#if i had a comfortable budget i might do it once a week

[dickfuckk]

Every time i tell people i buy groceries every 14 days they seem shocked by this and tell me they buy groceries every day or several times a week.

That in turn blows my mind, as someone who couldn’t possibly hate buying groceries more than i do, i can’t imagine doing it that often.

Bonus if you tell me in the tags how you feel about shopping for groceries. Do you hate it with a passion like me? Feel indifferent to it, just another chore? Or do you somehow love it?

[lalacliffthorne]

modern!batboys as (your) roommates - headcanons.

because let's be honest, we have all thought about that at some point.🦇

(this is the introduction of my new drabble universe!!! I can´t tell you how fucking excited I am.)

it would be wrong to say that your life was boring before you met the three idiots you now call your roommates

sure, it wasn't as exciting

but you had your tiny little apartment, went out with friends once in a while and mostly enjoyed having your own space and routines

but then

shit hits the fan

and by shit I mean your landlord

because of a loophole in the rental agreement, he's able to kick you out of your apartment with only a months notice

in other words

you're fucked

or, as your best friend Feyre, who you met the first week of orientation and became inseperable with, says -

"That bastard." Feyre's eyes are stormy.

"What the hell am I gonna to do?" You bury your face in your hands, your voice muffled when you mumble: "How am I supposed to find a new apartment in a few weeks? For this one, I looked over a year, and it's a glorified shoebox!" Your voice rises as you feel a wave of dread crash over you and your heart rising into your throat.

"Hey, it's okay. If worst comes to worst, you can crash at my place,", Feyre raises her brows, "even though we'd have to share my bed, but - I won't just let you sleep on a park bench if that's what you're worried about. Unless you find another glorified shoebox that's technically out of your budget, it's you and me, crashing on my bed, climbing over your stuff to get to the bathroom, finding out what married life would feel like."

even though you love her to death, that really does not sound like an option you want to explore

so you try everything

scouring every paper for apartment advertisments, posting on your uni's socials, going to all the viewings you can find -

nothing

but just when you're ready to just give up

a miracle happens

the miracle is 5'5, has impeccable style and hair, a love for deep red lipstick and drops by for lunch

Mor has been your friend for two years now, since you almost spilled your coffee over her laptop at the library

(she's still not letting you live that down)

she also likes to get you out of your comfort zone

"Are you serious?" Mor stares at you wide-eyed.

"Yep." You tiredly stir your coffee. "I've been turned away for twenty apartments in the past few days alone. I'm aready seeing myself bunking with Feyre. She offered, but her bed barely fits into her apartment as it is."

Mor breathes a giggle before hastily clearing her throat. "Sorry."

You grin weakly before rubbing your face. "I don't know what I'm gonna do. I know it could be even worse, but -"

"It already feels pretty shitty,", Mor ends. You sigh in confirmation and are about to change the topic, because you haven't seen the blonde in weeks and feel bad about ruining your lunch. But before you can open your mouth, Mor suddenly squints in thought. Then she looks at you.

"How much do you value your privacy?

Given the fact you'll be basically homeless on the street in about a week if you don't find a new place - not much.

Mor begins to grin, and there's a bright twinkle in her eyes.

"Well, then I might just have the solution."

the next day, Mor drags you downtown

she takes you to an old but sophisticated building you wouldn't even dream about living in

a single month's rent there would probably empty your whole bank account

but Mor just winks and pulls you up the stairs

on the third floor, a guy leans in an open door

and that

is how you meet Rhys.

Mor's cousin is annoyingly beautiful

tall, with perfectly tousled dark hair, a perfect grin that causes his cheeks to crease and, from the looks of it, the also perfect physique

he's also annoyingly charming

if you'd met him somewhere without Mor, you would have probably gaped for a moment before catching onto the mischievous twinkle in his nearly violet eyes and promptly avoided him, because someone that pretty had to have some fault

as it turns out, Rhys' fault is offering practical strangers to live with him without even batting an eye

"What?"

You blink at Mor from where you just sank onto one of the two very comfortable couches, because she can't possibly -

"Okay, before you freak out, just listen, okay?" Mor is grinning giddily. "The guys have a free room they don't really use anyway and you really need a new place - so you could just move in here!" She beams. "The place is definitely big enough, and you'd fit in perfectly, I promise! They're just as chaotic as you, but also very responsible -"

"Mostly." Rhys' eyes are twinkling. He's looking completely and slightly concerningly unbothered by the prospect of you, a factual stranger, moving in with him and his friends.

"- they don't have any bad habits, they're fairly neat -"

"Mostly."

Mor widens her eyes at you. "It's perfect!"

You blink at her.

"I've already talked to my roommates." Rhys' deep voice is almost soothing - mostly because he sounds a lot calmer than Mor, steady and reassuring.

"If you want, this can be temporary, until you find a place just for yourself, but this way you don't have to stress about needing to find a place in a certain time, plus,", he cracks a grin, "I don't like the idea of you having to crash on somebody's couch in the foreseeable future, that's just bullshit if we got a free room here no one uses anway. And if this works,", one corner of his lips quirks even more until his grin is a lot closer to the wicked twinkle in his eyes, "none of us would mind another roommate."

"You don't have to decide right now." Mor smiles brightly. "But I think it would be great, and you'd make a bargain with the rent, because Rhys loves to play sugar daddy -", her cousin flips her off, "and I think this would be a really good idea." She grins, suddenly a little sheepish.

if you weren't so desperate, you would whip out about a dozen arguments about why this probably isn't a good idea

like the fact that rooming with three dudes sounds like a lot of testosteron, or that you don't even know them, and that they don't even know you -

but from the way Rhys lounges in his chair, smirking easily while Mor beams at you, he doesn't seem to see too much of a problem in that

also you are very, very desperate

but there's still that one thing -

"About those roommates -"

When you hear the door, you raise your head, your heart doing a slightly concerning flip in your chest.

It's a day later, and you just finished the tour of the apartment Rhys has given you. Even though it's huge and very grand with it's high ceilings decorated with stucco and the original hardwood floors, it feels warm and cozy. The room you'd be sleeping in is as big as your whole current apartment, light with two big window and a view of the trees on the street outside.

It kind of makes you wonder where the catch is.

Maybe it's about to walk through the door.

You hear a deep voice and heavy footsteps, then a dude appears in the door to the kitchen.

Your heart does a somersault, and you feel your lips part a bit. Because frankly, it's a miracle he makes it through the door without hitting his head.

The guy's huge. His shoulders and chest strain against his t-shirt; he looks like one of those dudes who basically have muscle in their DNA, all corded muscle under ridiculously wide shoulders and a solid middle, muscular long legs under black jeans -

And you're staring.

Big time.

The dude's looking over his shoulder, which means he thankfully doesn't notice you oggling him. The half of his hair that isn't pulled back in a bun brushes against his neck when he grins, his cheeks creasing. He's really good looking, in a rugged kinda way, with his roughly curved jaw and the scar on the side of his face, and when he looks back ahead, his eyes twinkle warmly.

Then, behind him, another guy appears in the doorway, and your breath catches.

Because if Rhys is annoyingly beautiful, the guy in the door is drop-dead gorgeous.

Just like the other two, he's tall and all lean muscle. His shoulders shift under his black t-shirt as he leans against the doorframe, his hands sliding into the pockets of his black jeans. His eyes look like amber in sunlight, his dark hair is tousled, a strand curving over his forehead. His face is all angles and soft lips, with dark brows that look like he likes to crunch them in a scowl, but right now, he looks fairly relaxed, though his gaze is watchful.

And on yours.

Feeling warmth wash into your cheeks, you hastily look away while crap, crap, crap echoes through your head, because of course he caught you staring.

On to a really great start here.

Your gaze grazes his hands and the bit of uneven skin that merges into veiny, tan forearms before your eyes trail over the tattoos scattered over them, some peaking out from his sleeves.

There's the sound of someone clearing their throat, and you feel the heat in your cheeks deepen when your eyes dart up and meet Rhys', a twinkle in his iris when he sends you a lazy grin.

"Boys, this is Y/N." He raises a brow. "Our new roommate."

and that is how you meet Cassian and Azriel

it almost makes you reconsider

because you're really not sure you're gonna survive rooming with three guys that pretty

but after thinking it over for a couple of days, you realize that you really don't have a choice

and so a week later, Rhys and Cassian come over to your apartment to help you move the first half of your stuff

neither blink an eye at the fact it's about the size of a broom closet in comparison to their home

Rhys does however scowl when he sees the condition of the bathroom

you're ready to sink into the floor when you hastily explain pretty much all the apartments in the building look like that

(a lil dingy and moldy)

but when he turns, Rhys just glowers and grumbles under his breath about how he'd like to rip your landlord a new one

it's the first time you realize that under all the aloofness and swagger and cheeky grins, Rhys cares

it's proven again when you move into your new room a week later and there's a new mattress on the also new bed

you haven't bought either of them, but when you try to protest, Rhys just huffs about your back probably being fucked up because of your old one and about how he'll add it to your rent

he never does

you get used to rooming with three guys surprisingly quickly

sure, it is pretty much a total 180 -

going from living alone in a tiny apartment

to sharing a huge flat with three dudes who make the place vibrate with laughter and bicker like they have been married for thirty years

but even tho you never thought you'd be the type to actually enjoy having roommates

you find that with them - you don't really mind

of course it is nice to have the place to yourself sometimes

and after about two weeks, you're comfortable enough to blast your music and dance through the kitchen when you're alone

(yes, at some point, they catch you - it takes you about a minute to realize there are three guys standing in the doorway, watching you dance with a broom. you get a mild heart attack and Cassian and Rhys start cackling while Azriel smirks)

but even if usually there's always someone around -

you find that all three of them are very good at both respecting your boundaries and leaving you be when you need to curl up in your room

but also seem to know when you need someone to drag your ass out into the world

and something about knowing at least one of them will probably be there when you get home makes you feel very warm and fuzzy

and even tho you weren't completely sure about this situation in the beginning

you get roped into living with the three guys instead of just rooming with them pretty easily

it really starts with Cassian

probably gets used to you living there the quickest

after barely a week, he's treating you like you've lived with them since the beginning

like just sticking his head into your room and making you help him with dinner

it surprises you a little that they all have dinner together

from what you've heard from friends who have roommates, they usually all do their own thing most of the time

but it makes you realise that these guys are more family than just roommates

Cassian is surprisingly easy to talk to

he's quick with the quips and the banter

also very flirtatious

constantly makes you laugh, his deep, boisterous chuckles infectous

also super affectionate

you're convinced the man is actually just a huge teddybear

after just a few weeks, you're used to hugs that lift you off your feet

cheek kisses as greetings

and being casually lifted out of the way like you don't weigh anything

not that you're the only one who gets that treatment

no, there are hugs in greeting that make Rhys groan dramatically like his air supply is cut off

and pats on the shoulder and smacking forehead kisses that make Azriel crinkle his nose

Cassian quickly becomes the one you go to when you need advice

he always listens attentively

doesn't sugarcoat things

stays objective while never making you feel bad or less about anything

and it quickly becomes pretty clear he'd put everything aside if any of you ever need help

gives you rides in his beat up truck to uni

and always picks you up when studying at the library gets late bc he doesn't like the idea of you out alone after dark

with Cass, even mundane things like grocery shopping become fun

he's just casually funny and teases the shit out of you at every opportunity

has no understanding of the concept of personal space

and with most people, that would kinda put you off a little in the beginning

but Cassian just has something about him

something so inheritly good and warm and sunny

that he never once makes you feel uncomfortable

if anything, with him around, you feel a lot more at ease

and not just bc it's always nice to have a guy in your back that towers over you like a lighthouse

though the whole massive, tatted dude with the dark eyes thing kinda goes out of the window as soon as he grins at you

dimples and all

but still, don't be fooled

when the grin's gone and he's glaring, you know why people make way for him immediately

he works at a gym to earn some money at the side

once, he takes you with him just for fun

then that one time becomes another and before you know it, you tag along twice a week

and it would be wrong to say it's not doing something to you when he crouches in front of or behind you, his deep voice rumbling as he mumbles encouragements

"Alright, come on, sweetheart, gimme one more."

Trying not to make a very embarassing groaning sound, you crunch your face in concentration and slowly lower yourself into a squat, your muscles trembling slightly.

"There you go, that's it." You can feel Cassian in your back, spotting you, his deep voice rumbling through you, and it's just almost distracing enough for you to -

"No, no, come on, you can do it." Cassian's deep chuckle sets you at ease, and he lightly pats the side of your thigh. "You got this, c'mon."

With a soft groan, you push yourself up again, and you can hear the triumph and wide grin in Cassian's voice when he goes: "Yeeessss, good job, baby. C'mon, you can do one more."

Blowing out a heavy breath and glaring at nothing in particular, you ready yourself.

when one day, he makes you lose focus, you're gonna throw something at him

you're pretty sure he does it on purpose just to see how red you can get

but Cass is really good at pushing you without overdoing it, always teasing and encouraging

and if you manage to do something, in the gym or otherwise, he grins so widely you're almost sure he's more proud of you than you are yourself

Rhys is a flirt.

and after you get over the first initial blush that just won't leave you alone for the first few weeks

it actually becomes entertaining

now bantering back and forth is basically all you do

it gets so bad, Azriel constantly rolls his eyes at the two you

but just like you suspected, behind all the flirtiness and mischievous grins

Rhys cares

a lot

whenever you're upset, he looks like he's contemplating ripping apart whatever or whoever made you upset

and whenever someone has a go at Cass or Azriel, Rhys picks them apart with lethal precision and a wicked smile

if Cassian is most affectionate, Rhys is close second

he's slightly more casual about it

pinching your nose, flicking your ear softly, offering his cheek for a kiss in greeting

always down for amazing hugs tho

whenever you get on your period, Rhys turns full mother hen

it's actually quite entertaining to see a 6-foot-something dude grumble because you don't want to take painkillers

"I just don't like to take them until it's really necessary, okay?" You glower at Rhys, curling up on the couch and trying to suppress a wince.

Rhys incredulously narrows his eyes.

"You're bleeding from inner organs and look like you want to curl into the couch. I'd say it is pretty necessary."

behind all the snark and arrogance, Rhys cares

also seems to have a rather unhealthy tendency to put everyone else first

you catch on pretty easily that even though his father is absolutely loaded, Rhys doesn't particularly cares about his money

in fact

he doesn't hesitate to spend whatever money his father pumps into his bank accounts for a second

when you ask Mor about it, she just smiles lopsidedly.

"I think it's his kind of protest?" She squints into the sun shining onto the balcony of the flat, the big glass of iced tea in her hand glittering in the light. "You know, spending all that money, preferably on his friends? Mostly because I don't think his father really likes them."

You wince.

"He knows he can't win against his father." Mor crunches her brows in thought. "I think he came to terms with having to take over the business one day, and he cares about the people who have their jobs there, so he won't let them down. It's just hard sometimes, if your whole life is already planned out for you." She shrugs gently. "Doing this, living with Cassian and Azriel and now you, spending his fathers money on it and actually having a good time instead of just being bitter and stuck up - it's his way of not surrendering completely."

you have never met Rhys' father, but even tho he's powerful af

you really feel a strong desire to kick him in the balls

Rhys has a knack of knowing exactly when you need to talk and when you need to be distracted

it's not unusual that after a bad day, he just joins you on the couch, plopping down and pulling your feet onto his lap

it either leads to you venting and him listening

usually giving very appropriate responses of either huffs, scowls or downright glowering

or, if you don't want to talk

he either lets you use him as a human pillow, grumbling over your choice of movie while scratching your head

or he takes you out

to the cinema, a museum, the theater -

you're pretty sure you've grown a lot more cultured in a few months than the whole of your life before that

it never gets boring tho

the whole thing kinda annoys the crap out of you in the beginning bc he never lets you pay for anything

but you get better at finding ways to pay him back in other ways

like taking over making dinner on days when he's exhausted

coaxing rants out of him when his father gets to him

dragging him out on nightly walks through the city when he can't sleep

and after a while

you understand that it's just one of Rhys' love languages

and it is fun to spend his father's money ;)

especially when it means museum Saturdays with the two of you just sitting and staring at paintings

or going to the cinema and pigging out on popcorn and greasy stuff while whisper-hissing fun facts at each other

even takes you to stuff like wine tastings

Rhys is a foodie

likes super fancy pickles, trying food you can't even pronounce and splurging on dinner

and if he decides the two of you need to get out of the apartment

one way or another

it usually ends in a restaurant

always orders like half the menu

also cooks the best out of all of you

like I'm talking freaking perfection

whips up the fanciest, most delicious far-too-many-courses meal for holidays

and goes all in even if he just makes dinner

you often get lured into the kitchen by the delicious smells

usually ends up with you on the couch at the table while Rhys moves around the kitchen

talking about everything and nothing

(also not above slapping anyone's hand away if they try to sneak a taste)

Azriel is quiet

not shy; you catch onto that pretty quickly

he's too quick and easy on any dry remark in response to his friends' boisterous teasing for that

and his gaze too firm and piercing

rarely shies away when you catch his gaze

in the beginning

that intimidated the shit out of you

the way he appears without a sound, towering over you, all dark and quiet and brooding

it's like he perfected the art of going unnoticed

tho you're not quite sure how

bc how could anyone not notice him?

after a while tho

you realise that even tho Azriel is dark and glowering and brooding

there's something gentle about him

it surfaces in the smallest things

like how his lips curve the softest bit when you grin up at him

how light and careful his touch is

how he is always respectful, putting himself between you and the street, holding doors open without ever seeming to think twice about it

and how everything about him seems to darken when he witnesses anyone being treated poorly

but even if anger rages within him like a quickly rising tide, quiet and dangerous

you still always feel safe with him

maybe it's bc, even in those moments, you just know it will never be directed at you

and that even tho there's always that darkness within him, it's never something that feels unsettling or dangerous

and instead soft and welcoming

like something about him and that steady, dark gaze just calms you

maybe because he's so quiet, Azriel seems to see and hear everything

in record time, he begins to catch onto every little detail about you

mundane things

like how you like your favorite drink or what your favorite ice cream is

the only reason you know he notices is because he begins to hand you cups in the morning that are exactly right and the freezer starts to always hold a big container of your favorite ice cream

but also seems to know exactly what your tell is when you're nervous

uncomfortable

or tired

what makes you upset

happy

nervous

what causes you to giggle uncontrollably

and so on

it should probably unsettle you, how easily he sees through you

but it doesn't

sure, it's a bit weird at first

but you quickly realise it's strangely comforting - that someone pays enough attention to know even the smallest thing about you

Azriel is your favorite person to be around when you just need a break

it's like something about him is grounding, steady

like being around him makes your thoughts calm down

makes it easier for you to sort the chaos your mind sometimes becomes

you quickly realise that beneath all of the quiet watchfulness lies a wicked, dry sense of humor

his mumbled remarks make you snort laughter or beam widely up at him

always makes his lips curve

he reads a ton

when you first see his room, you almost gape

because the man has books

they fill the shelves

balance in towers on the floor

sit on the window sill and next to his bed

most of the books in the shelves in the living room are his as well

has a great dislike for movie adaptions

sits there with that scowl of his, glaring at you until it's over when you make him watch one

says it destroys the pictures in his head

(to be fair

you don't think he's entirely wrong about that)

always has a camera in reach

got a few, all older ones; no fancy digital ones, but all on film

just like he seems to catch onto everything

so does his camera

it's like the manifestation of his quiet perception of things

to fix things onto film

he captures everything

most of the time, you don't even notice

only sometimes you raise your head to find the camera in his hands, a slight curve to his lips

develops all pictures himself, in a dark room on campus students can book

spends hours in there, just working in silence

there's usually a lot of bugging involved before he shows the developed pictures to anyone

usually ends in all of you leaning over them eagerly, trying to figure out when he took them

Rhys standing in the kitchen, grinning over his shoulder like Cassian just made a bad joke

you and Feyre, laughing so hard you lean into each other

Mor, lying upside down on the couch while focusing on the cards in her hand while you're next to her, mid-motion, a focused expression on your face

Cassian napping on the couch, twisted in a very uncomfortable position to fit all six feet something of him onto the cushions

there seems to be an endless number, and they're all carefully stored away in his shelves

some, he refuses to show to anyone

it takes you so little time to feel at home in the huge flat, the prospect of looking for an apartment for yourself is off the table before you can actually start

and it doesn't take long until you're part of the routines like you'd been there since the beginning

Saturday and Sunday evenings are for movie nights

sometimes, Mor joins you

you sit with Azriel on the couch, sharing a big bowl of popcorn while staring at Rhys and Cassian argue about which Star Wars movie to start with

in the summer, you take trips to the lake for swimming and laying in the sun

have game nights

evenings sitting on the balcony, squinting into the setting sun

barbecues

and afternoons in the park, one joining in after the other

in winter, you go to the ice rink

bake together

and spend whole weekends on the couch, watching movies

you go to the gym with Cassian or accompany him on his runs

(well, he's running - you're on your bicycle, because there's no way you can keep up with that dude´s long legs)

or get dragged out onto hikes by Rhys

in the evenings, you usually all end up in the kitchen for dinner, banter thrown over the dinner table

Azriel and you mostly take care of the grocery shopping together

it usually entails you trying to reach something on a high shelf and Azriel huffing, moving to grab it without even having to stretch

sometimes Cassian joins in, and you both make it your mission to annoy Azriel until he cracks a grin

both Az and Rhys regularly give you rides on their motorcycles

while Cassian likes to stick to his old, beat up truck, Rhys has a car as well, but alternates between it and the motorcycle

more often than not, he uses it as opportunity to flirt

small cleaning duties in the apartment are rotated between the four of you

but big-once-a-month-deep-cleans are something you make a day of

blasting music, you divide the flat and get to work

(bathroom duty is rotated)

in the (very rare) case of an argument, it usually ends in one of you being mediator

which means after a cooling off period

the arguing parties are locked in the pantry until they've talked things out

works surprisingly well

sometimes, the boys bring someone home

it usually comes with a text

or the very oldschool sock on the door

tho you ban that one after Cassian forgets it

and you walk into the flat unsuspectingly only to be flashed

Cassian apologizes profoundly

after he's done laughing

there are also a few awkward encounters in the hall in the morning that leave you contemplating not running around in just big t-shirts

Feyre still gives you rides to campus and back

but sometimes, it's Azriel waiting in the parking lot instead, leaning against his motorcycle, two helmets next to him

it does not help with the way your heart seems to speed up whenever you find his amber eyes on you

but you're very adamant on pushing that away

it's probably not that serious anyway.

so

it would be wrong to say your life was boring before you met the three idiots you now call your roomates

but it sure as hell is a lot better now that you have

even if they do drive you a little nuts sometimes

@azrielshadows1nger @waytoomanyteenagefeels

[thebadgerclan]

Heir

Pairing: Nikolai Lantsov x reader

Summary: The heir to the throne...

A/N: I got a bit carried away with this 😂 (and I might do a part 2 tomorrow)

It was impossible not to get your hopes up, but you tried to do so desperately as you waited for the Healer.  Your period was late–a week and a half late, to be exact, and you knew what that meant.  Or, what it could mean.  You and Nikolai had been married for three years, and for the better part of one of them, you’d been trying for a baby.  Your husband needed an heir, yes, but you were ready for children, you wanted to have a baby with Nikolai.

But it hadn’t been as easy as some women made it look.  After the two of you had decided it was time for a child, Nikolai had taken you to be nearly every night.  Even so, your periods arrived like clockwork every month, and every time you woke to find the sheets stained crimson, you found yourself sobbing in your husband’s arms:

It shattered his heart to see you so distraught.  Nikolai held you tightly against his chest, pressing kisses to the crown of your head.  “I’m here, my love,” he said, not bothering to tell you it would be alright.  “Right here.”  He was heartbroken too, he was every month, both for your pain, but also that he was not yet a father.  It would happen, Nikolai had hope, but until it did, he would stay strong and comfort you, however he could.

You were pulled from your thoughts by the Healer knocking on the door, curtseying as she entered.  “Moya tsaritsa,” she greeted.  “You sent for me?”  “Yes,” you replied, smoothing your hands over your skirts, trying to calm your nerves.  “My period is more than a week late.”  The Healer nodded, gesturing for you to lie down.  Neither of you were new to this song and dance, but you prayed to every Saint that today would be different.

You watched as the Healer folded her hands, moving them over your belly.  For several moments, she was silent before smiling softly.  “Congratulations, Your Majesty.”  You sat up, a bewildered look on your face.  “Are you serious?”  “I am, Queen Y/N.  You are pregnant.”  Tears sprang to your eyes, and you felt joy bubbling in your chest.  “Oh Saints!  Thank you!”  The Healer was taken aback when you hugged her, but accepted your embrace.

“You are most welcome, moya tsaritsa,” she said, gracefully exiting the room.  Your mind was spinning, overwhelmed, but one through prevailed.  “I need to tell Nikolai,” you said aloud, and an instant later, you were hurrying through the halls towards the Fabrikator workshops.

***

A knock at the door tore Nikolai’s focus from the report he was pouring over, and he rolled his eyes.  “All Saints, I swear, if this is about the–Y/N!”  You had entered the King’s study, your hands clasped behind your back.  “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, my beauty.”  Nikolai stretched before he stood, coming to stand before you.  “I’m afraid to know what might have happened if it wasn’t me coming in.”

Nikolai laughed.  “Soklov has been pestering me about the budget report.  But that’s not important.”  He looked at you, seeing your hands held behind your back, your nervous posture, and your hesitant-yet-excited smile.  “What I would like to know, however, is what my precious girl has behind her back…”

You smiled and held your hands out before you.  In them was a miniature version of Sturmhond’s teal frock coat, and your husband cocked his head.  “This, my darling, is far too small for me,” Nikolai teased, and you shook your head.  “No, but I thought our little one might want to match their Daddy.”  At once, his face went slack.

“Our….?”  You nodded.  “Our little one?”  Another nod.  “Y/N, please tell me this isn’t a joke.”  “It isn’t.”  “You’re pregnant?”  Tears pricked at your eyes.  “I am.”  “I’m going to be a father?”  “You are.”  “I….You’re pregnant?!”  “Yes, Nikolai, I’m pregnant, you’re going to be a father!”  Your husband’s face lit up, and he cried out with elation, lifting you into his arms.  “Oh, my love!  I’m going to be a father!”

“Yes!” you said, tears streaming down your face.  Nikolai set you down and kissed you, his tears mixing with yours.  “You have made me the happiest man alive!  My sweetest love, you are a goddess.”  Then he dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to your belly, his hands on your hips.  “Little one, can you hear me?  I’m your Daddy, and I love you so much.”  It was far too soon for the baby to be able to hear him, but you didn’t correct him.  The two of you were drowning in happiness and bliss, and you were content to sink in it forever

***

Your pregnancy passed without any complications, Nikolai made sure  of it.  You had the best Healers waiting on you hand and foot, ensuring both you and your baby were perfectly healthy.  Nikolai was already taking to fatherhood well; decorating the nursery, amassing a collection of children’s books and toys, pouring over books on newborns and childhood development.  And while you didn’t know whether the child was boy or a girl, you had enough clothes for either gender to keep an entire generation of Ravkan babies dressed.

The people were overjoyed at the coming of the heir to the throne, sending well wishes and gifts to the palace every single day.  Most of it was deemed not fit for the Queen, but you ensured that any food that arrived at the palace was sent to the poor, that any baby clothes were distributed to mothers who needed them.  You hadn’t seen the country so jubilant since your wedding, and you knew that the birth of your child would send the nation into a frenzy.

Of course, you went into labor when Nikolai was away from the Palace.  He had been called to Balakirev for a summit, one that he’d been extremely hesitant to attend.  With the birth of your child so close, Nikolai was hesitant to leave you in a different room than him.  But you’d convinced him, and he went.  Of course, a messenger had been sent when your water broke, but that didn’t lessen the fear you felt when the contractions started and the midwives and Healers flooded the room.

When Nikolai received the message, he mounted his horse and rode hard for Os Alta.  He didn’t say goodbye to his hosts, didn’t gather his things, his only focus was on getting to you.  It only took three hours to return to the Palace, but it felt like an eternity.  The King dismounted and was immediately running, ignoring the servants and nobles he passed along the way.

The corridor that led to your bedroom was packed: the entirety of the Ravkan court, your ladies in waiting, the Apparat, and all of them bowed or curtsied as Nikolai approached.  “Am I too late?” he asked, completely breathless.  “No, moi tsar,” the Apparat responded.  “Her Majesty has not delivered yet.”  You moaned in pain, and Nikolai’s blood ran cold.  “Saints, Y/N,” he whispered as he made to enter the room, but the Apparat stepped between him and the door.

“You cannot go in there, Your Majesty,” he said, and Nikolai frowned.  “Excuse me?”  “There is womanly work occurring, Majesty.  We remain out here.”  Other men would nod, agree, step back.  Nikolai would not.  “Do you enjoy being head of the Church?”  “Pardon?”  “Would you like to remain head of the Church?”  “I–Your Majesty, surely th–”  “Do you think you can remain in your position as head of the Church by defying the King of Ravka?”

The Apparat remained silent, and Nikolai stepped closer.  “Get out of my way, or I will see that you never set foot in a church again.”  He remained still, but when you moaned in pain once more, Nikolai shoved the priest aside and entered the room.  You were propped up in bed, nurses, midwives, and Healers fluttering around you, a sheen of sweat covering your face.  

Nikolai was at your side in an instant, taking your hand and kissing it.  “Y/N,” he breathed.  “Saints, I–”  “You’re here,” you said, a soft smile appearing on your face.  “Stay, please.”  “I’m not going anywhere, my love,” he replied, settling himself at your side on the bed.  “I’m right by your side.  Always, Y/N.”  Another contraction hit, and you gripped Nikolai’s hand hard, squeezing your eyes shut.

“Nikolai,” you moaned.  “I don’t think I can do this.”  “Nonsense, my love,” he replied, desperately trying to remain calm for you.  “You are strong, you can do this.  You’ve carried our little angel for nine months, and you’ve done so well.  You’re almost done, Y/N, now let’s meet our little one.”  You nodded, and when the Healer told you it was time, you started pushing.  Nikolai’s heart cracked when you cried out from the pain, but he remained at your side, holding your hand and kissing your forehead.

After nearly an hour of pushing, you and Nikolai were greeted with the most beautiful sound you’d ever heard.  A sharp, shrill cry; your child was here.  “A girl, Your Majesties!” the Healer announced, cutting the cord and assessing the newborn.  A sob tore from your mouth, and Nikolai kissed your forehead, wrapping his arms around you.  “We have a daughter!” he cried, tears streaking down his cheeks.  “A little girl!”

“Is she alright?” you asked, craning your neck.  The midwives were between your legs, ensuring the placenta was delivered and that you were alright, but your focus was on your newborn daughter.  “Perfectly healthy, moya tsaritsa,” the Healer said.  “Just cleaning her up a bit.  Here we are!”  The Healer came to your side and laid a pink, squirming, screaming bundle on your chest.  And it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.  

“Oh Saints,” Nikolai said, covering his mouth.  “She’s perfect, she’s beautiful!”  “She is,” you agreed, tracing a finger over your daughter’s cheek.  A nurse helped you shift your nightdress to the side and showed you how to help your baby latch so she could nurse, and everyone filtered out of the room, leaving you and your little family in peace.

“I didn’t think I could love someone this much,” you said, watching your child in absolute awe.  “Neither did I,” Nikolai said.  “Then I met you.  And then you gave birth to this little miracle. Oh Y/N, You are absolutely everything to me.  You and this little angel.”  “We need a name,” you said sleepily, and your husband nodded.  “Any ideas, beautiful?”  “Hmm.  It has to be something regal.  She’ll be Queen someday.”

Nikolai nodded, having completely forgotten that his daughter was more than his daughter: she was the heir to the throne, a Princess, the future Queen.  For several minutes, you and your husband went back and forth on names, but you finally settled on one.  “Rosala,” you said.  “Princess Rosala Tatiana Lantsov.”  Nikolai nodded.  “It’s perfect.  Just like her.  And like her mother.”  Rosala had finished nursing, and you’d shifted her into her father’s arms, who looked at her like she was the sun and the moon.

“I suppose I should present her, shouldn’t I?”  It was Ravkan law that the heir must be presented to the court after birth.  It used to be done immediately after the birth, before the Healers could clean the baby up, but Nikolai refused to allow his court to be part of such an intimate moment.  “You should.  And the sooner you do that, the sooner we get her back.”  The presentation could take time: every member was required to kneel and swear fealty to their future monarch.

Nikolai pressed a kiss to your forehead, adjusting Rosala in his arms.  “Get some rest, my love,” he said.  “You have certainly earned it.”  You were already snuggling into the covers as he said it.  “I love you,” you said.  “And I love you, Rosala”  Nikolai beamed, and he knew his face would be sore tomorrow from how much he’d been smiling, and he nodded to the guard at the door, who opened it.

The court was still gathered in the corridor, and they fell silent when the King stepped out.  “Princess Rosala Tatiana Lantsov,” he announced.  “Heir to the Double Eagle throne, future Queen of Ravka”  At once, the court bowed and curtsied, some whispering prayers for the Princess.  Nikolai carried his daughter up and down the corridor, allowing his court to kneel and pledge their loyalty.  When that was done, he re-entered the bedroom, finding you sound asleep.

He sat in the rocker beside the bassinet, Rosala cradled in his arms.  “My little love,” he whispered.  “I’m your Daddy, and I love you so much.  I’m going to tell you your first bedtime story now, little one, and I hope that someday, you’ll have a story just like it.”  Your daughter yawned, her little eyes closed, and Nikolai continued.  “Once upon a time, there was a Prince who loved the sea.  He thought he would never love anything more, but then, he met the most beautiful woman…”

[gffa]

I have been Processing My Feelings mostly through sleeping a lot (thanks, shark week), cleaning (so much stuff to be done, especially when you're on a budget so everything takes twice as much work), playing Pokemon Go (I SAW AN ARTICUNO, but it fled on me ): but that's okay, I know it only has like a 3% chance to get it, and if I saw one, maybe I'll see another sometime), and binging TV shows/YouTube videos. TV SHOWS THAT I HAVE HAD THOUGHTS ON: - FROM, season 3: I think it might have been a mistake to watch it week to week, because I've watched seven episodes now and it feels like hardly anything has happened this season, like, you only have ten episodes and the wait between seasons is so long! Get back to moving the plot forward! But a lot of people said the same thing about s2 and I found that one to move along great--but I binged the whole thing, so the pacing probably seemed better. I'm still invested, some emotional stuff has happened this season, but I want more answers/plot already!!!! - SHRINKING, season 2: Just as much of a comfort watch as the first season, still pulling a bunch of laughs out of me. The cast is incredible, the writing is funny (I'm a sucker for a Bill Lawrence show, though), and I have had genuine emotional reactions to some of the storylines this season, because I have come to care about the characters. It can be a light watch most of the time, one to put on when I want something to laugh at, but it can pack a punch in the way it needs to. - ENGLISH TEACHER: I think every episode got me to laugh at least once, most of them got me to laugh out loud multiple times. Some people are going to find it kind of preachy or tryhard, but I felt like it was trying to take an honest look at this one person's attempts to navigate the difficult societal elements at play (being gay in your 30s, no longer a kid, not a boomer, but not always seeing eye-to-eye with where the younger generation is, wanting to do the right thing versus not always knowing what that is, trying to be empathetic while being genuine, etc.), and if nothing else it got me with the sideswipe at Tumblr. That hurt, you guys, but also LOL. - 9-1-1, season 8: Still very much worth watching (especially every time Eddie is a hot mess and kind of a bitch, I've never loved him more), but I did not enjoy the Councilwoman Ortiz storyline (it felt more mean-spirited than I wanted) and I'm not looking forward to catching up on this week's episode (I've heard some of what happens), but overall, it's still a comfort place for batshit storylines. BEENADO WAS HILARIOUS, everything about Athena on the plane was fun (and less frustrating than her usual cop storylines, I love you, girl, but oh my god), and I even liked the Gerrard storyline by the end. Next to catch up on: Abbot Elementary, binge Squid Game s2 when it comes out, and finally watch The Devil Judge. (Watch, I'll have my schedule all planned out and then probably throw it out the window for Grotesquerie or something, SIGH.) Any other suggestions for comfort shows or just really bingeable recent shows or just tell me what you're watching, so that I can keep my brain off the doomscrolling track!

[b-skarsgard]

Credits and a very big thank you to @/TheCrowUpdates on IG&Twitter for sharing!

Someone was going to revisit The Crow.

We just didn't know who. Since 2008, fans of Alex Proyas' 1994 dark superhero movie - about a murdered rock musician back from the dead to seek revenge - have watched reports roll in about who was going to do it.

Names of possible stars were attached and detached before it was ever confirmed they were true: Bradley Cooper, Channing Tatum, Mark Wahlberg (twice), Jason Momoa (that one got as far as leaked test footage). Potential directors included Blade's Stephen Norrington, 28 Weeks Later's Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Corin Hardy, and more.

At one point in 2010, hopes were raised when there were rumours that Nick Cave was doing some form of script revision - The Crow is a graphic novel and a film that held music close to its goth black heart. For a while, everything went quiet. And then: someone actually revisited The Crow.

When Empire asks director Rupert Sanders why, after all these years, it was him, he laughs and says, "Tenacity." He adds, "Sometimes these things just have their time.

They work when they're supposed to work. I just feel that this was probably the right iteration." He also thinks it's a case of how it was made, not why: outside the studio system, for a fraction of the budget of current superhero movies, and far less than Sanders himself has worked with in the past (his first film, Snow White & The Huntsman, cost $180 million). "People are calling it a Hollywood remake and it's really not.

There's nothing to do with Hollywood in this movie at all — it's a very scrappy indie movie," he says. "[And] because of that, we were able to remain close to the centre and the darkness and the violence that's in the graphic novel. The only reason we could do that is because it's not a studio movie."

Given how fervently the fanbase protects the first movie, some might also add another word in addition to tenacity: bravery. This was the film in which Brandon Lee, playing Eric Draven, tragically lost his life in an accident on set with a prop gun at the age of 28. This was the film that wasn't just a film; it remains a hallowed target of worship. If you are of a certain age, you will remember how posters for The Crow hung for a weirdly long time in the video shop, how you wore out the soundtrack on your Walkman, how on more than one occasion someone told you that the set was cursed, actually. For some, the idea of revisiting The Crow is as impossible as waking the dead.

In order for Sanders to get it made, he had to sweep aside all of the cult-film baggage that came with the job. He ignored the "probably hundreds" of versions of the script that were floating around. He had to go right to the beginning and hatch his own bird.

James O'Barr's original telling (the character's self-titled miniseries ran February-May 1989), The Crow is a comic about revenge. Eric and his fiancée, Shelly, are assaulted by a gang of thugs after their car breaks down. Paralysed by a gunshot wound, Eric can only watch as she is raped and murdered in front of him, before later dying himself in hospital. When he is resurrected by a crow — those supernatural beings who can bring people back to put the wrong things right - he wreaks vengeance on those who hurt her. The idea all stemmed from an event in O'Barr's life: when he was 18, his fiancée was killed by a drunk driver.

He put the hate and other feelings on the page. O'Barr later said on stage at Comic-Con that the comic, to him, was a Cure song—Sanders was there at the time and heard him. It was an idea that stayed with him throughout the process. "[The Crow] has that kind of comfort of melancholy," he says. "There's something about listening to a Cure song that makes you feel that it's okay to feel how you're feeling."

Sanders didn't rewatch the 1994 film; he reread the graphic novel, once, and then let the ideas permeate. (Sanders is an art-school comic-book guy — he's been trying to to turn Charles Burns' Black Hole, a story about sexually transmitted, grotesque physical mutations in teenagers that renders them social outcasts, into a movie for 20 years.) He even made a Black Hole short film, and says it's the closest DNA in his work to The Crow - you can watch it on his website). He researched the spiritual history of crows across cultures: how they are believed to exist between worlds as messengers between the living and the dead, how they are both symbols of change and harbingers of death. But above all, what Sanders saw in The Crow was not a revenge story at all: he saw a tragic love story.

"We've all lost someone in life, or we all will lose someone in life, and we're all going to die. It was really about losing someone and being selfless in trying to get someone back."

For a love story to work, Sanders needed to find a man who could believably be both "tender and terrifying" — he couldn't cast the monster and work backwards. Having almost worked with Bill Skarsgård on another project that fell through (an adaptation of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam-war book, The Things They Carried), Skarsgård was already on Sanders' radar. When he mentioned the idea to the actor, Skarsgård needed very little convincing. But before he did his self-tape for the casting process, Skarsgard wanted to spend a week with Sanders exploring the character.

"That kind of dating phase was what I needed, to know that I really wanted to do the movie," says the actor. They swapped films, music, and YouTube videos, and worked together to get a sense of who this character is. Sanders suggested Skarsgärd watch Jacob's Ladder (Adrian Lyne's 1990 film about a Vietnam-war veteran suffering from horrifying hallucinations; Skarsgård loved it), a documentary on the SoundCloud rapper Lil Peep ("I wasn't really familiar with that world at all; it came after my teenage-rebellion years"), and a lot of documentaries about drug use and homelessness. It was all in aid of figuring out Eric's journey up until the point we meet him in the movie, when the suicidal man sees his salvation in the love of Shelly. We won't even see this backstory on screen.

In Stockholm, where he was born and still lives, in the depths of pandemic times, Skarsgård made his self-tape in a studio with some friends. There was no script yet, just a couple of scenes. For the final one, he performed it in traditional Crow make-up.

Did he apply it himself, as Brandon Lee does in the broken mirror? "Definitely not!" he laughs. "I had someone help me do it —a professional. I've been down that hole before where I've tried to do my own make-up. It turns out that my skill doesn't translate that well into that."

Skarsgård has also been here before with the white make-up, the cult favourite character, the weight of decades of history —he went through all of this playing Pennywise the clown in It. When asked if he felt the pressure of stepping into a role with so much noise around it, he speaks with the clarity of someone who has been bruised before but is now prepared (and knows to ignore the internet). "I think I would have been more hesitant if it felt really close to the original—but the fact that it felt so different from it, the separation of it [made it feel like I could] make this my own thing, as opposed to trying but failing at something that's already been done."

As soon as he took the job, Skarsgård "never thought about this as The Crow". He was interested in the psychology of the character of Eric — in his journey from suicidal, to saved, to nihilism. "That became very important to me — that it's not just a guy putting on make-up and thinking he's badass and saying catchy one-liners. This is someone who has lost everything, and the only thing that he has left is his hate. And hate is destructive. When he becomes this sort of superhero, he's become a monster that he doesn't want to be." Skarsgård buried himself in the psyche of the character, as he routinely does with every role, possibly to his detriment.

"Honestly, I don't know any other way of doing it," he says. "You have to go there. You do get a little bit consumed with that state of mind. I was kind of burned out at the end of it, for physical reasons, mental reasons, all of it. It was a lot."

But he says it was all worth it: all the hours of tattoo application, the nights submerged in a tank of syrup made to look like oil, and the time-consuming effort of trying to get the continuity of black tar blood-splatter just right. There is only one thing he would change if he could: his... entire body. When he came onto The Crow, Skarsgärd had just finished filming Boy Kills World, an action movie where he plays a martial-arts expert.

He was in insane shape. He was eating raw meat and training six days a week. "I felt very strange being in great shape for Eric as the person Eric, he says, after detailing the extreme training schedule and diet he kept over the nine months that spanned both films. "I wanted him to be really skinny!" he laughs. "He was not a person that worked out, ever. In a perfect world he would have been a lot less fit in the first half of the movie."

In the 1994 version of The Crow, Shelly is dead before the opening credits. The film opens with her, bloodied on a gurney in the rain (it can't rain all the time, but it does in this movie), being loaded into the back of an ambulance. In Shelly-POV flashbacks we see the faces of her violent, laughing rapists.

Shelly is not so much a character as a reason for The Crow to exist: a plot device to give our male hero something to avenge. This is something Sanders wanted to correct in his telling of the story. To him, Shelly was the "emotional engine" of the whole film. It needed a woman so "magical" that we would miss her like a vital organ when she was gone.

"Without us falling in love with her as he does, we can't go on that journey with him," he said. "We can't be complicit with what he does to gain her back." Sanders had only one person in mind for the role, someone otherworldly and haunting enough to carry it: the genreamorphous, avant-garde musician FKA Twigs.

"I felt honoured," says Twigs, on being asked to make such an impression in her first-ever starring role (prior to this, her only feature credit was in Alma Har'el's Honey Boy) and being given only a third of the film to do it in. "But at the same time, I really did know that I could do it."

She and Skarsgård met on a balcony in the hotel in Prague where Casanova used to stay.

They read lines, became friends, and soon Twigs was so invested in the story of Eric and Shelly that she was standing at the monitor on set, watching herself die, sad that their characters were being so cosmically ripped apart.

"[Sanders] would always look at me and be like 'Oh, I know, Twigs! They can't be together!' And I'd be like, 'But I want them to be together!'" she laughs. "He knows I have a real, genuine interest in their love and what love means to a lot of people in the world. I believe that we need more stories like this.

Where two people can love each other so wholly and so beautifully amidst so much darkness and uncertainty. That, to me, echoes almost what we're going through now."

Meanwhile, Danny Huston plays the bad guy in all of this - but he goes to great lengths to explain that unlike other battles between good and evil, the lines here aren't so clearly drawn. "It's messy, it's human, it's inky," he says, remaining mysterious about his character's true desire and identity. (Says Sanders: "The devilish people in your life are the most seductive, the most charming, and the most flattering. There's something about Danny that just really personifies that.")

Huston says the film reminds him most of Powell and Pressburger's A Matter Of Life And Death — "That would be the, uh, gentle version of our film," adds Sanders - in which love is tested in the hinterland between the living and the dead.

The character is fascinated by love in the manner of a demigod who is above it. "Love can be flawed. And it can be childish. It can be saccharin. It can mislead you," Huston says. "But yet, it's what makes mortals tick.

It's what makes them sacrifice. Is that enviable? I suppose it is, when you have never felt it."

Rupert Sanders' take on The Crow reportedly cost around $50 million. Not peanuts, but less money than is spent on your usual superhero outings. And a lower budget, like love, can come with sacrifice.

But the cast and crew were tenacious and brave enough to, in the words of Skarsgård, go there, wherever "there" was.

"It wasn't an easy journey, that's for sure," says Skarsgard. While the role took physical and mental tolls on its male lead, Twigs was willing to face her greatest fear to make it work: deep water. She spent days in the tank, with a nose peg on, trying to control her beating heart. Elsewhere, Sanders was inverting severed heads into plastic dummies to get two effects for the price of one, drawing in Eric's sketchbooks, throwing blood around the set, never sitting still. And when the crew's numbers dwindled in the final days of filming, it ended up being just Sanders with a camera, a light, and a guy with a crow on a leather glove. (The director says that crows - in spite of all their dark mythology — are good companions and lovely to work with.)

Later, when it was all over and Twigs saw the trailer, she was surprised. "When we were making the movie I didn't really have a sense of how magnificent the scale is," she says.

"Maybe it's because it's one of my first films, but it's hard to tell when you're in it. It's a huge, wild, big-scale, giant film! But when I was doing it, it just felt like we were in this little family, running around Prague for three months."

Sanders hopes this could help form a new model in how cinema might counter shrinking audiences - not just for comic-book movies, but for films in general.

"You have to be more adept at making things more effciently, that are emotionally resonant, and not just spectacle," he says. "I really hope we're in for another kind of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls period of having to make these more down-and-dirty films that still feel like big epic movies [but] are weirder and stranger."

Inevitably, there will be opinions about the new version of The Crow. Sanders isn't worried. "You can never please everyone when you're working with existing material—but I look at it as Kenneth Branagh doing a Shakespeare play that Gielgud did [before him]," he says. "That was a seminal performance, but it doesn't mean that's it and everything stops." It's been 30 years since the last film, and he hopes that in the same way the film excited 17-year-olds back then, his version will do the same for kids who are 17 years old now.

"This is for this generation. Probably 30 years from now they will be berating anyone who tries to make another version of it because this was the version they grew up on," he predicts. "It's cyclical." At least this time around, fewer cassette tapes will be harmed in the replaying of the soundtrack.

THE CROW IS IN CINEMAS FROM 23 AUGUST

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

Comfort in Girl’s Day

Summary - Part 49 in the Comfort series

Pairing - Dean Winchester x Reader, Reader x Sam (platonic), Reader x Bobby (father-figure), Andre (OG Character) x Reader (best friends), Garth x Bess

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

A/N: Sorry guys, it’s another short one this week. Been busy with my family for the holidays. I hope you all had a great Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate). 

In town, you and Destiny visit a few stores shopping for clothes, toys and beauty products for a relaxing girl’s weekend in the Bunker. She tries on various outfits for pyjamas, day clothes and even a few nice dresses for the occasion that you may be able to celebrate her addition to your little family properly. You even buy a few new outfits for yourself; it’s been so long since you went clothes shopping without a set event or intention in mind. 

After a few hours, both your and Destiny’s stomachs begin to growl. You know you won’t be able to get her a raw cow’s heart to eat in public but you hope she might be able to tolerate a rare steak until you can get home. You go to a diner down the street that you know serves decent meals. You order a rare steak and chips for Destiny and a medium rare for yourself with veggies, knowing you’ll get her chips. You also ask for a pitcher of water and two glasses. On your way to the table, you notice a stack of newspapers; on habit, you pick one up. Dean always gets them to look for cases, despite the internet being much better for that now, but you want it for a different reason. While you wait for your meals to arrive you flick through to the real estate listings and open houses. As you scan through crossing off houses that are totally out of your budget or style your eyes settle on a secluded property in the mountains. You know Dean would never want to live in the town with neighbours crowding him and invading his privacy, so the location is perfect. The house also looks in quite good condition, from the photos anyway. You type the address into your GPS and decide to drive by it before going back to the Bunker after lunch. 

Destiny eats the steak reluctantly to quench her hunger for now; it doesn’t provide the same nutrients that she requires as the heart would, but she doesn’t complain. She’s always so grateful for everything you do. You pick at her chips along with eating your own meal; your appetite is nowhere near as big as your husband’s and it’s even smaller now that you’re not over-exerting yourself on hunts. But you manage to make a decent dent in both meals and then take what’s left of your massive steak home for dinner. 

“You mind if we make a detour on the way back to the Bunker?” you ask Destiny once you’re both finished eating.

She shakes her head. “Where we going?”

“There’s just something I want to check out. It’s a house. Maybe a new home for us and Dean, of course, if he agrees.”

“What about Sam?”

“If there’s enough space he’s welcome, but I think if we leave the Bunker he’ll go back to college or something. I don’t know. Sam will do whatever he wants. I thought the giant scared you?”

“He does…But he’s nice.”

“He is. You ready to go?” You ask and she nods. 

You follow the GPS directions up into the mountains until you find the house from the photos. It has the exterior look and feel of a peaceful cabin in the woods, but it’s bigger than the average cabin. It’s large, but not too large, according to the ad, it’s four bedrooms and three bathrooms, with a full-size kitchen, lounge, study, games room, and a double garage. It also has a shed out the back and a pool. It’s a large block, but that just adds to the appeal as there’s no one else around. It will be like your own private sanctuary. Like the bunker, but without the lair-like feel. You truly believe you could make this a home. Of course, you still need to look inside and convince Dean, but you have high hopes. 

After having a decent look at the property, you head back to the Bunker to unpack your shopping haul. Both a little tired from all the events that have already occurred today, after unpacking, you decide that it’s the perfect time to watch a movie and just relax. You bring blankets and pillows into the Dean Cave and set it up for an afternoon slumber party. While you set up the room, you let Destiny scroll through Netflix to find something to watch. Once everything is set up, you both snuggle up in the cushions and blankets. You send a quick selfie and text to Dean letting him know everything is good and reminding him to be safe. Destiny then presses play on her pick of movie: My Neighbor Tororo. You’re not surprised she picked an anime, considering it’s what Dean has been putting on at bedtime most nights (thankfully he’s been choosing G and PG-rated ones while she’s around). 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Tag list: (Leave a like or comment on this post or let me know below if you want to be added to the tag list for this series)

@bitchwitch1981, @muhahaha303, @justrealizedimmascifygurl, @mcdowell-123, @leigh70, @marvelsmarauder, @losa12308, @tapedeck-hearts, @luvjaida, @peachtxa, @ambearsstuff, @shadow-of-a-cloud, @slut-for-buck, @iprobablyshipit91, @sassy-pelican, @fallenlilangel99, @heavenlyhopeful0, @nelachu2423, @ladysparkles78, @canyouimaginethatstory, @mrlonelycat

[lixenn]

You wanna write a little thing and ocs are okay? Then I’m curious on how you’d write Chief/Dan and Celeste interacting :3

If you want help with it I’m right here for ya!

Me: I won't promise more than a few sentences!

Also me: Writes a scene that's over two pages long

Here we are, one Dan and Celeste interaction fresh from the nonsense generator, please enjoy (also tell me if my try at Celeste is okay)

Tagging my buddy @myrmyrtheorca because she needs to know how worried she should be about Chief.

---

Dan has read the same sentence more than five times in the last ten minutes, and he still hasn’t made sense of it.

What was this report about again?

Something about the budget? Or property damage? He squints at the page, willing the words to stop dancing across the document. There aren’t enough numbers for this to be a budget report and he can’t spot any curses, so he doubts it’s from the Reps department.

Does he even need to check this? Has someone flooded his inbox with unnecessary paperwork again?

Well no, Dave sorts the documents landing on his desk by priority and this one was in the red folder, so it requires his signature.

…

What is he supposed to do again?

Dan sighs, rubbing his hand across his face.

He needs coffee.

No, scratch that. He craves coffee with his entire being but getting it would mean dragging his body out of his comfortable office chair and that sounds like an insurmountable chore right now, so he is stuck with his exhaustion. And paperwork. He’ always stuck with paperwork. Damn Squalo and his meddling ways. Damn his past self for being tempted by the pay raise and accepting the promotion.

A dull clunk distracts him from him from cursing Squalo’s whole bloodline.

There’s a cup of coffee on his desk.

Dan frowns and pokes the cup with his pen. Surprisingly, the pen is met with resistance.

Not a hallucination then.

…

Why is there coffee on his desk?

Dan shakes his head. No that’s not important. Better question: How is there coffee? Is he secretly a Mist and hasn’t noticed it? Can he just magic coffee out of thin air now? Why wasn’t he informed of this power years ago? Could have had access to magic coffee the entire time?

What a waste.

The tantalizing scent of the black ambrosia drags Dan away from his musings. Who cares where the coffee came from, it’s here now so he might as well benefit.

He reaches for the cup and takes a sip. The bitter aroma of ground beans fills his mouth. Dan closes his eyes and hums.

Yessss, that hits the spot.

A chuckle fills the room. “You looked like you really needed that.”

Dan’s eyes snap open but that’s the only sign of surprise his tired meatsuit would allow. There’s a person in his office. Since when? How long have they been standing there, watching him?

Wait, are there two of them? Dan blinks several times trying to get his vision to focus. The two blurry outlines combine into one. Just my shitty eyesight fucking me over again I guess.

Now, that he’s looking closer.

“Aunt Cel?” he murmurs, still too tired for showing any kind of enthusiasm.

The woman smiles at him, gentle but full of worry. “Hello there, dear. Having a rough time?”

Dan snorts. “Always,” he glares at the mountain of documents which haven’t had the decency to catch on fire while he was looking away. “What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to visit Skull this week.”

Celeste gives his messy office a brief once over and raises one of her neatly trimmed eyebrows at him.

“Yes, I was planning to depart today, but then I heard from poor Luss that you weren’t sleeping again. So, I figured it was time for a check-in.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he grumbles, miffed about Lussuria calling him out. Traitor. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

“Honey, that kind of talk is the exact reason why I’m worried.” Celeste steps closer to his desk and cups his face between her hands. “When was the last time you had a full night’s rest?”

“I don’t know. What month is it?”

Celeste clucks her tongue at him, but she is still stroking his cheeks with her warm hands, so Dan will forgive her for the slight. “You’re going to bed, young man. Right now.”

“What?” Dan reels back from her touch, affronted and now slightly more awake. “No! Do you have any idea how much work there’s left to do? I need to finish these reports, then there’s the meeting with Squalo about,” he frowns, trying to remember the mail, “the panthers, I think? Well, anyways I have a meeting and I still need to go check on Bel, because he’s been awfully quiet lately and we all know that’s never a good sign and-“

Celeste holds up her hand, interrupting his babbling. “Stopping you right there. The only thing you need to do right now is get out of this stuffy office, lay down in your bed and sleep. I will take care of the rest.”

Dan gave his aunt the best glower he had in his arsenal. “No.”

“Daniele Costa.” The woman’s voice drops into a warning tone. “Don’t make me call your mother.”

He narrows his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

The smile on Celeste’s face is as angelic as it is terrifying. “Try me.”

…

Fuck.

Dan knows when he’s beaten. Alerting his mother needs to be avoided at all costs. She will storm into the Varia compound, bury him under mountains of food and scold him about his sleeping habits in front of all the Executives. Again.

He shudders. One time is more than enough. Dave has been teasing him about it for months afterwards.

With that horrifying memory in mind, he heaves himself up from his chair, bids his aunt tired goodbye and trudges to his room.

It's only when he's finally tucked under his blanket, his heavy eyelids falling shut, that he realises:

She gave me fucking decaf.

---

Hope this makes sense, because I kinda reread this so many times it words have lost all meaning lol

KHR writing prompts

[joy-drops]

this mf long so don't tell me i didn't warn u

been in a rut for over a year

something something autistic burnout

idk the cause or the solution

just trying to survive each day as best i can

easier said than done when everything that brings me joy (ha) is behind a pay wall

that's capitalism baby~

found out fauna is going to the only anime convention i can attend on a reasonable budget.... but im already so broke....

I'd shell out the cash (debt) if it meant guaranteeing a spot at the meet and greet but they might not release info until too late when plane tickets are unaffordable ;_;

i wanna look forward to something because sustaining my sanity on retail therapy and getting high definitely is losing its effectiveness

brain always returns to the loneliness. i know its crippling but how much of my struggle is from that and how much is from my disability... they're both invisible which makes it hard to tell

would having a partner help that much? my gut tells me yes since ill have motivation to live if i have someone to share existence with but that feels like putting all my eggs in one basket and setting myself up for an unhealthy relationship

i like to think i won't fall down that path of toxic codependency like i have in the past tho im not crazy confident based on my track record

Which reminds me I've realized how appealing polyamory sounds to me but I'm terrible in groups I feel like I'd be overwhelmed with more than 3 (including myself) tho who knows what can happen

REGARDLESS i guess i gotta talk to people and make friends since i am incapable of socializing with the intention of dating (trust issues yippee)

i wish i had a crush at the very least. i bring this up often but i fucking miss the feeling of legitimate interest and attraction towards someone

How do I meet someone, become comfortable enough with them, and ultimately find a partnership that satisfies my insane desires???? maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse? Tackling too much at once? Something like that...

Imma be real the only reason I'm active on here is another mechanism to cope with this loneliness (akin to listening to asmr for instant happy brain juice + with the added benefit of "putting myself out there")

My strange fantasy that I'll meet people on here like I did years ago and magically hit it off

AAAAAAUGGHHHHH how did I do it back then it seemed so easy what happened to my social skills (trauma, probably)

How is it I work 2 days a week and am still drained constantly? when will I be free from sleepy bitch syndrome? it's like I've been running on fumes for the past year WHEN WILL I HAVE THE WILL TO LIVE AGAIN

i miss having someone to talk to frequently about everything

i have my besties but unfortunately knowing there's no sexual or romantic attraction there makes it hard for me to get past these barriers?? Is that weird? I wanna be able to be intimate with someone and close but for me that's intrinsically tied to sex and romance. I'm overflowing with platonic friendships to the point where I had to cut off a bunch and leave many people I care about hanging because I simply have no energy to exist anymore

I've been doing my best each day but it only gets harder

The only thing I have energy for is getting high and living inside the fantasies my brain can muster as a means to cope with how lonely I am

I dream of being hugged, of someone touching me, of being accepted for all my flaws and reassured that my existence isn't shameful. I live for the day these might become reality

Since as long far back as highschool I've yearned for intimacy

Physical intimacy specifically since the most I've done is hold hands and lil cute things like that I CRAVE SKINSHIP UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE

Anyway if anybody made it this far hi feel free to confess ur undying love 2 me

[duchessofostergotlands]

I want to get a cat, and am massively overplanning...how did you prep for Ru? Do you have recs for getting cat toys/towers/fancy water fountains...

Hey :) Excellent news!! I was in a slightly odd position with Ru because he was abandoned with his three siblings as a kitten and it was my mum who found him, nursed him, and asked if I wanted him. So we were constantly talking, she was sending me pictures, I could ask her questions. I'd say that the biggest thing to remember about cats generally is they don't love change and they are incredibly particular about what they like and don't like but it seems to have no logical consistency to anyone other than them. My advice:

I'd start by asking whoever has the cat before what the cat is like and what they like. With my mum she was able to put his favourite fleecy blanket in with him when he travelled - which I still have and he still nuzzles every night - and some of the food he'd been eating in Spain so I could transition him to a similar British food. It was basically just to ease him in by making sure he had familiar things around him while he was adjusting. Even if they're at a shelter they might have a particular toy they like or they can tell you the brand of food the cat prefers. Gather as much intelligence as you can!

Don't invest in anything expensive before you get the cat. Go cheap and broad. Cats really do have their own personalities and they are notorious for ignoring expensive items but then becoming obsessive about a piece of rubbish you accidentally dropped. So you can use the information you gather in point 1 but otherwise just go to a budget place near you or even go to Amazon. Buy those sets with a bunch of different types of toys in them to try out. Obviously you don't want anything too poor quality, especially if it's for something like food - for example plastic bowls can irritate the skin under their chin - but I wouldn't splash out straight away. And then spend a few weeks watching the cat. Do they like to be in high places? They might like a cat tower. Do they seem fascinated by running water when you turn the tap on? They might like one of the fancy water fountain things. Do they keep taking their food out of the bowl and eating it on the ground? They might need a bowl that's a different shape, wider perhaps. Once you know they like a certain type of toy etc. you can invest in a more expensive, higher quality version - just be prepared they may hate it!!

If you can, take some time off after they arrive. I took the week off I think. I honestly don't know if this helps the cat at all but I get massive separation anxiety when I'm away from him for more than a few hours. I think even for people who are more chill, it is a change for you as much as it is for the cat so it's good for both of you to have time to adjust!

Identify a vet and get registered fairly quickly after they arrive. Being a pet owner is just living in perpetual fear something is going to happen to them and it is so comforting to know who you could call in an emergency. Things might work differently where you are but where I am you can just register your pet for free, you don't need to go in for a check up first or pay a membership or anything.

[whentherewerebicycles]

i got two really nice emails from faculty on the hiring committee this morning (the hiring manager just told them that i’d accepted) which made me so happy. aaaaaaaa i think i’m starting to finally transition out of the residual stress/anxiety stage behind and fully into the giddy happy butterflies stage. i feel like i could burst into tears of joy!! and i am gently hushing both my ‘there MUST be some catch’ and my ‘if a good thing happens, a BAD THING must be about to happen to balance it!’ inner voices, because sometimes a thing can just be good. i worked really hard and i got a really good outcome and i feel really grateful/happy/fortunate.

i’ve been thinking about that anxious ruminating a lot over the past few days, just trying to notice it as it’s happening. i feel like i’ve always had an tendency towards rumination but i do think it’s gotten markedly worse over the past nine months. as you might have gathered lol i’ve been pretty lowkey (and sometimes highkey) miserable and despairing about work, and i know i tend to get more depressed/anxious when i don’t have a clear sense of purpose or meaning in my life. i also think the social isolation of being fully remote in a job where i don’t have any work friends and in a new city where i don’t have an extended social circle has kinda fucked with my baseline mood. i’ve written a lot over the past nine months about not feeling like myself, and i think that’s just like, partly feeling like i’d lost my professional identity, but also partly just noticing that i feel a lot more fretful and discontent and prone to extended funks than i usually do. but i DO think it’s situational and i DO believe that i can/will bounce back to a self that feels more familiar once i change the big and small things in my environment that are fueling my unhappiness.

here are some things that are going to be REALLY good for me.

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to pursue values-aligned work that energizes and excites me. blah blah your work shouldn’t be your hobby or whatever but work kind of IS one of my hobbies and when i’m in a job i really love i spend every day thinking I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY PAY ME TO DO STUFF I WOULD JUST DO FOR FUN

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to get up, get ready right away, and go into campus most or all days a week. give me ROUTINE. give me a WORKPLACE that is separate from my home place. give me CAMPUS TIME!!!!!

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to talk to multiple people every single day. i need lots of alone time but i also NEED meaningful facetime with people and this job has just been brutal on that front

it’s going to be REALLY good (on a related note) for me to work with students again. i love working with students. it is so meaningful and good and energizing for me to work with students. i have missed it so so much.

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to be in a role that pushes me out of my comfort zone and forces me to stretch a bit. i haven’t even been coasting in this job... i’ve been totally stagnant. no growth, no challenge, no opportunities to stretch or learn. i’m gonna LEARN NEW THINGS again!!!!!!! i’m gonna feel so so so so so so so so so so much better!

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to have to budget! haha this seems silly and counterintuitive but honestly i think that making too much money is kind of bad for me! it makes it easier for me to live wastefully and be more thoughtless in my my choices/spending habits. i also feel like it was just so important to me to not get so used to being at this income level that i could never take a step back if i wanted to/needed to. i want to have enough money to live comfortably and to be able to afford thoughtfully chosen indulgences. but i don’t want to make obscene amounts of money for doing the most pointless work ever to the point where money is no object for me. idk dude! i want to value the money i make because i value the work did to earn it. and i want to value and appreciate the opportunity to make thoughtful choices about how/where to spend it.

it’s going to be REALLY good for me to be out of this job. god! i hope that three months from now my relationship with my lead seems like a weird disturbing fever dream i had lol. i cannot fucking WAIT to be out from under this woman’s thumb. and i can’t wait to apply everything i learned to NOT being like her in any of my managing roles in the future. phew!!!

[rabbitindisguise]

oh man I don't have holiday plans this year and I know why (it's because I basically haven't hung out with any of my friends for the past 8 months) but it still Sucks especially because I know the past couple months I have just been all over the place mentally and emotionally so I wouldn't but up for it anyways but mrehmreghrhehgugh

it is the first time since *checks watch* 2019 where I genuinely didn't have anyone to spend time with to distract me from the Everything so I dunno I'm really feeling it this year I guess. Doing this without a therapist is really hard. I can tell I'm rapid cycling but it's hard to climb out of it :/ plus the group meeting social thing I go to felt unsatisfying for a number of reasons like I was hoping it wouldn't be. I just feel. Bad.

So like, all of these are the problems, which means once I understand them I can start planning out a way to reframe it and even potentially think of solutions . . . . so okay there's a lot of reasons why this is different from last time. I do have plans just not the day of. It's not that people don't want to hang out with me, most of them are just on the east coast. The last time I had a really good experience but also it was a lot of physical and mental strain and I might react to it more poorly this year. The past couple weeks I've been ruminating, participating in a lot of negative self talk, sleeping poorly, and my routines are still all thrown off. I haven't been talking the breaks I need. This is even a good opportunity to sort out my priorities on how I want to spend my time and strike a balance between online hobbies (which tend to trigger mania) and physical in person meetups (which tend to give me more psychological stability).

It's not even online vs in person, because these negative emotions are affecting me even when I'm talking to friends online. Plus I can use this as a good opportunity to catch up on things, like editing photos from flower piano and other trips and that link collection I promised. This gives me time to work on gifts and black friday too- I want to get the most bang for buck on things I typically can't afford, and having some time available to do that is nice. And for the rest of the time pre-holidays, I can finish updating my bullet journal like I haven't done in forever and go over all the good things/important things that have happened to build a more accurate perception of my progress with my mental health over the past year. Frankly I feel like most of my progress stalled in feburary and it's been awhile of just putting my coping skills to the test. But I do know that even if it feels that way, I have really made progress in some areas, and I should continue to do the habits that I found to be the most helpful in maintaining the best conditions for me to communicate successfully with others and make people feel comfortable. I can send cards again and stuff too as a treat because I find that relaxing.

Other than that this is making me think I should make plans in my budget to get a light therapy lamp because this aligns too perfectly with daylight savings (some symptoms, the particularly concerning ones like anxiety and panic attacks as well as overwhelming dread over social interactions). I don't need to get a new bullet journal, but I should probably consider getting copic refills at some point since I'll be picking it up again and that's a big part of my journaling . . . process? technique? it's what I do when I have some extra energy to devote to it.

List of things to do:

light therapy lamp

catch up on bullet journaling

edit photos

shop for presents, make presents, and send cards

calendar the different events I want to go to (maybe big day holidays in person, smaller less celebrated holidays online, etc)

sleep before 2 a.m.

wake up before 10 a.m.

take my multivitamin (and frankly the rest of my "extra" medications like benedryl) consistently

stay hydrated and fed

make plans for copic budgeting

I also need to be reasonable with myself with what I can actually afford and what I actually need. I've felt an increasing pressure financially because of a bunch of *waves hand* debt stuff but ultimately I can't live my life waiting for that to resolve. So I can sort of make the assumption that I will have money going forward and should start using my savings account properly now that I'm planning on doing that.

[billconrad]

The Phantom Edit

    It was May 1999, and so much was going on. We were about to have the New Year’s Eve party of the century, and the wait was over. Yes, George Lucas released A FOURTH Star Wars movie, the Phantom Menace. Finally!!!

    I was working at a medical device company at the time, and I ducked out to watch the movie a week after it opened. How was this astounding creation? Plain awful. Really? George Lucas is a talented filmmaker with credits, awards, and accomplishments significant enough to fill a warehouse. It’s all true, but those accolades did not save the movie.

    Why? I mean, the film had everything. Fantastic graphics, Skywalker sound, endless budgets, big-name actors, and the best director/screenwriters ever. This creation comfortably rested on the foundation of cinema’s most astounding science fiction creation. All true, but the premise, plot, characters, and film direction were lacking.

    The drive back to work was depressing. Plus, I was out five bucks (it was a manatee). Well, that’s that. I watched a bad movie and nothing can be done. Except there was. One person decided to fix the problems. Mike J. Nichols is a professional Hollywood film editor who edited a VHS copy of The Phantom Menace. His effort included trimming/rearranging scenes, changing dialog, adding the deleted scenes, and limiting exposition.

    The result he titled The Phantom Edit nearly eliminated the worst part of the film, the notorious Jar Jar character. The resulting edit had a snappier pace, the plot made sense, and most importantly, the edit was in line with the prior Star Wars movies. And the fans/critics agreed that Mike had rescued a good story from an awful film.

    This was the first fan edit that was widely shared over the internet. Star Wars geeks like me spent hours downloading this creation because the internet was slow then, but the movie studio and George Lucas reacted differently. They were furious and used every conceivable resource to bury this fan edit, but their efforts had an unintended outcome called the Streisand Effect. Then is when somebody complains about their obscure issue, and the resulting publicity aggravates their problem. In this case, more people downloaded it.

    But that was kind of it. This fan edit was a tiny bump in cinema history that is nearly forgotten. However, this effort inspired many people to do their own fan edits of popular films. La La Land without the singing? Jaws in reverse, where the shark saves the beach? A Star Wars/Pulp Fiction mix? How about a heavy-metal Star Wars holiday special? A decent version of Howard the Duck? A happy version of Twelve Angry Men? You can get it all here:

    Fan edits generally fall into two categories. The first corrects flaws by deleting unnecessary material or adding back the deleted scenes. The second is when editors create something new. I wish I had sat in the movie theater to see a fun fifteen-minute version of The Thin Red Line. That’s two dreary hours I am not going to get back.

    What does this have to do with me? I have never heard of a fan editing a popular book, so that should not be a problem. But I admit it. I spend hours daydreaming about one of my stories, making it to the big screen. Would there be a fan edit?

    Somebody could limit my character backgrounds. A comedy version might be interesting. What about a reorganized timeline? Eliminating characters? Removing the romance? Turning a drama into an action story? Changing the villain into a hero? An X-rated version? A disco version? How about a Star Wars mash-up? I guess that could work.

    Would I be upset if a fan edited my book? I think it is important for an author to understand what it means to publish. Once something is out there, it is out there, meaning that plagiarism, editing, free distribution, or a complete re-imagination is all possible. This means that people will do what they want; a creator should expect this reaction and I should say, “I am honored that you cared enough to spend time reimagining my work.” Yeah, no. I am firmly in the George Lucas camp. “Hey! I spent a huge part of my life creating my books. Leave them alone!”

    You’re the best -Bill

    November 13, 2024

    Hey, book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

   Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in softcover on Amazon and in eBook format everywhere.

[valthevalkyrie]

simple, unserious rant

back in december 2019 my hair was at its most beautiful. my corkscrew curls were shiny and juicy, and my hair had my dream shape, and my bangs fell so beautifully and layered so nicely. the few highlights i still had left over from a year past were some nice little accents. and I was able to maintain it until about april or may 2020.

from that point on due to being at home during the pandemic, i really didn’t let it down. i didn’t see if it was still as nice.

in august 2020 I caught covid and i had it pretty bad. double pneumonia, in the hospital for almost a week, and out of work for like a month maybe a month and a half. to this day, my lung capacity is not quite the same as it was and until the other day i had lost most of my sense of smell, and i’m only just now starting to regain some of it.

six months later, my hair started to fall out and my curls were dying.

because of the stress of losing my hair, which is my pride and joy (and literally the only thing I like about myself and even that I struggle to not find some flaw), i decided to shave off my hair. i was also having an insane amount of gender dysphoria. so, two birds, one stone.

i had never felt such a euphoric experience as when i shaved off all of my hair and walked out of that barbershop with literally the most interesting combination of colors on my head.

for about the next year and a half i not only dyed my hair about two more times with some fun designs, but i continued to shave my hair and i felt so comfortable and free.

as time went on though, i really did miss my curls and i missed having the security of a curl to play with when i’m stressed or nervous, so i decided to grow my hair back out. in march 2022 i did my very last design on a buzzed head for my birthday, and in april i did one last trim in order to start growing my hair out.

fast-forward two years and my hair has never had a health trim, had about 3 inches of split ends and the longest point reached past my shoulders, touching my upper back. it also had no shape whatsoever.

this past wednesday i decided to take it upon myself to at least trim off the split ends and see how much my hair would bounce back. mind you, my curls have not been curling the way they did before i got sick in all the time i've been growing it out (which is a very sad development for me because I absolutely loved the texture of my hair).

unfortunately, i ended up with a somewhat lopsided shape. nothing too bad, one side was just not as rounded out as the other (think circle v. triangle).

today after work, i decided to try and fix that.

big fucking mistake.

i have cut it in a way that i have never managed before in all the times i’ve trimmed and styled my own hair. once again one side is perfectly rounded and layered and the other side is this choppy, blocky mess that i genuinely don’t know how to fix.

it’s bad enough that i think i might have to shave my hair again.

which is i guess a blessing and a curse because i’ve been wanting to do something fun with my hair again and of the few things in my life that I have control of, my hair is literally number one (because it feels as though i have no control over literally any other aspect of my life).

so while i am very sad that i fucked up my hair again, i’m also pretty excited that after the trim on wednesday my hair bounced back quite a bit (the shrinkage is alive and well, thankfully). i think, had i given it the proper trim and continued maintaining it with the right products and care, it would probably be back to its former glory by my birthday.

although i’m going to miss my hair and my curls, i think i’m really excited for the possibility of shaving my hair within the next three days and dying it a nice fun color.

granted, i was never supposed to touch my own hair in the first place. i was supposed to save up enough money to go to a hairstylist. but that lady was asking for $230 that I don’t have. being a baddie on a budget, i thought i could handle it myself. and then, i thought i could fix something that i guess didn’t even really need to be fixed until i maybe went to the lady, because all I did was fuck something up even more.

all of this to say: wish me luck for the next week or so. we'll see how this little cut i've given myself presents itself and decide on shaving it from there. whether or not i shave it off completey, i'm stuck with really short hair again so it seems i am about to start another hair adventure sin querer queriendo 😅

[jrpneblog]

Tough task ahead

With nine games to go it looks a tough task for North End to reach the top six even though we have a game in hand. Norwich sit five points above us in sixth place going into this international break and with West Brom ten points ahead of us it seems realistic to say that only sixth spot is open. Hull and Coventry sit two points and one point above us, respectively and with Middlesbrough two points behind us and played a game more it looks like Hull, Coventry, Norwich and ourselves in the fight for the play off place. Having said all of that if we had beaten Stoke the Saturday before last we might well be having a different conversation so it shows how quick things can change in the Championship. We will look a bit more at North Ends Easter programme next week but with Rotherham, Birmingham, Watford and Huddersfield as our next four games it seems pretty clear that the next three weeks or so will give us an idea of where we are ahead of what could be a massive game at Home to Norwich on April 13th. Much debate goes on as to whether we are punching above our weight but I actually dont think we are. The table never lies and we are where we are on merit in spite of the bigger budgets that other clubs have squandered.

Last Saturday we made the longest journey of the season to play Plymouth Argyle with the 600 mile round trip being made worthwhile as Liam Millar`s goal secured all three points. It was great to see over 1,000 North End fans inside Home Park and the travelling faithful gave North End fabulous support from the first whistle to the last. In all honest it was a game North End should have won much much more comfortably than they did. It was a drizzly damp day but North End always had that little bit extra whether it be quality on the ball or the tenacity in the middle of the park typified by my man of the match, Ryan Ledson. Plymouth should have been down to ten after an horrendous tackle by Miller but once again a referee in the Championship got a major decision wrong. It appear it is something we expect and are getting used to but I have to that the general standard of refereeing in the second tier this season is as bad as I have ever seen it.

With it being the International break this weekend my thoughts turn to England and a couple of high profile friendlies over the break against Brazil and Belgium both at Wembley. I think it is fair to say that both our visitors are going through a transition period and England should be mindful of this whatever the results are. The pressure is certainly building towards the 2024 Euros and Gareth Southgate will be expected to reach the final, probably against France if we miss each other on the way. If we are being honest we should have won the Euros in 2021 but we gave an aging Italian side far too much respect in the final. I do think it is a measure of how far we have come that we no expect to be in there at the death and I think history will look kindly on the current England manager once he has passed the baton on.

And finally this week:- what a great FA Cup quarter final the game was on Sunday between Manchester United and Liverpool. The FA Cup is, without doubt, the greatest cup competition in the world but the greedy FA have once again sold out meaning that from the 2025/26 season the Cup will only be shown on TNT. The FA Cup looks like going the way that test match cricket went as the TV rights were sold off to the highest bidder. The are some sporting events that are for the people and should be free to air no matter what. The Football Association Cup stands very high up in that list of sporting events.

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MATCH PREDICTION -

BRAZIL (H) Friendly International - Home win

BELGIUM (H) Friendly International - Score Draw

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JR`s HIGH FIVES

Harry Kane to score at any time against Brazil 7/5

A £5 Stake returns £12.00 on bet365

SEASONS STATS

Returns £96.00 Stake £160.00

Percentage profit+/-loss - 40.00%

Predictions 33 won 9 lost 24

[dlnj]

Hey fellow diaper lovers , so I don’t know how many people have seen my posts here and know what I’m trying to do. So I’ll give ya the run down really quick, I’m trying to get my doctor or another doctor to put in in my medical charts that I am diaper dependent which then will get insurance to cover it. I’ve been becoming more and more brave about my diapered life and am working up the courage to start talking to my doctor about having accidents and becoming a bed wetter. I fully intend to tell her that I’ve been back in diaper full time bed use for 8 years now and if I go without a diaper I will wet the bed. My doctor is pretty understanding and will most likely just put it in my chart and not get to crazy about trying to run tests and what not. Anyway so I know that doctor which makes it a little uncomfortable (and I actually to leak daily and think I have the begging of urge incontinence and stress incontinence as well. That being said I thought I would start being open about it with total strangers and I was also curious if somehow I could find an adult diaper bank but wasn’t able to locate one near me or anywhere in this area at all, so I thought maybe call a hospital cause they might know better than I do and a lot of the time people donate left over diapers from someone who passed or for what ever reason. So I spoke with This lady over the phone (young probably around my age or younger I’m 38) and explained to her that I have been back in diapers full time at night for 8 years and that I’m not a rich man as I support my family in my check alone we are able to do and buy what ever we want or need but we are on a budget and diapers are part of that budget , I have an order of my typical diapers tranquility ATN which are the best by far my favorite that should have been here already but they have not yet arrived and it could be 2-3 more days without my diapers , that’s a whole lot of laundry and bedding changes instead of just throwing out my diaper which normally lasts all night and I’m not waking up in a soaking wet bed . I told her all of that asked her if she know what I could do and she said to hang on a minute and quickly came back asking me my size and if just a couple would get me through . I then asked her if maybe 4 or 5 would be possible but I would take what ever , I also told her I prefer tap style diapers rather than pull-ups thinking the hospital is bound to have real diapers . Anyway she came back on the line and told me that all they had was pull-ups but they would be more than willing to give me some to hold me over. I thought that was really nice of them. It wasn’t really about getting the diapers it was more about being brave enough to tell my story to someone in the medical field so that I feel more comfortable talking to me doctor and convincing her I am diaper dependent at night and some times during the day too. I am well on my way to being able to get my diapers through my insurance and having it down on paper so there is never a question about it again. Can’t wait til Wednesday when I see my doctor again. I see her once a month normally for my medication but she is also my primary care doctor and easy to convince , so fingers crossed that on Wednesday next week as far as anyone else is concerned I will be incontinent/diaper dependent and hopefully I’ll be able to get my diapers on an automatic delivery and the ones I want and need , free would be nice too. The best part though would be it being a medical thing which means no one should be saying anything g at all about it . I’ve been looking for a discrete pull-up for work cause I already know if I’m in a diaper of some kind I will end up using it completely by accident . I’m sure I would soon ditch the pull-ups in favor of diapers at work too, but baby steps . I’m actually proud of myself , putting myself into an embarrassing situation and it being no big deal, I even went into the hospital to get my pull-ups personally . Was actually fun . Pretty soon it’ll be a perm at 24/7 thing and I cannot wait . It’s more authentic for sure.

[jordanprice]

June 8 - Last Day in Tokyo

I can’t believe it has already been two weeks since I’ve arrived in Japan. Tokyo has been a pretty great time and there have been so many cool things to do. One thing I keep talking with people about is that it doesn’t feel like we’re in Japan, then every once in a while we remember that fact. That’s how comfortable it is. The language barrier is honestly very navigable, and many things have English text as well. The metro is honestly so impressive as well. The trains are always on time and they can get you just about anywhere faster than by car and much cheaper as well. I’ve been thinking that I might want more time here as well, and may end up staying longer in Japan! Between temples, shrines, museums, parks, themed cafes, shopping, arcades, hiking, and more, there has been so much to do here and still so much I haven’t done.

So, the day started out with packing. One thing that was cool is that we were presented the option to ship luggage to Kyoto instead of having to take it on the train. There ended up being enough room in the budget for this, as the exchange rates are very beneficial for USD to yen at the moment. I ended up shipping two bags: my big suitcase and my duffel bag, which was mostly filled with Lauren’s stuff. She didn’t have enough room for everything so I offered it to her to use. Leina was kind enough to show up an hour earlier than planned so that people going to the studio ghibli museum could more easily turn in their bags to be shipped. She is such a W tour guide and everyone on the trip loves her. I’m happy she’s coming to Kyoto with us (because Riki as always abandoned us :( how rude of him).

I unfortunately did not have tickets for the ghibli museum, as they sell out fast and I wasn’t sure about going. However, I did get dragged along with guy Sam to go to a maid cafe. It was him, Bryan, Xander, Julie, and I. I can say with full confidence that it was definitely one of the meals I’ve had on this trip and that it was certainly an experience I had in Japan. It was honestly fairly uncomfortable, and the food wasn’t all that great, but I respect their commitment and the effort that goes into making the vibe of the place. It just wasn’t for me though, but at least I can say I went to one I guess. I do really appreciate the invite from Sam though, he’s a cool guy.

(Also, this photo of Sam actually goes so hard)

Later, Lauren, Bianca, Ana, and I went to the Cinnamaroll cafe. They were headed there from the ghibli museum and I was headed there from the hotel. We managed to get there roughly at the same time, but unfortunately I was late due to google maps lying to me. Once I got to the first station, it showed that the route I was going on no longer was an option, and that it would be an extra 18 mins to get there. I ended up rushing, and was only 10 or so minutes late to the cafe though. The cafe was cutely decorated and everything, but it was quite the let down that one they only had 5 food options, and two that only 2 of those options were actually available (the rest were sold out). I got a chocolate parfait and it was pretty decent. I just feel bad for Lauren because now that’s the second time that something she had been looking forward to and wanting to do didn’t exactly work out. First, Bar Lupin (a bar where famous authors used to hang out) didn’t have seating and turned us down, then Cinnamaroll cafe which had like no food. She apologized for dragging us around to these things, but it’s not like it’s her fault or anything, and I just feel bad that things she wanted to do didn’t work out.

Her and I then went and got food from and food court and it was alright. A couple interesting things happened there though. One is that they MADE ME order four toppings on the pizza I got. Like it said a pizza came with four toppings, and I only wanted two. But when I asked if I could only do two, the guy told me that I had to order four toppings. Also, the “bacon” was just straight up ham, which was a disappointment. The other interesting thing is that when I paid with a 2000¥ note, the cashier looked surprised/confused. One thing that I had heard people mention before on the trip, and that I had looked up, is that apparently 2000¥ notes are rare, having only been printed in the year 2000. Apparently they are mostly only available at currency exchange places. It was kinda funny to me that the cashier then picked up the coin tray in the register and placed the note under it, as there was no slot in the machine for those notes, and it was the only one in there.

(L-Breath lol, why isn’t this a breath mint brand??)

After that, I headed back to the hotel and finished packing (for the most part) to leave in the morning. I’m gonna miss Tokyo, but I look forward to Kyoto!