#just going to preface our talk with 'i cry in these kinds of conversations and im going to try and not to'

[deathbypufferfish]

Need to figure out FAST how to speak about something serious with an authority figure without wanting to throw up and cry

[sunnywritesstuff34]

Illusions

(Yayyyy. Another one. It’s been a while, sorry. just wanna preface this by saying that like... I usually don’t really give a shit about Obito, but I figured this was a natural progression of the story and I kinda wanted to try and dive into Obito’s psyche a little so. here we go. tell me what you think. @ghostjellyfishheart here’s the next chapter lol. pls mind the tw’s)

TW and CW for: MAJOR UNREALITY, seriously stay safe, Obito is kinda spiraling a lot, grieving, struggling with morality, drinking, alcohol, less then stellar coping mechanisms of all kinds, don’t do this kids, child death, ghost child, dead kid, you don’t like... see her die but Rin is very much not alive, references to suicide, implied suicide, the uchiha massacre is its own warning, murder, its bad. its just. its just bad. did I mention unreality? a lot of that, death of a family member, obito is having a hard time with feelings, probably dis@ssociation, pretentious symbolism, scratch that, definitely dis@ssociation

Obito Uchiha is upset. 

And that is, frankly, ridiculous. Obito does not get upset. What does upset even mean? Is he sad? Mourning, perhaps? Or is he just worried? Either way, its borderline impossible. He shouldn’t be feeling anything. Obito doesn’t feel anything. Sure, he plays at it, when he’s Tobi. He feigns and pretends, he’s good at that. That is what he is, that is all he is. To Itachi, he is Madara. To Konan and Nagito, he is Obito. To everyone else, he is Tobi. Obito has taken on mask after mask after mask on in his life, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes he doesn't know where Obito ends and another begins. Obito does not feel anything, not for anyone that isn't Rin. Never for anyone that isn't Rin, and he left her behind a long time ago. And yet this boy, this child, has him reeling somehow. Has him… well, like before, the only word he can use is upset. He is rattled. And it has been so long, so long since he’s felt anything at all, that he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to fix it. He kept seeing Sasuke in his head, kept remembering memories from years ago when he thought about the kid being gone forever. He remembered the first few years Itachi brought Sasuke to the compound, he remembered spontaneously discovering his obsession with tomatoes by accident with Kisame (who would not stop laughing. He had just never seen anybody. Put an entire tomato in their mouth. And Sasuke did it like it was the most natural thing in the world! Kisame wouldn't shut up about it for at least a week). He remembered helping the boy train with his newly forged chokuto, he remembered the grim determination towards his family and how much it reminded Obito of himself, he remembered all of it. And none of that should have mattered, because it wasn't real. None of it was real, the next world would be. The next world with Rin and Kakashi and Minato-sensei still alive, a world without… without Sasuke. Or any of the other Akatsuki. And that was what he wanted. He was sure that was what he wanted. Only in his room could he show the weakness tightly coiled in his stomach. But there was a knock on his door and it made him straighten up, instantly putting the mask that he just took off back on his face. He walked to the door and opened it, only to find the older Uchiha brother staring back at him. Obito blinked. 

“Itachi-san. What are you… what are you doing here? I- uh… come in.” Obito and Itachi sat down at the small table in Obito’s room and stared at each other awkwardly. “So… how can I help you?” Obito tried to ask, unsure of whether to say it like Tobi or just let his guard down and talk like himself (whoever that was). Itachi cleared his throat. 

“You are the only person in this godforsaken place that has sake that's worth a damn,” Itachi explained calmly. He looked away. “It has… been a long week.” Obito could tell the truth in that statement just from his cousin’s voice. Itachi sounded exhausted, and the perpetual mask of indifference had begun to slip when his little brother went missing. The two of them looked at each other and came to an understanding. For the next few minutes, there was no talking. Obito grabbed some glasses and poured his strongest sake out for the both of them, and they drank in silence. They only actually picked up a conversation once they were both drunk enough for the awkwardness to melt away. 

“He’s likely not dead,” Obito commented bluntly. Itachi only sighed. 

“If he is, I have no idea what I'd do,” Itachi grumbled casually, like it was an ordinary thing to say. “Certainly wouldn't stick around here. Probably follow in Shisui’s footsteps.” Obito only nodded, knowing better than to pry on that particular bit of insight into Itachi’s life. They were silent for a few more minutes before Obito spoke again. 

“The massacre,” Obito started. “I was long gone by the time it happened. What… are you and Sasuke really the only survivors as the rumors say?” Itachi nodded, throwing back another glass. Obito thought about that bitterly, about his grandmother who wouldn't have been spared. Itachi sighed. 

“Right. I've never really talked about this with anyone, and Sasuke and I don't speak about it much. You know how sharingan awakening works, yes?” Obito nodded, mind involuntarily flashing to his own experience. 

“Well I made some genuine friends on my genin team. It was the first time I ever had any friends.” Obito closed his eyes and took another sip. Friends, sharingan awakening. Being crushed under a boulder with your crying teammates looming over you. Thinking, no, don't cry, it doesn't hurt. It really doesn't hurt. I can't feel anything, please don't cry. Watching a particular white haired individual (a traitor, that traitor) desperately try to save you. Losing a part of yourself, a part of yourself you didn't even know you had, and giving it to someone else. Forever living with that, knowing that your other eye is somewhere, because you can still feel it, but not knowing much else. The aching absence that grows from that. He opened his eyes again. “I watched them die, right in front of my eyes. That awakened my Sharingan, and when I went home, my father congratulated me. He congratulated me. It was a nightmare and he was proud. I don't know, that always stuck with me. But anyway,” Itachi paused to drink more sake as the room spun. “Sasuke’s eyes woke during the massacre. I didn't get there in time. He watched our parents die, managed to hide in the closet and keep quiet the whole time so they didn't find him. I got there in time to stop them from killing him, and realized his sharingan had awakened because of everything. I wasn't able to save anyone, but I was able to save him, and that's all that matters.”

“I understand,” Obito replied evenly. “I know what it's like to be too late.”

Itachi’s eyes slid over to him. “Yeah well… whatever. The Uchiha had been planning a coup for a while. Danzo, he gave me a choice. Either kill everyone myself and have Sasuke be spared to live happily in the village. Or, to let them kill everyone, Sasuke included. I didn't… I refused either option and tried to get there but I was too late. They killed everyone in one night, a bunch of Anbu who were deployed for the massacre. Like I said, Sasuke managed to hide. I knew that Danzo would be after us, so I grabbed Sasuke and we got the hell out of dodge. He didn't speak for months afterwards. Not a single word, other than screaming during his nightmares. It was probably a little selfish, but I… I missed him. There was no more ‘Itachi, look at the score I got at the academy!’ or ‘Itachi look, look I learned a new move!’ There was just… nothing. He was so vacant. If he's dead- if he’s dead after everything we’ve been through, I don't- I have no idea what I'll do. We have to find him, and we have to kill the people who took him away from us. We have to.” I know, he wanted to shout. I know, I feel the same way, but I don't know why! Itachi left not long after that, stumbled back to his room, and Obito fell asleep in his armchair. That night he had a dream, a dream of Rin. it had been years since he dreamed of her, usually they were memories and bits and pieces, but this was different. He opened his eyes in his dream to a dark plane filled with ink, darkness stretching in every direction. It was a frequent setting he found himself in, usually the dream would be about him sinking into the oily substance until he couldn't breath. But this time it was low enough to wade in, his feet touching the ground, whatever that was. In the middle of the expanse, there was a bone white skeleton of some creature he didn't recognize, and Rin. He staggered towards her, and she hugged him without a word. In dreams like this he was always covered in blood, the Obito from years past. But now he was just him, and he was maskless.

“Just what have you gotten yourself into now, Obito?” she asked, and it sounded just like her. It wasn't her, he was fairly sure of that, he was dreaming for god’s sake, but it sounded like her. It seemed like her, and that was enough. “It's okay to be worried about the kid,” she said, running fingers through his hair while he tried to calm his breathing. 

“It's not real,” he managed hoarsely. “None of it. Nothing in this world is real, I shouldn't feel anything. So why… Why do I…”

“Does it matter if it's real?” she asked. “It feels real. Maybe it is, Obito.”

“Obito is dead,” he whispered. “At least the one you knew- Obito doesn't exist anymore.” Rin only shook her head, looking past him at nothing at all and smiling sadly.

“I don't believe you,” she said evenly. “You're still Obito. No matter how many names you take or how many masks you wear, I know who you are. And I think you do too.”

“It's not real,” he tried again, weakly. 

“If it's not real, then why do you help Konan with the dishes? If it's not real, then why do you want to save Itachi’s brother so badly? Why do you make plans for Nagato’s dream in the supposed next world when you don't have to? Why do you stick around Deidara to make sure he doesn't get killed? Why do you help Sasori with his puppets? Why, Obito?”

“I can't be Obito,” he muttered quietly. “He’s dead. He died with you.”

“He is right here. He is sitting here with me. You're still you. You'll always be you.”

“B-But…. But Madara-”

“Madara is dead,” she said with finality, shaking her head. “Madara is a dead man now. You are the only thing that can bring him back, and you have a choice.”

“I've never had a choice.”

“You do now. Madara isn't here.”

“This is all just an illusion.” She smiled sadly. 

“I'm an illusion, Obito. Your world is not.”

His dream didn't fade out from there. One second he was sitting in a dark dreamscape with his dead friend, and the next he was in the Akatsuki lair, laying in an armchair, sitting up and gasping for breath. His back hurt and his neck was aching from the weird position he dozed off in, and Obito could already feel the nausea of an inevitable hangover coming on. Still, he sat up properly, stretching his neck and running a hand through his short hair. Itachi was probably passed out in his room or throwing up already, and Obito had a hunch that he’d be feeling the same way pretty soon. He looked down at the floor and forced his eyes to focus. He didn't have time for a drunken hallucination within a drunken hallucination. But when he turned his head, he felt himself recoil and raise his hands to his face. The orange plastic from the ground winked back at him. Obito had taken his mask off. And now it was cracked. 

[impi-wimp]

I wanna preface this by saying the last couple weeks have been pretty great, I started college and made a bunch of friends and I've been enjoying the work we've been covering.

I'm in the middle of a mood swing rn I think. idk how coherent this will be so apologies but I'm gonna just list thoughts as they come into my brain. if anyone has any kind words I would really appreciate it but if not that's okay too! hope everyone's having a better day than me lol.

I feel so very lonely. I watched love on the spectrum earlier, it's such a sweet pure show, I long for that kind of relationship someday. I have a fucked up brain than doesn't work the same as neurotypicals. I might be autistic (undiagnosed) and I have borderline personality disorder (diagnosed).

dating is really hard for me as I overthink everything, my brain makes me think people randomly hate me for no reason, I worry all the time that I'm boring and keep a connection or conversation going. I feel inferior alot of the time, there's always going to be someone prettier, smarter, funnier, kinder than me and it feels like a personal attack even tho im aware it's not.

I wish I could be one of those non self aware borderlines that go through their lives fucking whatever they want up but I'm not. I overanalyze, I question whether im being toxic or manipulative every two seconds. there's a few people in my life rn that I'm trying to pursue romantically but then they act or do something small that bothers me and I start to lose feelings, I know this isn't right. I won't name names ofc. but when a man talks to u about jerking his penis over and over again like it's an interesting conversation point it gets a bit rough. in person our conversation was good albeit kind of one sided by him because most of the time I struggle to speak up, I agree and nod and smile and pretend I relate to whatever the others talking about. I either have no opinions to give or I have them and I'm too scared to voice them, or the third , my brain is just completely empty of thoughts. which is funny because it never happens when I'm alone, but when I'm out on a date eager to have fun and flirt and make conversation my mind is just blank. I really am starting to think I am the problem or that there is something really wrong with me, that I was not meant to be a person in this vessel. he mentions he's in his "undies" playing videogames again, it slightly discomforts me but I reply "haha nice". sex is another thing that bothers me, I want it and I don't all at once. I want to have passion and intimacy but when u find myself in that situation I push my own boundaries asside to please others. I'm scared that someone is going to sleep with me and not find it's magical and important and cherish the moment. I'm scared they will finish and leave me sore on the mattress and walk out the door. I hate pain. all pain.

pleasure, I know what that is but only alone in my bedroom with a piece of silicone, I take as little or as long as I wish, there's no discomfort as long as I'm patient. I lay there and he's not trying to push further while I try not to cry. "oh there's blood".

they never understand, yet they always say they're listening ...listening for what? not my comfort, your rush, your aggression, your ego. I take it all.

sex is pure and important and not easy...for me.

if I'm going to do that with you I'm not doing it lightly. it means I either trust you or I'm being reckless both of which could end horribly. I just don't want to feel used anymore. it wasn't even you who used me but I still fear that you're in disguise. I'm hurt by others but then I assume everyone will do the same. You are not him but I can't not see him. I wish for it to be easy, carefree, fun. its just not that with me, maybe someday?

text me only two words and I'll cry all night.

[kineticallyanywhere]

I'd love to hear those fusion thots :eyes: the pacific rim ones were V good

If you’ve been around this house for a hot minute you might know that fusion aus are My Entire Jam Garden so you might imagine I’ve already put some thought into this and you would imagine right. The following was brainstormed in consort with @aryashi my second brain. 

The basis for this au is that fusion is possible in the forgotten realms and is just a thing people there can do. This also applies to sudden interdimensional travelers. 

tl;dr I wrote basically a one-shot’s worth of words down there but in short fusion is rad but also there's an unexpected amount of drama. which is basically a summary of the podcast but replace "fusion" with "fatherhood"

(preface: fusion is not a sex metaphor, just like pacific rim. Platonic fusion is normal. Familial fusion is normal. Okay, continue.) 

First inter-dad fusion: “I silence his dumb ass with a kiss” except its “I silence his dumb ass by accidentally fusing our bodies and consiousnesses into a single being w h o o p s” 

I like to name fusions as something other than their romantic ship name so let’s call him… o h yeah we named all of Henry’s fusions after animals. So this guy is Hare (like Darryl). Hare is pretty stable from the outside, but their internal dialogues clash really hard so they're incredibly slow to make decisions. 

Internally, Henry feels like he's crossed Darryls boundaries. They have to hold it, but he lets Darryl take the wheel and all similar mistakes are made. They make it through the thing with the Lance before unfusing. Darryl has no idea what that was and already has a lot of intimacy issues, so he’s not particularly inclined to try that again for funsies. Henry is curious, but there’s a buried part of him that’s making him deeply unsettled by the whole experience. He can barely have a straight thought about it, much less articulate the feeling, so he doesn’t try. He lets it go. 

First sons fusion: When the Lord of Chaos throws back his robe, yelling “Dad! !” it’s a GIANT Lark&Sparrow. They’re like trying to fuse two rubies together, you just get a bigger ruby. This changes a bit later, when the twins start to diverge from each other vis a vis Love Wolfism, but basically the Lord of Chaos is an Oak Twin the size of their dad. But still looks 12. It probably actually takes the Love Wolf speech from Henry and their divergent reactions to get them to unfuse. 

Second inter-dad fusion: That other time Henry and Darryl smooched while high on drug flowers. It was very unpleasant, they don’t talk about it, they don’t try that again for a while. 

They get a book on fusions from the Library that reads almost like a birds and the bees talk and there is minor culture-shock panicking about whether fusion is Like That, but something in Henry is telling him “No. It’s not Like That.” He doesn’t really know why he’s so solid in that belief. He understands that fusion is unique and powerful and a wonderful thing, but something about doing it is just… getting under his skin. 

Third inter-dad fusion: Glenn and Ron. I’m not even sure the exact context or anything. Maybe they were just vibin’. All I really know is that I imagine these two occasionally fuse for the weirdest things, like

Fourth inter-dad fusion: also Glon, fishing magic items out of a giant toilet. They needed to be taller. 

Glon is… gosh, what the heck is Glon. Performative out the ass, for sure. Down for basically anything. Allowed to wear bootie shorts. 

Back up a hot minute though, because first dad-son fusion: almost happens on the Tower of Terry. It comes so close. They’re in that hug, and Ron thinks maybe if they fuse, the magic won’t take TJ. Or even if it takes them both, that’s better than TJ getting taken alone. They don’t have to say “I’m sorry” or “I love you, son” out loud, but before it really takes, Terry gets ripped away. Because Willy can’t have that, can he? 

Fifth inter-dad fusion: is Glon again, but the circumstances are way different because Ron just saw the mummy of his wife and Glenn is trying to help him breeze past it and it works until it doesn’t and they fall apart with Ron a crying mess. 

Sixth inter-dad fusion buckle up because we’ve reached Ravenloft. Before dad-fusion 6, Henry gets caught in his dad’s claws. He feels something very familiar and rejects it with everything he has, and escapes to grab Glenn. Then he gets hit by Calm Emotions, Glenn reaches up, trying not to fall, and Henry is already super chill about everything all of a sudden, so when Glenn tries to fuse out of panic, Henry goes for it. 

Gila—Henry and Glenn—can do actual bard magic. They’re like Opal, in that a single moment of disconnect is enough to snap them apart and finding that disconnect is not difficult. But when the situation is saving their kids and telling their asshole dads to get lost, that’s plenty enough connection to cast an actual magic-ass thunderwave with a guitar and maybe a bit more. 

(Barry didn’t like that.) 

So another fun thing about adding this factor to cannon is that this lets the dads have glimpses inside each other’s heads. So certain conversations could change a little bit. For example, in the van while they’re driving away from the Ravenloft fight and Henry’s explaining a few things. 

Henry: I don't have a lot of memories from that time in my life—  Glenn: Not a lot? Try "not any.” Henry: Glenn—  Glenn: Dude, none of my business, but your brain was weird.  Henry: Glenn.  Glenn: Like did the government get to you when you showed up on earth or—   Henry: Glenn what the fff—rick are you even saying just shut up Darryl: …

Darryl had noticed, too, but Glenn has other fusion experience to compare with. Henry could catch glimpses and imprints and trains of thought which ground in different points of Darryl/Glenn’s entire life, and Glenn and Ron can do that equally with each other. But a bunch of things for Henry, if you try to backtrack to where the decision comes from it just. Stops. Especially with using magic, which Glenn got to do. And Henry’s thoughts on fusion end dead hard. 

(filtering all of this through Freddie’s headcanon that Glenn always figured Henry was from Faerun but was just wildly wrong about all the details is so much fun)

This is the part in the fic series where there’s a one-shot about Henry having a panic attack just outside of the camp at night, and the most he can explain is just that something about seeing his dad again set him off. 

And then we get to a lighter turn for first dad-son fusion but for realsies this time: Ron Stampler nat 20s to hug his son and then also is the son. And that dad. And dads are supposed to be inside to do a ritual for a demon cow. 

RJ is the sweetest dude. Also if you don’t sit on him he will wander off and do the most extreme version of the first thing that comes to his mind for a problem solution or release from boredom. And he will not tell you about it in advance, so seriously. Sit on him. 

So they stand there for a second like "yes... Yes. Yes... Okay. Im... I'm the dad. But I'm the kid? But im. The dad. And all the other dads are also the kid so... Dad... Trumps kid status. And I'm the dad... Cool." and they go in to help with the demon cow. 

The kids are flipping out outside. 

Henry spots them and drops the cage, almost like he’s Garnet and just spotted Stevonnie. While all the other dad’s are freaking out/fawning/curious, Glenn lifts their glasses and theres four eyes and he drops the glasses and never mentions this again. 

Rj: hi um. I'm a dad.... Yeah. So I'm here tooooooo frickin kill a demon cow let's do this Rj: got the good dad vibes comin out of my butt

For realsies though Terry should be outside, so they unfuse for the cow thing and the bbq but then Dennis happens. 

Second dad-son fusion: Dennis: are you sure you've got this?  Ron: i can do it  TJ: he can DO it dad GIVE ME YOUR HAND

RJ’s an arcane trickster and it’s real cool and Dennis looks so jealous ha ha ha and also they separate after the fight and suddenly Terry’s unsettled and needs to talk to Ron for a second because “Hey Dad is Dennis not real????????” 

Third dad-son fusion: is way less eventful, but who the heck can say no to more reasons to cry about the Wilsons at the tail end of the Supper Bowl arc? 

Fusion is not a replacement for talking, but it is a bit smoother in communicating emotions. It doesn’t happen until the end of their talk, when Darryl’s got his arm around Grant. I don’t think either of them are super attached to this whole fusion thing, (If Grant is, it certainly wasn’t his dad he’d been thinking about trying it with. Maybe one of the other kids… “maybe Terry.”) so they may not even pick a name. Henry certainly cries at least twice as hard, but when they want to just get something to eat and maybe just hang out for a while, nobody pushes. 

I think the most important part of this is that it gives Grant a kind of… emotional break. Lets him feel something nice again— like he does in the show, too, but in a way that’s a bit more stable while it lasts. Like the feeling when you’re a kid on a long car ride with your parents, one that ends in getting home late and you’ve fallen asleep and they carry you out of the car. 

Good things for Grant Wilson for til forever. 

Somewhere in that arc, though, Glenn approaches Henry by themselves. Glenn’s not really a feelings guy, but whatever’s going on in Henry’s head is a problem. It’s a one-up the o-dads have on them, and they can’t afford that right now. 

Glenn: so you like... Really don't hardly remember being a kid?  Henry: Glenn, I don't want to talk about it  Glenn: I bet your dad's gonna wanna talk about it  Henry: well... i don't care what he wants  Glenn:... You seriously don't know how you got to earth?  Henry: [exasperated] the frick are you-- I got to earth like anyone else, Glenn. You know where babies come from, right?  Glenn: of course i fucking know where babies come from. A mommy and a daddy love each other very much and then their kid runs away so hard he skips dimensions  Henry: wh-- wait you-- do you think I'm an alien?  Glenn: obviously  Henry: Glenn that's-- [sighs, rubs his face] Glenn this isn't the kind of time for your conspiracies  Glenn: hey as far as I'm concerned, a man who sleeps with an axe under his pillow is a fool every night but one. and you shoot poison from your hands and shape shift into bears

Which adds nicely to the slide of heading to Oakveil next

Henry: y'know what. When we leave here, we can get my kids next.  Glenn: your interdimensional kids  Henry: to prove to you you're being crazy. Again.  Glenn: De Nial is a river man, and we left it back on earth

And one more dialogue bite, because…

Glenn: claim your powers latched onto you from this world all you want. But that language you and your dad spoke, didn't come out of the air, it came out of the door in your head

...fusion means the other dads get to learn about the metaphorical brain door. 

This brings us into the most recent arc, heading into Oakveil. He and Ron sneak in, and Beary tells Henry he’s home, and pieces start to click together. Henry’s from this world, so he understands why he’s had such a particular view on fusion and that basic cultural understanding. That it’s considered normal. And that it’s even normal for a kid’s first fusion to be with their parent. Their parent who loves them and knows them wants to see them grow. 

Bear Ry’Oak is not that. 

First O-dad fusion: Henry’s first fusion was with his dad. 

I think the worst thing is that, when fused with his dad, Hen doesn't feel like he's not himself. one of the interesting things about the Oaks is that they're kind of all slight alterations on the same traits. Like as gross as it feels to admit, Beary is just Henry but with the condescension turned up to a billion and his high horse is basically an elephant and no self-awareness or care for how others might have different perspectives from him

But Beary is still so overwhelming to Henry that it just flattens pretty much anything that makes Henry, Henry. Specifically the parts that Barry dislikes. like Henry's anger. To directly quote Aryashi: “Beary thinks using fusion for combat is barbaric. obviously fusion is for Conflict Resolution. Fuse with Beary so he can sort out your disagreement with him!”

(and then bathe in bleach)

So Beary finds them in Oakveil and Henry starts panicking and he tries to Handle Henry like he did when Henry was a kid, fusing with him to stomp down on his feelings to cut a panic attack or outburst off at the pass. If Henry's in no place to fight back it usually works, but if Ron's there--literally pressed against Henry's back--to see the fusion coming, maybe he reaches for a fusion, too, and lets Henry's instincts choose which pull to follow, and Henry's instincts choose Ron.

Seventh inter-dad fusion: Wren is suddenly there before Beary can even start his attempt to coach Henry through breathing (his half-effort to help Henry and be able to say that he tried freakin hate him) and is sitting on the ground and the disgusted look Beary gets seeing this. (Fusing with an outsider is something he considers so beneath his son.)

Beary:... Ah. Ronald.  Wren, existing, suddenly, and mostly being Ron's processing power as Henry's mental wheels try to slow down to match Ron's pace (cultivated through a childhood of dealing with Willy) rather than amp them both up: uhm... It's just Ron, actually Beary: would you mind... (there's other people around so he can't say "decontaminating") liberating my son. (as if ignoring the role his son had in choosing this fusion over his) Wren: Henry is uh... (me? Not me? Yes me, not up for this, we should go somewhere else that usually works fine, we can just leave and find the others and that'll be fine) he's good. We're good, we're gonna... (looking at the other people who look like Henry and the "not amping each other up” thing is working less and less)  Wren: bye

And then they just stand up and fast-walk away

Wren is either chill af and rolling with every punch or the living equivalent of a coke bottle that you popped a whole roll of mentos in and then closed immediately. At this moment, it’s very much the coke bottle side. Beary lets them go because he knows Henry will be back, and they make it just outside of town to where the others have just shown up before they fall apart. 

Ron: We found the door!  Darryl: what door?  Ron: the one in Henry's head!  And all the dads know what he's talking about Glenn: did you open it?  Henry: no  Ron: a little bit  Henry(probably now starting that panic attack): the anchors in there  Ron: his dad came out of it  Darryl: his dad???????? Henry, vulnerability, Oak: I AM FEELING VERY VULNERABLE RIGHT NOW AND I HATE IT  [chorus of mumbled sorrys] Ron: oh also Oakvale is Henry's home Darryl: WHAT Glenn: Uh hey anyone gonna pick up the phone cause I FUCKIN CALLED IT Henry: That's not my home! My home is with Mercedes back on Earth! Glenn: Yeah, this is just where you were born.  Henry: Glenn I swear to God-- Glenn: Dude lay off, I was agreeing with you! Home's where the heart meds are and all that jazz Darryl: Wait, you have heart meds? At home? When was the last time you took your heart meds? Glenn: Uhh... not since I came here? It's fiiiiiine. Never felt better! Ron: Not to interrupt but Henry's on the ground breathing funny. Glenn, are you sure you don't have any heart meds? Henry: being hugged by both of his sons in a simultaneous way that is not their normal simultaneous way (i.e. the Lord of Chaos way): WHY ARE MY SONS TALLER THAN ME Glenn: I'm more surprised that they're hugging you  Lord of Chaos: to assert dominance! Any moment now, we will turn this hug into a suplex!

And that basically brings us to now? I want a Triple Oak Fusion (the King of Chaos) but with how the fight with Beary went I’m not sure where it’ll go. OH YEAH. 

Autumn stopped fusing with Hen even when he was a kid because she couldn’t stand to see how much her son craved the approval of that evil man who stole her life away. And whether or not Henry ever fuses with anyone ever again after finding out he’s got Eldritch in him has gotta be up in the air. 

And at this point I could easily be convinced that the next inter-dad fusion is Darryl and Glenn, those beautiful idiots. They could be… Denn. Glarryl? We’ll workshop it. 

[jemimasillabub]

Fair warning, this is going to be long and probably convoluted, since this spans over at least a year.

So I’m an asexual panromantic. I’ve known since I was a freshman in college, honestly probably even earlier but I was afraid to admit it to myself. The reason I was afraid to admit it? I’m also a Mormon. For those of you that may not know, Mormons believe that being gay is a sin. Well, they don’t believe that “struggling with same sex attraction” is a sin, they believe that actually acting on “same sex attraction” is the sin. So basically, my church believes that people were born gay, but it’s a test, and that actually dating and so on with people of your same sex is a sin. And I’m not going to get into trans people right now. My church is also big on the whole “multiply and replenish the earth” thing, so me being both asexual and panromantic is kind of a no no. I still believe in most of the rest of my church, however, which is why I haven’t left, but I’m sure you can imagine that it’s kind of a strain on my life.

So now that you know the background, let’s get into the actual story.

I came out to my parents my senior year of college. I didn’t think they would really mind, but there’s always that feeling of doubt. I still remember from years previous how my parents, my mom particularly, would talk about how disgusting and wrong gay people were. But then they’d turn around and say they’d love me no matter what. And that’s how lots of kids and teenagers seem to get trapped by their parents. But my parents were fine with it, if a bit confused. They seem to think I’ll grow out of it or that when I find “the one” that I’ll change, but whatever.

Now fast forward to the summer of 2019. My cousin, who is a girl, is engaged to another girl. My aunt, her mom, visited us for something (I can’t remember now) along with my grandpa. I was in the kitchen, baking and cleaning dishes, and they were in the living room straight ahead. My aunt, grandpa, and mom start talking about my cousin and her upcoming wedding. My aunt is going on and on about what a hardship it is, and how SHE DOESN’T KNOW IF SHE’S EVEN GOING TO ATTEND THE WEDDING BECAUSE IT MIGHT SHOW THAT SHE APPROVES. I don’t care WHAT your religion says, if THAT’S the only reason you don’t go to your daughter or son’s wedding, you need to reevaluate your life. So I’m kind of upset already, because it makes me wonder what MY parents would do. And my mom just keeps commiserating with her, as if her daughter who also isn’t straight, isn’t three feet away listening to this entire conversation. Then my grandpa starts talking about how he’s sending them a Bible as their wedding gift. And not in the “Oh, you need a family Bible” kind of way, but the “You’re going against the teachings of God by getting married” kind of way. So that wasn’t pleasant. However the worst part was probably how my mom, who at this points knows about my own orientation, doesn’t bother to try and have this conversation where I can’t hear it. So I basically get to hear my own mom agree with everything my aunt is saying.

NOW, fast forward to the actual wedding. During the toasts, which are so heartwarming and emotional (“I’ve been praying for you” was said by my cousin’s new wife, and I just started bawling), my grandpa starts to tap his knife against his glass. LOUDLY. One of my uncles, not my cousin’s dad, tells him “Hey, everyone can hear that!” and do you know what my grandpa says? “Good.” SERIOUSLY?? Anyways, nothing else happened during the wedding, which I had a huge sigh of relief about.

NOW, fast forward to October of 2019. Twice a year, my church has something called General Conference. What it basically is, is higher ups in our church talking to us for the weekend. They’re usually really good, even if a little long. We also have a special Women’s Conference and Priesthood Conference. We would switch off which one was happening at each conference, and it would just be a two hour special for either the women or the men. This time, it was the women’s turn. One of our leaders, Dallin H. Oaks steps up to speak.

Let me preface THIS with a little bit of background. For the past SEVERAL conference, Oaks has ALWAYS talked about gay people and how they’re wrong and blah blah blah. Also, at the last Women’s Conference, he stood up and basically talked about how all women should strive to get married and have kids because that’s the greatest joy a female can have. I’m not married, I’m not dating anyone, I don’t really want kids… Suffice it to say, I’m not a big fan of Oaks because he usually makes me cry.

Anyways, Oaks had also talked during the regular conference and hadn’t said anything hurtful so I was cautiously optimistic. BAD decision. I didn’t take notes and I refuse to watch it again, but it was just as bad as the rest of his talks. My family was watching this talk with my aunt (the one previously mentioned), a different female cousin, and my grandpa. It wasn’t a good experience for me, but I was just going to let it go. BUT THEN, we all decide to get some milkshakes. In the car ride, my aunt asks us how we liked Oaks’ talk. I wasn’t going to say anything, but my mom said that she didn’t take any notes because she couldn’t (My mom is trying her best with me, I think she just sometimes doesn’t know what to do or say). My aunt pushes, asking why my mom refused to take notes. My mom just keeps saying she couldn’t do it. So I finally have to come out and say that I don’t like Oaks because I’m bisexual (I didn’t want to get into the whole ‘asexual panromantic’ thing with them because I was already about to start crying AGAIN). I kind of explain how every time our church talks about gay people, they basically say that you can either have a relationship with someone while on earth, but then be punished in heaven or whatever, OR you can be alone on earth and supposedly be blessed in heaven. And how that’s a really sad outlook for gay people. Then my grandpa chimes in by saying that he’s glad he’s almost dead. So basically, my grandpa would rather be dead than attend my wedding if I’m marrying a girl.

TL;DR: I’m pan, lots of my extended family doesn’t really approve, and my grandpa would rather be dead than go to my wedding if I marry a girl.

[igobacktomay]

i know i’m a clown who posts writing twice a year with the preface “this isn’t finished yet” but: this isn’t finished yet, i wanted to share it anyway. sharing personal writing sleeves me out a little but it’s also the only kind of writing i do, & often the kind i like to read, so it follows that i have to share it sometimes. this is called “cappadocia, south carolina” and it’s a true story but the names have been changed

Curled in on myself on the cavernous and unfamiliar bed with my knees to my chest, I tried and failed to steady my breathing. Avery’s breath was hot and wet in my ear, and some part of me somewhere in the back of a warehouse was saying, This was where you were when it happened but I did my best to shake that off. I tried to focus on the warmth of her chest on my back, arms wrapped around my arms that wrapped around my legs, her legs curled loosely up towards mine, a firm crescent moon around my smaller body. I tried to come up with something to say and couldn't. It was like someone had smeared Vaseline on the lens. All my thoughts were gone. All that was left was feelings, simultaneously hollow and all-consuming, a wiping of the slate, a disconnection from myself, a fear of something, a painful memory hovering just out of frame. 

Avery rubbed my hands slowly as if she was waiting for me to speak. I only shivered in my fog. I had no words. Eventually she asked, "Hey, if you could live in a colony on the moon or in underground tunnels, which would you pick?"

Her voice was light and curious, testing me for a response, so I screwed one up out of somewhere and asked her if there was natural light anywhere in the tunnels. My words came out slow and dream-like. I pictured them sliding into the corners of the room and kept my eyes shut, lest I see it.

She seemed to think for a second before she answered.

"No, I don't think there's natural light."

"I still pick the tunnels."

"Why?"

"There's these tunnels in..." and I trailed off. Got lost for a moment thinking of a photo I saw on a Wikipedia page somewhere, of sunlight coming in through thin alabaster to illuminate a partially-underground room. I tried to stay focused on the image, which was comforting, until I could remember the words for what I was trying to say. It was also possible that I had invented the picture, or that somewhere a few archaeological sites got mixed up in my brain. I couldn’t tell.

"Fuck," I whispered, "I know this. Hold on, I know where they are, I just--" and putting my thoughts into words was like trying to make noise underwater. I started to worry that all that would come out was air bubbles and all that would come in was drowning. The water poured into my skull and carried off the rest of the thought, leading me back into the empty moor of dissociation, further away from the woods and the lake and the cold bed. But Avery continued to stroke my hands and arms and the feeling was distracting, and thinking about how it was distracting suddenly let me break a hole through the gray curtain. I saw the impossible stone window again, and for a second its light shone through me.

"Cappadocia,” I pronounced carefully, still clutching my legs to my chest as tight as I could. “They're in the Cappadocia region of... somewhere." 

"What are?" Avery asked. I blinked. How long had it been?

"What? These tunnels I’m telling you about. They're like, hundreds of... maybe thousands of… years... I don't know. They're old, and they uh, they're in the desert somewhere, and I'd want to live in one of those. They look nice."

"Oh. That sounds good.” She paused, and the part of me that still knew where I was knew that she was running out of things to say. I hoped she wouldn’t stop trying anyway. Though I was largely unable to communicate it, I was convinced her conversation was the only thing keeping me from slipping over the edge into catatonia. The animal of myself was drifting back to the Ice Age, warming its illiterate hands by the original hearth fire in my mind.

“If you lived in the tunnels, would you fall in love with a mole person?" was what she came up with. I gave it some consideration.

“Yeah, probably."

"Would you have mole babies?"

“I'd have a mole abortion, Avery." She didn’t laugh. Could I blame her? She continued to stroke my hands and breathe evenly on my hair, but didn’t ask me any more questions. I had the feeling she wasn’t sure what to do; I was not in the right condition to illuminate her.

Since pulling away and curling into a ball, I hadn't opened my eyes for a long time. I knew it would be dark in the room if I did, but I still couldn't face anything. I feared stimulation. I only wanted to be comfortable and still, to exist away from myself. I could feel the core of my body shaking involuntarily, even though I was warm and knew I wasn’t in danger. I started worrying that I was going to forget who Avery was and stop feeling safe because I didn't know who was holding me.

Instead, I suddenly recalled in a flash my memories of fifteen minutes earlier, looking down across the flat plain of my stomach at thin bare legs sprouting out of a borrowed oversized sweater, her rolling the condom on and me waiting on the pain and the pistoning, and I felt terribly anxious and sick. Not over Avery. It wasn’t her fault. I felt sick with myself. I had felt the blankness replacing my arousal even as I consented and participated, as I looked at our tangle of legs and wondered vaguely which belonged to me. I had hoped I could somehow stop the feeling on my own, already sensing the difficulty of the words coming out, and so said nothing in protest. I couldn’t stop the feeling on my own, and halfway through a handjob she had asked, “are you okay?” and I had whispered, “I’m sorry, I feel really weird,” and slowly folded myself down onto the duvet.

Now the guilt rolled in. Guilt for my inability to speak, to stop anything from happening when I knew I should, guilt for putting Avery in a position like this one: having to stop consensual sex three minutes in to comfort her pained partner like a child & question her own actions. I didn’t want to worry her while we were on vacation. What I wanted was just to have a good time with my girlfriend, and now I had failed step one for both of us.

Why can't you work? I pleaded with my body. Christ, why can’t you be normal for once? Nothing that bad even happened to me in the first place. Why am I so fucked up over it? There was no real urgency to these thoughts, but they were carried by cloudy waves of overwhelming discomfort that made me want to cry.

Just as I was starting to spiral and squeeze myself tighter together, Avery started talking in my ear again. I could tell by her tone that she was telling me a story to help me relax, and I stopped following the thread of my fear long enough to force myself to listen and breathe slowly.

What she started with was, "Did you know how cigarettes got their name?"

I took one deep breath before pushing the words out. "No. Tell me how.”

"Well,” Avery said, snuggling her arms closer around my body, “Once there was this man named Sigur. He was a really tall, and uh, lanky man, and he always wore a white shirt and kind of... tan-orange pants. And he always carried tobacco and rolling papers with him wherever he went, you know, he was a smoker. And when he would roll his tobacco into the papers, he would make it so the ends were tan-orange and the rest was white... so it would look just like a little version of him in his outfit. And, so, he called them Sigur-ettes, as in, smaller Sigurs! And that's how cigarettes got their name."

I didn't respond very much to the story, except at the end when I said, "I'm glad, he's... good," and then trailed off.

There were several minutes of silence, during which I spontaneously and uncontrollably pictured what I might look and feel like in the event that I were able to carve out all of my internal organs and sell them on eBay. I forced it back down into the blankness. My usual visualization of my brain as two hands that plucked information out and dispensed it had been replaced by the conviction that those hands had formed tight fists and curled towards each other with their backs to me, like two small cats settling in to sleep.

"We can go back to the way we were before if you want," Avery said from behind me, pulling me a little closer and rocking me slightly onto my back, as if to guide me to roll over so we were face to face. The animal in my brain didn’t like my body being moved by other people but the animal would not move my body by itself. These were words I couldn’t speak. I mumbled back a vague protest.

"You don't have to do that, this was fine."

"Hey, maybe I like the other position better,” she said. “I might have. C'mon."

I couldn’t find the energy to resist her gentle tugging, or a reason to do so, so as she pulled at me, I slowly let go of my legs and stretched them cautiously towards the end of the bed. My shoulders relaxed a little, and the next thing I knew, Avery’s blue eyes were looking into mine in the dim room, and she was steadying my shoulder saying, “There, that wasn’t so bad, right?”

I still closed my eyes against her gaze and responded without words, but she was right, it wasn’t so bad. In this new position I could feel exhaustion finally seeping into me as my muscles started to relax by increments. As I calmed down and counted my fingers and returned to myself, I started to regain the part of me that felt embarrassment and shame and was stricken. It was the worst kind of hangover to have. Every time I found my way out of that space, the first part of me to come back was the shame.

“I’m sorry this always happens,” I exhaled into the hollow of Avery’s neck. “I wish it didn’t, I mean, I really, I hate it, I didn’t want--”

“Hey,” she said softly, and my heart almost broke. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m not mad. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, I thought, even if you aren’t mad, but I didn’t say it. I let her reassure me, keeping the blankness to myself as it shrunk back into its own corner of my mind.

“It’s okay,” she said again. “It’s not your fault.”

Eventually her hands in my hair compelled the rest of the terror to let go of me, and I fell asleep beside her, not cuddling but facing opposite directions on our own sides of the bed, as was our way.

In the morning when we woke up and reached our hands sleepily towards each other, the room was still cold and the sky outside was gray and misty. We dressed without talking very much, and I wondered if I was supposed to offer her some kind of explanation for my behavior. I decided against it; downstairs there were friends and blueberry pancakes and coffee and gospel, and a four hour drive home ahead of me. My night fears had ebbed away and left me tired, but no longer too foggy to think. I ate breakfast and smoked a clove cigarette over a steaming mug of black coffee in a deck chair, next to chatty punks wrapped up in quilts like caterpillars, and felt quietly grateful for all the people I loved. Avery’s best friend asked us how we slept when we made it down the stairs, and we both said, “fine!”

After we all got home and I was by myself in my dorm room again, I googled photos of the tunnels in Cappadocia, which turned out to be in Turkey. There was no image of a room with a thinly carved stone window. No images of light glowing through such a thing. The picture must have been something my dissociation invented, a new safe place to hide. I pictured it and tested its capabilities, and liked what I saw.

[madmadmilk]

do u have any advice on how to be less awkward and more social?

OH BOY DO I.... let’s preface this with–– bro i have been there, and i am STILL there... it will always be a constant struggle with a lot of upkeep and perseverance. BUT in time you will find a certain confidence that will carry you in comfort.

here are /my/ tips on how to be less awkward and more social:

- learn how to be a good listener . if you’re not great at carrying conversations or thinking of new topics to talk about, be a person people trust to lend an ear. and that means you actively listen, give responses and remember & care about what they tell you. you will be praised and loved for the support you give others! (and hopefully you find people who will do the same for you)

- don’t label yourself “awkward” out loud. i think it’s kinda easy to use that as a “cop out” and excuse to not do new things or to cover up your shortcomings. like yes, you can be awkward, and it is still okay to make a mistake and say, “oh sorry, that’s so awkward.” but TRY NOT to call yourself that out loud. by doing that you are training yourself to just accept it. but no! you are a whole other person besides that! you are KIND! you are SMART! you are FUNNY! you are great at X and Y! we don’t need to add “awkward” into our identifiers. :) 

- attend events. idk how often there’s an event you can go to or what your interests are but,,, i think it’s important to keep giving yourself the opportunities to go out. you can feed off of other people’s energies and “learn” how to talk certain ways and also just put yourself in a new position. it is scary but, i think that a few hours of /awkward/ is bearable every now and then.

- don’t be discouraged. ya, ya easy to just say that. i can’t tell u how many events i’ve gone to and just cried about afterwards–– whether i got cut off while talking or no one heard me or i didn’t have anyone to go with, the release of crying made me feel better. it really sucks to have that bad experience, but i think you learn a lot from them. like i learned that i don’t like going to house parties in people’s basements and that i don’t like it when /this/ topic is brought up. you’ll learn through it, you’ll live through it. and you’ll be okay! don’t let these set backs stop you.

- remember that you’re a whole-ass person . i feel like when we’re insecure socially and stuff, we forget that we have our own beliefs, opinions and hobbies. you DON’T need to conform to what everyone else is, in fact people will embrace you for your insight, quirks, and commentary! it’s cool to roll with the vibe of the group, but you are so special and people WANT to know you for that!

- give yourself time. some days it’ll come easily and some days it won’t. and sometimes it takes PRACTICE just to fucking talk to people!!! (me omg i hate it) so don’t be let down by that. also, not everyone has the energy to do it everyday. take time to recharge, take time to take a breath. it’s okay if you’re not 100% on all the time, but keep the lines of communication open!! good people will wait for you :)

AHH! sorry i talk so much lmao but i hope this helps!!!!! these are things that i remind myself of :) i went through college not really talking to many people and i feel like i’m slowly learning how to again. you guys have helped me so, so much :) i’m wishing you the best!

[spotlightjapan]

Hatsukoi - Hikaru Utada 

I want to preface this review with the admission that I am a big Hikaru Utada fan, so there is most definitely a chance that I might just be biased. I also know that I am a year late into this party but I thought that for my first music review on this blog, I might do this album that is one of my more recent favorites. So, let’s jump right into it!

Play A Love Song - The album starts with a sincere effort to move forward. The song itself is very colorful, with bright piano chords, electronic drum beats and a synth lead. The end of the song feels triumphant with the layering of choir-like backing vocals. The last line of the chorus「悲しい話はもうたくさん／好きだって聞かせてくれよ／Can we play a love song？」(We've already had so many sad conversations. Just tell me you love me. Can we play a love song?) represents the idea of thesis of the album: no matter how painful and dark, I will simply love what I have now.

あなた (You) - This song has a jazzy vibe that is so inviting. It is cozy, like sitting by the fireplace. One again, this song evokes the feeling of respite. The song talks about the “you” figure as her “home.” It’s an honest confession to the person she loves. She wants the “you” figure to understand that regardless of the many challenges and heartache they might face, it is with this person alone that she would endure it all. The brass instrument highlights in this song is such a treat as well.

初恋 (First Love) - The first thing that stands out about this song for me is the stirring strings that accompany the piano. The simple arrangement carries you through. The lyrics are straightforward, as they should be, and follow the general theme of the album so far. There is a very soft climax during the final chorus and outro of the the song. Utada is so good at creating that feeling at the end of her songs that just makes you want more. 

誓い (Vow) - This song is perhaps one of the most realistic wedding songs I’ve ever heard. It is honest and powerful in its declaration of love and commitment. This song seems to be communicating that while so many things in life are uncertain, love will sustain. Track 4 is basically a darker version of the previous song in terms of arrangement. The strings help create this feeling of suspense in the verses, like there is danger lurking, which fits the lyrics of the verse. The bridge is so powerful, I remember having goosebumps when I first listened to it. It is total surrender to the feeling of love with full acknowledgement of all that comes with it.

Forevermore - We seem to be plunging down a darker route in terms of color and tone. The music comes off as brooding for most of the song, but it has its brief moments of breaking through in the chorus. The music itself takes you on a journey of confronting the dark and succeeding, and going through that cycle again. The prominent ride cymbals create staccato-like tension with the electronic piano. I’m going to be repeating myself throughout this review, but once again, the honesty is piercing in this track. 

Too Proud ft. Jevon - This song allows us a bit of a break from the violins and the piano, and reminds us of Utada’s R&B’s roots. While this track is also presented simply, the lyrics really pack a punch. Allowing this moment to give in to her flaws, the persona admits that she is too proud. She points out the deficiencies of her relationship and there is a feeling of dread that looms over our heads throughout the song. I must say that I absolutely love this song. I actually don’t listen to a lot of hip-hop/rap so I don’t really know how to qualify rap verses and what not, but Jevon’s verse in this song is so good. This song is infectious ear worm, yet not in the typical catchy pop that plays on the radio. The lead riff that is like a fork tapping on a glass is so interesting as well. 

 Good Night - Oh god. Where do I begin? The intro does not give any hint to what kind of song this track truly is. The pleasant feeling of reminiscing and longing in the verses turns into a feeling of pain in the chorus. The simple palm-muted guitar with the reverb cranked up in the chorus with Utada’s ‘good night’s just take me to a different dimension. Everything swells in the verses and comes to a pause once the chorus hits, then the strings and the drums tears through the silence again. After that, we’re treated to a wistful send off in the outro. How she’s able to switch directions in such an organic yet surprising way, I really don’t know. If you look at the lyrics of this song, the amount of words don’t even amount to half of the number of words of the other songs in this album. But this song is able to communicate so much with so little, and that is what makes it a brilliant song. The song feels full, despite the thin lyrics. My absolute favorite in this album.

パクチーの唄 (The Coriander Song) - Yup, that is actually the song’s title. Do not skip it though. Don’t judge a song by its title! This song is much like the others in terms of arrangement. It’s very simple. It’s almost like a child’s song (and maybe it is!) at the beginning. But if you listen to the lyrics, there’s something comforting about it. It’s like a mother’s soothing song to a crying child. It’s unique in its on way, and not just because of its title or chorus. It’s has this nostalgic quality that makes you long for your childhood.

残り香 (Lingering Scent) - We are at that phase of the album where everything has slowed down. A pipe organ opens the curtain to the persona defeated and alone. She admits that things have fallen apart. It’s like she’s in shock, and can’t really come up with words to express what she’s feeling. The reality that the “you” figure in the song is gone is the only thing that the persona can think of at the moment. The brief silence during the end carries so much pain as Utada repeats 「暖かいあなたの肩を探す、肩を探す」(I look for your warm shoulder, I look for your warm shoulder). The little bit of white noise-like sounds that reverberates throughout the song paints a picture of a lonely woman in her flat, as a busy city goes about its day outside. The organ throughout this song represents the feeling of loss that envelops the persona. It has this inescapable quality to it that makes this song even more depressing.

大空で抱きしめて (Embrace Me Under the Big Sky) - This song carries the same feeling of loss in the previous track though in a less straightforward way. The carefree vibe is aided by the playful guitar riff. The song has a brighter color to it overall, but the general feeling is that of longing. That feeling of longing gestures to what is missing or gone.  It makes you feel like you’re looking out the window of a train on a perfectly sunny day. Now that things have fallen apart, what now? That’s the vibe that this song subtly gestures to.

夕凪 (Evening Calm) - This song confronts heavy feelings and realities of life and loss. The piano, the slow kicking of the bass drum, the layer of ‘ah’s humming, the simple string tying the arrangement together--all of these elements support the song’s heartbreaking message. Despite the song being that of loss, it is not sad or depressed. In fact there is this feeling of bravery. Through Utada’s singing, there is this quiet acceptance. Loss is serious and heavy and painful, yet the persona accepts it without resistance. The haunting vocalizations at the end adds so much character to the song. 

嫉妬されるべき人生 (A Life Worth Envying) - This song is not as colorful as the others. In fact you might get the impression that it is a sad song due to the dark vibe that is immediately apparent in the intro. But that’s not actually the case. The song is about professing undying love the the “you” figure. It is about proudly declaring that the persona’s life is worth being proud of despite all that has happened to her, and that’s because in this life, she met and married this “you” figure. The line 「長いと思ってた人生 急に短い」(A life I though would be long is all of a sudden short) reveals that now that she is with her beloved, the life that she thought would drag on, is now all of a sudden not enough time to spend with this “you” figure. The lyrics are just as honest as the first song of the album but the transformation of the persona is evident. I think it’s the undercurrent of death that makes this song dark. There’s also the life monitor-like sounds that periodically erupts throughout the song. The lyrics acknowledge that we will all die someday, and that's why it the music and delivery of the song is so incredibly intense. 

Overall, this album is such a wonderful journey to embark on. Utada’s lyrics contain very specific scenes and details, but it never alienates its listener. She is able to create universal feelings through her words and music no matter how simple the lyrics or arrangement may be. The album is cohesive, but there is an evident transformation from the first half to the second half. There is a bit of a lull in the middle, but ultimately, it’s an album that deserves to be listened to fully from start to finish. This album is magic.

9.5/10

[lit--bitch]

Current-Reads (13/04/20 - 18/04/20) 🎺🐝

(Disclosure: I know one of the writers (Annie Dobson) I’m featuring in the current-reads this week through Writing Squad. I also know Tom Bland who runs Spontaneous Poetics but I don’t personally know the two writers whose work I’ve enjoyed on the zine. And I don’t know anybody else sadly, probably because I’m a loner and a loser). 

Here’s the standard preface: every Sunday without fail I throw up the freshest literature and photography I’ve read over the week, sometimes it’s a book, sometimes it’s a piece I saw in a magazine or an online zine, sometimes it’s something I saw on social media, etc. Sometimes I add ‘RECOMMEND’ next to a few of the titles, but that’s not to say I don’t recommend all of them, I just love some pieces more than others. C’est la vie. And any titles that you see in bold are hyperlinked so if you click or tap them they’ll direct you straight to the source... or shopping basket. 

Anyway I’m just gonna get right into it. 

So this week I’ve been reading C.C. Hannett / kmwgh’s Lockdown Life and Charles Theonia’s Two Poems on Queen Mob’s Teahouse, I’ve read Haibun/Uncertainty/A Promise To Your Clothes from Jane Burns on Spontaneous Poetics and I flipped right back to September 2019 and re-read E.A.B’s have a wank because it’s fitting advice for our current predicament. I’ve returned to Patrick Süskind’s Perfume and I’ve been falling in love with Ariana Reines’s The Cow all over again, (whose new collection, A Sand Book, I’ll be reviewing in a few weeks time). Also been reading Annie Dobson’s Before The Ghost Town on the Writing Squad’s Staying Home series which boasts brilliant work. I can never get over how many amazing writers there are in the world. I’ve also discovered a new photographer with a brand new book out from Palm* Studios, Molly Matalon’s When a Man Loves a Woman. 

***

E.A.B’s have a wank, Spontaneous Poetics (21/09/2019): I keep going back to this specific piece because this poem makes you feel like you’re stood outside the John Snow in Soho, completely wasted, having a cig with a friend who’s also pissed up too. That’s the feeling I get from E.A.B’s work. She’s memorable and familiar and probably has a decent right hook. This poem is short, succinct, and means exactly what it means. I love work that is entitled quite plainly, in a way doesn’t subvert expectation—it’s tongue-in-cheek and funny. It’s also pretty good advice for when you’re in the midst of a global pandemic... or a personal crisis, I’m not sure what the difference is anymore. She also has another one up on Spontaneous Poetics, which is equally brilliant, blue balls at the end of humanity. 

Jane Burn’s Haibun/Uncertainty/A Promise To Your Clothes, Spontaneous Poetics (17/04/2020): This is a deeply sad poem eclipsed by grief and time’s relentless push and pull. It also has some absolutely beautiful personification, and it’s in the description of these vernacular objects that you really feel the subject’s hurting. ‘You’ is so empowering here, because it attempts to universalise the reader’s accessibility to the ardour of experience in this work, but is equally an attempt to sever the writer’s ‘You’ from themselves as ‘I’. This poem tells us that some pain is so painful, we can never fully accept that it has been ours to bear. 

Annie Dobson’s Before The Ghost Town, Staying Home from The Writing Squad (RECOMMEND): I’m not saying this just to be kind, all of the work on Staying Home is absolutely brilliant (discluding my own work, I promise I’m not that full of it) but Annie’s piece happened to be one of the first I read and I still think about it. Annie probably doesn’t know this but I stalk her writing. I’m her big fat secret admirer. Quintessentially British, her work smacks of kitchen-sink realism and cherry chapsticks you get in the chemist’s. I always get a noughties vibe from Annie’s writing, I always know what she’s on about. She doesn’t make the banality of life mystical, she treats the ordinary as well, just ordinary, and that’s magical enough anyway. Before The Ghost Town is a mish-mash of genres, it’s an essay but it’s a thought piece but it reads like a diary-entry and is formatted like poetry in some places. More than anything it’s a document on civilisation in Lewisham during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how full the world is still despite the reductive effects of a worldwide crisis. It’s a political critique on how fucked the UK government is, and how community is still one of the most valuable things we have in a world that is trying to make you fight over the last bag of fucking bread flour. It’s honest and sad and retrospective. It’s also filled with promise. I absolutely loved it. 

Molly Matalon, When a Man Loves a Woman: For a long time I shot pictures of men on 35mm to 120mm. I often felt strange doing it. I was used to the dogma of typical male politics; boys don’t cry, having a tough dad, penis envy, etc. It didn’t interest me anymore; the object of masculinity in its most vulnerable, in its deepest sensitivities was the impetus behind my desire to photograph men. Molly Matalon takes pictures of men I wish I had taken. But I don’t think she reverses the power dynamics, per se, although you can absolutely make the case for this, even argue her work is a case for the female gaze. But for me, she strips away these typical power dynamics, she doesn’t polarise herself as the subject, or the object. I don’t see tensions between sexes in these images. I see vulnerability, I see trust, I see relationships. I see men just as worthy of depiction as flowers, as fruits. I feel softness, I feel curves. The photographs in When a Man Loves a Woman are works of of idealisation of woman is implied by man, man as woman, woman as man, the fragile unity in these two creatures, and their reciprocations. She’s absolutely one to watch. 

Ariana Reines, The Cow (RECOMMEND): Ariana Reines is a writer so dear to me, that I can’t really contain in words just how much impact she’s had on me. I salute Elizabeth Ellen (a wonderful writer, and an editor at HOBART magazine in Los Angeles) who, one day, was moving apartments and very generously sent me a box of books all the way from the USA to my parents’ house in Manchester. In that box amongst many books lay Tiqqun’s Theory of the Young-Girl translated by Ariana Reines, and her debut collection, The Cow. So if it wasn’t for Elizabeth, I wouldn’t have read any Ariana Reines until probably much later on in life. At least, I’d like to think I’d have come across Ariana at some point anyway. 

The Cow was published in 2006 by my all-time fav magazine/publisher, Fence. The Cow isn’t poetry, isn’t prose, it’s not an essay, it’s just not any genre at all. And the fact you can’t categorise it is just really is emblematic of Ariana Reines as a writer, because she doesn’t redefine the dimensions of genres, she fucking blitzes them up in a big genre-food-processor. The Cow is the mythologisation and de-mythologisation of the woman as cow. It is the consumption and defecation of woman as cow. It is a lamentation. It is raw. It is beastly. It is thoughts and statistics and menstruation and abbattoirs. It is a dark work of art, and it’s one of the most beautiful, angry and strong texts I’ve ever read. It’s one of those books I think about often. I’d be engrossed on London tubes re-reading this over and over. It’s absolutely everything. 

Patrick Süskind, Perfume (RECOMMEND): Ah, the mothership. Patrick Süskind is... one of a kind. I borrowed the book from my best friend James and after reading it, I read it again. I still haven’t given back James’s copy (which I really need to), and I recently bought a UK first-edition of Perfume so now I can say it’s on my bookshelf. Reading Perfume is an intoxicating experience... I guess it’s because of the way Süskind writes about smell, and he writes about it so vividly that, for me at least, it can induce olfactory hallucinations. It’s not just about the story of a murderer with a superhuman power for scent, it’s about our relationship with different smells we come across throughout our life, their pungency and their ability to kind of tattoo our memory. You can recall scents in a way that you might not be able to with sounds. I don’t remember fully the way my maternal grandmother sounded, she passed when I was a little girl, but I still know her smell. It’s Youth Dew and sweets. Perfume induces sensations and memories in me. It’s a text I go back to time and time again. 

C.C. Hannett / kmwgh’s Lockdown Life, Queen Mob’s Tea House (03/04/2020): Queen Mob’s Tea House is a new fav of mine and their zine kind of reminds me of the Richmond Tea Rooms in Manchester’s Gay Village. They’re a bit Alice in Wonderland, a bit occult, a bit down-the-rabbit-hole, pink and sparkly, with black lace. If that description of the zine borders on pretension then, sorry. I have zine synaethesia. So these poems from ‘C.C. Hannett / kmwgh’ (I’m not sure I understand the name) were awesome little tidbits on living through a global pandemic. An ellision of pop culture, absurdity and tenderness. A reminder that we will never get this time back, and that if you’ve got the luxury of being with your loved ones right now, cherish it. I also really loved the last line of this guy’s bio, no social media handles or website, just: “You can find him if you want to.” Lol. 

Charles Theonia, Two Poems, Queen Mob’s Tea House (24/05/2017) (RECOMMEND): I loved both of these poems but I mostly wanted to talk about ‘shame’. I enjoyed ‘shame’ for its density—it’s a single block paragraph—the format has a weight to it, like that of feeling shame. I know this was published in 2017, basically I was just surfing the zine’s website and clicked on Queen of Pentacles (I was intrigued bc I read Tarot) and this was the  latest entry on there. I enjoy the bluntness and conversational-ism of these two pieces, but I particularly loved ‘shame’ for the way it unpacks shame as a multi-faceted, festering spawn that drags you under, and under, and under. Its resonance is powerful. 

*** Anyway that is enough from me zis week. Next Friday I’m reviewing Charlotte Geater’s poems for my fbi agent which is again from Bad Betty Press. Stay safe, eat cake. xxxxxx

[thenobodyhasarrived]

Writing Abuse

So, I just realized a big pet peeve of mine: people incorrectly representing food issues and abuse in all media but mainly books. As someone who was abused as a child I thought to make a list of some of the big things I see off the top of my head. This is on mobile and my abuse was largely centered around food so keep that in mind.

1.) Hiding food:

I've seen some stories, a lot of times fanfiction if I'm being totally honest, have the idea that as long as the abuser does not see the person being abused eating that it has been successfully hidden. That is, usually, extremely incorrect. whenever I read a character just taking from the pantry when a parent figure is asleep, I get incredibly stressed because that would have gotten me in a huge amount of trouble. A big part of hiding food is what I like to call cushioning. Cushioning is when you do not eat the first or the last of anything, ever. If you open a package then it is far more likely to be noticed. If you are the last one to eat something then the package has to be thrown away and the loss of the package becomes much more noticeable. people are much less likely to notice a little bit of something taken from the middle. Unless the abuser has multiple children and abuses each of them in a different way or only abuses one of them, and unless those non abused children stick up for the abused kid and realize that food is being deprived from them, then the loss of the food is very prominent.

2.) Obtaining ≠ Success

So another thing is that it's not just about eating the food, it's about being able to keep down the food. If the character has been abused this way for a long time then it usually becomes kind of ingrained that eating is bad all of the time. I am almost perpetually hungry but I cannot bring myself to eat enough to fill my stomach more than half of the time. I once didn't eat all day and then made myself a plate of spaghetti, ate a single bite, and then stared at the plate for 4 hours after because even though I was ravenous I could not eat the food for the life of me (this often results in stress which could result in crying or anger or complete dispassion depending on how a person responds to trauma.) so it's not just about being able to get the food to eat, it's about being able to physically and mentally make yourself eat.

3.) Behaviors

I want to preface this with saying that my father was the one who abused me and I haven't seen him since about between the ages of 12 and 14, and I am 18 now and I still experience these behaviors. Being possessive over food is a very big behavior. A lot of times these cues are subtle and even the person experiencing the behavior might not know what's causing it. One of my behaviors is that whenever I eat something off of a plate I will curl my arm around it, no one really notices because my posture is very casual it kind of looks like I'm just steadying the platw but in reality it's so that no one can take my plate or take from my plate without my permission and so that I can hunch over/snatch my plate if need be. Being giving with food is also a common behavior. Just the phrase "I haven't eaten" sends me into a panic regardless of who's saying it. I once overheard a conversation between two people that I didn't know at my high school, it was exam week so we were not having a lunch that day we had to bring our own, and one kid said that he fainted the day before because he didn't drink anything for a few days and then I heard the dreaded "and I haven't eaten" which was compounded by "in days". I gave him my water (of course), I think I gave him a granola bar and maybe also a Pop-Tart. I offered to give him money so you can go to the vending machine. And then I told him the only reason I wasn't giving him more was because his stomach probably couldn't take that and I didn't want to make him puke. I had a friend with anorexia and I would give her parts of my lunch every single day I would split it in half,and that was as young as an elementary school because to me when you have the opportunity to eat you have to take it because you don't know when you won't be able to eat next. so there is some dikotomy there and if you're writing it or experiencing this it can swing from both sides of the spectrum rapidly or stay on one side of the spectrum or just have certain situations that make their behavior swing. In my household I used to have to ask every time before I ate and the answer was often no. so even years after whenever I open the fridge even if the house is empty I will still ask if I can eat something or I will avoid eating something because it hasn't been opened and I can't pretend I didn't take anything later.

4.) Trash

Under no circumstances should the food your character is hiding end up in the trash.if there's even the slightest chance that the parent might find a rapper or an apple core in the trash then it does not go there. I used to eat apple cores stem and all because it was easier to hide the fact that I ate apples that way. I had my granola bar wrappers and things like that in my book bag and then I would throw it away once I got to school and when there were no school times I would either keep them hidden somewhere in my room until I could dispose of them or I would take them and throw them away at a friend's house. This is something that only works if the abusive parent also does not search the child's belongings.

5.) Food Hoard

The character will almost definitely even years after the abuse have a place where they hide food. Even if other people know that it exists, they still need to be reassured that should they want to they can eat whenever they have safe food from a safe place. a food horde is filled almost exclusively with non-perishable items because they're easier to hide because they don't go bad.

6.) Gaslighting

gaslighting is essentially when someone tries to convince you that something that did not happen did happen or that something that did happen did not. It's something that's very common with abusers. An abuser will ask if they've ever broken a promise and you're supposed to say no even though they have— I've always been a bit slow when it comes to social cues so even with my siblings begging me to lie and say the right thing I was very blunt and I would say yes which would result in worse things. it's not something I see as much as I think I should see in any story about abuse because even physical abuse is usually compounded by some sort of mental abuse. The abuser will try to paint themselves as a decent person when they are anything but, they will say that it was your fault and you made them mad or that they wouldn't hit you you just misremembered because you fell and hit your head and haha what a klutz! I'm including false justification with gaslighting and by false justification I mean things like "my side of the family is prone to obesity and I just don't want you to be fat I want you to be healthy that's why I'm doing this it's to keep you healthy it's a good thing". even if an abuser knows they're in the wrong they will not admit it unless they have to keep their victim complacent somehow, and even then it will be an apology that ultimately pins the blame on the victim or some sort of backhanded compliment etc

There is so much more but as I am on mobile it's already getting lengthy on my screen. whether someone is experiencing abuse and wants help dealing with it because it's a situation they can't get out of or someone wants help writing an abused character, feel free to either reblog this with a question or comment with one or two directly DM me if you want to stay more private. My abuse also extended into verbal and a little bit with physical but not a lot and of course emotional. I'm pretty open about it and I don't mind talking about it now because I'm comfortable, so genuinely feel free to ask me questions I will not mind.

[theexistentiallyqueer]

Sorry to bother, but where do autistic and adhd brains overlap? Because both are neurodivergent (and beautiful, I agree) But how can I find out which behaviour belongs more to me being autistic (got diagnosed this year) and which is adhd? (No Matter What Deadline, after several years in hostile environment (failed university, then call center work) I panic. Hard.) How do I disentangle adhd and autism to find out what strategies to use to function better?

Please don’t feel like you’re being a bother, because you’re not! Honestly the fact that someone is coming to me to ask ADHD questions makes me teary-eyed, because I’ve fought so hard to learn to function with ADHD that people Asking Me Things like I’m a trusted expert just makes my heart grow three sizes, the opposite of the Grinch.

I’m probably not the best person to ask about how ADHD and autism overlap specifically, especially if you’re taking this from an autistic POV. And I’m also not a behavioral expert, which is a very strong preface. But I can (and am very happy to) talk a bit about my experiences with ADHD and how I’ve learned to make things work for my brain.

I’m going to put this under a cut, if that’s okay with you, anon. It got kind of long and I don’t want to overrun anyone’s dash. And you can always, always ask me ADHD questions, and I’ll try my best to answer.

My ADHD tends to manifest specifically in the following ways:

Extreme hyperfixation that has its own varying degrees (e.g., I’m really into Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but I have so lack of interest in Byleth/Claude that my lack of interest feels like an actual void)

An inability to process feelings regarding things other people care strongly about that I don’t. If we’re using the same fandom example: I could rant forever about how Byleth/Edelgard gives me ALL THE FEELS, but if I friend I care about started to talk about Byleth/Claude, I would immediately lose all interest in the conversation and struggle to react in a way that doesn’t present me as a selfish monster who doesn’t care about the person I’m talking to.

I tend to monopolize conversation if I’m given the opportunity because I LOVE getting the chance to talk about my hyperfixations. If someone cuts me off when I’m really into a topic, I get incredibly irritated and have to try to restrain from myself from acting petty in response. The number of times I have smiled my mouth is a knife and said, “ANYWAY, as I WAS SAYING…” is beyond count.

I don’t recognize or remember people until I have something meaningful to associate them with. I also don’t tend to notice things that don’t clock themselves as Important in my brain. I usually describe this as “background furniture.” Even PEOPLE become background furniture. A girl I work with mentioned a person on her team had quit, and I’d literally walked by that person’s desk earlier that day and didn’t notice it was empty, because that person and the entire space they occupied was background scenery.

If something affects or touches me personally, it hits me Very Personally. I had a complete fucking breakdown watching the video of Philando Castille’s shooting, because I heard his daughter crying while she watched him getting shot and went down onto a spiral of personal loss over my own father to gun violence and started to immediately correlate the two. Separating ADHD brainness from my  whiteness is complex and hard and (said sarcastically) so, so much fun.

The direct inverse of that are things like: I’m talking to my mom, who’s telling me about a high school friend of hers just got into a horrific vehicle accident and is in the ICU. My mom then goes on to give me regular status updates on this woman I don’t know. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s surgery. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s family’s attempt to find an adequate rehab center. They find a rehab center, and my mom shows me how her friend decorated her daughter’s room. My mom shows me a video of the girl working with a physical therapist, who gets her to push herself upright with a walker and take her tentative steps. “Awesome!” my brain thinks. “Great!” my brain thinks. All of it spans over several days, weeks, months. I have nothing to do with this constant influx of information. I don’t know how my brain should file it. I don’t know this woman who was injured. I feel for her in theory because no one should ever have to go through that even though so many people do, but I haven’t ACTIVELY PRETEND like I personally am invested in the situation or else my mother gives me Concerned Eyes because I seem to be In A Bad Mood Today.

When it comes to organization, I tend to lean towards hyper-organization rather than hypo-organization. By which I mean I over-organize to combat the fact that ADHD often results in disorganization, and disorganization results in chaos, and chaos gives me COMPLETE PANIC ATTACKS. At work at one point, I had my emails auto-tagging every incoming email based on the email type, on top of tagging for my clients. Every label had a different color, and it all made sense to me, because I’d made it. When my team had cover my stuff on a day I was out, my inbox was such a horror show that it left them feeling drained and distressed.

Let’s talk about socialization! I have a rocky relationship with my childhood best friend. When I discovered social justice in college, I started picking fights with everyone over everything Problematique. The first major fight I had with my best friend at the time was because she felt I was over-aggressive towards a mutual male friend of ours. She was probably right, because I know the kind of bullying behavior I later developed. I thought I learned from it. After the 2016 election, I messaged her on FB, thinking I had a sympathetic ear, to say that seeing her mother post constant messages of support for Trump and sharing stuff dismissing Trump’s sexual assault allegations was particularly hurtful considering I’d told my friend that my mom had been sexually assaulted.. I’m not going to share what she said, but she wasn’t in the wrong. We didn’t talk for several months after that.

Speaking of her! When she started dating the guy she’s now married to, at one point I asked her if they’d had sex yet. I asked it because I thought it was a thing you were Supposed To Talk About as friends, and also because I was, in a way, morbidly curious, because I’m grey-ace and queer. She confirmed that they had, but I still felt so icky and uncomfortable about that for so long afterwards. It was only after I started to understand that I’m not cis and not allo that I really understood why: I was forcing myself to perform what I thought female friendship was based on how it’s portrayed in media, and it’s only once I began to understand that I’m on the ace spectrum and that I’m nonbinary that I really started to understand how forced mainstream conversations of attraction are.

I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud all the time! I live with my mom and I socialize with my mom and when we’re in public spaces and I’m talking about something that interests me, she always, always, always feels like she has to shush me. What makes it ironic? If there are other people being loud around me, I can’t function. I can’t process the noise. It’s EVEN WORSE if they’re speaking in another language, because if it’s English I can process the words at least, but if it’s another language, it’s just pure, inescapable sound that I know has meaning but can’t intuit, and if I can’t understand something, that’s as bad as dying.

From what I’ve read about autism, here are ways I THINK my ADHD traits overlap with autistic traits:

I can’t read facial expressions. I think I have a better concept of emotional nuance in facial expressions than someone who’s strictly autistic, but I’ll still panic when I see a smile that isn’t bland enough. RDS (rejection-sensitive dysphoria) will kick in. They hate me, they hate me, they hate me, is the track my brain will play on repeat until I’ve drunk myself into oblivion. Whenever someone smiles, I mistrust it immediately.

Eye contact is incredibly fucking frustrating. I understand that it’s expected, but it’s SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Why do we need to stare into each other’s eyes to understand one another? How can you people write whole treatises on the sanctity of locking gazes and finding an instant intellectual bond without realizing that eye contact that’s not called for is personally invasive?

I can’t understand flirting vs not flirting to the point that I’m absolutely paranoid someone is flirting with me, at which point I usually become hostile if I think they ARE, because DON’T FLIRT WITH ME. TALK to me!

I hate, hate, hate unsolicited physical contact. If I’m in a state of over-expression, I hate it even more. I’m not physically withdrawn, because I love hugs, and cuddles, and human touch. But when I’ve spent the entire day listening to other people talk and I have to walk into a room where people continue to talk, if someone touches me, it’s fucking No-Oh-One.

Someone is interested in a thing I’m interested in. We’ll use Persona 5 as the concept, because this honestly happened recently. I talk with the guy whose desk is across from mine about Persona 5 all the time. He’s also excited about Royal. I started going into my Sophia theory that I’ve really only lobbied at @softspokensansa. I could see, I could viscerally see, the interest drain from his expression. BUT I HAVE AN IDEA SO I WILL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY, and then afterwards I felt incredibly resentful that I was being filtered through a cookie-cutter drain.

It’s painful–it’s really painful!–to try to talk about my spiritual ideas with other people. I have a side blog I just started and am preppy myself to share, and I’m absofuckinglutely TERRIFIED everyone is going to write me off without looking at what I have to say. IT’S THE RSD AGAIN! Nothing I ever said has actually mattered before, so why should it now?

I feel, constantly, like I’m halfway between a point of reality and a point of something. What that something is is indefinable, but regardless of it, I exist.

I’d like to direct you to two very positive youtubers I know; I meant to do this earlier, but now feels right in terms of how I’ve written: How To ADHD and Amethyst Schaber.I credit both of them in helping me find a safe place with ADHD before diagnosis. There are stories other than yours that matter.

I wish you the best, anon! If you think you’re autistic and ADHD: given the comorbidity between the two, you probably are! And ADHD is just as beautiful, complicated, and misunderstood as autism is.

If anyone reading this can speak to living as both autistic and ADHD, please respond so I can lift your voice. And to my anon: you’re beautiful completely. I hope my story has helped you in its anyway, and I hope that you find yourself at a place of peace. It’s a struggle to get there, but it’s worth it, every step of the way.

[timeisacephalopod]

Ironbat

Just a little Bruce Wayne/ Tony Stark thing because I felt like it lol. (Also Fun Fact about this: Bruce and Tony accidentally end up with like 6 kids in 2 years because they keep bringing home strays though, in Tony’s slight defense, Peter still has May so he’s only half adopted). Also ignore the hella uncreative name of this D:

Natasha considers Tony for a long moment and its fucking creepy, she doesn’t even blink. It probably doesn’t help that when she first came to America she told him if anyone smiled as much as Americans in Russia she’d punch them in the face but since everyone here does it she keeps that urge to herself. Tony honestly thought smiling was polite but okay.

“What’s he like?” she asks finally.

Oh, she wants to know about Bruce of not the Banner variety. Because they all know what Banner is like. He sighs and Rhodey’s soul dies, Tony sees it, because he knows Tony well enough to know he’s going to say something stupid. “I’m going to give a description and I need you all not to laugh or judge him, okay?” Because Bruce is sweet, and generous, and yeah he’s so dramatic he makes Tony look like an unseasoned chicken breast in comparison but he’s a great guy. He shouldn’t be judged for his dramatics. They don’t judge Tony for his dramatics.

Actually Stephen told him last week that his cars were ostentatious and if Stephen is talking about Tony’s cars being ostentatious they really must be something.

“He’s a damn furry, isn’t he?” Rhodey says and Tony resents that. Mostly because he wonders if the Batman thing constitutes as being a furry but he doesn’t think so. It is, as far as he knows, just a LARPing thing and its fucking hilarious because no one knows its Bruce Wayne under that dramatic ass cape.

“No he isn’t a furry, T’Challa is a furry,” he throws out there just to make Rhodey cringe. Sam and Rhodey basically worshiped the guy only to find out the dude dresses up like a panther on the regular.

“That is a religious thing, it’s exempt,” Sam says, throwing out his shitty rationalization that they all know is fake. 

Tony rolls his eyes, “sure, bud. Anyways, Bruce. Don’t judge him okay, he’s a great guy,” he starts but Rhodey cuts him off.

“If you need to preface this with so much ‘don’t judge him’ he probably sucks,” he points out.

Pepper frowns, “we preface Tony with a lot more than this,” she says.

Tony is offended, truly. “Okay you know what, Bruce is the kind of guy who would say ‘hello darkness my old friend’ unironically and yeah that’s needlessly dramatic but we’re all needlessly dramatic here so no one should judge him for it,” he tells them all.

They all start laughing immediately like a bunch of twats. “What the hell, Stark?” Bucky asks and Tony squints at him.

“You texted everyone in our group chat ‘I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory’ when your cat stole your garlic bread. Rhodey, you drove a whole ass tank into a military bunker as a fuck you to your superiors. Stephen had that weird ‘sorcerer supreme’ phase and forced us all to call his cape a cloak. Natasha got memes banned in Russia and North Korea. Steve has told half the members of congress to fuck off to their faces and Sam made an AI he named Redwing because Bucky refused to let him get a falcon. Not a single one of you have a place to judge Bruce,” he tells them.

They all look properly shamed except Pepper, who grins. “I am not needlessly dramatic like the rest of you so I have all the right in the world to judge,” she tells them and Tony snorts.

“Oh hell no you do not. You’ve decided you hate fellow CEOs so much that you refuse to address them, only their wives. You once told Justin Hammer that you would rather drink paint thinner than spend another second with him. You punched Aldrich Killian into a pool because he made me uncomfortable. You once told a reporter that people fear you because you have the energy of a Lovecraftian monster. You are not exempt,” he tells her.

Sam laughs, “I remember the Lovecraft thing. You ended up being a lesbian meme for awhile after that,” he says.

Tony remembers that too, it had been around when the Babadook was a gay meme. Monsters were a thing that week.

“Is Bruce seriously that dramatic? I thought he mostly read to kids and whatever,” Rhodey says and yeah, he does that too. And a lot of charity work in orphanages. It’d been how they met- sometimes when Tony is sad he goes to hospitals and holds babies and Bruce happened o be donating money to that particular hospital and found him crying over a small premie that was so sweet and precious. They hit it off pretty easily but yes, Bruce is so dramatic he may give Stephen a run for his money.

“Yeah, he is one hundred percent that dramatic. You’ll find out,” he says. Granted most of Bruce’s dramatics went to his Batman character- Tony struggled not to laugh out loud when he heard Bruce unironically say ‘I am the night’ but he’s dramatic elsewhere too.

“Find out what?” Bruce asks, coming up behind them, smiling. Tony has never had a thing for classic Hollywood hot- too fifties for his tastes, but Bruce makes it feel different. Maybe its because nothing about him aside from his classic looks remind Tony of the past or maybe its something else, he doesn’t know.

“Holy Christ, are you even in there anymore?” Bucky asks, jabbing him in the side with his finger. Tony smacks his hand away after jumping a little.

“Yes, now keep your fingers away from me,” he tells him. “We were talking about you being dramatic,” he tells Bruce for reference.

Bruce’s eyebrows draw together, “I’m dramatic?” he asks. “Don’t you have a friend who insisted you called him ‘sorcerer supreme’?” he asks.

Right, Tony forgot about that too. “Yeah, Stephen got a little in character and none of us knew what the character was for but he’s mostly okay now, he’s chilled out a little. Come sit,” he says, shooing at Bucky to get out of the spot beside Tony. Bruce tries to move towards the only empty seat that is, for some damn reason, beside Sam but Tony pulls him back and continues to pester Bucky to go sit beside his damn boyfriend.

When he discovers they’re currently in the middle of an argument he’s not surprised, he’s watched the two of them get into it over Steve’s cat that died when he was ten of all things, but he’s damn annoyed to discover that this particular fight is about Sam not finding bats cute. Bruce lets out a small shiver and Tony holds onto him a little tighter, knowing about his fear of bats.

Honestly that only makes Batman that much more dramatic because Bruce fucking dresses up as his worst fear. Jesus, he really does have a talent for finding people who are so dramatic they could blend into a comic book easily. Bucky moves his ass finally and Bruce sits next to him and looks around. He pinpoints Rhodey as the most important at the table easily and Tony will never understand how he does that. It takes him ten seconds flat to find the person at the top of any food chain and he can figure out how to exploit them in another ten seconds. Its actually useful in business and Tony is surprised that Bruce’s success comes from reading people so well. But then Bruce thought he could do that too and had been surprised that Tony was just following math no one else saw. Pepper can do it now too so that’s neat, usually he can’t teach for shit.

“Tony has told me about your military career, you recently got promoted, didn’t you?” Bruce asks and Rhodey leans into it easily, going off on a tangent about his recent promotion and how he got it. Bruce smiles and listens easily, asking all the right questions because he’s freakishly good at people if they weren’t in a relationship with him. If they were, well, Alfred told Tony he has a fear of being close to people thanks to that time his parents got shot right in front of him as a kid. Tony thinks he deals with it well, or at least well enough that Alfred gives him advice and he’s seen how protective the old man is of Bruce. He’d chase Tony out of the mansion without a second thought if he thought he was a bad choice on Bruce’s behalf.

Natasha watches Bruce’s exchanges keenly because she’s as good at people as he is but when he gets to addressing her- right after congratulating Pepper on her recent multimillion dollar deal that no one else thought was a good idea but Bruce did for the exact reasons she did- he manages to find her soft spot too. “I’ve read about your rat rescue- I had no idea you could buy rescue rats but I suppose they might need it more than most. Its not like people care if rats are mistreated- people mostly want them dead,” he says.

She perks up, “and they’re very clean contrary to popular belief,” she says.

Bruce nods, “I used to have rats as a child. They’re smart as hell too, probably a little too smart for their own good actually. They were both escape artists and Alfred, my butler, was not impressed to find them in the kitchen more often than not,” he says and Natasha laughs. With that he somehow manages to win her over too despite the fact that she’s impossible to please and probably wants to punch him because he smiles.

And Bruce thought this was going to go badly.

*

Bruce is sure he’s managed to screw everything up given how utterly silent Tony has been through the whole dinner. Tony isn’t normally silent- he errs more on the side of dominating the conversation if only by accident but through this entire thing he’s said next to nothing. So by the time they leave he’s worried he’s somehow managed to say something wrong but he can’t for the life of him figure out what it is. He did his research- all of Tony’s friends are as impressive as he is in their own right and he made sure to acknowledge that- the fastest way to impress Tony was to recognize worth in others and Bruce finds it both telling and strange. 

He’s never met someone who’s so attracted to the ability to recognize talent in others but Tony has a clear... thing for it. Maybe because he recognizes potential in the strangest of ways and in odd areas too- its just part of the way his mind works- and Bruce seems to be the only one who picks up on this aspect of Tony’s personality. And the potential Tony sees. Tony thinks he’s bad at people but he isn’t, he just sees them differently and this isn’t really odd considering he sees everything differently. What Tony is bad at is finding conventional ways to relate to people and Bruce likes that about him. It makes him feel less dangerous, somehow, like maybe if he’s different this relationship will be different too. He’s never been good at relationships, Selena knows that better than most.

“How the hell do you manage to do that?” Tony asks when they leave. 

Bruce has no idea what he means and his gut twists a little, worried that he’s managed to botch this too. For the first time since... he hasn’t felt like running and he doesn’t want to do something to make it end. “Do what?” he asks.

Tony frowns, “win people over like that. I’ve never met anyone who managed to make Natasha go from suspicious to smitten like that ever,” he says.

Well, it might help him to know Natasha isn’t smitten, she’s just convinced that Bruce isn’t horrible. Its the best she’ll ever think of him most likely, she’s not the kind of person who would ever fully trust another person, but Bruce already knew that when they met. But he does at least relax because he hasn’t done something wrong, Tony is just impressed with his people skills again. Its an odd trait to hone in on, but its that, his generosity, his love of children, and his ability to disagree with Tony that draws him in. That’s probably the strangest combination Bruce has run into but he doesn’t dislike it either. Those happen to be the traits, minus his ability to manipulate people, that he finds most admirable about himself too.

“I just did my research, Tony,” he says. Its all he’s ever needed to do.

Tony smiles and leans into his side, “yeah well, was ready to write you off and now he thinks I’m lying about how dramatic you are so obviously your research paid off,” he says.

Bruce wraps an arm around Tony’s waist, “Tony he doesn’t think I’m dramatic because he doesn’t know about Batman and you’re not going to tell him. If Cobblepot finds out who I am he’ll use it against me,” he says and Tony bursts out laughing.

“I love you, but this LARPing thing is ridiculous. Endearing, but ridiculous. You do know Cobblepot works in a bank, right? He’s not nearly as impressive as The Penguin even if he sucks at names,” Tony says.

Yes, Bruce knows that already. “I’m aware of all my foes, thank you. Harley Quinn is a psychiatrist who’s real name is Harleen Quinzel and her girlfriend is Poison Ivy,” he says. Pamela a botanist and a very well known environmental activist too, Tony has read her work when considering his green energy projects, actually.

“Jesus Christ, this is so dramatic. How the hell did you get half of Gotham involved in a LARP?” Tony asks.

Well, that’s just an exaggeration. There’s certainly not that many people in the game and frankly Bruce doesn’t care if he’s winning.

[dancedogsanddevotion]

Unqualified.

Preface: This topic came to mind while I was thinking of leaders but is applicable for any follower of Jesus who might- and probably will- encounter hard questions with themselves and/or others. 

This is the first time I’ve sat down to write something about what Jesus has been teaching me in a long time. I pray that you feel at least a little bit more confident, encouraged and enthusiastic about loving Jesus and all of His kiddos- like you and me- after reading this.

When I was 17 I started leading kids.  Where to? Well, many places. Camps, coffee shops, difficult discussions, but mostly to Christ. That was the goal, at least. As a leader I have seldom felt actually prepared and qualified to show kids, or anyone, the road to Jesus. Why? Probably because when I was their age I was making decisions I would later try to forget, and because Jesus was just the guy I had to hear about on Sundays. Maybe some of you can relate. 

In the midst of those idiotic, rash, damaging decisions, Jesus found me and said “Hey. I love you. You’re a mess. Let’s chat.” And because He’s literally the most perfect and irresistible thing to anyone ever, being full of love and light and hope and humor and creativity and all- oh yeah and dying for us- I fell in love with Him so fast. He led me out of the rotting garden from which I was eating and continues to lead me through this new glorious garden with fulfilling, vibrant, sometimes sour fruits that taste good after a while. Some examples of those sour fruits being self-control and patience; like when Jesus tells me not to buy another Ben & Jerry’s pint even though it’s on sale, or when I’m going to be late to a meeting because of bumper-to-bumper traffic and can’t do anything about it. 

Along the way, during my walk with Jesus through this new garden of life, He said “Hey, now that we’re tight, I want you to lead kids to Me.” I slowly, kind of comedically- like the way Jim does in The Office- looked back at the old, dying garden I came from. “Me? After all I did in that nasty place? Lead kids? I don’t think so,” said 17 year old Markella. 

Whoopdy-do, here we are, almost four years later and leading kids is my job. It’s funny how Jesus doesn’t care how unqualified we are, how messed up our past is, or if the only Bible we have is on our phones. If we give ourselves to Him, He’ll make it happen. Annoying; it’s like He knows what He’s doing or something. 

In my almost-four-years of leading, I have met some of the most  wonderful people I could have ever dreamed to meet. To any girl who has ever let me be their leader, you should know that you filled me with more of Jesus than any verse ever could. Also I love you and you changed my life. Thank you. And to any leader who I’ve ever had the pleasure of leading next to, you have been my rock at times whether you know it or not, and you're a superhero. Every hard conversation, every prayer for a kid’s test, and every cent towards coffee and gas (it’s a lot, I know) does not go unnoticed. You are walking agents of grace. (Donna Hatasaki said that once and I was like “MINE, THAT PHRASE IS MINE NOW” but really it’s hers. But you are an ‘agent of grace’.)

My almost-four-years of leading have also brought to me some of the hardest questions I have ever encountered. Like ever. Like I’d have an easier time doing rocket science than answering some of these kid’s questions. They either want my brain to explode or for me to just start crying on the spot. 

You could guess some of these questions;

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“Did God create evil?”

“Why does the Bible say that Adam came from the dirt, but my science class teaches us evolution?”

“How far is too far?”

“Is it okay to question God?”

“What is the Holy Spirit?”

“I think I might be gay, is that bad?”

Y’all! Jesus loves you, that’s the best I got!

So many times I’ve heard these and I’m like “where’s the fire alarm?? Jesus?? I’m scared??” because the last thing I want to do it give an answer that is either wrong or misguides them. 

I was asked to create a way to respond to just about any and all questions that I think is pretty solid, and this is what I came up with. I don’t have answers to the hard questions but I hope with these three filters you’ll walk away from that conversation proud of and confident in what you said.

1. PRAY and WAIT.

After you hear the question, literally pray. Like in those few seconds between them asking the question and it being awkward or seeming like you didn’t hear them, pray. 

“Jesus, give me the wisdom and patience to answer this question. Provide the best possible answer. Use me to tell them what they need to hear. Don’t let any false information leave my mouth. Guide my answer and fill me with grace for them and passion for You in my response.” I’m not saying you will have time to pray all of this, it’s just a handful of a few phrases that can put your heart in the right place. 

Then let the Holy Spirit do it’s thing. Maybe you’ll feel this brilliant answer washing over you. Maybe you won’t feel anything at all. Just trust that Jesus is there and He’s on your team. 

2. ANSWER SLOWLY.

An obvious follower to #1; but a lot of us forget this one. I do. Sometimes we don't know the answer, and then other times we are convinced we do know the answer, which is where it gets tricky. I’ve definitely answered some questions hastily before, and I’ve walked away from the conversation feeling like I swayed them one way or another because I answered too fast, and talked from my opinions; not my heart.

When responding, first of all, it’s okay to say “Hmm, I am not quite sure.” Or “Regardless of my opinion, the short answer is _______.” Or “I don’t know, let’s look in the Bible together.” These are okay. And say them slowly. Like physically speak slowly and gently. It’s possible that whatever you're going to tell them will be hard to hear. 

Answering slowly gives you more time to BE INTENTIONAL.

I can't emphasize this enough. Actually I’m still working on my “Intentional” post. Jesus was not always happy, or always working, but He was ALWAYS intentional. Always always always. Be completely intentional with every single word you say, and the only way to do this is to be patient and slow. 

3. ASK QUESTIONS.

Many times, the original question is rooted in a much more intense place than we might imagine. By asking questions, you show the other person not only that you are interested and that you want to know more but also that they might have answers to their own question. Thanks to my YoungLife leaders who did this for me, I was able to answer lots of my own questions with the knowledge I had, but just didn’t realize I had it.

These aren’t answers, but I have found when encountering a question only God can answer, by praying, being patient, and asking more questions I learn more about the person asking the question and I can love them better, and hopefully be a little bit more of Jesus for them than if I didn’t do those things.

I love hearing about leading techniques and ways to embody Jesus. Please let me know of any suggestions, comments, ideas, etc. 

<3 Markella

[mellimagicsblog]

Look, I just want to tell somebody…

So, last weekend life just decided to slap me in the face. I just feel so… sad. Yeah, I show it through anger and sometimes humor (if you were to meet me irl you’d think me a bucket of laughs), but really I just want to cry. Sadder still, it takes a lot to make me cry. This, somehow, wasn’t enough.

A couple bad experiences before I get to the worst one:

1. A VERY drunk customer verbally harassed some ladies at work, telling them to “suck this.” He then told me and a coworker how much he “loved us ladies.” It felt like I jumped into an old old movie with a happy drunk/creeper.

2. Another customer asked if I knew what a VCR was and then explained to me how tapes worked, because apparently I’m a f*cking idiot.

3. A old lady decided to lecture me on how “if only a man were there” because A MAN could put a mini vacuum back together better than I could because “their brains are wired better for this.” I actually got the damn thing back together right as she finished that thought and said, “I disagree with that notion.” I don’t need a man to save the day. Especially not with putting together a very light cleaning device. 

Lady, Rosie the Riveter called. She wants to give you your self esteem back.

4. My best friend on the job is kind of in crisis right now. I have to spare the details, but I want nothing more than to help her.

But here it comes. 

If you don’t know, and I don’t talk about it a lot, I’m bisexual. Much like my atheism, it took me a while to fully realize and come out about. Also like atheism, there are some family members’ feelings I spare because I don’t want to lose relationships. They’ll probably never see this blog, and if they somehow find it and connect it to me… well, I guess you know now.

I chimed into a casual conversation about what I find attractive in a man with my coworkers. I decided to preface it with, “I’m bisexual” so I could explain what I see as attractive in BOTH male and female genders. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, one of my coworkers says, “No. I’m done here!” He walks away.

I get approached by another coworker who says quietly, “Bisexuals make him angry because of something that happened to him.”

Wouldn’t you know it? He comes back and says, “She thinks she knows me! Look, I’ve had a girl leave me because she was (he makes air quotes) ‘bisexual,’ so I don’t want to hear this!”

Yeah. It’s my fault for what some girl did to him.

I answered, “So this is how it’s gonna be?” But he didn’t listen. He leaves because he’s off the clock. The customers, one of which was in our conversation, do nothing. I start to recount past experiences to my other coworkers. Here are some things that have been said to/about me in the past when I’ve opened up about this:

“Just pick a side.”

“Stay straight. It’s easier.”

“The kids today think they have so many choices.”

“Girls go through a ‘bi phase’ in college. Then they get a boyfriend anyway.”

I get told by my coworkers that ‘he needs time’ and will apologize. One tells me that I’m okay the way I am. One hears my experiences and is shocked. But it’s also about making sure I don’t lash out at him. I can feel it.

The next day he approaches me first thing into my shift and says, “I’m sorry for not letting you express your opinion.”

I say “thank you,” and that’s it. He wasn’t sorry for being cruel toward bisexual people. He wasn’t sorry for taking out his past on me. He was sorry because I wasn’t allowed to tell him my romantic interests. It was over so quickly that I didn’t know what to do. So I spent two days feeling unfulfilled. I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t look at him. I joked along with other people when he was in the room, but one-on-one, we’ll never be the same.

I’m the kind of person who wants to sit down and talk it out. I do my best to help people see where I’m coming from. This guy? He has his own mental health issues and I don’t think he’d ever sit down and talk to me about this, even over a couple of drinks. I don’t even want to try either. And apart from my buddy, I don’t think other people are going to comfort me without telling me how “he didn’t mean it.”

What do I do? I don’t want to complain to my manager or other supervisors. I don’t want him to lose his job or have the store get in trouble because of a harassment allegation, but I don’t want to work there anymore. I feel like someone hit me. Like the world said, “Are you starting to like yourself again? Well, let’s fix that.”

…Please, promise me: If you ever see something like this happen, intervene. You can change a life. You can change the way the world thinks.

[justfangirlfeels]

I'm gonna preface this with a big PLEASE 'cause it's a long-sounding request, but: Parent AU "You asked me to the store with you and your child, and now my distant relative we met thinks I'm married with a baby" with Adrinette (relative maybe Marinette's grandmother since we know she's never around and doesn't know much of what goes on with her granddaughter). Thaaaanks! ^_^

Ask and you shall receive. I’ve written an equally long one-shot here, so strap yourself in and hopefully, you’ll enjoy it :)

Adrien was one of those people that loved to spend time with his friends at any given opportunity, whether it was recreational or helping them with a task of some kind. Perhaps it was because I loved having friends, or maybe it because he hated to be alone. Either way, when his long time Collége friend Marinette called him up and asked if he could lend her a hand shopping that morning, he didn’t think twice about it.He had the day off, which was rare in itself considering all he ever seemed to do was photo shoots or moonlighting as Chat Noir, so the idea of spending some time with one of his closest friends (and by extension, also the newest member of his family of friends) was just what he needed to enjoy such an occasion.Which is what had brought him to the farmer’s market, strolling down the walk with Marinette in toe, a bounce in her step to entertain the ten-month-old girl harnessed to her body. “I really appreciate you doing this Adrien,” she told him, for the sixth time since they had met up ten minutes before, “I know there had to be things you would rather be doing, but Alya was busy, and I still haven’t fully grasped how to do the ‘buying groceries with a child strapped to my chest’ thing yet.”Adrien chuckled and brushed his hand dismissively; “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing I’d rather do than spend time with two of my favorite gals.”Marinette gave him a knowing look. ���You can just say you wanted to spend time with Doodle. I won’t be offended.”The aforementioned “Doodle” was curled into her harness, rubbing her face with her small fist in a motion that reminded the blond of the way Plagg washed his face with his paw-nubs.Adrien gave a chuckle. “Okay, yeah. I’ll admit it; I’ve missed the cutest member of the squad.” He gently ruffled the baby’s sparse hair, causing her eyes to dart to the man touching her, a sleepy smile ghosting the little face.Doodle, or Aimee as her birth certificate properly named her, was probably the best person that Adrien had ever met. And that was saying something considering he knew both Ladybug and Marinette, whom the daughter strikingly resembled.The dark hair matched down to the hue, and their smiles were nearly identical (even if Aimee’s didn’t have many teeth yet). The only thing that wasn’t the spitting image of her mother, was the dark green eyes she had gotten from her father. Not that he knew that. Then again, Adrien had thought to himself many times before, there was a lot Aimee’s father didn’t seem to know. Like how much Marinette had cried after telling him that it was okay that he didn’t want their relationship to continue, that it was for the best.Like the nervous expression she had worn when she had to tell her friends that she was pregnant, and that the father didn’t want to remain involved.The late night phone calls to Alya, freaking out and wondering if she could do this alone, only to be reminded that she wasn’t alone; that her friends and family would be there for her every step of the way.

Adrien knew about those things though, and he admired Marinette for taking those moments in stride and coming back with something as precious as life.It was in the moments, while he watched Marinette laugh and talk animatedly about her daughter, that Adrien realized just how much he loved the girl beside him. He knew a part of him always had, but whatever semi-platonic feeling he had felt in school was nothing compared to the calming feeling that enveloped him whenever she was near. And, in a life as crazy as Adrien’s, a little bit of calm changed everything.

“Marinette!” a female voice spoke, startling Adrien from his thoughts. The dark-haired woman looked around until her eyes fell on a old familiar face.“Grandma!” Marinette all but skipped to her grandmother, taking in the hug as gently as possible as to not make a Doodle-sandwich. “I didn’t know you were coming. What brings you to Paris?”“I wanted to see my Great-Grandbaby. And, ah, here she is.”As the older woman interacted with the little lump in the harness, Adrien stood a respectable distance from the family. Not that he felt awkward, per say, but he had only seen Marinette’s Grandmother at parties, and never had been formally introduced. Plus, he didn’t want to stand in the way of family bonding, considering that he knew how important it was.He didn’t stand alone long though, before Marinette verbally pulled him into the conversation.“I can’t remember; did you two ever meet?”“Not formally,” Adrien replied, walking forward and extending a hand, “but I’m glad to finally introduce myself. I’m Adrien.” The woman nodded, shaking Adrien’s hand.“Ah yes. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re the only that gave my Marinetta the lucky charm that she carries with her.”Even though knowledge that his gift was currently in her purse wasn’t a secret, Marinette still managed to have her cheeks dusted in pink. Adrien told himself to tease her about it later.“Yes, Ma’am. For her fourteenth birthday. I can still remember the long nights that I spend making it. It was almost thrown against the wall a couple times. I have since sworn to leave crafting to the professionals, like Mari.” The blush deepened, causing a roguish-Chat-like smile to curl Adrien’s lips. I loved when a simple comment managed to get his twenty-one year old friend to revert into her fourteen year old self. It was adorable and amusing at the same time.“Oh, please. Call me Gina,” the woman gently scolded, before turning to Marinette. “Unfortunately, I must run. I have some errands to run for your parents. You’ll be over for lunch, will you?” Marinette nodded, and Gina clapped her hands together.“Excellent! I will meet you there.”She started to leave, but turned to say something over her shoulder.“Bring Adrien along. I want to get to know the man that took my little fairy’s heart.”Stunned, Adrien stood there dumbly, watching the misinformed Gina continue to weave though the Saturday morning crowd.Apparently, Marinette was just as surprised because she didn’t say anything until the sounds of Gina’s motorbike was starting to drift from earshot.“I’m so sorry about that, Adrien. Grandma Gina often gets her stories and faces confused.”“You trying to tell me that you, didn’t tell her about me?” he asked, looking with her with a teasing smirk. Thanks to an incident involving a live broadcast back in collége, Adrien knew she had had a crush on him. It was one of his favorite things to tease her about, even if it was something he was currently guilty of himself.The blush turned a red (a color he had always felt suited her) and she gave an awkward laugh.“I mean, yeah. I did. But not like that. I swear, I’ll get it all sorted out at lunch.”Adrien gave a little pout; “Is that your way of uninviting me?”“Ah, well. You can come, of course, but you don’t have to. I mean, i don’t want to make it awkward, or make it seem like a date. Well, of course it’s not a date because my parents will be there. But-“ Her nervous rambling was interrupted by Aimee’s light crying; clearly, she realizes that she was no longer the center of attention. “It looks like little Doodle is ready to get going,” Adrien pointed out, “We should continue our shopping before we have to shatter your Grandma’s hopes of meeting your new boyfriend.”Marinette agreed, but as they walked, Adrien thought about how to make Gina’s words a self-fulling prophecy.

[coccolare-blog]

the breakup.

It’s been two days since our breakup. R and I dated for a year and a half. And now it is no longer. I didn’t see it coming, even though I should’ve. 

My heart still hurts, I still cry spontaneously throughout the day, and my nose hurts from all the tissues I’ve smooshed into my face. 

He was the first person that I’ve ever wanted to marry. I wanted to have his kids. I wanted to build the urban garden we talked about, start the charity we brainstormed about. I wanted to support him as he grew his company. I wanted him to be by my side as I built mine. I wanted to read the book he brought me for my birthday together. There were so many things that I wanted. 

When he told me he wanted to break up, I was over come with emotions. Sadness because I didn’t want to be separated from him. Regret for the hurtful words I said, and for the things I did, or didn’t do. Anger for all the things I wanted him to do, but he never did. I admit, I was also afraid. What would happen to me? I just turned 27, and I couldn’t bare the idea of being alone. 

I cried, he cried. I pleaded and reasoned and begged for him to not give up. For him to give me a chance, us a chance. For him to try a little harder. Anything. He didn’t budge. 

At the end I said, “I wish there was some concrete explanation I could understand.” 

He said, “I just don’t love you,” admitting defeat. 

“Ok.” I felt numb. “Ok.” It was over. 

It wasn’t “I love you, but I don’t love you,” or “I’m just not in love with you anymore,” or some cliche breakup line like that. In fact, in all this time, he has never told me he loved me and he never had. 

He wasn’t like my high school boyfriend, who told me he loved me a week in. Or my college boyfriend who said it a month in. R said they were tricksters, not believing in the youthful romances. They must have said it to make me trust them, for me to give them everything I had. Or they confused their hormones with love, or maybe it was their initial sense of infatuation. Something like that. It wasn’t love. 

R isn’t the typical romantic. A few months in I waited for him to say these words that other boys seemed unable to hold back. When they didn’t come, I confronted him. Not to ask him why he wasn’t in love, but to ask what he thought love was. He had never been in love. He started dating later in life, when he was 23 or 24. He had three girlfriends before me. 6 months, 3 months, 1 month. Each grew shorter as he eliminated the possibilities. 

I asked him if he thought he was capable of love - something I was questioning myself before I met him. He said, “I would very much like to be in love.” The end rose in tone, as if asking a question. 

He wanted someone that he trusted. In all sense of the word. Smart, caring, capable, self sufficient. Someone who could handle things so that he could do other, more important things, like work. Work was always on his mind. 

He also wanted to do all sorts of projects. Whatever big idea that caught his fancy- a new business idea, or a charity. For someone who loved capitalism so much, he was surprisingly into helping others. His thing was that you could help so many more people if you used money effectively. He wanted a partner who would do it with him. 

His final thought, which he prefaced with “I don’t know if this is reasonable, but...” he felt that he would be sure he was in love once they face some sort of hardship or big event. If they made it though, overcame it, averted the crisis in a way he deemed reasonable, then he would know. It was probably some sort of ultimate test to see if she will be a fit mother. 

I joked that we weren’t going to get into a car crash to find out. 

I was enamored by him from the start. When people asked what I liked about him, I instantly said “I like the way his brain works.” That isn’t to say that I always agree with him. We shared many things- values, future visions, an affinity to dry humor- but we didn’t agree on everything or share many interests. I didn’t need that, and was fine with accepting him as he was. 

I was fascinated. I wanted to poke holes and wriggle my way through these thoughts, swimming in an endless pool of ideas. I wanted to know him in a way that I didn’t, and probably couldn’t, understand anyone else. 

From his idea of love, you can probably tell, he is a very special type of person. He is driven, confident, and strangely idealistic. He has an ego too- not surprising for a young man who is successful, handsome, and smart. He probably feels like he can conquer the world- I don’t blame him.

Ego is not a terrible thing, but it gets in the way sometimes. It blinds you from other perspectives, closes you off from considering other possible truths. 

While I wanted to meander through thoughts, he wanted an answer. My mind was always in between- seeking, finding, analyzing different possibilities. He thought there should always be a best answer. The right answer. All else was pointless. 

I grew weary of answering leading questions. I didn’t like being dismissed because my argument was weak, or being questioned if I, by principle, really believed what I said. 

He lost interest when I became a blank slate. I didn’t tickle his brain or challenge his beliefs the way he wanted. I resented his stubbornness to not consider my ideas significant.  

Another thing you should know about him was that he really judged people. Perhaps there’s a better word I should use instead, but it was a self-proposed word that he enjoyed as a proud INTJ. He really strongly identified with each letter, despite the pseudo science behind it. 

He really admired people, particularly good businessmen, who made a lot of their life. Rockefeller, Ford, Kroc, Bezos, Musk. What he didn’t like were people who didn’t aspire to anymore more than a normal desk job. He surrounded himself with friends who were entrepreneurs, smart people, go getters- people who think big. 

He liked that I was also a entrepreneur, and he loved to talk about work. He would give me advice and new ideas of things I could do. He pushed me to do better. 

I’m not a typical entrepreneur though. I didn’t venture forth with twinkling eyes- filled with ideas about changing the world. It was my sister’s idea to start it, and I went along because I liked not working for a boss. I like making things. I was the creative type, the work horse, the factory worker. I like to work and I want to do well, but maybe I’m just missing some gung-ho “I’m the best out there, and people love me” kind of vibe. 

I’m terribly insecure. 

I didn’t like talking about work with him. Compared to his business, we were a drop in the pond. He had started young, dropped out of college, bootstrapped the company and everything. For my sister and I, it was our first year of actually making any money, which even then was not much, On top of that we had issues with inventory, delays, and various mistakes that two non-business savvy people will make when they’re starting a company. Plus we were scared, risk-adversed and timid - not the kind of attitude you need to grow a successful business. 

I grew up poor. Maybe not dirt poor, or homeless, or surviving on food stamps poor. My parent’s were hardworking immigrants who never had a chance to make much money. My dad never even went to high school thanks to the communist revolution. He worked in construction even though he was really an artist at heart. My mom married my dad, a stranger ten years her senior, to move to America, and she went to learn accounting at city college to get a job. It’s amazing really, what they accomplished, but we never had much money growing up.

He on the other hand, had two well educated, tech industry parents and grew up in a wealthy suburb. 

Like most people who grew up poor, I never liked money, wasn’t particularly good with money, other than saving it (or rather hoarding it like a camel who doesn’t know where they’ll find water next), and never had confidence in my fiscal intelligence. 

So when he told me I needed to do more, I felt like he was calling me stupid. When he told me I should work faster before competition came after us, I felt like he was calling me lazy. When he asked if I felt pressure, and if the pressure pushed me harder, I felt weak. 

It’s not his fault that I didn’t want to talk to him. I never told him these things. 

Instead I got upset, asked him to stop, and to calm down on how much we talked about work. This ate away at his soul. It was his favorite thing, and it was so rare for us to be both in this position. It should be a goldmine of topics to talk endlessly about. But i shut the door on him. 

These days I can’t stop thinking about where it all went wrong. I wonder if I had been more confident, really talked about how I felt about work and money, been proud of what I had done, been OK with where my company was because I knew eventually it would grow, if he would have fed off of these conversations. I wonder if he would have fallen in love. 

I have crazy fantasies about texting him, or calling him. Sometimes I run into him on the street, maybe at a coffee shop - even though both of us don’t drink coffee. I’ve daydreamed about emailing him voice recordings of me reading the book he gave me, and he would listen to my voice and miss me. 

I can’t seem to eat anymore, so I guess I’m finally going on that diet I’ve been meaning to go on. I’ve been waking up early and working out. I’ve been doing yoga and reading articles about overcoming insecurity and building self-confidence. I can’t sleep, so I stay up reading about hydroponics and aquaponics, and homelessness- all topics we used to talk about. 

I dream about months later, how I will get a text from him. We reconnect and meet to have dinner, I’d show off how beautiful I’ve become. How much knowledge I’ve gained. How well work is going. My new found confidence.

And he would find me so dazzling he wouldn’t be able to resist taking me back.