much here, they are still a good tool!

2- Consistency. Idk how it works on this platform, but consistency is generally a good thing! With instagram theres an actual method to it (1 post a day= good, but the more posts you do a day the less people it shows it to), it might be worth it to look up if tumblr has something similar.

3- Have fun with it! I know this is kinda lame to say... but don't change your content for views. Just... do what you like and eventually your target audience will find you :)

4- Engage with what audience you do have! It's fun to bond with people online, and it helps that "community engagement" piece you talked about!

5-... stalk people hehe. (By which I mean: Look at what other artists post! What tags do they use, do they reblog their own posts a lot, etc etc. Also look at artists with similar followings to your own. For example, studying Cass might not be very helpful, because Cass has a large amount of followers and I'm convinced they could post a picture of a blank canvas and still get 1,000 likes hehe... BUT- I mean you could scroll down to Cass' (or other artist's) first posts and see what they were doing then! Just... observe others I suppose!)

Id love to tell you likes don’t matter, that what matters is having fun and loving what you are drawing. But also I do know how it feels to post something you are really proud of and then have no one like it- it sucks.

But just keep on going :) You'll find your people eventually I'm sure.

OH ALSO: IF ANYONE ELSE HAS ANY TIPS FEEL FREE TO REBLOG AND ADD STUFF IN!!! <3

[hecckyeah]

Hello there!! I'm here to ask: what were your thoughts on the Rookie season finale?

HEY FRIEND!

Oh ho ho do I have some Thoughts™ for you.

Once again I'm going to break this up into Chenford and Non-Chenford

.

Starting off with Non-Chenford!!

First off, I had a hard time seeing this as the season finale because of the whole 10 episodes thing, so wrapping my head around that is still..... Just sad. I feel like there were so many different directions they could have taken the season, but it is what it is, and I'm trying to see the good parts for what they are :)

One of the weirdest things this season was probably the whole Bailan having a child thing (or not???) and the way the finale tried to handle that was just..... weird.

I mean maybe it is because I'm biased against Bailan (I really cannot stand them) but the writers are doing too much. They were established as a specifically child-free couple, and since we already have multiple couples with kids and we're all rooting for the same thing for Chenford (also has been foreshadowed for them), I feel like this is just the same storyline over and over again. Maybe instead of trying to introduce a new kid for Nolan, maybe (and this is kind of far fetched) get back to the son he already has, and maybe add some grandkids??? idk, just seems like Bailan as grandparents instead of new parents has lots of comedic potential and it's something that hasn't been done yet.

Oh yeah, and on that same note-- the whole Oscar and Jason situation?? Totally unnecessary and odd. I like Oscar as comedy relief behind bars, but not anywhere else. The dude has caused enough mayhem from inside prison, I don't need him galavanting around anywhere. The writers seem desperate to beat that dead horse.

(man okay apparently I had more beef with this season than I thought I did. trying to dial it back a little bit now)

So, to me the whole finale just felt very . . . patchwork. That's the only way I can describe it, truly. It's like a bunch of pieces were stitched together to create some sort of ending to a very stitched-together season.

Argentina?? Love the concept of it if it was fleshed out but cannot deal with the execution. It was SO sudden. Absolutely zero warning. Why Argentina specifically?? And why is Nolan not literally in an Argentinian prison somewhere for his disobedience? Who let him get away scot-free again?

Although I will say, Monica high-tailing it into the middle of absolutely nowhere, prancing through cactuses and brush in high heels, is genuinely the funniest thing this show has done all season.

I'm feeling a whole lot of vindication toward Blair London, as I think we all are! Had a funny feeling about that one from the beginning.

UM EXCUSE ME WRITERS. WHAT IS BABY WOPEZ'S DANG NAME???????

at this point I'm 10008% sure she's just going to grow up without a name smh

Also I know I've said this about 359238 times already, but why is Celina still in long sleeves??? there's no way she's only been a rookie for less than 6 months. This timeline, you guys. I can't. Poor girl is gonna die in long sleeves. The only silver lining is that it looks like Tim will be her TO for the foreseeable future, with Nolan's injury. Maybe that will get things rolling, idk. We can hope.

I've heard other people say this so I just have to echo it real quick. I miss the old Rookie. Bring back boring days on patrol, with 6-19 different calls per day instead of these massive decked out plots that a normal LAPD officer wouldn't even be touching. I want bridal gown brawls again!!! Show me the monotony!! The character development!!!!! The little lunches out by the food trucks!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop making everyone and their mother a detective. Make someone another TO for once, and bring another rookie into the mix!!!! (Also let someone transfer to another station and/or wash out of the program mid-year for once smh *****COUGH celina COUGH****) Seasons 1-3 were truly peak Rookie and I miss it terribly.

There really isn't anything I truly loved about the finale, sadly, aside from Chenford (see below). I watched it twice, and both times it was just . . . Not it. The addition of Monica was random and pointless, and I despise her guts. I feel like this season could have been literally just the patrol cops answering calls and then mid-wilshire family movie nights and bonding time afterwards and we would have eaten. it. up. No need for the flashy lights and the big bad plot lines. But oh well, I suppose it is what it is.

.

.

OKAYYYY now on to Chenford :) Hoooo boy.

Let me just start out by saying -- NANNY LUCY MY BELOVED she's so freakin adorable I love her to death. What a queen.

The little "good to have you" I'M DEAD.

Okay but on a serious note, the whole breakup storyline is so heartbreaking, I've kind of felt numb toward it this whole time. Maybe it's a combination of life stuff keeping me busy and distracted, and knowing that they're not going to stay apart forever (because the showrunners are smart and they know that if chenford stays apart, they lose their entire fanbase), but I haven't felt quite as devastated as I would have, say, a couple months ago. I can't get behind it and I don't quite see the reasoning, but mostly I've been skating along pretty okay. It's weird.

That being said, I am SO GLAD about the direction they're going. Tim is growing in leaps and bounds, and I would LOVE to show this season to his season 1 self.

Would I have liked a little more cohesive conversation before the finale? Of course. Tim owes Lucy that real, adult talk, but with the time they had, I'm glad we are where we are.

I think the elevator scene was really beautiful. It gently touches on a lot of points from the last 5 seasons, just regarding their very different personalities and the way Lucy has treated Tim and vice versa. I think Tim is realizing most of his mistakes and -- dare I say -- double standards in their relationship, not just as a couple, but as friends and even back to their TO/Rookie times. Lucy has always been incredibly self-aware and empathetic, and those are things that have been largely missing from his side of things. But now, he's finally willing to admit that he needs to reassess his life and attitude, and I think that's so amazing.

(Actually it's a crazy cool parallel to Isabel, but I think that's a whole post for another day hahah)

I'm also SOO happy with how open-ended they left the elevator conversation. Anything more would have felt rushed and out of place. They're committed to the slow-burn game now apparently, and as impatient as I am . . . I can respect it.

ALSO I AM INSANE ABOUT THE SAVE IN THE TRUCK. Ahem Lucy kicking everyone's butt and looking good doing it?? Yes ma'am, slay queen!!!!!!! Also those little split-second looks they shared afterward, just carve those into my tombstone already. Tim climbing out of the car looking like he just went through a wood chipper but he can't keep his eyes off his gorgeous, beat-up ex-gf who has saved his live multiple times now? DELICIOUS. The life-saving parallels???!! I need to write so many fics and analyses. They just can't stop saving each other against absolutely all odds. It's programmed into their DNA at this point. I'm so so so insane. OMG

To summarize -- I hate that they broke up in the first place but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I loved their small interactions this ep, almost like a bittersweet nod to what they used to be and will be again in the future.

.

I have some more thoughts that are ping-ponging around my head, but I'm currently down with a fever and a cough so I haven't the energy to actually write them down lol but I plan to add to this later! Even if it's just in small random posts.

Thanks so much for the ask!! <3

[bots-and-cons]

Hi, I'm sick

This is just me venting a bit, but I'll put the important stuff here so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't feel like it. I'm sick, pretty tired and don't have much motivation for anything, so Idk if I'm gonna post much this week.

I've been sick for like 4 days now and I'm so annoyed, because I don't have the motivation to do anything. I want to write and do school work, but I'm feeling like crap so I haven't done anything for a couple of days now. Or at least I haven't done things I want to do. I've been doing laundry, washing the dishes and making food. When I made the big pot of soup on Sunday, it took me probably a couple of hours because I was in a lot of pain. Idk why though, like sure you can get some joint pain when you have the flu but holy shit I was having a hard time moving the whole day. Peeling potatoes and carrots and stuff was a really bad time.

I really hope I'll get better by the weekend, because I need to go to the school next Monday and Tuesday. I have to be there, because we have group presentations and I already missed the last two school days because of the train worker strike. I only have school 4 days a month, and the rest I have to do on my own. We get assignments and stuff for between the lectures, and a ton of reading that we have to do. I've enjoyed it so far and it's really nice to be doing something again.

When I heard that I wouldn't be able to go to the school when the train worker's strike was happening, I didn't take it very well to say the least. I don't deal well with change, I had a panic attack and cried for over an hour, because I absolutely hate it when my plans change suddenly. My mom was suggesting alternative ways to get to the school, but I couldn't handle it at the time, so I just went to sleep. I was semi-okay the next day and I attended the lectures online since it was an option for two of the four lectures. Then of course I got a call from the social worker I've been in contact with about some additional benefits. She told me that I should go on a sick-pay of sorts and slow down my studies. The thing is, if I wanted to go on that particular sick-pay I'd only be allowed to get 12 credits in the time I need 33, so I really can't do that. I couldn't explain that to her on the phone because I was so stressed already, I just started crying and she just kept telling me to slow down my studies.

I thinks it's pretty fucking stupid to tell me that, since I'm doing well enough so I can study more. Plus, I need the 33 credits since I want to get into the degree program for the fall. It just pissed me off and added to an already stressful situation.

I would not deal with social services if I didn't have to. I'm just not in good enough place that I'd be able to work and study at the same time so I have to live on benefits for now. I hate it, but I also know my limits and I know it wouldn't end well for me if I started working too.

I've had a pretty stressful couple of weeks and now I'm sick, so the stress if probably catching up with me. Thanks if you read this, and I wish you a good rest of the week, and remember to drink water :D

[forthelovelovelove]

Songs 10/28/2023

Is it good to post? To etherize. To become myself for a lovely pixel mystery front end i know so little about. Before my computer gets completely full of crumb dust I wanna blog some songs that I liked this month, I'll be a writer.

PAL - Safety Corridor

I'll start with one of the tens of albums I've listened to that came out this year, since I'm really really into new music. This is egg punk from Ohio and they have a great limited set of inputs - pleasing timbre dead pan vocalist, scraggily guitar, and bendy melodies. They use the first two of those here with their constant base and spare drums. It is a pleasing mix and something about this frank dick sucking song creates a believable erotic, dry as most truth is. The whole EP is good, I hope they make more stuff.

Razor - Speed Merchants

More discovery shit on my part, thrash metal isn't something I've explored too much but this album (Evil Invaders) rocks. Listening to this song just short of 40 years on feels like it agglomerates many disparate long-haired doer activities: rocking, gaming, being a tight end, drinking 12 beers. I do to feel like a speed merchant:

"Speed Merchants live for pleasure, Speed Merchants live for pain They live for understanding and sparks to start the flame"

Sounds like bipedal existence. My pain comes from loss of pleasure. Blah blah blah. Musically this shit is x-games rocking. It has that nice hook break down and then its all button mashing guitar strumming over a blast beat w ride smashing thrown in. Then there is real shredding in the middle... and it comes back, fuck the high pitched guitar turnaround goes soooo hard. Good shit Canada, idk much about Razor again, I thought this was going to be some valuable-only-for the album cover music, and it ended up being true mind expansion muzik. Look at some other album covers. LEGENDS!

Dynarec - Need The Teacher

Ok I looked up what dynarec means a couple weeks and it is something to do with running emulators and CPU usage on your comp. Could be totally wrong but I like that ok. Difficult to pick a song of this "User Input" album that's best, but this was one of my favorite. It has a nice detuning vibe and excellent cursed (not evil) toy box vibe, that talking synth melody that underlies the entire thing is a thing of distant beauty. Lovely! I listened to a lot of electro last month, and realized its a very strange genre often centered on elements I find have been done much much better in the development of hip-hop, techno, and other dance genres. But in this particular track there's idiosyncratic electro jamming!! Sweet.

2sdxrt3all - zack and cody

Ok I had to traverse forsaken urls to realize his name is phonetically dirtball, but I am a fried guy and thats why I'm still on soundcloud. This might not be the best example of dxrt3all, as there are songs where his adlibs almost argue with his main vocal track and show some of that beloved newness, but this beat! Oh loved that vibrato that comes in under the spooky high sine for the hook. The weight of "... he can't stop thinking about it" is intense, and admittedly, is a bit misleading of the manner dxrt talks about murder/robbery in most of his music. But he is a 17yr old ad lib master, and i recommend this song and then his discog (which I still need to explore). It's also cool he has a producer homie who he's almost exclusively linked with, there's still soul in the game! Hey I'm excited about a teenage SC head who isn't xavier (is he 20 yet?).

The Unlovables - I Want a Boy

Ok, seems like I'm bad at this shit, cause this is another consolation song from one of my most listened to albums of the past years. By that I mean there's a lot of good songs on this 2004 new york pop punk (power pop?) album. It is that pure candy muzik I fucking love, and I wonder if there's more like this to see. Still can't believe I missed that Everyone Asked About You show, but this song fucking rocks. I really want to cover it cause I think a version of this with 200+ bpm digital blast beats and overdriven synths instead of guitars would rock, the structure is so good. Unlovables have the best backing vocals, and all the musical cheese is liberated by the even cheesier lyrics. Perfect music, we should all get to feel immanence like this on a regular basis, sadly no one is as keen to soy as I am, and for that we will continue to burn. Hallie Bulleit is a really good vocalist.

Well let us hope that the world won't be completely fucked, and that it ends unnaturally instead of just being Joever. Americana should be perserved, global America needs to burn god damn. Hopefully I'll post more and that there will be initial and continued solutions in Gaza. Thanks

[aro-but-not-ace]

I've been ignoring the possibility of being aro for forever now cause it made me feel guilty (which is bad, I know), but I'm just going to dump all the reasons I think I might be here. If you could chip in your advice that would be cool, but don't feel required to, I know this is long.

When I was very young whoever my male best friend was was my "crush". When I had three male best friends, I had three "crushes". Then I thought I was gay cause I had a "crush" on a female friend of mine (whom I'm still interested in, but now that I'm older I know it isn't romantically). I would have friends I thought were cool in middle school who I would say were my "crushes" to make things easier to explain.

Later, I figured out one of my friends liked me due to some signs from mutual friends of ours. I felt nothing, but 3 months later I "confessed" cause they were cool and looking back I think I was platonically attracted to them. The idea of having someone who was interested in me and wanted to have a close bond made me feel fuzzy. Honestly I think they might have been aro as well, we only ever did chaste kisses and hand holding. I felt uncomfortable with this only because we dated for 2 years and I felt like there was a societal expectation for couples to be more physical. We were long distance, which I assumed was the reason for a lack of palpable romantic feelings towards them after like the first month of the relationship. We broke up amicably because I said I felt like my attraction had faded to platonic (I think it may have been platonic the whole time).

Now I've been feeling like there is something "wrong" with me because I don't feel attraction to anyone. Right now the only kind of relationship I can imagine with any of the people I know is platonic or friends w/ benefits. Idk if that is just because the available dating pool where I am is small though. I wonder if I went to a place with more new people if I'd develop romantic feelings. I can find people cute if I see them in the store or smth, but can only really appreciate them physically without knowing them well. I just feel like I'm missing a spark in me or something, cause romantic love is supposed to be passionate like a fire, right?

It is also strange cause I think I would only want any sort of relationship with a girl or a non-binary person (I am genderqueer). Can platonic attraction be queer?

Hello! I am REALLY sorry this is late, I hope I can answer in time for you to see this!!

First of all, there is NOTHING wrong with you for having no attraction. Just like there’s nothing wrong with an allo person not liking someone back for whatever reason, there’s nothing wrong with you for not liking anyone romantically ever.

I will say, as an arospec person, love ≠ passion. It’s different for lots of people, so it isn’t always passionate at first. However, despite what love feels like, most people can tell when they have a “spark”. If you don’t understand what allo people mean by a spark, you could definitely be aro.

Going with the idea of passion, it sounds like you’re allosexual (if you are asexual or acespec, skip this part). For me, I feel like my ideal version of love is passionate—but mostly because I am more sex-oriented than romance oriented. Someone who is alloromantic and allosexual would probably be more inclined to see love as something not as passionate. So if you’re aroallo, it makes sense to me why you’d have a more passionate idea of love (this is not saying that allo people don’t have a similar idea, I’m just saying that everyone is different, but if you feel sexual attraction and not romantic attraction, you’ll probably have a bias).

Overall though, it isn’t up to me if you identify as aro. I will say, you definitely sound like you could be arospec, but you could also be allo. Just feel free to take some time and think, and don’t be afraid to explore with labels and attraction. If you identify as aro and then realize you aren’t anymore, that’s okay! You have a better idea of yourself and your boundaries. And if you just identify as questioning until you figure it out—that’s okay too!! This isn’t a race, and you’ll find out eventually. Just be kind to yourself and take your time :)

[arnold-layne]

Hiya, NeverLove anon here.

If you’re still up for translating one of their songs I would appreciate it if you could do either track 1 or six from their Sex metal album. No pressure intended. I’ve slowly started listening to more Russian music and it’s been really interesting so far! Do you have any Russian rock or metal bands you recommend?

sorry this took me so long! i'll go with Лисий-кисий because i like that song too. so the title is a little bit hard to crack because officially the word кисий doesn't exist in russian. but it means something along the lines of 'cat-like'. Лисий-кисий thus can be translated as 'foxy - cat-like' (it's about a girl's gaze)

first goes the chorus:

Oh i like her foxy-cat-like gaze so much Look at me again Like this, foxy-cat-like Oh i like her foxy-cat-like gaze so much Look at me again. Hey, hey, again

chorus again

The devil's in the details, in the stuffy hall There's chemistry of young bodies You came here without a boyfriend Seems like he gifted you to me Closer-farther, let's play Until your hair is on my bedsheets I know, too cheeky That's what you like

Your boy calls, you don't answer Tell me I have hallucinations You look at me so bravely Kitty, don't snort so much You know you'll go with me Anticipating an adventure My fingers go up your skirt Don't mind me, it's just a joke

chorus

Good morning, you have 7 missed calls Let's make up a legend for you That you hung at the friend's You'll have to tell him that with courage This wasn't cheating You just decided to take your revenge on him Let's do it again and I'll call the taxi

Don't open your soul to me I don't want to listen to this I saw how bright were your eyes When you betrayed your feelings You fed your demons You needed it Don't mind it, it's just a joke Single-use joke

chorus

chorus

oh boy do i have recommendations for russian music for you! i've only started listening to it like a couple months ago (avoided it all that time thinking it was bad, yes i was very stupid), so i don't have many but i do want to give you some

Green Apelsin - great folkish music with acoustic guitar, texts are folk-related and love songs. i personally like the album Северный ветер (The north wind)

Эпидемия (Epidemic) - amazing power metal band! their songs usually border on fantasy, as it is with power metal bands. my fave songs are Всадник из льда (Ice rider), Письмо ведьмаку (A letter to a witcher) and Рожденный для битвы (Born for battle)

СЛОТ (Slot) - hard rock with insane female vocals. Check out their songs Круги на воде (Circles on water), Бой! (Fight!) and Мертвые звезды (Dead stars).

Нуки (Nuki) - solo project of SLOT vocalist. Страна (Country), Бойся (Be afraid) and Пищевая цепочка (Food chain) are very good! Obligatory mentions:

Король и шут (King and Jester) - probably the most famous band in the country. initially punk-rock, then they branched into several genres, including acoustic ballads and metal. i couldn't really get into it, but my boyfriend is a huge fan. there was a biopic recently which rejuvenated the fame of the band, idk if it's available in english tho

Ария (Love song) - an old heavy metal band that existed since the 80s. think russian iron maiden

Кино (Movie)- another incredibly popular rock band from 80s-90s. released some of the biggest hits in russian music, my first song i learned on guitar was Кино song even though i don't particularly like it. inactive since death of its founder, Victor Tsoi. there are legends that he's not dead, which gave birth to a famous saying Цой жив! ("Tsoi is alive!") ok this is all i can now offer but i'll keep looking and maybe make a list when i collect enough! russian music is definitely underappreciated on worldwide scene (we all know why) and that's very unfair, a lot of it is very good. ive sought a moment to talk about it for a long time, thank you for giving me an opportunity! hope you enjoy it!

[zorasapphires]

word dump time sorry

bg3 is hitting something big in my brain that I didn't realise how much I missed, I think my only bittersweet thing is that I don't really have anyone in fandom to talk abt it (or in my established friend group besides one person, who I appreciate! but it's different to an entire fandom space) since a) leaving twitter and b) really not caring about engaging with anyone i dont already know anymore (that part of my life is well and truly over)

but like I remember yknow, 9 years ago when dragon age inquisition came out and how much that completely changed what I love in video games, and how completely enthralled with bioware I was, how I played mass effect and that fundamentally changed part of me (something I also miss), going back and doing an entire playthrough of the DA series, my internet world just hugely opened up as I engaged with fandom in a way I hadn't since homestuck, made some incredible friends whom I don't really speak to anymore and really miss (most of who also left twitter a while ago, a couple I now follow here, some I fell out with) (I am probably going to go back and play bg2 as well tbh)

idk what the point of this is lol I am just so incredibly in love with bg3 (the effort theyve put into the story and characters far outways the really really unfortunate bugs) and I missed this, I missed a huge world with so much lore, character development, building relationships, just feeling enthralled to play more and more. like I know i picked up ffxiv because I missed huge rpg games, ffxiv has been super fun but definitely did not scratch this itch that bg3 is.

also funnily enough it's making me miss reading SO much. in 2021 i read over 50 books. this year I've read like. 2. but yeah delving deep into world building and character motivations...ima be picking up a book FINALLY after months of trying to talk myself back into it

[erintoknow]

Hello !

I'm sorry if you arleady answered this (I don't know how to use tumblr frankly), but I would like to know if you have any ither writting project ? I really like your stories and how you write, and since I spend too much time on fallen hero: retribution (the reason I'm back on tumblr tbh) I started my annual reading of the Aria-serie (btw I was the anon who asked if she could "print your story for personnal use" and I only realised later than it sound more "kinky" than "I-won't-print-them-to-sell-them-or-idk-do-so-capitalist-stuff-with-it"

hello reading friend, I remember you! c:

it never once occurred to interpret what you said in a sexual way, don't worry haha.

i do have another writing project now but it's unfortunately not one available for reading at the moment though i do post about it on my tumblr here from time to time.

towards the end of working on the Aria fanfic series I was getting really itchy to get back to working on something wholly my own and with my life getting busier, that's why i decided to give that series the little capstone it currently has and start exploring other ideas.

i toyed around with a couple different ideas and writing sketches before settling on that were a couple of character archetypes from the fanfic and plotbeats that i didn't feel 'done' with yet and wanted to explore more on my terms. so i started working on something in june and now like, uh, 8 months later i'm 47k words into my second draft of a novel project i'm currently calling Soul Rebel (i used that for a fanfic title first i know, but it's a good title okay, it stuck with me).

whenever i post about it on tumblr, that's i've been tagging it as too. sometimes i post draft snippets or thoughts or dump a bunch of vibes screenshots, i've got a concept playlist that i keep meaning to finalize and post at some point too because of course it's not my writing if i don't have music associations going on.

i don't have a good succinct elevator pitch for Soul Rebel's concept yet, but basically the core thrust for it comes from a pretty personal pondering of mine which is: when i first came out, i had a choice. i could have a roof over my head, or i could be true to myself. i chose to have a roof over my head, and i always wondered about how things would have worked out the other way. beyond that i've been throwing pretty much a whole bunch of stuff that interests or terrifies me: the effects of climate change and sea level rise on daily life, the totality of the surveillance state, how the advancement in medical care in a capitalist society only widens the gap between the poor and rich, cool superhuman powers (and their not-so-cool side-effects), queer community, being a neurodivergent little weirdo(affectionate), and the essential value of being kind to others in a cruel uncaring world

i could happily keep infodumping about what i've got so far, but this posting is getting long enough that i'll leave it there for now, haha.

i have no idea what i'll do with this novel once it's finished. i mean, obviously i have some vague ideas for another plot line after it that i want to explore, but i mean like, it terms of putting it out there. i can't imagine ever getting to publish it. the publishing industry is a nightmare to navigate, and while this technically won't be my first finished novel (those fanfics get that honor, i guess?) it's still statistically unlikely to go anywhere. would any printing press out there even be interested in a sci-fi novel with a bunch of queer characters and focused on a neurodivergent trans woman and an in-denial Ace enby?? i've been stuck reading a bunch of YA for my job so maybe there's some book i'm missing, but we seem pretty thin on the ground in publishing rep.

my other thought would be to set up a website and post it online serial fiction style, though i'd want to have the whole thing finished first. i value my ability to revise and rework way too much to give that up again, haha!

so... yeah, that's what i've been fixated and working on a lot in my free time. at least, when i'm not spending time with my partner, playing dnd, or reading. and now i have a second job which means even less writing time, tears.

some day i want to go back and give the fanfic a proper conclusion arc, but right now Soul Rebel's got my creative energy fixation

oh geeze, i went on for way too long, sorry about that! it's uh, it's pretty easy to get me talking about this at a drop of a hat rn. anyway, thank you so much for liking the fanfic!!

it means the world to me that people actually like what i write. i went to college for creative writing and it kind of sucked really. i ended up switching to poetry for awhile because a least people weren't tearing me down for it. anyway, it's been incredibly weird in a good way to get, and to continue getting two years on, positive comments on the fanfiction. i never imagined anyone would care or even like what i put out there. i just wrote it solely for myself and threw it on ao3 in a 'eh why not' gesture, so...... thank you!!!!!!!!!

[herofics]

Hi, I'm sick

This is just me venting a bit, but I'll put the important stuff here so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't feel like it. I'm sick, pretty tired and don't have much motivation for anything, so Idk if I'm gonna post much this week.

I've been sick for like 4 days now and I'm so annoyed, because I don't have the motivation to do anything. I want to write and do school work, but I'm feeling like crap so I haven't done anything for a couple of days now. Or at least I haven't done things I want to do. I've been doing laundry, washing the dishes and making food. When I made the big pot of soup on Sunday, it took me probably a couple of hours because I was in a lot of pain. Idk why though, like sure you can get some joint pain when you have the flu but holy shit I was having a hard time moving the whole day. Peeling potatoes and carrots and stuff was a really bad time.

I really hope I'll get better by the weekend, because I need to go to the school next Monday and Tuesday. I have to be there, because we have group presentations and I already missed the last two school days because of the train worker strike. I only have school 4 days a month, and the rest I have to do on my own. We get assignments and stuff for between the lectures, and a ton of reading that we have to do. I've enjoyed it so far and it's really nice to be doing something again.

When I heard that I wouldn't be able to go to the school when the train worker's strike was happening, I didn't take it very well to say the least. I don't deal well with change, I had a panic attack and cried for over an hour, because I absolutely hate it when my plans change suddenly. My mom was suggesting alternative ways to get to the school, but I couldn't handle it at the time, so I just went to sleep. I was semi-okay the next day and I attended the lectures online since it was an option for two of the four lectures. Then of course I got a call from the social worker I've been in contact with about some additional benefits. She told me that I should go on a sick-pay of sorts and slow down my studies. The thing is, if I wanted to go on that particular sick-pay I'd only be allowed to get 12 credits in the time I need 33, so I really can't do that. I couldn't explain that to her on the phone because I was so stressed already, I just started crying and she just kept telling me to slow down my studies.

I thinks it's pretty fucking stupid to tell me that, since I'm doing well enough so I can study more. Plus, I need the 33 credits since I want to get into the degree program for the fall. It just pissed me off and added to an already stressful situation.

I would not deal with social services if I didn't have to. I'm just not in good enough place that I'd be able to work and study at the same time so I have to live on benefits for now. I hate it, but I also know my limits and I know it wouldn't end well for me if I started working too.

I've had a pretty stressful couple of weeks and now I'm sick, so the stress if probably catching up with me. Thanks if you read this, and I wish you a good rest of the week, and remember to drink water :D

[theoriginalcrossjumper]

are you ever hit by the realization that sometimes you are so much more important to another person than they have ever been to you

and i don't mean this in a self-centered way, or talking about pets or anything. i just

i have a friend that i've known for a couple of years now because we go to the same college; I'm a couple years older than them and I'm only still here because I went straight into grad school, they're 2 class years below me and still working through their undergrad. and this friend is moving away in a couple days at the end of the semester for family reasons. they're moving to a city about 4 hours away for a few months before moving up to a completely different state on the other side of the country, and they'll still have some family down here by me that they'll visit occasionally but there's really no telling if I'll ever see them in person again

and like. i do consider this person a friend, but. we were casual friends for a bit, and they asked me out on a date once a couple years back and that shook me so much (that was the first time I'd ever blatantly been asked on a date, and it made me so uncomfortable because i do not want to date and I also didn't realize they saw me that way) and ever since then I've kind of. not kept them at arms length, but I've always sorta been highly aware that they asked me and it shook me and I can't forget that whenever we interact for some reason? and after I told them I'd rather be friends than date them they were cool with it and we've stayed friends. and they're also talking to someone else now relationship-wise. but anyway all that to say. we met up today to go hang out a little and get boba because they are, as mentioned, moving away, and when I came to drop them off afterwards I expected hugs goodbye, but they spent twenty minutes hugging and crying on my shoulder, because I meant that much to them.

they told me that i was the first person they met on campus when they arrived (i was the RA working the front desk of the dorm hall, and chatted with them as i checked them in and told them where to find their room). i know they did ask me out, but we stayed as friends after i (tried to) gently let them down. we videocalled and played amongus games online during the height of covid, when they went home after the campus allowed that for that semester or two. i was one of the first people they came out to as trans/nonbinary and ace. I've always seen them as a friend but they spent twenty minutes crying on my shoulder because they said i was going to be one of the people they missed the most when they moved away, and i didn't realize they thought of me that highly, and i didn't expect that, and i just....

I'm feeling a really big Emotion right now and i don't have the words to describe it. i don't know. I'm definitely going to miss them, and going to try to stay in touch, but i realize that they're going to miss me so much more than i miss them, and i know I'm really not the best with emotions but I'm feeling something about that that i just can't describe

i dunno. guess I'm shouting into the void a little bit here but i needed to write this down somewhere to untangle it all, and this friend doesn't have my tumblr and never will, so i guess this works. idk. not my normal art or shitposty stuff but i had to tell this to somebody.

emotions are hard, y'all.