#it's just easier to not have to put in the energy to allow myself to want

[squarestarheart]

"what do you want for Chr—"

I don't know, I'm not supposed to want anything for myself because wanting things for myself is Greedy™ and I should be satisfied with the things I already have.

And it's very important that I must Want and Appreciate the things that people decided to buy me anyhow, even though I didn't tell them what I wanted (because, like I said, it's Bad of me to Want Things), because otherwise I must be an ungrateful person.

"Hey, what do you want for Ch-"

I don't know, as soon as you started the question, I somehow momentarily was struck with such a lack of desire for any material goods that there's now a school of thought in Buddhism who reveres my ADHD riddled brain as a potential speedrun to enlightment.

[silverislander]

gradually learning that coping w my anxiety is gonna require a level of what feels rn like narcissism (but i know logically is not). i have to respond to "what if everyone hates me" with "so what if they do, they can all have bad opinions if they want to, i hate some people too that's just life". going out wearing outfits i like but am nervous about with the mindset of "i look hot as shit and anyone who disagrees is wrong because it's subjective anyways". about half of trying to get over my fear of social situations has been me hyping myself up by telling myself that not only do i have as much of a right to be where i am as they do, someone there is going to be happy to see me for some reason

[pedgito]

Hi Ali!! I love your writing and I was wondering if I can request dom Joel punishing you by riding his boot??

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆

summary | joel doesn't like gifts, you gift him new boots. [3k]

pairing | joel miller x fem!reader

content warning | 18+ content, as always: no use of y/n, soft dom/sub dynamic, boot-riding, degradation kink, unprotected piv, one (1) face slap, porn with absolutely no plot.

author’s note | original working title for this was new boot goofin' because i can't take myself seriously, idk what this is but enjoy. kel (@beskarandblasters) suggested the actual title for this so thank you babe ♡

↝ other fics | requests? | ao3 | update blog | fic recs

Three things about Joel you were intensely sure of—he was a strong lover. He loved hard and he cared even harder, always willing to put your needs before his own, even to an unhealthy degree in some cases. Two, he liked to be in charge. With his willingness to put you before him, it also lended him to enjoy the role of being dominant in the right situations. He kept a lot of himself locked up around everyone but you. Through the few years you two have become close and started this relationship—if you could call it that—there’s a solid understanding of each other’s needs. He provides the domineering nature you crave and you subdued yourself to him willingly when he puts the facade on.

At first, it never left the bedroom. You both enjoyed the disguise of the dynamics to make things flow easier, not allow things to stall out so quickly and you had all the proper safety precautions in place to allow you both the happiness you seeked out. But, as most things in your life, they seeped through the cracks and bled out, intermingling with the rest of your daily life.

Sometimes it was just a look when you’d say something in public that was indecent or a comment that made Joel’s face go hot, knowing that despite his openness in public, he was still a very private man. He reserved that side for you and only you. And he did so much for you—not just around Jackson, but in your own home. With him being the lead guy for patrols and having such a…special relationship with him, it lended for more leniency when you weren’t feeling great or needed a break from the hectic energy that patrolling liked to suffocate people with, always on the brink of danger. And Joel was always too handy for his own good—always finding a reason to fix up a broken something in your own small house on the outskirts of Jackson. 

Broken pipe? Fixed. Chair broken? Joel could shape you out a new one in a couple weeks.

Last week he had repainted then entirety of your kitchen cabinets because he thought they were looking a little dull—as if they weren’t run down from years of abandonment and like this wasn’t the fucking apocalypse. Despite that, you felt the urge to thank Joel. And not just thank him.

Properly. With a gift.

But—oh. Third thing, Joel hated gifts.

Despised them.

But, you weren’t always the best listener or rule follower.

A patrol with Tommy had you both scheming up an idea when you bring up the option of gifting something to Joel as a proper offering of appreciation, his hand resting loosely on the rifle slung around his chest, fingers tapping against the butt. 

“Well—you know, there’s a clothing store a few miles east,” Tommy tells you, “Ellie and I found it when we cleared out that hoard a few months back—lotsa clothes and shoes, mostly untouched. We could check that out? I need to grab a few things myself anyways.”

You nod easily, “Yeah—that pair he has is falling apart. It drives me insane.”

“Joel doesn’t like to let go of things easily,” Tommy comments broadly, “He’ll make do with what he’s got until it falls apart.”

“Well, he doesn’t take no for an answer when I tell him to stop helpin’ me so he’s gonna have to suck it up just this once.” You smile slightly, earning a soft chuckle from Tommy.

You hoped it would go over well—because Joel did need new boots and there was little harm in an innocent gift…right?

–

Joel is brimming with an energy that only accompanied him after long patrols, the ones that lasted a few days and kept him away. Away from his home, away from you. He doesn’t even attempt the trek toward his own house, rather taking the first right and beelining for your small house at the end of the neighborhood, squeezing his leather covered hands into fists.

He’s anxious, pent up—not with anger or rage, but just a need to release some built up stress. Fortunately, he knew the perfect way to do that. His boots squeak against the hardwood of your front deck, the tattered rubber around the toe of his boot hanging on by a thread as he kicks it gently into the base of the door softly, idle as he busies his mind and prays that you’re still awake.

You’ve been waiting for him all day, his gift hidden away safely as you yank the door open excitedly, nearly tripping over your own pair of haphazardly thrown shoes on the floor.

Joel lets out a soft oof as he catches you, chuckling at your bright and beaming smile.

“Someone’s excited,” Joel chides playfully, though his voice is gruff. He sounds tired, looks it too, “been missin’ me, baby?”

You nod immediately, “So much,” You press a gentle kiss to his lips as he kicks the front door closed with his foot, slowly removing his layers—thick coat falling first, then his thinner jacket he wore underneath to leave him in a thick thermal, his skin still prickling with the winter chill but quickly warming underneath your touch, “everything go okay?”

“Yeah—just a bad storm comin’ in,” Joel explains, ignoring how distracted you were, allowing the soft pecks to his skin as you pulled away, slowly inserting yourself into his line of sight, mischievous grin plastered across your face, “—what are you up to, darlin’?

“Got a surprise for you,” You tease playfully, feeling his thick, calloused fingers slip under the thin material of your shirt, subconsciously seeking some contact with you, “can you go sit on the couch and close your eyes?”

Joel didn’t take too well to surprises, but he trusts you. So, he nods quietly, though there’s a slight hesitance to him as he takes a seat on the couch, slowly unlacing his boots in your absence to relieve some pressure but not taking them off completely, the tongue of the boot hanging lifelessly over his even more pathetic looking laces.

He can hear your soft footsteps as they approach, bare feet against the wood flooring as the couch dips slightly and he feels something hard and solid pressed into his hands.

“Okay, open ‘em,” You tell him gently, watching as he blinks his eyes open, expression mostly unchanging—it wasn’t unlike him to have little reaction, but it did worry you slightly, “—surprise?”

Okay, terrible idea. Got it.

“Darlin’,” God, you’ve heard that tone before, body tensing slightly, “I thought I told you I don’t need nothin’ in return from you.”

“Joel—you’re constantly helping me,” You argue softly, “it’s the least I could do. Plus, you need a new pair.”

“That’s not the point,” Joel tells you, “I do that stuff ‘cause I like knowin’ you’re comfortable, that you don’t have anything to worry about while I’m away.”

“And I worry about you too,” You interject quickly, “Joel—it’s just a gift, it’s okay.”

Joel places them on the table in front of him silently, contemplating thoughtfully.

He’s made it clear on several occasions that he doesn’t like things in return. That he does these things without the expectation of anything in return, but he appreciates the gesture. Joel isn’t used to people caring for him and it feels odd to allow it. And he sees the nervous energy inside of you brimming, like you’ve made a bad choice and you deserve the punishment.

 Almost begged for it. 

Your fists curl nervously in your lap, waiting for any sign that Joel had to offer.

And when he doesn’t respond, you find yourself curling into him out of instinct. Thighs spreading out over his lap as his hands follow the trail from your knees, up your thighs, until his thumbs are settling in the crease of your pelvis. You attempt a gentle kiss, but he’s reluctant to return it.

“Did I do something wrong?” You ask quietly, a genuine curiosity in your voice.

Joel shakes his head slightly, but the hand guiding its way around your neck tells a different story, his fingertips rubbing against the softness of your jawline, forcing you to look at him properly.

“Nothin’ wrong, but I do think I need to remind you of somethin’,” Joel explains in a soft, but demeaning tone, “that when I tell you I can provide for you and don’t need anything in return—that I mean that.”

You wait with baited breath, blinking rapidly at how hot his breath feels against your skin, feeling your cunt throb with need, with an insatiable want for him.

“And since you wanna buy me a new pair of boots—well,” Joel chuckles darkly, feeling your fingers tighten into the thick fabric of his thermal, “you’re gonna have to help me break ‘em in.”

You look at him, perplexed. But, his pupils dilate under your gaze, the subtle shifting as he kicks off his old, tattered boots as nods subtly to the new pair behind you.

You sigh breathily, “Huh—Oh, you want me to—”

“Ride my boot, baby,” He tells you clearly, “Seein’ as it is my gift and all.”

There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation as you slipped from his lap, table skidding back deftly in the process—you grab for the new pair of work boots but Joel is quickly grabbing your face again, squeezing your cheeks sharply.

“Undress first.” Joel says, waiting for your nod of acknowledgement before he lets you go.

So, you do—layer by layer until you reach your bra, unhooking it with nimble fingers as he slips on his new boots. If this were anyone else, you would feel ridiculous. But, with Joel, there was something there, brewing on the surface. He respected you, but he also needed you to understand.

It was a little humiliating, but it wasn’t the worst thing.

Your fingers edge along the hem of your underwear when Joel stops your hands, “Keep those on.” He utters, his fingers dragging softly against the front of the cotton material until he’s cupping your pussy in his palm, soft wet spot growing in the fabric where his fingertips drag across—you’re enjoying this, clearly.

You lower yourself slowly, straddling his left leg with your knees tucked against the bottom of the couch he sat on, pressing your cunt against the cold leather of his steel-toed boot.

Joel relaxes then, arms spread wide over the back of the couch, fingers gripping loosely into the cushion. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart.” Joel comforts, sensing your brimming nervousness as your fingers trailed along his calf, the hard press of his boot right against your core and if you tried hard enough, it wouldn’t take long at all—knowing that even just a little bit of encouragement from Joel and friction could have you coming undone. But, he wants you to work for it.

You start slow, a subtle grind of your hips that shouldn’t feel as good as it does. You sigh softly at the relief, noticing the slowly growing smirk on Joel’s face that you’re trying to avoid, eyes falling shut slowly as you tip your head back, allowing a slow rhythm to start.

“Feels good?” Joel wonders, “Like the idea of me carryin’ somethin’ of you around with me?”

In more ways than one—by a simple gift from the kindness of your heart, but also the desperation of the slick that damped your underwear and painted a perfect mess over his boot.

You nod quietly, moaning softly as you angle your hips to allow the drag of your clit over the solidness of the boot, friction sending your eyes rolling back in your head, hands fisting into the thick denim and selfishly using it for leverage as you quickened your pace. 

“That’s right, baby—want you to think about coming all over my boot for me,” Joel encourages, “can you do that?”

Truthfully, you were holding back. Seeing just how much you could get out of him.

But, Joel catches onto your game.

“You need a little encouragement?” Joel asks curiously, chin cupped in his strong grip, nodding obediently. “Think you deserve that, baby?”

“Please—please, Joel.” You beg, “Fuck—please, I’ll do—”

“Don’t say anything, darlin’.” He warns, “Not when you don’t know what that means for you.”

He keeps your eyes locked on his, squeezing your cheeks gently when you start to fade, the slowly building tingle in your core that wasn’t as easily ignorable now, coiled in your belly and ready to explode. You lose yourself for a brief second, hand fisting into the slack bunch of denim atop his thigh, earning a dull but stern slap to your cheek to bring your attention back to him.

“Eyes on me, baby,” Joel coos, fisting the hard line of his cock under the strained denim with his free hand, looking slightly pained at how much he was holding back himself, “look at you—always eager to please, huh?”

You roll your eyes slightly—and Joel really doesn’t like that. His hand cradling the base of your neck as he holds you still, body pulled just centimeters away from his boot, leaving your pussy throbbing with a lack of contact that your body craved.

“Now you just look a little pathetic, don’t you?” Joel asks, “All needy for my fuckin’ boot—got her beggin’ for it, don’t I?” And you know he’s not addressing you directly, rather the pool of your own slick, shiny wetness on the toe of his boot that gives you away.

 He nudges it against your clit gently, earning a soft whine as you hips instinctively seek for friction—Joel takes a slightly more firmer stance, head cradling both of his hands as he holds you prisoner in his gaze, two thick fingers slipping into your open mouth and grinning at how pathetically and greedily you suck on the digits without having to be told, removing them with a loud pop and a thin string of spit that connects you to him.

And if he was a stronger man, he could hold off. But, he’s so weak around you he can’t even hide it. He lets go in an instant, reaching for the front of his own jeans as he shoves them down his hips until he can manage to slip his cock out over his underwear, fisting himself in an instant.

Staving himself on patrols was torture when all he could think about was you—so he knows it won’t take much. Hell, he’s surprised with how long he’s been able to hold off now.

You admire with a haughty gaze, slowly resting back against the base of his boot, watching his free hand slip under his heavy sack, massaging as he jerks his fist without much rhythm, blinded by his own selfish need for release.

“Keep goin’,” He encourages through a tight breath, “but don’t fuckin’ come, darlin’.”

Your hole clenches and flutters around nothing, wishing that it was his cock stuffed inside of you rather than the plane of his boot pressed against your pussy, the thickness of his fingers alongside the girthiness of his cock a blatant reminder of how deeply you felt him in the mornings and even days after, always fucked so throughly it had you reeling and constantly crawling back for more.

He jerks himself selfishly, eyes falling shut as he feels himself dragging too close to the edge, your moans gaining in intensity, knowing how pathetic you would both look to anyone else. But, there was no one to judge you here—and Joel was beyond feeling the need to be assertive, rather just needing you, to be inside you and have you snug around him and crying on his cock.

Joel pulls you out of your daze hastily, manhandling you until you’re back is flat against the couch, quickly shoving his jeans down far enough that they don’t become a hindrance as he pulls your underwear aside and slips inside of you with a solid push of his hips, the slickness of your cunt allowing no resistance as you both groan at how good it feels, eyes connecting for a brief moment before everything goes black…or white. 

Joel isn’t sure what he sees, but it only takes a few minutes of some hurried and desperate pumps of his hips as his cock nudges that particular spot deep inside of you that has you clawing at the bare skin you could reach, leaving red marks on his neck as he snaps his hips with a finality, coming with a low groan that has your legs shaking, bent nearly in half as he still manages to see through his own haze and drag his fingers over your clit—it doesn’t take more than a couple seconds before you're there, spasming around his cock with a sob, gasping at his overstimulating touch as he continues to press and circle your clit until you’re begging him to stop, his hips slowly pumping his cum inside of you.

Joel finds himself laying slack against you, pants down at his ankles as he allows your fingers to thread through his grown out curls from where his head rests against your chest, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.

“I appreciate the boots,” He says after a while, “if that wasn’t already obvious.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” You giggle softly.

“Seriously, no more gifts, though.” Joel says sternly, “I mean it.”

You pout slightly and Joel catches it, his eyes flicking up to look at you.

“I’m makin’ no promises to that.” You tell him truthfully.

Joel chuckles softly, “Can’t say I expected you to, either.”

[soaps-mohawk]

So...

I've been doing some thinking about a couple of things.

This blog has grown considerably, even from its start and I appreciate each and every one of you so much. Your support never ceases to amaze me and I owe all of you a lot for giving me something to focus on this year instead of spiraling into insanity.

But

Things have gotten a tad bit overwhelming recently between trying to run the blog and trying to write. I find myself either having to ignore the blog to get writing done, or sacrifice writing time and energy to spend time on the blog and keep up with all the replies/reblogs/asks etc. Definitely not complaining, you all never cease to amaze me.

But, I am just one person and my brain only has so much power right now. So, I'm planning to take some (more) time off each week right now while I focus on writing and planning since we're getting into some serious plot stuff soon. So I'm planning to be on the blog three days a week for a while: Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday. That gives me some time to get some writing done as well as some time to rest my brain.

Saturday and Sunday of course to post the chapter and respond to replies and reblogs so I don't get super behind. Monday I'll have some asks queued up as well as maybe a few reblogs. I'll still use the queue Tuesday and Wednesday for reblogs/asks with spoilers as usual. Thursday I'll be on the blog answering asks from Monday - Wednesday as well as things I get that day. I'll queue up a few things for Friday since that day gives me a little break between to prepare for the weekend and posting the chapter.

I'll probably add more days as time goes on. You can still send in asks on the days I'm gone, but just know I won't see them or respond to them until later in the week. I already get behind by a couple days on asks anyway so that's not much of a change.

Don't feel bad for sending them either, I love getting all these asks, I just tend to get behind on days I spend more time writing.

The second order of business

has to do with my taglist. Most of you probably haven't noticed (which I don't blame you lol) but my taglist has gotten very big. Very, very big. It's just over 230 people right now, and I'm sure there will be others asking to join. It's quite time consuming to do all of these tags for every chapter (especially since we can't tag in blocks anymore) so I've been doing some thinking into how I can make it easier for me, and for you.

I know there's at least one blog I've heard of, though I'm sure there's more, that have made side blogs that they have people follow and turn on notifications for and just make a post on that blog when they post a chapter or fic, etc. I've been considering doing that since the taglist is a lot of work and time.

I've also seen blogs that have side blogs that just post chapters/fics and nothing else. I know quite a few of you only follow for the fic, so if anyone is interested, I could put together a side blog like that as well that you can follow and get notifications from instead of having to follow this blog and having to go through the probably 100 posts that I make a day 😂 (at least it feels that way for me)

Having a separate blog for the taglist too would allow me to schedule posts so I can have them come out a bit earlier than I get up for those of you across the world who stay up to read and have to wait for me to post in the morning when I get up (or later like today because I slept in). Of course Ao3 will get posted later because I can't schedule posts there, but at least for Tumblr I can have things post earlier.

So let me know what you think about the taglist side blog and the possible just chapters/fics side blog. Feel free to send in asks (anonymously or not) with your opinion. I might not answer them all (not tonight because my brain is fried and honestly i'm not sure if this is even comprehensible English) but I will at least use them to make the decision (or make a post with all of them and answer it as just one).

[wisecura]

Pretty c.1

💌❤️‍🔥💌❤️‍🔥💌❤️‍🔥💌❤️‍🔥💌❤️‍🔥💌❤️‍🔥💌

I’m updating some old posts so if you’re reading it for the first time - enjoy!

This a Suguru x you

I usually write a lot of unhealthy relationship POVs so please don’t read if you aren’t interested in yandere-type stories 🖤♥️🖤♥️

c.2

Being the little sister of The Satoru Gojo was one thing. Being a member of the Gojo clan was another.

You’d received a lot of kickback from the elders and from your family. You were always expected to be on a somewhat similar skill level as him. And you weren't necessarily weak by any means, but your big brother wasn't someone anyone could compare themselves to in the first place. But, it didn't help that you were close in age- you being only two years younger than him—and that you looked so similar with your stark white hair and blue eyes. The family just couldn't hide the disappointment in your skill gap, making it easier to try and treat you as lesser than.

Keyword - tried.

It was a whole other thing having ‘Toru as your big brother. From the very first day his mother came and introduced you to him- the white haired blue eyed baby swaddled in her arms—he was entranced. Fascinated to find out that he was going to be a big brother. He still had no clue what that meant, but as the two of you grew older, everything clicked into place.

He couldn't get enough of you, and did nothing to hide his favoritism towards his cute little sister.

You were largely harassed by your family and the clan house, though you can’t remember when it all started. You’d never forget the way the maids would throw you nasty glares before scuttling off. Or the way you’d often been harshly scolded for being too loud when you roamed the clan house. Or the way your mother’d look down at you indifference when she’d previously looked at you with such soft eyes. You felt more lonely than you cared to admit.

Satoru picked up on you reclusiing into yourself, and couldn’t stand it. He’d begun clinging to you like a second shadow. Spending more time at your side than before. He’d make his point one way or another. Even if that meant putting both the elders or his family back in their place. Protective is a gross understatement for his treatment of you. But could you blame him. How could he stand silently by when his cute little sister was being harassed by a bunch of old geezers. Hell even the house maids seemed to pick on you.

Satoru was always there for you during those times. Always on your side and always around to lessen those feelings. It was hard for you to be bitter when you had him.

And you can’t say you didn’t know why they picked on you. You were much weaker than Satoru. Not to mention you were born the wrong sex.

You didn't hit a fraction of their standards by a long shot. Satoru clung to you throughout your childhood, protecting you from most of the harsh words, and even harsher punishments they slung your way.

Once Satoru got a bit older, he understood his position just a bit better. The perks given to him as the sole heir of the Gojo clan. The strongest sorcerer in the world, possessing both the infinity technique and his six eyes.

He was fed up.

He’d found himself confronting the current head of his clan. Targeting the source of your bad reputation.

“Your responsibility? Ha! Don't make me laugh. You all have been nothing but a bunch of hypocrites-treating her like garbage since she was four-”

“Satoru, you're being unreasonable. She’s needs to know her place in the clan-”

“Unreasonable?”

Resentment flashed in his startling blue eyes, his cursed energy leaking from every pore. He wanted this man to fear him. Hated him with every fiber of his being.

“Me? Unreasonable? Let me make myself crystal clear. From here on out, my sister will be under my care. None of you are allowed to approach her. scold her. teach her. anything.”

His eyes narrowed in on the Clan Head across the table, staring him down with an iciness that didn’t match his young age. Fucking geezer. Satoru could tell he’d accomplished what he came here to do. He knew he had the upper hand here. The threat only inches below the surface of his words.

I'm stronger than you, old man.

This argument lead to the notorious decision to place your care in Satoru’s hands. Satoru refused to let anyone exert authority over you. Even his mother.

Unfortunately, since no one was able to argue you, you were largely ignored. You’d spent years with Satoru acting as your guard dog. And soon enough it was time for him to leave for school.

Satoru was desperate to ensure your happiness and safety while he was gone, worsening his own reputation in the process. He’d been more aggressive in his actions, often snapping at the people around him and blatantly clinging to you like a child. It never relieved his ever growing anxiety about leaving you, if anything making him more attached to you. He was honestly tempted to just bring you along.

 

“Toru,” you sang, a lilt creeping into your voice, “are you excited to be going to school, soon?” You excitedly jump on his back, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck. He’s always sure to leave his infinity off when you're around him, knowing you liked to plan “surprise attacks” on him.

You had always been with Satoru, as he had always been with you. Being apart like this poses many problems for you. He’s fully aware just how detrimental his absence could be. Loneliness being the growing concern. His family taking advantage of his absence was another.

He chuckled at your cute antics, carrying you around the garden on his back—your feet kicking out back and forth. He’d been on his way to another useless training session. As your best friend, and with his upcoming departure he wasn’t about shy away from you. Satoru chose to ignore your question, figuring that whatever answer he gave would probably make you sad. This likely would be the last time he'd hear your happy voice calling out to him. At least til he returned home for the summer. He felt the silence seep into air between them.

“We’ve got to do something fun before I leave!” He finally responded, trying to sound somewhat energetic, “I’m gonna miss you so much, imouto.” His voice sounding somewhat strained. Your arms wrapped tighter around him.

 

It was finally the day. Satoru would be leaving for high school. The idea of staying in the dorms—away from the clan house, sounded like heaven. If only he wasn’t leaving behind something so precious. He decided that when you were ready for high school, he would rent out a place closer. Away from these people. Maybe within train distance of a beach?

You'd both just stay there instead of coming back home. Until then, he would come back for your sake. Two years. He could wait two years.

You missed Toru like crazy when he was gone. Summers couldn’t come fast enough, and they never lasted long enough. Satoru left a lasting impression, as no one seemed to bother with you. You were often left alone and ignored. Though you didn’t mind it as much.

You took that time to practice and hone your cursed technique, hoping to not be an embarrassment when you joined him in school. Your older brother was so cool and strong. Something you aspired to be.

Toru would come back for the summer, and you could sense that he was happier away from home. It made you sad in a way.

When he finally returned home, you’d showed him how much you've improved in your cursed technique. Which earned you lots of praise from your big brother.

He told you all about the friends he's made while he was in school- including some dude named Suguru Geto. He sounded particularly fond of him, which made you a little jealous (if you were being honest).

At the time you really didn't think much of what he went on about, but it intrigued you all the same. He had never sounded so excited about another person. Well, other than you.

You were eager to start high school, making your own friends, forming your own memories. You were rarely let out of the manor, let alone allowed to speak to anyone other than Satoru. Something that was also set in place by him, Satoru never liked the idea of you roaming around the streets like he did. Too dangerous.

You couldn't imagine what the other students were like. Had you even interacted with anyone around your age? The people you did know were pretty indifferent towards you, or downright hostile. Though, no one could be better than your big brother, as you told him hundreds of times. This fact served to further inflate his ego, not that you noticed or cared. He really was the best big brother. But you were curious. Curious what the outside world held.

 

And just like that- two years flew by. And before you knew it, you were finally enrolled at Toru’s school. Finally let outside the estates' high fences. To say you were ecstatic would be a gross understatement. This time you'd be leaving with him, and you'd get to see the campus you’d only ever heard about. It was automatic enrollment when they heard you were Satoru Gojo’s little sister. Purely on recommendation, and of course Satoru’s sway in the jujutsu world.

 

Rolling up to the campus you saw how beautiful everything looked. A heavily wooded temple surrounded by lush gardens. Your brother's words didn't do it justice. Stepping outside of the car, both you and your brother made way to the dorms to settle in. His constant babbling flying over your head as you took in the sights. You would be in two different classes, of course, but at least you'd still get to see him regularly. And you were stuck in that damn house.

 

Settling into the dorm rooms was easy. The room was slightly smaller than the one you had back home, but still comfortable enough. You’d had your things delivered before arriving, but you noted how there wasn’t another girl in sight. The empty hallways were somewhat unsettling but Satoru had said that not many students enrolled.

Meeting your new classmates was…interesting. You had two other first years joining you. Both boys. Still no girls?... But they looked nice enough. You couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable at how they looked at you when they first met you. Like you were a specimen being observed. Satoru did make a name for himself on campus after all.

 

Kai, the taller of the two spoke first, “You a Gojo?” He circled you with a laid back demeanor, his eyes narrowing in, “Ya definitely fit the look.” You backed away, not fully understanding his meaning. Maybe the hair? The eyes? That makes sense, but what’s with the interrogation?

Kazuo, the shorter of the two, spoke next,

“What's your cursed technique like?” He looked almost like a puppy you thought. Very cute. Definitely not cuter than your big brother though.

The conversation flowed easily. Well easily enough with your lack of experience. It was shaping up to be a solid friendship between you three, and you were excited to start classes. Then you ran into Satoru.

“Toru!” Your face lit up when you saw his tall lanky form. His back was to you, as he stood in the courtyard talking to a few other students. You went to surprise attack him again, as he fell forward. He easily caught his footing, surprised to see you so soon. A wide goofy grin graced his face as he set you down. He was thrilled you were finally able to meet his friends.

“Guys," His voice betraying his excitement, "this is my little sister!” He ushered you face to face with the two upperclassmen. A boy and a girl. The girl introduced herself, and you recognized her name instantly. She was pretty, with her caramel colored hair matched her eyes. The healer!

The boy on the other had stood almost as tall as your brother, only he seemed more…intimidating. His black hair swept back in a bun, and his dark purple eyes, piercing through you. Observing.

He was everything your brother wasn’t, where your brother was soft, he seemed hard. Where your brother was light, he was dark. You easily recognized him by your brother’s description. Satoru had only spent hours talking about him, and you could see why. He was pretty fucking handsome.

You were stunned for a moment after locking eyes with him, you hadn't noticed Satoru calling your name. How embarrassing-

“Aw, Suguru, looks like my lil' sister’s gotta crushy-wushy on you!” He squeezed your cheeks together, causing your face to light up bright red as you swatted at him, yelling, “Shut up, Toru!” You continued smacking at him, as Satoru threw his infinity up. He continued teasing you ruthlessly, spewing embarrassing comments about how cute you were-how red you’d gotten. You didn’t let up on your attempt at a beating. You hadn’t noticed the two upperclassmen’s stares.

Suguru couldn't peel his eyes away from you for a second. Satoru had described a small child when he’d mentioned you. He most definitely hadn't expected...you. White hair pinned up in a half up-half down style, your blue stunner eyes that rivaled even your brothers, and features that would take down a model. You were a Gojo after all.

Suguru could describe you as a lovelier version of Satoru. If Satoru wasn't so irritating. God, he hoped you didn't share his personality.

What had he expected when his best friend said that his baby sister was joining them at the high school this year?

“Satoru, enough teasing. You're gonna make her cry.” Suguru poked teasingly at Satoru, his voice carrying a teasing lilt to it. “‘M not gonna cry!” You basically screeched. Your face and ears were both tinged deep red at this point, and he was pretty damn sure you looked close to crying. He couldn't stop the thought that automatically popped into his head. Pretty. The two boys both broke out in laughter.

c.2

[hellyeahsickaf]

Cooking While Disabled

One of the things I miss most about being less disabled is cooking. It was one of my favorite things to do and something I've always been good at.

On good days there are things I can do that make it easier. It's not the same as before, but I hope that sharing what makes it possible for me to cook helps others who struggle with it.

Tips for cooking while disabled:

You can incorporate precooked food in your meals. For example, stir fry with precooked rice with the ingredients of your choice, or taking frozen pasta (like the ones with maybe sauce and a couple other things) or plain microwave pasta (I prefer these, but heat it first) and putting it in a pan adding other ingredients like vegetables, cheese, garlic, etc

If it comes frozen or canned that can really help. Frozen rice you can just microwave, frozen cut veggies and garlic and onions are good as well

Buy a chopper with different shaped blades, spiralizer, electric slicer/grater, food processor, or any appliance that will save you energy. Ideally machine washable. Stand mixers are also better than manual ones. Especially helpful if you have joint/wrist issues

You can always prepare ingredients ahead of time. I find that sometimes it helps to prep (chopping or mixing ingredients, etc) earlier in the day or even a day before. Then you can put it in the fridge or freezer until you're ready to cook the full meal

Look up easy recipes or recipes for elderly/seniors. With the latter you may find more nutritionally balanced food but an unbalanced easy meal is better than none

You can sit while you prepare ingredients.

You're allowed to take breaks. You can turn the stove off, maybe put a lid on it to retain the heat, sit down, maybe take something for your symptoms. Some things you may not be able to stop in the middle of like making pancakes or deep frying something, but if you're making soup or curry or chili or something, often you can turn it off for a bit and take care of yourself.

If you need help and can get it, please ask for help. I know many of us need to work on asking for help including myself. Even if it's just washing the pots and pans or chopping something. You are not a burden you hear me?

Stretch before and after cooking just as one would before a workout. It will likely lessen any joint pain or stiffness as you are still exerting yourself

Listen to your body. Just as you're allowed to take a break, you are allowed to decide you won't be able to finish what you're doing. You may put away your food before it's done (if this won't ruin the meal). You are allowed to leave a dirty pot in the sink and come back to it later (just make sure you or someone else does before it gets gross). You can wash them in the dishwasher. I know this is bad for the seasoning on pots and pans but you can reseason them to be nonstick again and use nonstick spray

You can buy seasoning mixes rather than using individual seasoning. Instead of parsley, oregano, basil, etc you can buy Italian seasoning. Instead of paprika, pepper, cumin, oregano, salt, etc, you can just get taco seasoning. This may sound obvious but it can save a lot of time and energy

An issue I have is buying perishable ingredients thinking I can use them, having a bad week or two, and the ingredients have gone bad. Try to plan out your meals before shopping and ask yourself if there's an easier alternative for any ingredients. Maybe pre chopped fresh onion instead of a whole one, sliced mushrooms instead of whole, frozen vegetable blends instead of individual, powdered ginger instead of the root, bullion instead of stock that you may not be able to use all at once. I know this is like one of the other points but these are what I find most helpful

Use supercook.com! You input the ingredients you have on hand and you'll get a list of recipes you can make with what you have. Often there's a wide range of complexity and difficulty

Make enough food to freeze or refrigerate leftovers. It helps if you can portion it into single servings in Tupperware or freezer bags. You can prepare frozen burritos for your next few lunches or dinners, separate portion sizes of spaghetti, portion salads, etc

Feel free to add any additions!

[charbies]

linktober 31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I thought for the last day I'd write a little retrospective on what this whole thing was like and what I learned. I'm too tired to draw literally anything else I'm due for a break lol

So this was my second time ever attempting a linktober/october drawing challenge, but my first time managing to complete all the days and prompts. I feel super proud of myself and accomplished for pulling it off.

There were a number of things that were surprising and that were challenging for me that I wasn't expecting this month. If anything, I think this challenge really highlighted my flaws and mental blindspots with how I approach making art.

For one thing, I came away from this not liking everything I made. I think I only like about 9 or 10 of the 30 pieces I put out there. When I don't like my art, I tend to get stuck in this mental stalemate of refusing to finish a piece until I like it, but also refusing to retrace my steps and erase/rework what I have so far for fear of losing progress or not being able to replicate the line/angle/color/etc that I liked.

It was surprisingly hard to accept when I didn't like a piece but had to move on for the sake of time and post it anyway. But once I did it a few times, it got easier. I realized prioritizing my standards over my available energy is not gonna promote progress. If I kept sinking myself into one piece and not moving on until it was optimal, I never would have finished anything-- that was the pitfall that ultimately made me bail out 10 days in last year.

I also realized my sunk cost fallacy/"what if I erase this and can never redraw it good again" stems from some real lack of confidence in my knowledge and techniques with art. I'm self-taught, and I think I tend to believe that everything I make is a dumb happy accident, even though I have mental rules when I draw, use tons of references, and have a process lol. There are a few pieces I started over 2-3 times before I got them right, and that's starting to feel liberating instead of like failing to me now, which I never expected to come out of this experience so that's cool.

Another place I had to learn to let go of control in this was with allowing for style variation. I really wanted each and every piece to be coherent and painterly, like they all came from the same book or something. But then I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do all/no lineart, all/no detailed background, all/no heavy rendering, etc. At the end I settled on just keeping the same canvas dimensions and just prioritizing filling up the space. Glad I ended up doing this, because I really would benefit from continuing to chill out and scale back how much I default to making dramatic, high-render pieces. I gotta break out of my comfort zone and make more sketchy little guys!

Sometimes my attachment to the prompts fluctuated; some prompts I thought I would love and then just wanted to get them over with. Some prompts I thought I would hate and subsequently half-ass, then I ended up redoing them and putting more effort & time into and loved the end result!

It was funny to also see how some pieces that I loved straight up did not get a whole lot of notes or attention. Some pieces I was "meh" about did crazy numbers lol. I'm used to posting maybe 5-6 times a year on here, so I'm usually indifferent to getting notes (by which I mean, I'm super grateful for likes & reblogs and the super sweet & funny messages in y'alls tags, but I'm not butthurt when I don't get notes because whatever happens, happens). Churning out 30 pieces in 30 days made me sometimes get bewildered by what did and didn't get notes, but frankly in the end I think it helps reaffirm that I should continue putting whatever I want out there because it! is! not! graded!!!

So would I do Linktober again? Probably not, sorry! it was a lot of time & effort and took me away from fall festivities more than I would have liked. I kinda only managed to pull this off because I was transitioning between jobs this month and had a week off to just draw. But I also completely see the value in taking on a challenge like this and finishing what I started, I'm super glad I did this, I think my art improved from it. I would definitely do future drawing challenges/prompt things that are quicker or have less prompts!

My advice to prospective future linktoberers: pace yourself and be gentle; this is a great chance to do something exciting and new with your art, but above all it's about you having fun. There are no prizes at the end except for what you've learned and how you feel about it, and that's for the best!!

One thing's for sure, I am zelda'd out lmao so I'll be branching out towards some little projects I have lined up for personal art and other fandoms I'm into right now

So anyway thanks to all of you who read this or who gassed me up this whole month, I appreciate you!!!!!!!! ヾ(＾∇＾)

[thesophistiicate]

How do you practice manifesting?

i strongly take into account my human design chart, so i use it more to inform how i manifest. for me it’s ingrained into my lifestyle. what i do currently:

mood boarding and visual inspiration. in human design my strongest sense is “outer vision” which makes visuals THE most important way for me to manifest. i am constantly collecting pictures on tumblr, pinterest, and instagram so i’m doing this all the time.

using the correct manifesting type. i’m a non-specific manifester so i focus on the vibes and feelings i want. i don’t place limits and i remain very open to possibilities. i usually do this when i am writing my morning pages and also sometimes at night before i go to bed so i fall asleep on those feelings.

morning pages. i write morning pages every day which helps clear out all the junk on my mind. the solution to any problem i have usually just occurs to me while i write and it comes on the paper. i always know what i should do which makes it easier to get what i want (less doubt or confusion). it did take a long time for me to trust myself though.

trusting my gut. i’m a generator in human design so i listen to my instinctual yes/no reaction. i don’t need to go out chasing and initiating. the options are always presented to me and IF I’M PAYING ATTENTION and TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY and DON’T OVERTHINK IT WITH LOGIC i can tell what is a yes or no pretty much straight away. feeling frustrated is a sign i’m on the wrong path so i also take that feeling really seriously. again, took me a long time to get here but now it is easy for most things. the more i get on a path where there’s a lot of yes’s means i’m successfully manifesting and going in the right direction.

putting the rest under the cut bc it’s getting long lol.

growth mindset. if an opportunity falls through i trust that it was supposed to happen that way. something better is meant for me. i take what i learned from the experience and trust i was meant to go through it to be better prepared for achieving my goals. i’m so much more calm this way which also allows me to see opportunities better, bc I’m not reacting to everything from a place of fear, stress, and scarcity.

understand manifesting = opportunities to act upon. i think people forget this. it doesn’t land in your lap, manifesting just brings options to me. i still have to take some level of action which is the hard part!! if you don’t have self worth or self trust you won’t be able to do this well or consistently. you have to actively say yes and do whatever action it requires to follow through. it can be tiny, like sending a message or buying something. but correct manifesting (as a generator) will bring options to me. it’s up to me if i accept or not.

orient my life around my profile and gifts. i’m a 2/4 profile and my gift is gift 3 (highly related to storytelling and living by example). the more i lean into what these mean (connection to community, deep connections, pursuit of knowledge, nurturing others through my writing and storytelling etc) the more smoothly my life seems to go.

i’m chill about it. bc my type is non-specific it’s crucial to be chill. no timelines. no desperation or anxiousness. no trying to decide how it should look or unfold, that’s not my place. the universe has it under control and i don’t need to waste my energy on this. when i forget and try to control too much is when life goes to shit. a hard lesson to learn when we are told to plan every detail and obsess and that being stressed means you’re working hard as a good thing… basically had to unlearn that whole mindset and start over.

sorry it’s a long answer but overall rather than manifesting being some separate activity or just one thing i do, i slowly shifted my entire lifestyle so that it’s a natural part of how i live on a daily basis 🤍

[tootiecakes234]

The Bet (Part 2)

Warnings: smut(MDNI)

The first night goes without a hitch considering once you got home that night you were tipsy, and only enough energy to shower and get in bed. It was the next morning when the problems started.

Day 1:

Saturdays were you and Katsuki’s lazy day. It just so happens that the two of usually like to start lazy days with lazy sex. All the soft kisses and slow motions. Katsuki was always so sweet in the mornings.

So imagine how disappointed you were when Katsuki was already up and out of the bed when you woke up. You find him in the kitchen dressed like a slut at the stove making breakfast.

“Why’d you leave me in bed by myself” , you ask as you wrap your arms around his waist and press yourself against his back.

“ it was either slip outta bed or slip inside you.” He sounded like he was pouting.

“Ooohhh are you struggling already baby??? Cuz I can give you what you want. All you gotta do is say the word.”, you said with a teasing tone.

“Tch not a chance. Now sit your ass down so we can eat.”

You peeled yourself off of him and took a seat.

“So we never went over the specifics for this. What is and isn’t off limits?? Can we get ourselves off? Is oral on or off the table?? Hmmm?”

“No one touches my pussy again til you’ve begged me, so that means no getting ourselves off and no oral. That’s still sex dumbass”

“Sounds good to me”, you were smug now but it wouldn’t last.

You guys had cleaned up around your home this day.

The entire time you were cleaning you were thinking about him. He was just so good looking all the time, no matter what he was doing. He was washing dishes at one point and you were thinking about his hands wrapped around your throat with the soap bubbles in tact. And that made you think of taking a bubble bath with him, and the last time you guys did that…. Whoooo!!

What the hell was happening?? You had only been without sex for less than 48 hours. It can’t be this bad already!

You check your little period calendar and lo and behold you’re fucking ovulating!! What kinda of shitty ass bad luck is that.

“Hey, where is your head right now?? You’ve been zoned out since I started this movie and you were the one who told me to turn it on.”

“I… umm nothing. I was just thinkin. Why are dressed like a slut?? You got something against shirts??, you asked him annoyed.

“Hah? Where the hell did that come from? Since when do you give a fuck what I have on?”, he was looking at you like you’d lost your mind.

“ I don’t care. I just feel like you should put on some damn clothes,” you mumbled this cuz you knew you were being irrational but it’s true! He shouldn’t be allowed to walk around like that. He had on grey sweatpants and nothing else. Not even anything underneath cuz you could see the imprint of his dick.

When you looked at Katsuki again the bastard was smiling at you. “You ready to give in yet?”

“I- yo-…. You’re doing this shit on purpose??? Are you serious Suki?? You’re actually the devil incarnate.”

“You didn’t think I was going to make this easy on ya pretty girl.”, he then dragged you by your foot until you were laying down on the couch and he was hovering over you.

The next thing you know his lips are on yours. He was kissing you so intensely that it stole your breath away. His hands were on you and exploring and you were getting dizzy from it all.

When he pulls away from you, you all doe eyed with your lips parted and bruised. You open your eyes and he’s staring back at you with a grin on his face, “this is gonna be easier than I thought”.

“…….”

There’s no way. There’s no way he’s playing with you like this. He was teasing!

The thing is he wasn’t just teasing you. He was teasing himself and you felt it pressed up against your thigh! Two can play this twisted game.

You reached down between you two and brushed your hand over his hard on. His hissed a little. Ha, got em.

“Sorry, I thought that was the remote poking me.”

“Like hell you did”, he sneered at you.

You leaned up and kissed him sloppily cuz you knew it turned him. You slip your tongue in his mouth and he immediately starts playing with it, sucking on it. A little moan escapes him. Perfect, right where you want him.

You pull back enough to whisper up against his ear, “this is going to be easier than I thought.”

When you leaned back against the couch you tried your best to look innocent, but the laugh threatening to escape comes out as a giggle.

“This is war, you fucking tease”

All you did was smile at him and push him off you. “It doesn’t have to be war hot stuff. It could end here. All you have to do is get on your knees.”

He scoffed at you and got up and started walking away from you. “No way in hell princess! You’re going down.”

He was in a sour mood the rest of the night. That’s what he gets. Tomorrow you were stepping up your game. He’s playing checkers, you’re gonna be playing chess.

*this is longer than I intended but I really struggled with the way I wanted to write this. I think I’m gonna break it up into separate days. I also wanna write some of it in Bakugo’s POV. Let me know what you guys think.

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

@ravenmoore14 @theplacetoputfics @sleepyyhabii

[alilarew23]

the first manifestation is [in] the body

i want you to genuinely ask yourself if the reason you’re struggling to shift states is really due to a lack of faith/belief in your power as god of your reality or if it’s because you’re biologically addicted to the stress hormones associated with “trying” to manifest your desires.

i think most people, like myself, discover the law of assumption at a time when their inner/outer worlds have crumbled.

they’ve lost something or someone dear to their hearts. they’ve been fired. the business deal they thought for sure they had in the bag fell through.

but here, someone on tiktok says, i have a solution. decide what you want. affirm and persist until it shows up.

now, to be clear, i am by no means against affirmations if they work for you, if you’re truly repeating phrases as a means of reminding yourself you already have/are that which you desire to be, or if said repetition helps you shift states.

if something works for you, great.

keep repeating.

but i think there’s a general misunderstanding surrounding the term “persist” that can (and often does) have seriously detrimental implications for people first learning about/applying the law, especially those who haven’t read or listened to material from neville or edward art (yes, there are other wonderful teachers, but for me, the neville-edward duo is where to start).

persist, put simply, means to know, to continually accept your assumption as true despite lack of immediate evidence in your physical world.

acceptance does not imply—and does not demand—any work on the part of the assumer.

acceptance is by nature gentle.

it is a pleasant, “yes, i already am. yes, everything already is. yes, my prayer has been answered. thank you.”

but there’s this energy a lot of supposed-teachers have attached to the term that makes those applying the law think they need to work.

PERSIST PERSIST PERSIST UNTIL IT SHOWS UP.

meaning, if you are not working, if you are not affirming and visualizing and scripting and SATS-ing every second until who knows the exact moment your desire materializes, it will not materialize.

which then gets people in the state of working, of trying, which by nature has force/anxiety attached to it.

which implies not being/having.

how can you work to get something you already have?

how can you try to become something you already are?

when people start to realize this, usually because they either get exhausted and depressed from all work and no results, or they manifest their first neville book that begins re-orient their relationship to the law, they might have the realization that, oh! this can be…mind-bogglingly easy.

like, i legit just decide i have/am something and go about my life and it appears in my physical world?

what a relief!

but then…immediate anxiety sets in.

NOT, at least i don’t think—and of course this isn’t always the case, there are exceptions—because they don’t believe in the law or intuitively know/feel their power to select and step into the reality of their dreams, the one inherently granted to them by their god-selves, but instead because they have trained their bodies to not trust—to not feel safe within—their power.

to not allow for the naturalness of having/being what they desire to effortlessly take over.

which is the key to successful manifestation.

it’s like, oh, ok, it’s done!

but five minutes later, the body says, where is all that anxious energy i’ve been hit with non-stop for the past seven months?

now, if they could sit with this discomfort, they might realize that, actually, that *lack* of anxious energy is a signal to the inner man/subconscious mind/whatever you want to call it that—hell yeah! we have this thing now!—hence the immediate build-traverse of the bridge of events, and a rapid materialization of said desire in the physical world because they are living in the end (present, not desiring)—and that realization might make it easier to stay in the being/having state.

but instead, there’s the bodily pull-back to the trying state.

which leads only to more exhaustion and frustration and depression and the cycle begins itself again.

but there’s such an easy fix.

i did it.

you can do it, too.

here it is.

STAY.

in that feeling of relief. of ease. of almost-disbelief.

at all costs.

it sounds so silly to say your life depends on you sitting in this sort of discomfort, because—what?

how could simply being/knowing/gently accepting be this uncomfortable?

it shouldn’t be, and i’m genuinely sorry for all of us who have had to do the work of un-learning the persist-work stuff, but also, maybe it isn’t work.

maybe this, too, can be easy.

gentle acceptance.

we already are. everything already is.

it is a blessing to exist in and accept this naturalness.

[writingsfromhome]

The Golden Years

A/N: really liked this song the first time I heard it and decided to write something based off of it!!

——————————————

5 years ago:

The halls were noisy with the rush of the bell; the day had ended and everyone was eager to get home on the spring Friday. I sit in the music room with my guitar, strumming softly trying to get the tune out of my head.

The music room had the familiar woody smell, I never really knew if that was from the furnishing or all the instruments but I never got tired of it.

The only other people here are Thomas who’s napping after skipping his last class and the music teacher who’s setting up the class for next week’s lesson. He liked me and by extension allowed me to linger in his class after school. And sometimes let my mates stay hidden from hall monitors.

I wave goodbye to him as he finishes up, wishing him a good weekend. He just misses y/n walking in.

Y/n y/l/n. She moved down the road from me a couple years ago and she was always fascinating to me. She’d made friends her first few months here and stuck with them—those same friends hated my friends for various reasons but they always gave me an excuse to interact with her albeit in an annoying way.

Y/n was known to win out the lead for any play our school has put on. She had an infectious energy and I’d spent every moment she caught my eye gazing at her—not that I’d admit it if anyone ever asked.

She spots me and smiles, I remember to smile back at the last minute, shocked that she was acknowledging me with one. We hadn’t been nice to each other in a while; the circles we ran in loved to hate each other.

“Hey Harry,” she walks up to a nearby desk and perches there. “Whatcha working on today?”

I try to compose myself, “hey. Y/n. Uh I’m just trying something out. Something new.”

“Can I hear it?” She asks, her eyes alight with a genuine interest. It catches me off guard again.

“Really?”

“Yeah! I asked didn’t I?!”

“It’s really rough.”

“That’s okay,” she shrugs. She makes herself more comfortable.

“Really rough I-“

“Please?”

With a bat of her eyes I’m putty. I take in a deep breath—here goes nothing. Or if anything this would just be one more thing her friends could make fun of me for. Maybe that’s why she was here.

I strum her what I’d been working on for the last hour and hum along. She listens intently, her expression shifting and opening up as the chords change. Being me and nervous, I end it on the wrong note and nearly poke my eye out with the neck, making an awkward save as I set it down on my lap.

She sits quietly after the production, back straight and gazing out the window with a relaxed smile.

“I know you said that’s rough but that was amazing.” She says to me. “You’re actually bloody talented Harry.”

“Aw uhm well thanks,” I mumble. My cheeks feel on fire. I rarely played for people like this. If they were around while I worked on pieces that was alright but I’ve never had an audience of one.

“No really! You have a gift how long you working on?”

“The day.”

“The day!” She shouts and her enthusiasm makes me laugh. I don’t know why she was being so nice to me but it fills me with a buzzing joy. “You have such a way with your music like each strum is a new part of a story. It’s good! I can imagine it in a movie.”

I blush harder, “Thanks I um…I really enjoy it. Sometimes it’s easier to express myself with this than with…with like a conversation?”

She nods in understanding, “Y’know you should share your music. Start a channel or something online and post stuff! Like covers—people love covers-“

“I don’t really like to sing.”

“But I bet you’re good at it too?”

��Uhm nah I’m-“

“Don’t get shy on me now!” She nudges me and I swear I feel it linger even after she moves her hand away. “You’re such a tough jerk in the halls when you’re picking on my friends don’t go soft now.”

I laugh until I’m doubled over, part overjoyed and part embarassed because it was true. I don’t know why I was suddenly being shy.

“I’ve got to warm up my vocal cords,” I touch my throat once I’m done laughing. She grins. “I can’t sing right now.”

“I’ll hear it one day. I’m holding you to it.” She points a finger at me. “You should be performing this stuff.”

The idea of performing outside the walls of the music room felt both exciting and daunting. But the earnestness in y/n’s eyes give me a sense of courage.

"Maybe," I shrug. "I've never really thought about it.”

"Well, maybe it's time you did," she suggests gently. "Don't let your talents stay hidden."

“Yeah,” I smile. “Makes sense coming from you.”

“What’s that mean?” She raises a brow.

“Our year wouldn’t be blessed with all your productions, you’ve got natural talent too.”

“Yeah well,” now it’s her time to blush. “I really enjoy it.”

“I know.” I say. She catches my eye and a tender fondness passes between us.

“Anyway, I promised Clara I would braid her hair before her football match so I’ve got to go. But…it was nice talking Harry.”

I watch her go and I can’t wipe the dopey smile off my face the rest of the weekend.

5 years later:

I didn’t think I would see her here. After all, she lived across the pond these days and had rsvp’d as a maybe.

But there she stands with the same group of friends that surrounded her even back then. They’re all a little older, grown into people their secondary selves could only imagine becoming. But even now, they’re faceless next to her; she commands all my attention.

She looks stunning in a simple blue bridesmaid dress and her hair grown down in waves. The wind lifts her hair and she looks as majestic as the first day my eyes landed on her. As radiant as every day I’d been with her afterwards. She was golden sunshine and every minute I got to spend with her had been golden too.

Four years since I last saw her. Those four years had gone by in the blink of an eye; it had been fun ‘til it hurt.

I feel a surge of emotions—longing, regret, and the tiniest speck of hope. They compete for dominance as I indulge studying her for a moment longer and just as I look away her head lifts, catching my gaze for the briefest second.

My heart races.

I turn and wander to where my mates pass a football around. Just like we used to. Some things never changed.

Some things did.

“You see her yet?” Thomas asks.

“D’you not see the look in his eye?” Abe, his twin brother, asks.

“Yeah I saw her,” I interrupt before they wheedle me for how I looked. I could imagine it, the regret and sorrow etched into my face. “It’s been four years I’ve already told you lot I’m over it.”

My friends glance at each other.

“I am.” I insist.

“The lady doth protest—ow!” Ramo rubs his chest where I’d tossed the football.

“Where’d this even come from?” I nod to the football.

They shrug, “Some kid had it. We stole it from him.”

I sigh and look around the space. One of our best mates from secondary was getting married to Hailey, one of Y/N’s mates. That’s why half of our class was here a short walk from where we all went to school.

The reception should have started a half hour ago but the couple were stuck in traffic. Apparently. So all the guests have been entertaining ourselves and that meant stealing footballs from children.

“What happened to that lady you were supposed to bring along?” Abe asks.

“Lady?” I ask.

“Yeah wasn’t she a few years older than you?”

I repress the urge to sigh, the same as when we were school boys these friends never stopped teasing each other. Of course I also did my fair share but the trick was to never let them know it cut too deep.

“We ended things a while ago,” I say as if it doesn’t poke at an old wound to say.

A while ago was two weeks ago when she found out my ex would be at the wedding and I had sent a text to the best man clarifying if she would be there. She had seen the message and gone batshit, talking about trust and about being emotionally closed off. It was hours of arguing into the night before she’d left home. We’d broken up the next day.

The old wound was feeling like I was never going to find love like I did with her. With Y/N. Every relationship I’d had since crashed and burned worse than a Nascar vehicle with faulty mechanics.

If I would've known those were the golden years, I would have done things so differently.

But for the last two weeks instead of pathetically staring at pictures with my ex and wondering if I should call her to make up, I was pathetically looking at the polaroids of Y/N and I that I kept in an old box. I wondered what happened to the ones she had, if they had gone up in flames or if they lived in a shoebox under her bed.

My attention’s snagged by the boys elbowing each other and glancing at me and then behind me. I turn just in time for y/n and a couple of her friends to walk up to us.

I try to play it cool but I don’t know how I look; probably like a deer in headlights, and y/n is the bright stark headlights.

But her eyes slide off of me and onto the group and it feels like I’ve become the deer after the headlights have blinked out of sight.

“If it isn’t the poor four,” one of y/n’s friend uses our nickname from school. “And who’s this?”

“Dinis,” Dinis puts the football down and extends his hand to Clara. We watch them flirt.

“Didn’t you know Dinis in college?” Abe asks.

“Clara moved away in college,” y/n says smiling at the interaction happening in front of us. “Obviously she hasn’t felt the Dinis-effect yet.”

Her friend and her laugh.

“Oi Y/N haven’t seen you in a minute how’s the Angel City?” Ramo asks.

“You mean the city of angels?” Y/n raises a brow and the group laughs again. I’m too mesmerized watching her talk, seeing her alive and in person in front of me to catch the joke in time so I smile along with the group. “It’s cool, always something to do. But I don’t actually live there anymore I moved out of the city last year. Get some breathing room.”

My heart skips a beat. “I heard the city’s as rammed as ours.”

I anticipate her attention, us locking eyes, something passing between. When our eyes do meet I feel a rush of familiarity and uncertainty.

And she simply glances like I’m just another bloke to her, nods, and the looks back at the group. “Yeah sometimes even worse if you can believe.”

Someone else asks another question but my head is filled with a loud buzz. Reality feels like it crushes me down as easy as an aluminum can; I was spared a glance. She spared me a glance. That’s all I was to her?

“Where d’you think the newlyweds are?” Clara asks.

“Traffic,” Abe rolls his eyes.

“Think fast,” Thomas suddenly shouts and the football is whizzing past me towards Clara. We watch in horror as it hits her with a thwack in the chest.

“What the fuck Thomas!” Clara holds her hands out as she stares at the dirt staining her blue dress. “What the-“

“That’ll come off,” Clara’s friends assure her. “It’s not mud don’t-“

“Here,” suddenly Denis is beside her and holding out his hand. “I’ll help you clean it off.”

“What the hell mate?” I look at Thomas. He’s flushed and looking scared. I’m too busy looking at him to notice Clara’s pitched the ball back at him and it hits him in the side of the head, knocking some sense back into him.

“Nice one.” Someone mutters.

“I’m sorry!” He finally finds his voice as Clara walks away with Dinis.

“You’ve got shite all over your hair,” Abe points out to his brother.

“I’m outta here before I’m next,” y/n’s other friends starts to back away to the group they were in previously.

“Where?!” Thomas starts rubbing it off which only spreads it further into gelled hair.

“Let’s go,” Abe hauls his brother away with an arm locked around his neck, tussling the dirt in his hair as they go.

“So…” Ramo looks between y/n and me, scratching the back of his head. “That was crazy. I should return this ball to…”

He trails off, walking away from the two of us. Which wouldn’t have been as awkward except he just left a cloud of awkward in his stead.

“Y/N,” I say softly like I was approaching a feral pup.

“Harry,” she replies, her tone polite yet distant, a subtle barrier between us.

“I don’t think they’ve changed much,” I act like I wasn’t aware of everything unspoken.

She smiles politely. “Nope. Just as boyish as the day we all met.”

“That wasn’t our proudest moment-“

“Yeah you boys thought you could beat us girls at British bulldog.”

“Little did we know,” I shake my head. We’d been badly beaten and battered by the girls’ team. We didn’t take to losing very well back then.

“If only we knew then what we know now.”

I look over at y/n; it felt like she was saying one thing but meant something else. Something that sounded close to reminiscing about us.

But with how she was acting it made me feel like I’d made us up. Was it never that serious for her?

“Wouldn’t have fucked up so much?” I ask.

“Yeah something like that,” her lips tip into a half smile. She still hasn’t looked me in the eye for more than a second. I missed those eyes. I missed the way they used to look at me.

“How’s the acting?” I ask. I wait for her to look at me, acknowledge me more than she did. Wait to see if alone together there would be more meaning in the looks we exchange but she stays facing forward.

“It’s slow right now. I haven’t been booking much this season which is why I was able to make it to this.”

“Sorry to hear that,” look at me I want to say instead.

She shrugs. “It happens. Slow seasons then you find yourself booked back to back and burnt out. Nature of the biz as they say.”

“Very LA.”

We go quiet and I feel my heart explode at the distance she was keeping; I can sense her guardedness.

"I've missed you," I confess quietly, unable to hold back the truth any longer. "I think about you often."

Her gaze softens, a fleeting vulnerability crossing her features before it hardens into something stonier.

"It’s been four years," she notes in an even voice. “Surely you’ve moved on Harry. Don’t try to flatter me now.”

I don’t think I had moved on, I think with a sinking heart. I hoped tonight would be a night of reconnecting and exploring if there was anything left of us in the future. But it seemed that y/n had made up her mind about what her future was going to be long before this.

“Oh look Clara’s back,” she spots her friend walking back towards us. Dinis is nowhere in sight but she’s splotchy and windswept.

“I’m going to literally kill that prick. I’ve got a wet spot on my front like I’m still bloody breastfeeding or something.”

“It’ll dry up,” y/n pats her friend’s dress. “It’s sunny out don’t worry.”

“It better by the time we do photos.”

It’s like I’m not even there. They continue talking and slowly turn to walk back to their other friends.

“Nice talk,” I call out.

Clara’s still too busy ranting but y/n glances at me. Her smile is a reflex as she waves, unengaged and apathetic.

I feel a jab in my chest, I don’t know what to think. The last four years I’ve been so afraid I’d let go of the best thing. That I’d never find a love like hers. Meanwhile she’s moved on so much that I wasn’t even an ex any longer. I was just someone she knew in grade school. That hurts. It feels like lava dripping over my chest.

“Y’alright?” Ramo reappears at my side. He looks genuinely concerned.

“Yeah!” I put on a smile I don’t even feel. “Just wondering when this party’s getting bloody started.”

I feel Ramo’s eyes on me as I walk towards another drink but he doesn’t say anything more.

***

I sit with my arm around Y/n and her head rests on my shoulder. Sometimes the quiet moments we existed in beat out the others. They fed my heart and heightened every sense of mine.

“I wrote something,” I whisper into her hair. She turns her head to look up at me and I gently pull away. “A song…for you.”

“For me?” Y/n’s eyes are alight with shock and something else. “You wrote a song for me?”

My heart pounds as I confirm with a nod. “I’m halfway done but I wanted you to hear it.”

“Well go on,” she sits up and angles herself towards me. “I want to hear it!”

I pull my guitar case closer to me and open the familiar snaps, pulling the instrument out and close to me with shaky hands. Y/N watches with an excited attentiveness.

I began the melody that started as a few chords in my head the first time Y/N and I kissed under this tree and has continued to build for the 4 weeks since. This tree felt like it witnessed so much of the 5 weeks we’ve officially been together and I wanted to write an ode to it as much as y/n.

I couldn’t believe it was only 5 weeks but after a summer and a whole semester of flirting and hanging out I’d finally asked her out at the end of January. It was now March and Y/n had gotten her acceptance letter from across the ocean. She had told me last week with nervous hands and I wanted her to know we would always have this thing between us no matter what decision she made.

Y/n smiles as I begin but her eyes grow misty as I finish my final lines I had so far.

"And under the cherry tree, where love and laughter will always be," I sing softly, my voice cracking with emotion. "I'll cherish all these memories, even when you're not beside me."

“Oh Har,” she tips forward and I catch her against my chest, her head buried in my neck. “I can’t imagine living so far from you. Leaving you and everyone behind.”

“It’s the adventure you’ve been waiting for,” I reassure her. “You’re gonna make it big.”

“I don’t know if it’s worth it,” she whispers.

I pry her away gentle so she can look me in the face. I want to selfishly tell her to stay and never leave me. But even more than that I want her to do what she has always been passionate about, what she loves to do.

Love.

I love her, I realize with a clarity that cut so deep it tumbles out of my mouth.

“I love you,” I say. She freezes in my arms and I fumble to continue. “And I want you to live the life you always imagined. You’re destined for amazing things y/n I know it. I’ll always be here.”

“Will you?”

“Of course,” I kiss her on her temple and ignore that she didn’t say it back. That I said it too soon damnit we’d only been dating a month. What was wrong with me?

“I think you need to share your talent with the world,” she reminds me.

“That’s why I joined the talent show with you.” It was y/n’s idea, a final hurrah before we graduate and to prove to myself that I could get over my performance anxiety.

“We’re gonna crush it.”

I nod, the lump in my throat grows too big for words. She seems to sense it like she always does and pulls me into her this time.

It would take her a week to whisper the three words back to me, in the darkened corner of a house party right before she leads me home. It was a long week but so worth it.

***

The next time I catch y/n alone is when I’m talking to Hailey who’s thanking me for the few words I gave for her now husband Michael. The husband in question was doing the Macarena and Hailey was the sort to never be caught dead doing that sort of thing.

That’s why the couple never made sense to either group of friends. Yet they were the ones with a ring on their finger this many years later.

“Hailey oh-“ y/n is tipsy, I can tell with the sheen to her eye and the permanent half-smile etched into her lips. “Sorry didn’t realize-“

“That’s alright!” Hailey wraps her arm around y/n. “This girl is the best. She literally hopped on a last minute flight to be here! Can you believe that? I was crushed when she said maybe but ugh she always swoops in last minute saves the day. That’s always been her, back in the day during one of our school dances right, I got caught with…”

Y/n and I lock eyes as the bride babbles on and there. Finally there. The passing look of two people who know what the other is thinking without a single word.

She seems to catch herself and after an intense few seconds and a small smile she composes her face into an unengaged one and jostles Hailey.

“Hailey Harry doesn’t care! I just wanted to get a photo with you and Mik-“

“He’s too bloody busy doing cringe dances-“

“He’s actually having a drink looking for you now but look at this.”

“What?” Hailey’s head swivels around the room as y/n presents her phone with the groom doing a very serious macarena.

“And they say gen z get all the cringe dances,” I comment. Y/n snorts and then covers her mouth, her laugh falling away into a composed expression.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” I say before I can think. A part of me was getting desperate and a little irritated and another felt heartbroken all over again.

“Do what?” She asks as Hailey prances away from us when she spots Michael.

“Be all serious and composed around me. If I’m funny just laugh. My ego could use a lift.”

She stares with a tight lip and cautious eyes.

“You used to laugh the most at my jokes,” I say a bit softer. “Made me feel like the funniest bloke in the room.”

Her eyes lose a bit of their edge but her mouth is still hard-set and a wrinkle forms between her brows. That was new.

“I-I’ve gotta go.” She says. “Gotta get the picture.”

“Right,” I shove my hands in my pockets and watch her go back to the married couple. Right before she reaches them she turns slightly. When she finds me still watching, she jerks back around.

Hope siphons into my chest.

***

“This is the best song!” Abe shouts in my ear as he and the remaining wedding guests belt out Sweet Caroline.

It was late into the wedding party. Much of the older invitees had gone home and kids with their footballs were probably tucked into bed. What remained were Hailey and Michael’s school friends and a few stragglers that were too drunk to want to go home.

“Final song,” the DJ announces. “Time of my Life.”

All night I had been stealing glances at y/n waiting to see if she would come to me. Reciprocate even an ounce of anything I felt. But she hadn’t. She’d gone out of her way to avoid me even when we’d bumped into each other outside the toilets. She’d simply brushed past with a mumble of something I couldn’t make out.

I think what I said to her made her angrier. The anger, and the cold shoulder was new. It makes me feel small.

But I’d had enough drinks by now to feel confident. Enough to walk to where she dances with some friends.

“Y/n.”

She startles and plays it off with a laugh. “What d’you want?”

I motion my head to the side. To talk.

Hesitation makes her eyes weary but she follows after a moment.

Everyone around us sings along to the song. The irony isn’t lost on me.

“What?” She asks.

I stare at her openly, she allows me as she searches my face herself. I grasp at something to start this off with but I’ve had a few drinks myself.

“I used to think you were completely out of my league,” what comes out is a random thought in the speech I’d built up in my head throughout the night.

Her nose wrinkles, “what are you on about Harry?”

“Don’t do that,” I clutch my shirt. “Don’t act like we’re strangers, like we didn’t have something together.”

Her smile falls away, “we had something…like four five years ago. That’s…that’s ages ago Harry. Tell me you’re not still hung up on it?”

Her voice cuts right through me but it’s her gaze that doesn’t quite look at me that gives her away.

“Look me in the eye and tell me I mean nothing to you now,” I cut through the bullshit. It might have been the realization that I’d stayed hung up on this woman for years, sabotaged my love life on the idea I’d find nothing like what we had. And she stood here in front of me now undermining what we had. Making me feel crazy.

She looks me in the eyes, the eyes that haunted me in my dreams.

“I…it was a long time ago Harry.”

“Then why’ve you been avoiding me all night?”

“I haven’t. We’re talking now?”

“So I’m nothing to you?” I ask, hearing the hurt and wishing I didn’t sound so desperate.

“Look. We were young and free and what we had back then doesn’t actually translate to much when you look back as adults.”

“Is that what you tell yourself? So you can freeze away your feelings for what we had?”

She gapes, then turns away with her arms wrapped around herself like the freezing caught up.

“I don’t know what you want.” She finally says.

“I just…” what did I want? “I want to know if you ever think about us. If you have any regrets…if…”

She sighs, “Of course you cross my mind from time to time. But I wouldn’t have regrets. I can see why someone would have regrets, however, after they just let someone they called the love of their life go. Especially when she needed him the most.”

There it was. Her hot anger.

“When you needed…”

“Yeah!” She barely glances at me. “I was scared of leaving and losing you and being alone and all the unknown things. And you left me. You just…said goodbye to us.”

Woah.

Her eyes prick with tears and she turns back to the dancing crowd. The song was winding down and the venue being cleared. I feel the opportunity pass through my fingers.

If I would have known, I would have held her longer. I would never have left her alone. Especially when she needed me the most.

“Y/n,” in a desperate move I grab for her arm and turn her back around. Her lashes are lined with tears, her mouth open in an “o” as she looks up at me. My eyes can’t help themselves as they flicker down to them. This was the closest I came to holding her like before. Her eyes do the same and I feel my heart racing in my chest.

“I’m sorry,” I croak. “For what it’s worth.”

“It’s not worth much,” she says through a watery smile. Trying not to cry; trying to stay composed.

“I’m still in l-“

“Stop,” she puts her hand on top of mind and gently nudges it off her arm. She shakes her head and her hair falls gently to cover her face. “I can’t do this right now Harry. I travelled all this way to celebrate our best friends. But the distance between us was for a reason.”

“It’s been years-“

“Doesn’t change how you left me after I gave you my whole heart. Or the fact that that we ended.”

“I truly an sorry,” I say to her retreating figure.

The shame I feel courses through my body; I couldn’t have known better back then. I was young and stupid and I didn’t realize these types of decisions weren’t to be made lightly. That their repercussions would echo for the rest of my life.

I left her under the cherry tree in the courtyard of the school we’d graduated from. It was late June and it haunted my memories since.

—

Under the skyward branches of the blushing cherry tree, a solemn silence hung in the air. It was the last day of our final year, and emotions swirled between us like the spring breeze.

Y/N stood with her back against the tree trunk, her yearbook clasped tightly to her chest, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. I stood before her, my hands nervously clenched in my pockets, heart heavy with the weight of impending decision.

"I can't believe it's over," y/n murmured, her voice cracking with emotion as she meets my eyes. "Four years went by so fast."

I nod, unable to maintain eye contact. It wasn’t school ending that was making us this sad but what would come of us as I would attend school in the country and y/n out.

This decision weighed heavily on my mind ever since I learned y/n was attending ucla across the ocean—a decision she had made long before we acknowledged our feelings for each other. Now facing the idea of long-distance, I couldn’t shake the fear that everything was changing and things would be different in an unknowable way.

"Yeah," I manage to reply. My voice comes out hoarse, my throat tight with tears I was pushing down. “I'm going to miss this... miss us I…”

Her lower lip trembles, emotions ripple across her features. “Harry god I’m gonna miss us, you…just getting to be together everyday!”

I scrub at my eyes, not wanting to cry right now. She notices and wipes them for me. “You've been my rock through everything this last year."

I take a step towards her, closer. She was the sun and I wanted to bask in her glow, always. Except today wasn’t a bright day, my heart breaks at the sight of the tears streaking her cheeks. “Y/N I…” I try to find the right words but they fail me again. In the meantime a hundred chords play through my mind, deepening the grief I felt.

Suddenly a surge of panic grips me, my blood turns cold like it usually did when I thought about her leaving me. When I consider the depth of what this meant.

Deep down I couldn’t bear the thought of losing y/n but at the same time the unknown was playing at my fears, my anxiety. Imagine a future where she’s thousands of miles away. Everyone I know who talks about long-distance always gets their heart broken…distance never makes relationships stronger.

What if, I think, what if I just rip the bandaid off.

Wouldn’t that be the merciful thing to do? Instead of continuing to a point of no return. I mean what if we try long-distance, y/n creates a life in America, and realizes I was holding her back? What if we end up hating each other?

My brow feels slick and my heart pounds away. I clear my throat.

“I love you y/n.” I tuck her hair behind her ear.

“I love you too,” she whispers.

“After this summer, after you leave-“

“We don’t have to talk about this right now let’s just enjoy now and-“

“How can we?” I finally break. “How can we enjoy now when we know there’s an expiry date to all this!”

“Harry,” y/n grabs my hands. Attempts to soothe my anxiety but I’d passed the point of no return. The words continue to tumble out.

“What if…maybe it’s for the best if we…if we let go now.”

“What?” Shock colours y/n’s face and her eyes fill with tears. “What are you saying Har?”

“I don't want us to... to hurt each other trying to make this work.”

Her mouth hangs open and I can see her heart breaking in front of me. It kills me inside.

“But Har,” her voice grows desperate. “We talked about…we could…we’ll make it work-“

“Y/n,” now my own grows desperate. I wanted to stop talking about this, now that I’d made the decision to let go I wanted to just cut this loose and run away. “We’ll only hurt more.”

Her lower lip trembles and tears coat her bottom lash as she looks up at me through her top lashes. She whispers, “This isn’t fair.”

“I know,” I hang my head. “I’m sorry.”

And I was. I didn’t want to be the one to break us up but what choice did I have? I was doing it as the best case scenario.

Tears spill down y/n’s face and her voice is barely audible over the rustling of the cherry tree, “b-but I love you.”

I close my eyes for a brief moment, the sway of the leaves now roaring in my ears. Or maybe that was just the blood rushing to my face. I feel my heart turn to dust and my entire body aches as the weight of the decision coats me. “I love you too y/n. I love you now and always.”

I clasp her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back, a sob pulled forth by the contact.

“Y/n…maybe this is how we say goodbye. On our own terms. With space to…to heal.”

Y/n cries harder and I pull her in, tucking her into me because she fit so perfectly in my contours. A part of me couldn’t believe I was doing this, I always imagined our goodbye at a Heathrow terminal under bright lights and linoleum floors.

We both cry into each other but I pull away first, I had to be the stronger one.

“I wish you nothing but the best,” I cup her face. “I…”

I didn’t know how to translate the dust of my heart. I kiss her one last time and then again on her forehead.

With that, I turn away unable to stand in the heartbreak. Every step away from her and the cherry tree feels impossible but I walk away from the girl who was my everything, feeling torn between the love I had for her and the fear of what the future would bring.

—

All I’d been thinking about was myself. About how I’d had friends who tried long distance and how their ending was more brutal than ripping the bandaid off from the get go.

That summer we avoided each other at parties, at our local haunts, and on the day she left I watched her car pull away from my bedroom window and leave forever with a leaden feeling in my heart. That I’d made a big mistake, too big to ever fix.

Tonight was the night I was supposed to set thing right. But things were just getting worse.

***

“After party!” Abe wraps his drunken arm around my shoulder. By then I’d sobered up with a quiet moment off to the side, smoking even though I’d tried to quit ten times in the last month. “I thought you quit that you cheeky bugger!”

“I’m going to,” I squish the cigarette against the wall. “You said after party?”

“After party!!” Ramo hollers coming up from behind. I take in the scene before me, the string lights were having their power cut, most of the tables were wiped clear of cutlery and tablecloths. Just like that the magical night Hailey and Micheal had been planning for months was over. Now they had their whole lives in front of them.

“Har?” Someone snaps a finger in front of my face.

“Huh?”

“Where’d you go?” A group had gathered in front of me, a mix of groomsmen and bridesmaid. Y/n isn’t one of them.

“What?” I ask again. “What’s this about an after party?”

“The party isn’t done,” someone replies.

“Please?!” I hear someone else say off to the side. Now that the music had also turned off it had gotten quieter in the venue.

I turn to the other conversation and see Hailey tugging y/n’s arms, trying to convince her of something. And just like that y/n’s eyes meet mine and something like resignation passes through them.

“-you in?” Michael claps my back and I’m jolted back to the crowd in front of me.

“Yeah,” I assumed they asked me about this after party. “Let’s keep the party going!”

Whooping ensures and everyone trickles out into the parking lot.

“Where is this again?” I ask whoever was closest to me.

“Schoolyard?” Clara answers. “If we don’t get kicked out for loitering that is.”

“We’ll just have to be quiet.”

Clara side eyes me and realizes I’m joking. She huffs a laugh. “It’s like hoping for your 1 year old to go to bed without a tantrum.”

“That’s right,” I suddenly remember. “You had a baby last year. Congrats on that Clara.”

She laughs again, “You’re sweet Harry. Thanks. It’s been a hell of a year but I’m a glutton for punishment because all I can think of is skipping the after party to bury my face in my daughter’s. She’s probably asleep though. I’d wake her up.”

I imagine Clara with her daughter, she was always mothering her friends when I’d hang out with y/n in school. “I can see you being a wonderful mum. Your daughter probably adores you.”

“Not as much as I adore her,” Clara sighs. I chuckle and another laugh comes from the other side of me. I startle to see y/n walking beside me.

How long had she been there? Our eyes meet and the smile she sends me is sweet and innocent. Like that day in school long ago when she walked in on me tinkering away on my guitar and asked me to play something for her.

It throws me off just like it did then. I turn away.

“We’re just gonna walk there!” Someone ahead of us shouts back to the group.

“In these heels?” Someone complains.

“The girls can take a car?” Hailey suggests. So some of the bridesmaids pile into one but Clara and y/n stay with Hailey.

“I’m sensible now,” Clara stretches her heel-less foot out. “Y/n you sure you don’t want the ride?”

“I’ve been dancing without these for the last two hours.” Y/n shrugs. “My feet can handle the walk.”

“Are we betting how long it takes to get kicked out?” I ask the remainder of the crew.

Bets start flying, I bet 40 minutes.

“D’you think the cherry tree is still there? That was probably the loveliest bit of our school every spring.” Clara asks. “I haven’t been back in ages.”

“Yeah!” Hailey pipes in. “We did some of our photos there when we did save the dates. We ended up using the ones at the garden though.”

I glance at y/n, I can’t help it. She has the same idea because she looks at me too. I didn’t understand what was happening tonight. I’d nearly given up on reconciling but here she was suddenly giving me softened looks, her hard edges dulling down enough for me to bump into her shoulder and try joking.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“What?” She balks. “Ideas?!”

“Hey Har,” Hailey turns to me. “D’you still play? That guitar remembers guys? He was always playing that thing.”

I avoid y/n’s gaze now.

“Not really.”

“Harry’s a tight-ass finance bloke now,” Ramo says for me. “That creative spirit died after he and a little somebody-“

“I’m not,” I cut Ramo off knowing he was going to say something that would make all of us awkward. I continue to avoid y/n’s attention. “A tight-ass finance bloke. I like to think I’m a fine-ass finance bloke. And it’s because I just don’t get the time these days.”

“You were so good,” comes y/n’s thoughtful commentary.

“He was wasn’t he?!” Hailey continues. “Thought I’d see you on TV or something. That show with the contestants? I always thought if anyone from school went on there it’d be Harry.”

“Thanks Hailey,” I’m uncomfortable under everyone’s scrutiny. And the way Abe keeps wriggling his eyebrows at me and tilting his head to y/n.

By now we’ve reached the school grounds and watch as the rest of the girls scramble out of the car. I spot the cherry tree on the far side, no longer in bloom and smaller than I remember.

There’s a buzz about the group, like being together all these years later in the schoolyard brings with it some life-changing magic. Like time’s worn thin tonight and we can almost reach out and touch our school selves.

“Hailey and Michael!!” Ramo shouts incredibly loud. My 40 minute bet shrinks to 20. “Official Mr. And Mrs!! Let’s fucking go!!!”

They all take off down the field, open bottles dangling from their hands, jackets and gowns flying in the wind as they go.

I take off after them, laughing as a bubble of relief flows up from my lungs. It was just like before, running across the school field with my mates, laughing and shouting random shite into the world.

I glance to my side and y/n’s pumping her legs but falling behind the group. I hold out my hand without thinking but she comes to a full stop. So do I.

“These fucking heels.” She peels them off and sighs in relief, tossing them to the side and taking a swig of her wine bottle.

“You might need those later.”

“Fuck those heels!” She shouts louder.

I laugh and hold out my hand, “We’re falling behind. C’mon!”

She grabs it and we run to catch up, and I’m grinning so hard I feel like my cheeks are going to split. This might be an illusion of a moment I could only dream of but I didn’t care. Despite the night sky and nippy air, everything was sunny and golden.

The finish line was the cherry tree at the end of the yard and our friends pile around it, out of breath.

“Jesus I’ve got stitches,” Clara complains. “I’m never doing that again.”

Hailey giggles and wraps her arms around her husband. “I love all of you so much. Thanks for making this day so special.”

We all pour our love back to the couple. Alcohol and conversation begins to flow around the group and eventually I find y/n sitting beside me tugging at the grass.

“So you really don’t play anymore?” She asks softly after a while.

Her eyes are round and inquisitive as she asks, and I could drown in them. I think of everything I could tell her about not playing—how it made me think of her, how it hurt too much to play after a while, how that part of me was dead and I didn’t like to dredge it up anymore.

Instead I shake my head and leave it hanging, staring down into my lap.

“Why?” She whispers, edging closer to me so that our knees nearly touch. I wonder if she notices or if it even matters.

Again I think of all the reasons and my eyes fill with tears as I do. I’d shut away so much of myself because I had too much love for y/n that couldn’t go anywhere. I’d shut the love away and myself as well.

She taps my knee and I look up, her eyebrows scrunch together when she notices the tears.

“You were supposed to do big things with that guitar of yours,” she whispers to me. And it sounds exactly like something she would have said to me all those years ago. It’s too much. I take the bottle of wine sitting beside her and take a swig. She watches me with concern.

“Music,” I clear my throat when my voice comes out hoarse. “Music didn’t really hold the same magic afterwards. After we…I stopped…speaking in it.”

“Well fuck. That makes me really sad.”

“It’s alright—numbers became my new language.”

“How depressing!”

I laugh and cut myself short when it nearly turns into a sob.

I was sitting with y/n after all these years, under the cherry tree, and she was farther away than ever.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “For being a chicken. Leaving before you left me. Then I just watched you go.”

Y/n opens her mouth and closes it after a second. Voices from the group drift over to us, Michael discussing honeymoon plans, Clara showing Dinis photos of her daughter, someone talking about a teacher we all hated.

“That was really sweet what you said to Clara earlier,” y/n says. It’s so random it takes me a second to recall.

“Oh yeah. Well she was always fussing over your friends like a mum. At least whenever I hung out with all of you.”

“She did. Makes sense she’s the first of us to be a mum. Although it wasn’t really planned—I’m really glad it turned out like this for her in the end.”

I nod, unsure where this was going.

“Har I-“ y/n’s voice sticks and she quiets again. It kills me to wait instead of telling her to spit it out.

“Y/n,” I say gently when she presses her lips together and doesn’t speak. I nudge her knee this time. “What?”

Our eyes meet and a galaxy of things rush between us. Memories, like distant stars, flicker with joy and pain. We’re caught between them—caught in the gravitational pull of the past and the very solid present of each other.

“I…I was hurting so bad after. After you said-after we broke up. I forgot you were probably hurting too. That the hurt could have always lingered too.” Y/n admits.

I forget to breathe as a constellation of emotions pools in our eyes, an ache from the unspoken admission that maybe we had missed each other all of this time.

“We were so young,” y/n continues. She picks at the grass. I imagine it helps feel in controls amidst the emotional storm happening between us.

“We were.”

“So free,” she laughs a little.

“Yeah. Too free. I don’t think I realized what I wanted until it was too late.”

“You had the whole summer,” the soft accusation cuts deep. I feel the gravity of how much it affected her.

“I was so scared of the hurt I…”

“Yet we hurt anyway.”

Those four words suck the oxygen out of my lungs, I couldn’t respond even if I wanted to.

We sit in another silence, I think about the version of us that didn’t leave the cherry tree separately. The version that kept holding on.

Maybe there could be a version of us that comes back to the cherry tree and leaves together this time. That thought spurs me into action.

I stand and brush the grass off my pants. Y/n watches me with a confused expression.

I hold my hand out to her for the second time that evening.

“Dance with me under the cherry tree?”

She flushes as our friends quiet down. But she grips my hand and I pull her up towards me.

“Really?” She whispers.

“Where’s the music?” One of our friends asks and as we begin our slow dance a phone breaks out in a slow number. It makes y/n giggle.

“This is incredibly cheesy.”

“Just embrace it.” I tell her. “The last time we were here-“

“We don’t have to keep talking about it,” she looks up at me. “It was so long ago. We can’t change the past. We really were young and we just have to-“

“Y/n,” I cut her off. “We were young but our love was real.”

This leaves her speechless. She simply furrows her brows and blinks away whatever emotion it pulls forth. And with her arms locked tightly behind me and my arms on her waist, we continue to sway. A quiet yearning defying time and distance fills the space between us; even as I pull her flush against me and she buries her face in my neck.

“That’s more like it,” I can hear Abe say in the back with a whistle before everyone laughs and goes back to chattering.

“So,” y/n says softly after a while. “When I blew you off at the wedding you were going to say something.”

I hardly remember. I was going to say a lot and I was probably a few drinks in.

“I lied.” She continues. “I tried to forget about you. I held onto the anger so I wouldn’t hurt when I thought about you. Then I looked you up every once in a while expecting some musical thing attached to your name but I never did see anything—now I know why.”

“Yeah,” I chuckle.

“So you really stopped after we broke up?”

“Yes,” I say again. “I tried that summer but everything sounded like…like a donkey trying to sing. I gave up on it ever sounding good again.”

“That’s a shame Harry,” she says and I know she means it but I don’t want to focus on me.

“So you looked me up did you?”

“Don’t start on that,” she flushes. I drop it but not the smile on my face. She notices and buries her face into my shoulder.

We continue swaying to whatever song was queued on our friends’ phone. It feels like we’re all 17 again and staying up later than our parents would like. It felt like we were all young and free, not 20-somethings sitting around our married friends.

“I can’t believe we’re all back here again.” I comment.

“I know. Feels fake. Especially being back here, with you.”

“I hope this is alright?” I pause but y/n tightens her grip.

“It is. Y’know no matter how many people filled the space after you.” Y/n says. “It was never you.”

My breath catches. Was she saying-

“Incoming!” Someone shouts and before I can ask where the group erupts in chaos. People run every way I’m surprised nobody bumps heads.

“What!?” I say just as a flashlight beam cuts across my face. The police. “Oh fuck! Let’s go!”

I grab y/n’s hand and we run away from whatever authority was stalking towards us with flashlights.

It’s just like the old days.

“Harry!” I hear Thomas yell up ahead and I veer to the right towards it.

“Ow! Shit!” I hear y/n shout behind me before she releases my hand.

“What? What are you doing?!” I rush back to her.

She’s picking a rock out of her foot, behind her the lights grow closer.

“Those fucking heels!” I shout.

“Bad decision!” She tosses another pebble off her foot.

“No time! Get on!”

“What?” She freezes but I turn around and crouch, tugging her arms around me so she can get the hint. She loops her legs around my waist and even though I’m slowed down we somehow make it, laughing and stumbling, towards Thomas and Abe. They wave at us from just beyond the school ground and once we make it in the clear we head back to the venue and our parked cars.

“That was insane,” they gush.

“Felt like the golden years,” I grin.

“The fucking golden years,” they laugh.

“Okay designated drivers,” Michael says when he catches sight of us. “We have to get out of here.”

There’s a final round of bidding the newlyweds adieu and waving them off. I look for y/n once they blink out of sight.

“I came with Jamie,” she wraps her arms around herself.

I take my jacket off and drape it around her. I’m transported to doing the exact same thing after house parties because y/n would complain that a jacket would ruin her outfit and then walk home shivering.

“What if you go home with someone else?” I ask.

“You’ve got a car?”

“No,” I regret not driving myself now. “I came with one of the boys.”

“Shite.”

“Yeah…”

“Where are you staying?” She asks.

“Uhm…I came from my flat. Near Shoreditch.”

“Oh right.” She looks away. “You live in the city…right. I’m staying at my mum’s.”

“That’s not too far. My parents still live down the road from yours.”

“I know,” she smiles. “What if you dropped me home? And I invite you in?”

“Y/n,” I tug her closer. “What’s this you’re suggesting?”

“Staying?”

The sight of her, the feel of her, her scent and her perfect hand on my chest envelop me. I couldn’t say no; I was under her spell.

“That would turn this amazing evening into an amazing weekend.”

“And who knows what comes next,” she whispers as I lean the rest of the way. I want to kiss her.

“I want to kiss you.”

She doesn’t respond. She simply stretches up and presses her lips to mine. My heart collects itself and explodes in an explosion of slime.

She feels the exact same, tastes the same, but the confidence is new. It makes me dizzy. I want her even more.

“Get a fucking room!” Thomas says from behind. “Are you two gonna need a ride or planning on shagging in the bushes over there?”

I flip him off and finish the perfect kiss, using every bit of my willpower as y/n’s hand trails down my neck and back to my chest.

“Go on,” I say without even looking at my friends. “We’ve got an after after party.”

“Gross,” someone grumbles behind us.

“G’night!” Y/n shouts and with our chests heaving we break apart, grab hold of each other’s hands, and begin the walk to her house.

We walk in silence—our hands swinging between us tells you everything you need to know about how we were feeling.

At her front door y/n smiles up at me. It feels like deja vu, standing in her doorway with her looking at me like that. Knowing we were going to her bedroom just to get in bed. Time folds in on itself as I press a kiss to her lips.

“I’m so glad I couldn’t stay angry tonight,” she strokes my face. “I would’ve missed all this.”

“Me too,” I whisper. “I’m glad my mug’s so handsome it wore you down.”

She rolls her eyes but she’s smiling. “It wasn’t the mug. Although it is even more handsome than the last time I saw it.”

I kiss her, “Mmm then what was it that wore you down?”

“I dunno,” she sighs. “You? Us?”

Us.

“Whatever it was, I’ll make sure to write it a thank you note. Now why don’t you open that door because my hands are not going to stay PG for very long. And I’m pretty sure your mum’s got one of those camera doorbells.”

“Oh god,” she whips around and laughs before slapping a hand to her mouth. “Sorry mum!”

We stifle our laugh and step inside. Deja vu comes rushing at me again at the familiarity of her home.

As we sneak up to her room I think about what y/n said. It was true, even though she couldn’t pinpoint it. Despite how we felt at the beginning of the night it was always going to end this way. Something about us was always meant to come back to each other.

You. Us. Her.

It was always her.

[a-998h]

Hello! Before I ask for this request I just wanted to apologize, I hope I’ll be able to make my requests more organized and shorter, so it’ll be easier to digest! And my time is Eastern Time Zone so yeah!

SAGAU + MODERN!TEEN!READER

Instead of asking for the usual Child!{Reader} who’s technically from another universe and fights monsters, I would like to request one where {Reader} was from our world, but is still around 13-14 years old

Also I would say that {Reader} had just began to play the game, so they would barley understand how the world works when they were Isekai’ed into said game—while panicking at the same time because oh my god they’re in a game—But they have school tomorrow, and their homework!

When {Reader} descends to Teyvat they go through the whole “Oh my god the Creator!” From characters and endless praise, with only confusion on their part—

But while they question their life choices—they also decide to interact more with most of the characters, as they begin to question how this magical world exactly works

Of course people like the Archons were confused on why you seemed like you had forgotten all about your creation of Teyvat and that you came back in the body of a child—though they decided to put off those thoughts for now as they explained Elements like Geo, Pyro, Dendro—you get the idea [though I myself barely know what half of those powers or called or how they work]

I headcannon that in Teyvat—while they seem far advanced despite being thousands of years younger than {Reader}’s world, I feel like in certain areas of study like Medical and Science is often ignored

Of course not fully ignored but is far underdeveloped [Unless I’m completely incorrect than just ignore this whole ask I guess💀] since in Genshin you can easily cook up foods that have odd healing abilities, even to the point of reviving dead people [If we’re sticking to game lore even when {Reader} arrived in Genshin] people have Visions which allow them to wield powers to let them heal or harm things, and this also goes for the statues of ‘The Seven’ that can heal your party

And I would suspect that they wouldn’t know too much info on things like cells, atoms, energy and more [Ex. Water is made up of H2o, but in Genshin water is water and also used for Hydro] or how their Medical equipment would be like as advanced only up to like the 40-60’s in {Reader}’s world, and only have basic medicines and cures—since humans exist in Genshin and they most likely don’t have powers from what I know

So to say the least {Reader} would be confused and questioning everything about Teyvat and how it works

Like when the Archons explained elemental powers {Reader} would question if some powers branch off of others, and if {Reader} accidentally taking it literally—like they think that Electro was actually summoned from the clouds, so they’re like “Oh so Electro is made from Pyro and Anemo?” And when the Archons are like: “?? Wha—“ And {Reader} is gonna be like ‘🤓👆’ “Because thunder is when the lightning channel’s temperature reaches up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit which immediately after the air cools it down and caused the sound of thunder from the rapid contractions. So Electro would be made from Pyro and Anemo—right?” [Yes I had to look that up to write that, I don’t even know if that’s correct—]

And after that the Archons just look at {Reader} like they’re crazy but also very worried for them

Soon a few characters, who probably are smart—at least in Teyvat they would be considered would approach {Reader} with questions about science and more, thinking that since {Reader} is the Creator they would obviously know more, and would basically treat their knowledge like the greatest gift they’ve ever received

And just imagine a scenario where {Reader} gathers a group of characters [Which you can pick who would want to learn more] who are interested enough in science to want to learn more, as {Reader} pulled out their phone—which somehow teleported with them to Genshin, as they play a YT video about Life Science, and after the video ends the characters are amazed and in awe, as one speaks on how this has to be the most informative piece of film, and how many scientists must have had to research for this video— and {Reader} is just like “This video is made for like 11 year olds to learn” and the characters are like “Wha-“

And a lot of times people like Tighnari [who I think would be interested enough] would spend time with {Reader} by listening them ramble about Life Science

I feel like {Reader} would be really interested in characters who have inhuman characteristics—especially the ones with animal ears and tails

Like when {Reader} first met Kirara they found Kirara’s toe beans adorable, and was amazed by her two tails

And {Reader} would pet Gorou if he let them [Of course he would since {Reader} is the Creator🙄/j]

Aswell as when {Reader} met Sara they were really interested in her wings and asked if they were real and if they worked

And another scenario where it’s late and an Archon[of your choice] goes to the depths of the Avidya Forest where Tighnari resides, since they had dropped {Reader} off there to spend time with him, and they find {Reader} and him in his hut/house, with him sitting on the ground while {Reader} had gloves on and was in the middle of piercing his ears—Tighnari just gives the Archon a little wave, while {Reader} happily talks about putting little ropes in the holes where they pierced his ears so they can go out and get earrings for him tomorrow!

That’s all I request! I hope it was easier to read this time! Have a good day!

-🍉ANON

Teen Creator Isekei Adventures

When they see you

Everyone across Teyvat was awaiting the return of their beloved Creator. There were many artist who have drawn depictions of the Creator over the centuries by now they get to see what you look llike. The archons are the ones who will greet you. They weren't expecting a teenager by they can work with it.

The reacts are mixed. Some are filled with joy and don't notice the fact that their God is a teenager, some brush it off, and some are worried/ wondering if it's like how Nahida was born after Rukkhadevata's death. They all notice one thing, and it is that you seem to be freaking out.

Everyone tries to comfort you, and try to figure out why you keep mentioning home work and school, you're a god you know ow everything.

Having world mechanics explained + Life Science

Well, they're a bit worried that you seem to have forgotten that fact that you created everything. So when the archons, shcolars, historians, etc sit you down and explain stuff to you they hope it makes sense. You then hit them with this.

"Oh so Electro is made from Pyro and Anemo?” you ask.

They'll all very confused because what are you talking about and they ask you to explain.

“Because thunder is when the lightning channel’s temperature reaches up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit which immediately after the air cools it down and caused the sound of thunder from the rapid contractions. So Electro would be made from Pyro and Anemo—right?”

They still don't understand but a few such as Tighnari, Xianyun, Alhaitham, Albedo, Surcorse, Layla, and literally any character who can be affectionately be classified as a nerd.

When you find that your phone, not only came with you but that it also still worked you get an idea.

In the halls of the Akademiya you pull out your phone, go onto YouTube and play the first video you can find about Life Science.

They enjoy it a lot more then you thought they would. Thye all praise how much research went into his amazing piece of film and you responded with.

“This video is made for like 11 year olds to learn”

This confused them but they still enjoyed it, especially Tighnari.

Ears, toe beans, tails, and wings

When you learn Kirara has toe beans, your next course of action is to walk unto her after her work day ends and ask her if you can touch them. She is shocked at first but let's you touch them. Did you know that cat claws are retractable? And that pushing slightly on toe beans causes the class to come out, well you do now. You put a little pressure on Kirar's toe beans to watch her claws go in and out. Then you ask her if you can touch her ears and tail, to which she lets you. She blushes as you fawn over her two tails. She also tries to answer your questions about how she has two tails.

Gorou would blush a bit when you ask if you can pet his ears. Under his tough general facade he is a good boy it needed headpats. He blushes the whole time you pet his ears. When you get close to his tail though... in the words of Kuzco.

"No touchy! no touchy! no touch."

He keeps his tail away from you. It's very sensitive and he just doesn't like people touching his tail.

While expressionless on the outside, Sara smiles on the inside everything you fawn over her wings and ask her many questions about them. She doesn't mind you asking questions, but she doesn't let you touch them.

Adventures in the Avidya Forest feat. Tighnari

After your Life Science stunt in the Akademiya Tighnari was genuinely curious about you knowledge, because he is a curious fox boy.

The archons think you need to de social in order to grow into a well rounded god. Well, at least Nahida thought so. When your life science stunt was over Tighnari asked if you would like to come to Gandharva Ville with him.

You said yes and he let your rant about life science. Now everyone you go to Sumeru it is a priority to visit Toghnari. The archons thought this friendship was cute while some people were jealous.

One day Zhongli dropped you off at Tighnari's and told you two to have fun. You two were having the best time two people could have. As night came Zhongli went to puck you up. He walked in and saw you, with gloves, trying times piece Tighnari's ears. Tighnari waves at Zhongli. Zhongli sighs and tells you it's time to go home. You say no and that you need to finish Tighnari's ears. Zhongli offers to let Tignari stay the night with you two, and then will help him find a good place for ear piercing. You both agree and have an awesome sleep over.

[fagboyfriend]

i rlly like ur composition, i wanna know about your process :D

thank uuu !! yeah so like. composing a scene for me generally begins with a vague idea that i want to get down as quickly as possible- and for me that usually starts with finding a setting. I knew that i wanted to draw a) a group of roomates gossiping in a crowded kitchen and i wanted there to be b) one figure in the extreme foreground and c) lots of plants. i do use some tools to figure out perspective, mainly the csp perspective ruler. Usually i start by finding a picture i like similar to the vibe im going for- but instead of referencing anything else- im purely interested in perspective. sorry to anyone who is shocked i dont generate all of my perspective purely by myself- i can draw in perspective fairly well but i struggle to make straight lines and this is easier to make grids with than the line tool lol ^_^ i try to use it kinda more like spellcheck on typos than like something to fully rely on. this is the video i learned this trick from:

i saw the left photo and realllly loved how the cabinets alligned with the wall- so i used my ruler tool to draw out my inital plotted points from the image- basically the linear movements i was most interested in and then i turned off the image layer and worked with those lines and the ruler tool to move on. eventually i had this:

which was enough for me to put my characters in for the inital round. if you notice- i made a looot of further adjustments as i go on. this sketch is not a final layout, its so my characters have somewhere to be! i cannot draw someone standing on a floor if theres no floor, nor leaning on a table that doesnt exist. i can’t draw my characters without a background, but i also cant finish my background without accounting for how my characters can comfortably exist in it!!

this was the like.. very basic start. i knew the positions of two characters- but i needed to change a lot not only to fit them better but to allow for the other two figures i had planned.

okay.. a little better. i widened the kitchen, closed the fridge door.. added a chair and fit in all the figures.. but this is waaay too dramatic. only two figures are actually interacting- and they are at wildly different energy levels!

this is where things started to make a little more sense characterwiss, so i was ready to refine backgrounds and figures and unite the two.

inital base sketch. much better layout.

okay- this is where im getting my footing but things seem.. really really off. You can see me working on my framing here- theres some good linear movement from left to right here- but not vertically. It’s hard to notice the figure in the far back, so i need to redirect the viewers eye to move upwards as well!

this is where i decided to zoom out, add an interesting vertical element to the left of the image and make it clearer whats happening in the foreground. i had to account for some stuff by adjusting the cropping, but i paid attention to that as well.

annnd- thats what a clean sketch looks for me! i have all the elements of my scene accounted for, and things are clean enough to read.

the next step for me would be transfer! essentially- I print the image of my sketch out, resizing and taping pages together so my sketch matches the size of the paper i want to paint on, and then i use a lightboard to transfer my sketch with pencil onto my paper. Then i refine the sketch a few times on paper before stretching my watercolor paper (essentially just prepping for painting) and inking with a brush and colored ink before going in with watercolor, gouache and ink, then usually finishing with marker, colored pencil, pastel and ink. it’s a lengthy process but a lot of fun lol. but sketches for me can be like.. 15 layers of different roughs until im happy with just the sketch. there were more images but im on mobile and theres a 10 image limit 😭😭 im a bit masochistic but i believe that if i dont have a good sketch i dont have a good painting!!

[gatheringbones]

[“The fact that my body has become a source of at least as much misery as pleasure has paradoxically made it easier for me to stop calling myself a lesbian and use the term bisexual instead. I just don’t have the energy any more to hold up facades. Back in 1971, I initially told people I was bisexual, but discovered this meant that straight people saw me as a heterosexual who occasionally dabbled in not-very-serious sex with “other girls,” while gay people saw me as a dyke who hadn’t come all the way out of the closet yet. Nobody trusted me, and nobody would dance with me. In 1980, when Sapphistry was about to be published and my first article about lesbian S/M appeared in The Advocate, I said in that article that if I had a choice between being marooned on a desert island with a vanilla dyke or a leather boy, I would take the boy. I got an extremely irate phone call from Barbara Grier, owner of Naiad, the company that was going to publish Sapphistry, informing me that they did not publish books by bisexual women, and if that was what I was, she would yank the book. Already in the midst of a firestorm about being public as a sadomasochist, I acquiesced, and delayed this coming out by another twenty years. I became “a lesbian who sometimes has sex with men.”

I still think this is a valid category, and remain unconvinced that the most important thing you can know about someone’s sexuality is the preferred gender of their partner. But today I’d rather not argue about it. I need to keep things as simple as possible. Bisexual people are still being excluded from the gay community’s cultural and political life. And I find myself being personally affected by that exclusion. It hurts me and makes me angry in a way that it would not, I think, if I were not on some level affiliated with bisexuals. I would rather stand with a group of people who don’t expect me to turn myself into a pretzel to explain what makes my dick get hard. This doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong or passé to be a Kinsey 6. But I do think a quest for purity of any sort is almost always morally dangerous.

Being more open about having sex with men has brought my own gender dysphoria to the fore. When I put my body up against a male body, what I notice is how hard it is for me to feel connected to my own flesh. Even more important has been the experience of loving someone who is a female-to-male transsexual (FTM), my domestic partner, Matt Rice. I knew Matt before he transitioned, and it has been such a positive change for him. By taking testosterone and getting chest surgery, he not only allowed himself to become and live as a man, he became a much better person—kinder, more patient, happier, sexier, sweeter. (Although he still won’t suffer fools gladly.) The fact that Matt has managed his transition with this degree of success gives me hope that I might be able to find a less distressing place for myself. I expect, like any other coming out, this will have its shitty aspects. But I think it will also create a greater sense of freedom and comfort.”]

pat califa, from layers of the onion, spokes of the wheel, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

[the-letterbox-archives]

file (0)0-40-000: writer questionnaire

thank you @ominous-feychild, @paeliae-occasionally, and @the-golden-comet for tagging me! this is a writing questionnaire, and before i answer them i wanted to say that i love this game idea! as much as i love loredumping about characters and plots (as bad as i am at plots), i also really value talking about my process and general writing questions like this! alright, let's get on with the answers...

about me

when did you start writing?

i wrote my first novella in two weeks (it wasn't very good or edited, i'm not that good haha) during the 2020 lockdown, and have on that rhythm ever since, albeit on a much slower, yet bigger scale. in terms of writing overall, i've been doing it since i could read. i'm very excited to reach my fifth year of 'official' writing, with 3 books privately released and a fourth on the way!

are there genres/themes you enjoy reading different to the ones you write?

honestly, i don't read as much as i should. i read more as a kid, but i've kind of lost that spark due to poor mental health, busy schedules, and other reasons. but to zero down on the question, i don't hold myself to genres, because i prefer character focused stories, but i like speculative content the most, which is what i write. i don't really vibe with contemporary and slice-of-life stuff, through no fault of the genre, i'm just not that interested in it generally.

is there an author you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

i don't think my work has reached enough people to be compared to any author, at least nobody has told me i write like someone else. i've done emulation work in school before, but i don't like writing like that, it feels disingenuous with how stream-of-consciousness my writing is. so no, i don't want to emulate anyone.

can you tell me a little about your writing space?

writing anywhere but my house is incredibly stressful, i can't focus on creating stuff unless i'm at home, either in my bed, at my desk, or just in an armchair. nothing too special.

what's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

i wish i had a foolproof way to get my energy going. but since i don't have much obligation to write on a schedule, i'm allowed to write whenever inspiration hits. but it's easier to get in the writing headspace with some non-distracting music/videos.

did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

for settings, not consciously. i don't like writing about real places, i usually use a fantasy world or an ambiguous place without relying on real-world settings for anything less than minor inspiration. in terms of my characters, most of them have parts of themselves taken from me or my past. the most active example of this is basically every character in insincere., all of whom are based of me, my dysregulated emotions, or certain social/societal issues. to sum it all up, my trauma makes for interesting casts.

are there any recurring themes of your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

i try to put a lot of emphasis on character relationships, so i imagine a lot of themes there come up more than once without my active thought towards it. i often just write what feels right, so themes do recur across multiple stories, but i wouldn't be surprised if someone pointed out that some themes come up again, i wouldn't be surprised. i do want to put some emphasis on the theme of trauma and love of all stripes. on the love side, tales from a dying heart is the prime example of this, hell, the entire thing is about love. however, all my stories with genuine character relationships do focus on the concept of love. father-son with laszlo and yaromyr, one-sided platonic with daphne and faye, obsessive distant romance with sunny and darcy, mother-daughter with sasha and dulcinea, the list goes on. trauma is present through everything i write, i'm unable to write anything without it (insincere. i'm looking at you). and they'll all evolve and change, in different ways.

my characters

would you please tell me about your current favourite character?

i don't think i could pick just one, i have so much love in my heart for all of my characters. i adore ven's tired attitude, sunny's humour, daphne and faye's dynamic, laszlo's ambition, sasha's motherly love and intelligence, yaromyr and danareth's relationship, sissy's obnoxious clairvoyance, the list keeps expanding.

which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

i'd have to go with ven, sunny, laszlo, and daphne. i think those four would both be people i'd want to befriend, and people who'd want to befriend me (hopefully).

which of your characters would you dislike most if you met them?

i think if i ended up on the wrong side of the fence with danareth, i would hate his guts. i love writing him, but he's such a slimy jerk sometimes that i don't think i would get along with him. i also don't think i'd like the owl from insincere., who's name is yet to be revealed. he sucks, but he does bite sissy, so he gets some goodwill. the last one i can think of would be arthur blackwood, just because he's rich and socially dense, and in the episode i'm writing, he's rude to daphne. and nobody can slight daphne without me hating them (characters i mean). nobody in school rules nor dulcinea is dead has rubbed me the wrong way yet, thankfully.

tell me more about the process of coming up with your characters.

it's hard to pin down my process since it's so emotionally driven. i just make characters on instinct, usually starting with a scene of conversation between multiple characters that i imagine based off a feeling. that's how it works for basically all of my characters. they just kind of... appear in my brain half-formed, then i begin to refine them.

do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

i've considered doing protagonist profiles to find similarities between all of them. i mostly write teenage protagonists, and i like writing characters who are super driven to achieve their goal. additionally, a lot of them are traumatised or will be traumatised in their respective series. a lot of emotional turbulence in store for all of my characters!

how do you picture your characters?

i don't, at least in any way i can properly describe. when i imagine scenes in my head every single character has a fully realised appearance, but it exists beyond any way i'm capable of explaining it. i can say i picture them in live-action, yet recently when i picture insincere. i picture it in 2d animation, with very minimalist animation for ven (like moving at a slower frame rate if that makes sense), sissy with rubberhose animation kind of like spinel or jax, and the owl being very expressive in its animation.

my writing

what's your reason for writing?

there's a lot of reasons. i've always been borderline maladaptive daydreaming and had minor dissociative episodes recently, it just feels easier for me to exist in a world i design to my own tastes. it's easier to cope with my existence when i do stuff like that, which probably isn't healthy but whatever. i write to get everything out of my head and because it's fun!

is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

i'm honestly still shocked i have readers! that aside, i love all comments, but the ones that really tell me people care about what i write is theories, headcanons, and other noticings like that, those types of comments just make me feel amazing. i also find the "x is just like me fr" funny because that's how i express my love for a character and it shows me that character is either funny or semi-relatable.

how do you want to be thought of by those who read your work?

i just want to be someone who inspired some thought in the reader, and just gave them a good time! i'd be insanely flattered if people took massive meaning from my work and made those amazing tumblr mini-essays about the themes or characters i write about, but all in all i think i want to be thought of as a writer who writes things that people simply enjoy, and want to come back to, maybe make some fan content about. just a small set of slightly memorable pieces in an infinite archive.

what do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

this is gonna sound sad, but i often can't see distinct admirable traits in my writing. if i had to think further out, i might go to my characters. i love my characters so much, and i think because i think about them so much, the nuance that exists in my head about them bleeds into my writing and makes my characters interesting and memorable (hopefully haha).

what have you been frequently told by others is your greatest strength as a writer?

i've been told a few things. no commentary straight from the archives, at least from anything i can remember, but in my real life i've been told i write dialogue well (which i somewhat agree with) and that i write enjoyable/interesting characters.

how do you feel about your own writing?

very mixed. i can't give a solid verdict because i hate my older work because it's cringe, but the stuff i'm writing currently and that i'm still passionate about i enjoy reading back (sometimes), and i think i like what i write now. i'm so proud i got my writing out there into the archives, either way.

if you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

of course! that's what i was doing since before 2020, and even then my books were only circulated around family and close friends, as more of a symbolic gift than anything. i didn't get too much insight back, except for from certain relatives, which i always immensely appreciated. to circle back to the question, having an audience is still very new to me, and if it came down to the criteria the question proposes, i would still write.

when you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

what i enjoy. i am now conscious of my audience, but then again i am not especially writing for an audience, like that's not what's at the forefront of my mind when i write. as grateful as i am for an audience at all (you guys are amazing <3), i'm writing for myself, as i have been since i was a kid.

wow, this was an insightful questionnaire! thank you again for tagging me in, my tag list is just below!

@introchasingstars, @honeybewrites, @noxxytocin, @moltenwrites, @tc-doherty,

@the-ellia-west, @theverumproject, @thecrazyalchemist, @laylathewordwitch, @dragonedged-if,

@leitereads, @autism-purgatory, @gioiaalbanoart, @drchenquill, @fenmere,

@leahnardo-da-veggie, @melpomene-grey, @yourpenpaldee, @corinneglass, @agirlandherquill,

@willtheweaver, @nczaversnick, @davycoquette, @glassfrogforest, @princeofhags,

and @wyked-ao3!

[theninthdoor]

virgo season🪻♍ mini tarot reading ࿔*

decks used || the druidcraft tarot, wild uknown animal spirit & the prism oracle. songs || shuffle pick from a random 2000s playlist. when picking a group, use your sun and/or rising signs. (disclaimer: based on current energies. all is alleged and for entertainment purposes only.)

🍊 Mutables | Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces Song: The Fray - How to Save a Life

Cards: page of pentacles reversed, king of pentacles, eight of swords, Tiger (reversed), Flow

So, my dear mutable signs... it seems like this upcoming Virgo season is all about you working on getting your life back together after a period of disruption. In these past few weeks or months, you might have found yourself a little more sensitive, more reactive and easily overwhelmed. Perhaps you were pushed by people or circumnstances to let go of certain habits or routines that were already well set in your life, and that has made you feel out of balance. Going forward, I still see some struggle when it comes to making up for the empty space, plus there might be times when you go from 0 to 100 in a blink of an eye - so having no energy or motivation, and then going straight to being the most proactive and productive person on the planet - and, of course, going from one extreme to another must take a toll on your mental, emotional and physical bodies. With that, I must remind you that self-care is very important here. Don't let yourself stay stuck in situations or patterns that haven't been serving you, because they will only keep adding on to the frustration and unrest, but also please make sure to consciously keep working at a pace that is healthy and sustainable, to make sure you don't burn out. One last thing that came through: making up with friends/family/acquaintances or reuniting after a challenging period of misunderstandings or non-communication. Watch out for how you express youself, and let them speak as well! Whatever has been broken, can be mended, but you also need to take some accountability and be fair. - This might not apply to everyone, but if you were looking for this message/confirmation, here it is.

🩰 Fixed | Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius Song: Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls

Cards: five of swords reversed, eight of cups reversed, queen of swords, Dragonfly reversed, Love

the song???! 😭

So, for all my beautiful fixed signs (no pun intendend lol): this Virgo season will be all about you stepping back into your power. You're feeling yourself, taking care of yourself, being more social and having more vibrancy in general. There's just so much stuff you can't be bothered with anymore, and letting go of that is finally allowing new, beautiful energy to come into your life. However, that might come easier to some than to others... Even if you're not bothered with those things actively, they might still be hanging out at the back of your mind, popping in every now and then throughout your day. Don't ignore them, alright? But don't dwell on them either. You should be going about these matters with logic and patience, so they can be resolved properly and as soon as possible. I also feel now you're being a little more detached or acting a little colder towards certain people (if not all). You are definitely feeling more comfortable to put yourself out there and be more social, as a said, but there is still some distance that you're keeping between yourself and others. There's an aspect of self-protection here, but also self-love? You're self-protecting out of love for yourself, it feels like. After much trial and error, you have finally decided to give yourself what others haven't been able to. "I can buy myself flowers." I keep getting pulled to that Queen of Swords + the Dragonfly reversed (indicative that the energy is out of balance, which then points towards 'lack of concentration and a busy mind'), and that reminds me of Gemini - so whether that is you or someone you're dealing with this season, that whole energy should be around you in these upcoming weeks.

🍎 Cardinal | Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn Song: Britney Spears - Circus

Cards: death reversed, the tower reversed, five of wands, Lion, Strength

When everything around you is falling apart, people aren't getting along, and it seems like you're having to walk on eggshells to avoid being pulled into conflict, you'll have to take it upon yourself to step into power and either act as a mediator between those conflicting sides, or force it all to be done with. You're tired of chaos, of noise, of people being selfish and reckless, and now you're looking for peace and order, and you know the change has to start with you. However, that doesn't mean you're going to be docile and quiet, neither aggressive or argumentative! We have both the Lion and Strength here, so this is moreso about having patience, determination and (self)control. Besides, some people might come out to poke you, provoke you, trying to get a strong reaction out of you - and sometimes they might get what they want, but here we have a reminder that you must really make an effort to keep it together and lead by example. - "There's only two types of people in the world / The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe." this part of the song in particular, feels relevant here. In general, in this Virgo season I see you taking on more responsibilities, perhaps also packing your schedule with new/more activities and events, or finally waking up after a slow, fruitless period, and deciding to clean up all the mess around you so you can get back to action. The final message that came through is about the Libra Venus transit, and it influencing you to pay more attention to your physical appearance. If you've been thinking about changing your style, haircut, starting or going back to getting your nails done, treating yourself to a spa day, getting a better skincare routine or something along those lines, this is the time to do that.

🌍 relevant transits: ⭒ mercury stations direct in leo on august 26th / shadow period ends on september 11th ⭒ venus enters libra (domicile) on august 29th ⭒ new moon in virgo on september 2nd ⭒ mars enters cancer (fall) on september 4th ⭒ mercury enters virgo (domicile) on september 9th ⭒ partial full moon lunar eclipse in pisces on september 17th