#not a day this week didn’t go by that I was like- gd I still have to finish wicked

[adonis-koo]

will there be a wicked update today?

I was just coming on here to give an update, due to my work week being batshit insane I haven’t had the time to actually finish up the chapter 😭

Not a lot is left and it shouldn’t take me very long to finish, maybe a few hours to proofread (bc I am a slow reader) I’m doing a workshop tonight so chances are idk if it’ll actually be out tonight but definitely sometime tomorrow

[miguelsslvt]

miguel o’hara x fem! reader shower sex

word count: 796

TW: smut, nsfw, fingering, miguel is a little cutie

A/N: happy kinktober my loves, enjoy the smut, welcome to the club;)

Miguel had been quite busy recently. And when I say quite, I mean very. You two used to have sex at least once every day, but now you’re lucky if you guys can even see each other during the week. You understood it was his duty to protect the multiverse and keep it in order, but damn you’re starting to think Lyla might be more important then you.

Thats why, on one night, Miguel finally got back after being out for 4 days. You two had barely even spoken. He looked tired, as you walked up to him, hugging him softly. ‘God you look shattered.’ You said, pointing at his eyeballs. ‘Didn’t you sleep in the spare room at HQ?’ You asked, he nodded. ‘Yeah, but you know what the beds like.’ He reminded, as you nodded. ‘yeah.. pretty bad. Cmon, lets get you cleaned up. You smell like crap’ you teased, as he chuckled softly, holding your hips as you both went into the bathroom.

this had been the first time in exactly 2 weeks and 5 days you had seen Miguel naked. And god, it was like a bottle of fresh water. His tan kissed skin, his abs and muscles flexing in just the right way, his v-line looking delicious as always. it was like he was sculpted by a god. You both got into the shower, the hot water going on both of your heads, as Miguel pulled you right on top of the shower head, as you gasped and giggled in surprise. He laughed softly, kissing you passionately.

You kissed back of course, missing this sweet side of him. Its quite uncommon to see Miguel be human for once.

Things got heated pretty quickly. He had picked you up by your thighs, pinning you onto the shower wall. your hands gripped around his thick neck, as your tongues danced together. He let go soon enough, panting. ‘We haven’t.. in so long..’ He said between pants, you nodded. ‘If you don’t want to-‘ ‘I’ve been craving you for weeks, love.’ He whispered, the water still hot on Miguels back.

He kissed you again passionately, placing a finger inside you. ‘Missed this sweet pussy..’ He growled, lacing another finger inside as you gasped in pleasure. Sure you’ve fingered yourself this week thinking about Miguel, but nothing can compare to his long, huge fingers.

‘god.. mig..’ You moaned breathlessly, as he just shut you up by kissing you once again. ‘..you ready, mi amor?’ He cooed, taking out his fingers and putting his tip just on your hole. You nodded desperately. ‘please.. you don’t understand how much I’ve needed this..’ You confess, as he plunged all 8 and a half inches inside you. You moaned out loudly, gasping as you felt the same usual heat as you always do when miguel is filling you up.

‘You okay..?’ He asked, groaning. You nodded, leaning your head on the cold shower wall. ‘y..you can move..’ You said, as he nodded.

He started thrusting into your slowly, as his pace soon sped up. You moaned in ecstasy, eyes glued onto Miguel. he was a panting mess, his hands grabbing anything of you as he could. Your waist, your thighs, your tits, your neck, your hands, everything.

‘fuck.. you feel so good, sweetheart.. could stay stuck with you like this forever..’ He whispered in your er, as your lower stomach felt hot as he thrusted deeper. harder. Your mind was foggy and clouded in lust, all you could think about was Miguel and how good he ws making you feel. ‘M..Miguel.. gd feels so good..’ You whispered, whining a little. He chuckled slowly, lifting you chin to look up at him. ‘Its okay, keep your eyes on me. i’ll always be here, okay?’ He said, kissing you sloppily. ‘Always gonna be here to fuck my girl the way she deserves.’ He said between the kiss, as you moaned softly, hands trailing up and down his abs, feeling the same familiar hot coil down your stomach.

‘g..gonna.. Miguel..’ You whined, as he nodded. ‘I know. I know..’ He whispered, as he got faster and harder with the thrusts, so hard you swore you started seeing stars. You let out a loud moan of Miguel’s name, as your eyes rolled back, cumming on his cock.

miguel kept going, biting his lower lip, grunting as he groaned loudly beside you ear, mumbling something in Spanish as he came deep inside you.

You both panted together, the sound of the shower still there. You could worry about the water bill later.

You looked up at Miguel, as he kissed you passionately.

‘We’re not done yet, my love.’ He said, his voice husky and deep. god, you knew you were in for it now.

[rothjuje]

Thank you guys for all the bedroom setup advice!! Someone pointed out how heavy a tub full of water is, so maybe bunk beds would be fine. Several people mentioned that Gen will want a full eventually too which honestly I hadn’t considered. She’s such a tiny peanut it’s hard for me to picture her in a big bed. Alyssa and George have always been giants, they take after my side of the family while Gen takes after Justin’s. I like the lofted bed idea but only saw a twin option, I’m sure there’s a full option. We’re going to a furniture store this weekend to look around.

Such a weird week with the kids not having school Tuesday. Normally days off are chaotic and crazy but the kids were all in a great mood, we had a slow morning and then played outside the rest of the day (thank Gd for rain suits).

Being able to go outside again is such a parenting game changer. So, so, so thankful it’s above 40 degrees and staying light until 5:45 now. We played outside from 3:30-5:30 this afternoon and everyone came in tired and happy, we had a peaceful dinner and bedtime and everyone fell asleep quickly.

We registered Gen for MWF next year (instead of T/Th). Mainly so I could get more done/potentially focus on a career, but also because it’s been so good for her. But something I didn’t realize until after we signed her up was Justin gets every other Friday off…so we can have day dates twice a month. We have had exactly three dates outside the house since we moved here (I remember them well.. a movie, out for drinks, and a cemetery walk). I think it will be so, so good for our relationship. Especially since life has been absolute chaos since we moved here 20 months ago (fixing up the house, adjusting to life across the country, but also so many freak medical things/minor surgeries and one major one).

I am doing all the things right to manage my ADHD (sleeping enough, eating well, daily exercise) and it helps but definitely is not a cure. There was a moment last year when George started sleeping through the night and it was my first time sleeping through the night in 4 years so I thought my ADHD was cured just because I had energy again…so naive. I took a wellness class at a yoga studio a couple nights ago and we had to sit down on mats and listen quietly. And the room was quiet. Everyone seemed so quiet and relaxed, just sitting still. And listening. I tried to listen and tried to stay still but I am a leg shaker. My brain was zipping around in so many different directions. I just cannot think in a straight line unless I am physically moving. I didn’t even realize how bad it was honestly until I saw everyone else be so normal and calm. Yikes..

[fromgoy2joy]

Impermanence

the impermanence of this world is emphasized a lot in Judaism.

Embalming is prohibited. On Shabbat, your day of rest, you may not do anything that will last. The entire point of a Sukkot is that it is a temporary lodging. There’s an entire debate on should a sukkot be able to stand up in harsh winds and what exact miles per hour.

I could go on and on, but overall it touches on this idea that-

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken 

for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. "

This may seem like a basic abrahamic value. But it goes farther for me- even though every Ash Wednesday as a Catholic, I would get the blot of black ash upon my forehead to remind me of my fate, I still wanted to be preserved. I went to confession every week, and wrote in my journal how much I wanted to be a saint. I wanted my bones to be buried under the altar at a cathedral, unforgotten to this world. I wanted statues and churches named after me, in the way that young people are afraid that each thing they do now is irrelevant.

But that never felt right.

My journey in Judaism has taught me a few things. Mainly, that I do not do the things I do now because of the promise of awards and reverence after death in this mortal plain. I do not stay awake at night wondering my fate of heaven or hell. Instead, my religion lies in the here and now on this earth.

As a Christian, I was other-worldly, demanded to live in a realm where my soul was in constant peril. I was told that I didn’t belong to this world, could not belong to it, not if I didn’t want to burn.

Now, I look in the mirror and I see myself as being carved out of the beautiful dirt and dust. I am meant to be here, living out a religion that focuses on life. I don’t know where I’ll go when I die- some say a soul washing machine, others contemplate the idea of reincarnation to complete mitzvahs, others leave it at “returning to GD,” and still some say that it’s just death.

But I am impermanent here, and rarer than the stars above. And when I die, my memory will be a blessing to all that loved, knew or heard about me, until the knowledge of my existence softly putters out.

And I think about that, looking in the mirror, and I grin. I see the crinkling smile lines that will one day form besides my eyes permanently, when I am long into my journey as being a Jewish woman.

[scoops-aboy86]

I think it was @steviewashere and @wheneverfeasible who tagged me on this get to know you meme? Or something. I can’t find it now but I’ve had the questions in my notepad app and worked on answering them today and yesterday, before and after surgery. I swear I can feel the incision scar burning through the splint right now, it sucks.

Anyway, completely not proofread writing at the end for the AU question answer so I’m just gonna tag my permanent tag list and go to sleep.

Favorite Color -> Blue

Last Song -> Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

Currently Reading -> Various fanfic, all Steddie of course

Currently Watching -> I just watched The Princess Diaries for the first time in years; the line “Wait for me! No not you, I don’t even know you” still makes me cackle

Currently Craving -> Nothing, my pain meds have killed my appetite, it’s obnoxious. But I did get a boba tea the night before my surgery just because I wouldn’t be allowed to have anything in the morning.

Coffee or Tea -> Tea. I can’t do coffee, it hits me just wrong enough that I end up vibrating at a frequency dogs can probably hear and I become an unsafe driver.

A hobby you would like to try -> I wouldn’t mind learning how to crochet (again, but actually retain it this time) or expand my knitting skills beyond scarves and square dishcloths.

An AU you're working on/thought of -> i reread my post from the other… week? (Time is an illusion and I’m on gd drugs.) And I want to clarify that I was envisioning Steve as still in high school, Eddie as a high school band director. Because I don’t think I was super explicit about that. And maybe Eddie is in his mid twenties, not early.

Chrissy is in the color guard, because it’s cheerleader adjacent, but so is Nancy because she gets to toss sabres and (wooden) rifles as well as flags. Tammy Thompson is one of the assistant drum majors but is not the best at following the drum major instead of conducting by ear, so there are some phasing problems (band gets off because the speed of sound lags, etc.). Fred is in the pit, on the xylophone and triangle and shit. Patrick plays the timpani. Gareth is in the battery on snare drum, not section leader but that’s a lot of responsibility he’s not sure he wants anyway. Tommy plays saxophone. If Argyle is there he’s in the tuba/sousaphone section, no question.

And like I said, Steve plays clarinet because it’s the easiest instrument to march with. He is the reluctant babysitter of all the freshmen playing third or fourth part with him: Will, Dustin, and Mike. Lucas is in the saxophone section, trying to be cool, but comes to Steve for help because Steve may be a sub-par musician but his marching technique is flawless. Max is on piccolo and will intentionally blast the high notes to fuck you up. 

El plays oboe very competently in concert band but is having a hard time adjusting to mellophone on the field, scraping by with the help of her senior section leader, Kali; by the end of the season they’ve thoroughly bonded as brass sisters and get matching tattoos. It does cause problems because her dad is still police chief Hopper, who gives stern/frustrated lectures to Kali (paid for it), Steve (gives El and her stepbrother Will to rehearsals, along with the rest of the kids, so Hopper assumes he must have known; he didn’t), and Eddie (adult in charge of these hooligans, but sporting tattoos of his own, not really on display unless he rolls up his sleeves on hot days when the school AC is on the fritz).

Those lectures are somehow or another the closest anyone comes to figuring out that Steve and Eddie are together, causing both of them to panic. On Eddie this looks like trying to break it off before things blow up so Steve can have a normal life; Steve, on the other hand, doubles down hard on keeping the best and most loving relationship he’s ever had (absent parents, dating teens who only want him for his pretty face and reputation for being good in bed) and like. Wears lingerie to school under his clothes. Because you don’t have to deal with PE class and locker rooms during marching season!!

Steve is still captain of the basketball team because that’s in the spring and doesn’t overlap with marching season. Eddie comes to all of the games as a “show of school spirit,” and afterwards they meet somewhere in the woods for Eddie to either congratulate his boy on a win or console him after a loss. Sometimes Steve has to console him after too much stress eating from the student-run concession stand if it was a really close game though—sometimes in a not so sexy way before Eddie learns the hard way to steer clear of the loaded chili dogs, but even on those occasions Eddie is blearily impressed that someone so young can be so sweet and caring. 

Most of the guys he dated prior to Steve were more interested in hooking up and/or playing rough without a lot of tenderness beyond basic aftercare, mislead by his wild hair and tattoos and the assumption that a school teacher wouldn’t want to be in an openly gay relationship. Which… okay, it’s not like he’d put leather daddy photos in his cramped little office off the band room but it is a modern AU, he can have a partner that he can casually mention in the teachers lounge without it being a big deal. But his dating profile never seemed to attract the kind of guys that would want that, he never did figure out how he was going wrong there—though to be fair, before Steve he’d kind of assumed that’s what he’d wanted too.

As far as kink goes, Eddie doesn’t take it too far with an actual high school student, for all that Steve isn’t jail bait. He introduces Steve to edging, both ways, and Steve loves it—cries so pretty when he begs, and on the flip side is relentless in getting Eddie to wait and wait and then come like a teenager over and over again. No bondage more extensive than creative use of a bandana or a tie or, on one memorable occasion, a seatbelt. Eddie is meticulous about teaching Steve all about consent, checking in regularly, the stoplight system, safe words, talking things out before and after, etc., figuring that if this is just a school year fling that at least he’s setting his sweet boy up for success in future relationships—though the idea makes him sad and his insides squirmy with jealousy. He’s not possessive exactly, but when he’s in that mood he gets extra attentive in a way that Steve seems to lap up like sweet cream.

They’re monogamous, although they both agree that Steve can’t just stop dating around without raising questions about who he is seeing. So Steve still goes out with girls sometimes, the ones that seem okay with setting low expectations for both intimacy and commitment. Dinner and a movie and maybe a little making out, because neither Steve nor Eddie are puritanical about kissing. There aren’t a lot of second dates and even fewer third dates, with only occasional fallout no matter how clear and upfront Steve is about not wanting anything serious. He always feels bad about those instances, needing lots of reassurance from his secret older boyfriend that he’s not the asshole some people think he is, that he did his best and going over the situation for things he could handle better next time. And sex, to reaffirm their own relationship behind the public facades.

The only reason Eddie hasn’t bought an engagement ring by spring is because he doesn’t want to be presumptuous, but he knows what kind of ring he would look for, what kind of things Steve would like if he did. He’s talked to his friends Jeff and Grant (Unnamed Freak) about Steve, because they have nothing to do with the school and know him well enough not to be concerned that he’s some sort of predator. Jeff, who’s settled down with a nice girl (his own age) and already started looking ahead to planning a family, is loud in his approval of Eddie’s shifting taste in men from casual hookups and one night stands to something more committed, even if it’s on the unconventional side. “You seem a lot happier, man. I think it’s good for you, in the long run, no matter how it shakes out.” At which Grant laughs and says, “Yeah, at the very least you’re healing your own teenage trauma of never being able to get a popular prettyboy jock like you wanted. You’re growing up, dude! And it’s less than a ten year age gap, that’s gonna feel like nothing once he’s outta college. No one’ll even bat an eye at it by then.” Which, Grant might be a little biased because his parents are nine years apart, but it makes Eddie grin. It’s nice to have supportive friends.

(He finds out years later that Gareth, the sophomore on snare and Grant’s cousin, also knew the entire time and was just really good at keeping secrets. Mixed feelings on that one. Partly because the reveal happens in a speech at his and Steve’s wedding and he nearly falls out of his chair in front of sixty people.)

Oh and the entire time they’ve been together Eddie has been slowly but steadily putting on weight because one of Steve’s hobbies is baking and he just generally is a decent cook because he’s a latchkey kid who got tired of fast food, frozen meals, and stuff made from a box. For a long time Eddie’s excuse for the weight gain (to the world at large and to some extent himself) is that he quit smoking when he got the school job because he didn’t want to encourage any of the kids to think it’s cool—not since his Uncle Wayne’s diagnosis of early stage lung cancer, which won’t take the stubborn bastard out soon but it’ll happen someday and rip Eddie’s heart right out. So yeah, he went cold turkey and straight to stress eating.

He’d be more self conscious about it if Steve hadn’t always been something approaching reverent when touching his love handles, even when they were still faint little rolls over the top of his jeans the first time they hooked up. The boy has this intent look in his eyes whenever Eddie eats something he made, lighting up like the sun at any sign that Eddie likes it. Feeds him little treats and beams whenever Eddie licks the crumbs from his fingers, so of course Eddie does it as often and with as much gusto as possible. It’s not like he eats unhealthily all the time, he does his daily fruits and veggies and reasonable portions… But he snacks, so sue him. And he never turns down Steve’s treats.

That’s all I’ve got for now! I’m really not writing this, I just enjoy rotating it in my head like a rotisserie chicken.

Tagging to read and answer these too if you want but no pressure: @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @kissinvampires @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls@theseaofdespair

[e-vasong]

🍰 and/or 🖊️!

OOH! I wish I knew what fandom you were from so I could target you specifically lol.

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

I have a few comfort fics, and they're from a whole assortment of fandoms - but, call me biased, I think they're enjoyable even if you don't know the fandoms. The entirety of the Eleutherophobia series by SoloMoon is an Animorphs fic that is perhaps my most-reread fic ever. Everybody lives + my traumatized faves getting a chance at healing? Say no more! Do not let the first person scare you, I promise it's GOOD. The Last Love Song & Testament of Charles F. Xavier (X-Men) is THEEEEE cherik fic to me. Got me back into the ship after a dry spell! Def. worth reading even if you don't think cherik is your ship of choice. gig officially gigged (DBDA) by @laiqualaurelote is super popular. And for good reason. I read that fic and am just kicking my feet and giggling the whole gd time! And while it's far too dark to be a comfort fic....I HAVE to call out how memory makes monsters into myth (IWTV) by @divineatrophy because it makes me insane. Insane, I tell you!

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

Since I don't know what fandom you're from...I guess you can have two lol.

From portrait of an angel (IWTV):

He might as well say it now. “I’m writing it, you know.” The other side of the line is quiet.  “Pardon?” Louis finally says. “The book. I’m writing it. Finished my first draft last week.” Well, mostly. Daniel keeps remembering more and more that he wants to add. Small details, full scenes. A fucking ocean of minutes, hours, and even days all blended together in a slurry of liquid memory—countless events spliced together with Frankensteinian irregularity or lost entirely in the mess. He’s starting to doubt that he’ll ever be happy with the result. And he’ll probably be even more miserable once the Talamasca does their edit. “Figured it was only right to warn you.” “I see,” says Louis evenly. He doesn’t ask how Daniel’s recordings and notes survived. “That’s dangerous.” “Yeah,” Daniel does feel a bit bad about the inconvenience, but well. Louis is the one who asked for round two, and he’s a big boy who regularly drops millions of dollars on a whim. The guy can afford a bodyguard.

And from my currently untitled DBDA fake-dating fic!

Edwin now went out of his way to give Charles alone time, constantly concocting research projects and cold cases that required his attention. Yes, just his attention, really—Charles, why don’t you and Crystal go and watch a movie?  It was clearly intended to be nice. It might have been, if Charles and Edwin didn’t know each other so well. And if Charles didn’t know Edwin’s moods by the way they flavored the air, he would have been oblivious. Even despite their history, he’d missed it the first few times. Edwin hid it that well, that cleverly. But he wasn’t perfect, and Charles always watched Edwin closely. He could do nothing else. Over the months, he’d glimpsed it a few times. The ache and discomfort that underlay those offers; there for a second and then gone, like glimpsing a great whale as it passed by underwater. And Edwin paused sometimes now, when Charles asked how he was doing. Sure, he’d never been wildly upfront about his feelings. That Edwardian stiff upper lip was holding strong after more than a century. But still, Edwin had always given responses that were honest by his reckoning, even if that reckoning was pretty distorted by his upbringing and time in hell.  Hesitating like he was trying to find the answer Charles wanted to hear? That was very new, and Charles didn’t like it one bit. And he didn’t need anyone, not even a client, making Edwin feel even more self-conscious about it.

Ask game

[workingmyheartaway]

Me trying to blog. Idk if anybody will even see this.

I think I’m the most pathetic person alive, there was this guy I heard about from my sister growing up and I finally shot my shot with him and he used me for sex throughout my younger years. I’ve always been slightly achey over him. He reminded me of myself to a level I can’t explain his birthday is the day before mine and we had the same demeanor. He became an addict like me and we both got sober but when he got sober he got fit and he got a really big ego. Me and him started talking again. And I can’t even express to you how magical it was, it started as a phone call and then it became everyday. I had just left an abusive relationship so I was stand off ish trying not to put too much of myself in it or be too much but everyday more and more he begged me and spent so much time and effort into assuring. Me that he did care about me and I could trust him. I thought since he was making as much effort as he did that it was safe. I was so fucking happy I woke up every morning to the sweetest fucking text messages and when I went and saw him he looked at me in a way no man had ever. He handled me with care the way nobody had ever touched me. I thought everything was perfect. But I was driving three hours to see him and I started to realize that he wasn’t making that drive for me ya know. Idk it got in my head and I started to notice that everyday he was getting kinda shorter. But he still was texting me sweet things and he was texting me a lot and everyday. He was my best friend above all I told him things I’d never told anybody and he did the same. He was understanding and caring. But then I found out I was pregnant. I panicked for weeks and the whole time he was calm and almost excited. Then one day I woke up to a message saying he loved me and could see a future with me. We picked out names for the baby and he assured me everything. Would be okay. I tried not to love him something deep down told me it wasn’t safe but I failed and he became so much to me. The very next morning after he told me he loved me I woke up to a text saying he just wanted to be co parents and he didn’t think he ever meant what he said he told me he didn’t think he ever liked me. It broke me to read that and know that I would now be without him so I relapsed. And I made a complete fool of myself. I begged for him to care about me and when he said he could t and didn’t want to do it anymore I told him to stop existing out of my life and never try to be a father…. He took me seriously. I’ve been blocked on everything for over a month. I’ve texted him from different apps updating him on the baby like he originally wanted I know that’s crazy of me but idk I just feel like he should know. I got a job serving and have spent every second trying to work my heart out and forget about him but lately I’ve had a few hours taken away due to overtime and I can’t get him off my mind I want to let him go so fucking bad. I always think I’m over it but then when the world slows down something inside me deeply aches physically I miss him so gd bad it takes my breathe away then I start to realize he shouldn’t have meant this much because I never meant anything to him. I forgot to add that a week after this went down and I was in mid relapse I got a message from a mutual friend where his location showed up in my town. The only other person he knows that lives here is his ex he never made that drive for me but he did for her and my for did that make me feel so worthless. I hate him but I don’t. Idk what to do or how to let go, I’ve been trying to replace him I know that’s not the answer but I can’t even find anybody I’m attracted to anymore… I can’t hold a conversation with anybody or care about them. I don’t care about anything anymore and idk what to do. I’ve never been so close to giving up as I am over a guy that never even gave a fuck about me. He used me once again and I fell for it I didn’t have enough respect for myself to see his intentions. Idk what to do and I’m scared that he ruined me for life.

[angesaurus]

Usually for Easter we alternate families. A long time ago we used to squeeze in both (one family would get sunday, the other would get Saturday) and back in like 2018/2019 we kind of ditched it. It’s too much you know? Especially with kids. Our parents are both in NJ - about an hour from each other. And about 90 minutes to 2 hours from our house.

What’s funny is that…. The years my mom got Easter sunday, my MIL would insist we still come for Easter Saturday. Sometimes we would come for that Thursday or Good Friday and stay over a couple nights. And then Sunday go to my moms and then go home. The years my MIL got Easter Sunday, my mom would say “have fun” and never asked or expected us to come to her house that weekend. So usually we didn’t. It’s nice my mom understands I have “two” families and understands the idea of alternating. And now with 2 kids, she gets it even more.

2019, we did my in laws. We did NOT see my parents.

2020, we stayed home.

2021, we went to my parents but I’m also pretty sure we did a day at my in laws. At this point in motherhood, I’m over seeing both families but it was post lockdown where everyone was getting over not being able to see each other like normal you know? So I’m a good in law and agree to seeing both families. Maybe we did the weekend before or after, maybe it wasn’t exactly Easter weekend but I know for a FACT we went there at some point because my SIL was there.

2022, we went to my in laws for both Saturday and Sunday (we slept over). We did NOT see my parents.

This year, it was my moms turn! We had no intention of seeing my in laws. We had seen them last year!!!!! We told them this back in like early March. We were also invited to my uncles house on Saturday and we declined because I refuse to drive to Nj two days in a row for freaking Easter.

So we went to my moms today. We had a great day! We went to the boardwalk! Had a super casual dinner at her house. Hung out, etc. it was great. We leave around 6 and on our way home my freaking in laws have the gd nerve to text my husband and say “wish you guys could drive through *our town* on your way home”

Dan says, we saw you guys last year. It’s Angela’s parents year.

They say, no you saw them last year too.

The fuck we did not??????? Dan tells them…. No??? We actually slept at your house and was there for 2 days.

They don’t believe us??????

First of all - you want us to drive an hour to your house from my moms house at 6pm, and then drive 2 hours home. Ummmmmmm. Hell no. Second of all - we didn’t see my parents last year and guess what, they are okay with that??????? They don’t expect us to drive all over the gd garden state to celebrate a holiday.

I’m so annoyed. I’m so sick of my MIL acting like she never sees my kids. I’m sick of her being jealous that my kids freaking adore my parents and spend more time with them. Do you want to know why my kids spend more time with them???? Because my parents ASK. They make the effort. They take them for sleepovers. My in laws won’t take the kids for sleepovers. They never babysit or offer. I’ve never felt like I could ask them either. They’ve both made comments that they already raised 2 kids. Fine. That’s fine! I don’t expect anything at all. They’ve spent time with Cecilia without one of us there 2 times (the 2nd time, was at Gavin’s soccer game and Dan was coaching so technically he was there!!!!).

It was just like…. I don’t know, proof they don’t value my time. I have to log on to work tomorrow at 6am. Why the hell do you think I would drive to your house after dinner on a Sunday?!?! If they had opened their mouths earlier this week I could have made sure the kids saw them OR ya know maybe they could have asked their freaking son who was on SPRING BREAK all week to bring them over. But nope! They wait until after we saw my parents and make a big deal out of it, so that it’s a “well you saw HER parents” thing and not a “we should have coordinated with our son who was on gd vacation this week” thing.

Can’t wait when I tell them Christmas is on a Monday this year and we will NOT be seeing them. They’ll get us Saturday 12/23 or not at all. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

[unabashedhonesty]

Am I...transgender?

I’ve felt my whole life like I am not a proper female. I remember me, as young as three years old, arguing vehemently with my maternal parental unit that I am a BOY, gd it! I’ve had barbies and dresses and the color PINK forced on me my entire childhood. (I despise pink to this very day because of the association.) I wanted to play sports like wrestling and football, but I couldn’t because those were “for boys”. And then I learned when I was a teenager that I like both genders — but not sex. And I was apparently “wrong” for both of those things. I always had to talk and behave a certain way because of my genitals, which never sat well with me. When I finally started to live with the notion that I-have-a-uterus-and-sizable-breasts-so-logic-dictates-that-I-am-a-girl, I tried to embrace my “place” in the world and started focusing on how to be a “proper lady”, yet all the sudden I was “slutty” and a “hoochie” “outspoken” and “disrespectful” and should dress “conservatively”, even though girls who showed off their looks apparently got praise and approval (it didn’t help that the only affection I ever got was from the “family friend” who got way too handsy with me, but I took it because here was someone who was finally being nice to me).

When I finally got away from toxic relatives and out on my own, I tried to be a proper woman, but the label “woman” never settled in and I waited my entire twenties to feel “right”. Then tragedy hit me and my partner and living became survival again, thus I no longer cared what I looked like or what people thought. I stopped wearing makeup so much, I stopped shaving my legs and armpits, I stopped the painful process of waxing my face, and THEN!! For the first time, I actually felt comfortable in my skin. I stopped wearing bras so much. I started wearing geeky t-shirts and jeans and biker boots. I talk in a way that feels right to me, and not how a “lady” should. I stopped sitting like a “lady” and I don’t take shit from anybody anymore. I began to realize that I never liked being referred to as a “she” and would jokingly tell my friends to not accuse me of being a woman. Then I started an anonymous, faceless, genderless Twitter (before the muskrat takeover) as a social experiment, and learned that I LIKED it when everyone just assumed I was a guy. I didn’t correct them because I didn’t want them to change the way they talked to me.

I then came to the conclusion that I’m genderfluid. I prefer they/them pronouns, but I really do enjoy he/him. I still know how to be a “woman”, and I still occasionally present myself as one when it’s needed (or when it’s not a good idea to get into correcting people). I still thought I was stuck being a woman when I met my partner, so I will happily be a woman for them from time to time, because that’s what they’re attracted to and I still want to be attractive to them. But they never try to make me be anything, and certainly doesn’t shame me for my gender issues — they love and support me whatever I’m feeling. (They still refer to me as “she”, but that’s what I still was when we met nearly a decade ago and it’s hard for them to switch, so I don’t hold it against them; they’re not malicious about it at all). And if I’m feeling particularly masculine — even for weeks or months at a time — they don’t try to stop me from being just that. For most of my life, I’d never heard of transgender or gender-affirming care or anything of the sort (due to being raised in an EXTREMELY conservative environment), but once I started educating myself about it so I could support others, it started to make a lot of sense to me. But I’m still learning and trying to understand it all, so I beg of you, LGBTQIA+ side of Tumblr, to PLEASE help me understand what exactly I am and what I’m going through. I know how I feel — have ALWAYS felt — and that is most certainly NOT feminine. Am I genderqueer? Am I Trans? Is this real? Am I a hypochondriac? Is it all in my head? Am I just confused? Please help!!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤎🤍🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[altschmerzes]

gang you would not believe the week i am having. extended explanation of my current nightmare under the cut. please understand this is also mid ramp-up to finals season at my second year of law school and still trying to find a summer student position which means one million cover letters and applications.

when i moved to canada i tried to import my car. i did this twice, once by calling a company before i left that does this professionally, and they were like oh don't worry about it. you're fine, you don't need to do anything. i get to the border and the man at the border tells me the same thing. don't worry about it. you're fine you don't need to do anything. i go to the dmv here to try and title my damn car because my registration is expiring and i need to do that. the woman who works there is like oh you needed to import it :) but also get your driver's license first, trust me. okay. i go through the hell process of getting my ontario license. i now have my ontario license. i need to get a safety inspection and two forms from border control. sure. i don't have the first fucking idea how to do this but i'm sure i can figure it out.

fastforward. i got in an extremely minor accident on wednesday. entirely my fault, i was slightly distracted for a moment in stop and go traffic and a like. spider in my sleeve or something bit my arm and i hit the wrong pedal. got a ticket, spent 90 minutes dealing with the cops including the part where one of the cops spent several minutes lecturing me about how he can and should seize my car on the spot because it's registered out of country and i live here and that's tax evasion. i explain that i have been trying to get this dealt with but everybody kept telling me i didn't need to do that or worry about it. he tells me that's not his problem. sure. not his problem. understood. this has now become a problem that Cannot Wait though.

so what do i need to do to get my car registered here? still need those pieces of paper. i can get the safety inspection done at any old canadian tire, which, sure. that's fine. word. so what about the border forms? well. i call the canadian border services agency. i sit on hold for a while, and eventually the man on the phone not only can't seem to fucking comprehend anything i'm saying at first, he then also tells me that the solution to my problem is to drive to the fucking us/canada border, go back to the states, then drive back immediately and get the form then. oh my gd.

so i did that. i make the two hour drive to niagara fucking falls and i tell the us border agent what i'm doing there and he's like you can't do that. you need to export it from the us first or you'll get a five thousand dollar fine. and i'm like. okay. thank you sir. have a nice night. thank gd they give me no issue returning on the canadian side. so i make the drive home. having achieved nothing. nobody has given me any actionable information and the only thing more confusing and complicated than importing a car for personal use in canada is exporting one from the united states. literally on the government website it says 'every export office operates differently' which made me almost collapse into tears when i read it.

last night i decided okay, tomorrow i am calling a professional import/export service to throw myself on their mercy and beg them to help me. i might need to leave the country for a few days to get this dealt with bc it's possible i can't export it except for from us soil. all i am trying to do is follow the rules and every single person at every juncture of this nightmare has given me different, conflicting information.

just had that phone call. the good news: i am not going to need to go to the states for several days to deal with this. some nice lady from a company who does this professionally is gonna do the paperwork for me and has found me apparently the only us/canada border crossing that will let me do the us export shit from this side of the border. the bad news: it is an even farther crossing than the one i drove to yesterday, and i’m gonna have to wait a couple days to do it and then do it immediately, which means missing more class than i already missed yesterday trying to do this. hopefully then it will be sorted.

[kithtaehyung]

Ryen maybe you (or maybe the comments as well?) can give me some advice? You seem like such a hard working/ diligent person with all of the things that you do so I’d thought I would ask you :) How are you able to do as much as you do with work and hobbies etc. I struggle to follow a routine and that makes time management a literal disaster. I kind of drift day by day and this has made me very depressed and someone who hasn’t accomplished anything. I am 22 but have no idea what I will do with my future and no career sounds appealing. I feel like I am too dumb to get another job so I’ve been stuck at the same dead end one for almost 6 years. I only go to work 2-3 days a week and the other days are filled with distractions. And the days I am off I stay in my room and don’t talk to any friends or family cause I don’t really have that many and it seems exhausting to go out. So I’m not very productive and I’m not proud of myself much either. How are you able to accomplish so much and have a lot of energy to do as much as you do? You probably get burnt out but how do you manage to actually get up and do it. Also sorry if this is a lot!

Hey, love🫂 as diligent as I may seem, there are definitely times where I find myself on the couch wondering where the time went🤣 it’s not always go go go for me, either! My body just tells my brain to chill for a gd second and then it listens (kinda.)

When you’re drifting, it’s normal to feel out of place or like you aren’t doing anything. Like you’re kinda just there and not gonna achieve anything fulfilling.

But some of the general advice that I learned to break those moments are these:

Motivation can only take you so far; discipline is what you need when you have nothing left. Yeah you can feel motivated and ride that wave, but what are you gonna do when it’s gone and you still need to do things? Well. Sometimes you just gotta push through. Do that workout you didn’t wanna do. Watch that YouTube tutorial you meant to watch but put off for later. Study for 2 full, meaningful minutes if you don’t think you can. Before you know it, you’re gonna look back at all these things and be glad you at least tried a little bit.

Just because you aren’t accomplishing anything big doesn’t mean you aren’t achieving anything. Need to wash up? Take a shower—done. Achievement! Wanna send a message to someone asking for advice? Done. You did it! The smallest things can amount to the biggest impacts.

This is gonna sound corny as fck, but believe in yourself. You are what you have at the end of the day. I highly encourage less talk about what’s stacked against you and what you don’t have, and more talk about how you’re gonna overcome that and what you can do or get better at. Fake confidence until you really feel it.

Do I mess up? Yeah. Do I doubt myself? All the fcking time lmfao. But guess what: I get over those thoughts and still tell myself that I can do it in the end. Whenever I made my checklist of shit to do for my online shop? “Believe in yourself” is one of the checkboxes. And it’s not being checked off until I really feel it—but I’m gonna get there. I have to, because if I don’t believe in myself then how the fck am I gonna keep going when I hit walls?

You’re at a beautiful age. Lots of time to figure shit out. Tbh 22 is when I had these same damn thoughts, too, and I did waste a lot of it by giving in to them and just thinking I wouldn’t amount to much. But one day, I decided that I didn’t like what direction my life was going. (Discipline got me through a lot of it tbh, so I would say swallow some hard truths and do your best to try and keep trying until you find something you like and that you know you can get good at.)

You can do it. Cherish life as it comes🤍

[rothjuje]

It’s snowing and I missed it so much I didn’t even mind shoveling the drive for an hour to get my car back up. It’s February break and I’ve been trapped inside with 3 sick and whiney kids and I felt like if I didn’t get out tonight I would go insane. And I needed groceries and a family sled from Target. In hindsight, yes, I should not have gone. But also I have like a week’s experience of driving in the snow and I didn’t realize how quickly snow can fall, it’s been so hit or miss if it even sticks on the road.

I also learned that plows don’t come by past 9 pm (everything here closes between 8 and 9). So, that was fun. The last 10 minutes of my drive were like driving in a snow globe, I don’t even understand how the Honda civic made it honestly. At one point I thought, ‘my Gd, they’re going to find me frozen to death on the side of the road with my car full of Target bags, what an embarrassing way to go.’

But I made it! And learned lots of lessons, most important being don’t be an idiot and drive during a snowstorm.

It was snowing so fast that in the 30 minutes it took to shovel the fresh drive the majority of it was completely covered again by the end. I tried to drive up and nope. I had to shovel 10 feet quickly, drive 10 feet, shovel 10 feet quickly, drive 10 feet etc. Definitely the most I’ve ever seen it snow in my entire life.

Yes yes I know, I need to figure out the damn snowblower. But shoveling is so fun and great exercise. I downloaded Spotify and finally opened my ear bud knockoffs and it was a party. I feel like I’ve joined the 21st century haha.

Anyway. I had chest pain for two months (squeezing and pressure) and was pretty sure I was going to die of a heart attack. I finally saw a doctor about it and got my labs back and I think it was just unrelated pericarditis (doctor thinks it was from the Pfizer bivalent I got in early December, I never had an issue with the J&J or Moderna though). My labs came back with slight anemia and high cholesterol. I need to get better about taking iron and making healthy choices. I am thinking about doing a complete household diet overhaul, I hate feeling like I’m feeding my kids junk.

I’ve started taking evening power walks with my neighbor and it’s the best, but I think I need more cardio. I still plan on getting the treadmill once we figure out the flooring situation in the basement (we have a credit with Home Depot we’re sorting out). I miss running. A lot. And treadmill running is my favorite kind of running. I was thinking about maybe doing another half marathon because then I would be forced to train, but I keep remembering mile 10 and my legs afterward.

I ask Alyssa what she wants to be when she grows up on a weekly basis. First it was a cat, and then for a year it was a firefighter, for 6 months a nurse, then she wanted to be a mommy, then she wanted to be JoJo Siwa. I asked her the other day and she said “I’ve been thinking about this mom. I want to be a chef. For real.” I believe it, she’s a picky eater for sure but she loves to try new things, and oddly she likes spices. And she loves to cook and bake. I want to encourage her interest because I think it will help her become a better eater and just because that’s such a perfect and unique passion. I will miss her JoJo Siwa days though, she is such a performer.

Justin leaves Saturday for an international trip. It feels like he just got back from his last work trip. He’s going to be gone a full seven days. Inconveniently, it’s supposed to snow several times next week. I need to unbox the snowblower before he leaves, I won’t be able to leave the kids to shovel. I want to park the car at the bottom of the driveway but Justin is worried that it will get hit by a snow plow (really?) or that it will roll down because of ice (the bottom of our driveway is still a hill). Hmmmm.

[chasingvoidmonsters]

Writing about my Banshee Witch again! Maybe one day I'll give her a proper name... I'm feeling Ophelia, but that might be a bit too much to live up to. (Although I get a kick out of referring to her partner as Hamlet since he's a background character and I feel like canon Hamlet would lose his gd mind at not being the main character.) Anyway... -------------- She tsks at the state of the chrysanthemum on her counter. The plant was not something she planned. It had shown up on her shop’s doorstep and subsequently been lugged to where it now stood, dripping mud onto her mental to-do list. It was half dead and drowning in its big blue ceramic pot, practically begging for her to fix it before she started all of the many things that had to be done by a witch the week before opening the only herbalist in a tiny sea-side town. It was not a small list.

If she rearranged her schedule and went to the post office and market after she went to her appointment at the port, she could still get things done and not be too busy right before her first shipment of glass tomorrow. With that decided, she grabbed her gloves and sheers from the back room and got to work trimming the dead flowers, leaves, and stems off of the plant before her.

Trimming allowed easier handling, letting her carefully pull the whole plant from the flooded soil. She rinsed the roots thoroughly, snipping away the rotted bits, and placed the plant to the side. Now she had to heft the soaked soil through the store to her back garden. She scrunched her nose at the huge ceramic pot.

“You had better not make a mess and drip everywhere. I just mopped.” The pot, of course did not answer, but the soil almost seemed to soak in a bit more of the puddled water in response to her expression. That seemed to be enough to appease the witch, who mopped up the remaining muddy drips on the counter and then hefted the pot through the shop, ducking under strands of drying herbs with more grace than anyone carrying that much weight has any right to do.

The soil soup was unceremoniously chucked into a pile of compost at the back of her long skinny lot, just as wide as the shop but almost twice as long. While the shop was pristinely organized, immaculately labeled, and on trend with its displays, the garden was where the true herbal witch showed through. It was perfectly knitted together in the way that only an experienced life-long gardener could pull off. Nothing was manicured, but it didn’t need to be, as it was routinely harvested and pruned. Every inch of space had been used, only one main stone path winding its way through the patchwork garden beds. Even the fences had been covered in repurposed window boxes, one over the other for an additional 6 feet of vertical space on one side of the yard. There was a small, intimate social area in the center of the yard that almost transported you out of the city with how surrounded by vegetation it was. And right against the back of the shop was a small covered workstation with a deep utility sink and counters at two different heights for working at normal counter height and account for tall planters on the shorter slab. Hung on the wall above the workspace were various types of mailboxes she had collected over the last five years of cultivating the plot of land. Not a one was labeled, but that didn’t slow her down a second, able to open whichever she wanted to get exactly what she was looking for every time. Anyone watching might wonder how much it cost her to create something so magical. Others would know better than to wonder about the goings on of such a witch.

She set the huge pot on the gravel near the utility sink and hosed it down before putting it on the shorter workbench. She fetched the plant from inside and set to work repotting. Her lips pursed as she stepped back to inspect her work. Now that the dead weight had been removed, the plant looked much too small for such a pot.

“Room for growth.” She shrugged apologetically. “I’ll keep an eye on you though, there are smaller pots if we have to switch you. But where to keep you…” A quick glance around her space showed very few appropriate places for a plant in this kind of shape. The front steps didn’t have a plant on them yet, she hadn’t been able to make a decision, trying to put intention into her choice of herbal combination. But this plant really was everything she was feeling at this phase in her life, she thought to herself as she more easily hoisted the pot onto her hip, heading through the store. She felt too small for this familiar space, even if it had been hers for decades. Back then it had been theirs, before she had half of herself cut down.

She carefully pushed the front door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk, mindful of the Elf walking by with a little girl in tow who was quite consumed with the sticky nectar lolly in her tight little grasp. A grateful nod was directed at the demon that let her cross in front of him to give her a break from the busy foot traffic. She stepped back to get a full view of her doorway through the occasional pause in people and creatures out and about this morning. Her big emerald front door and prominent bronze wolf head doorknocker was set between two glass display windows. The painter had finally finished painting the windows with her signage yesterday, particularly placed so she could still use the displays without obscuring the lettering. The left read “Herbalist” in big emerald letters with bronze shadow. The right had her hours in smaller emerald script and black shadow. The windows currently had newspaper covering them, which had shielded her from too many prying eyes as she prepped her shop to open.

The new signage was definitely drawing curious looks. The two story building had been abandoned for as long as anyone in the town remembered. It was somehow always kept neat and tidy and never caused an issue, so it was left alone. 5 years ago, a few of the neighbors slowly noticed the back yard changing, but no one knew who was living on the second story. It was 2 years before anyone started noticing the quiet young woman tending to the garden in the late evenings and seeing her around town. She kept to herself fiercely at first, barely glancing up in passing. Over time though, she seemed to warm to the idea of being part of a town. She still kept to herself, but now greeted the townsfolk with friendly smiles and the occasional kind word.

Last year was when the newspaper had been taped in the windows and drawn the initial curiosity. Today though, everyone knew what she was planning and that knowledge almost stole her breath. But she resolutely shifted the pot on her hip and came to the conclusion that the left side of the single step into the alcove was the perfect home for the plant.

She stepped forward with conviction, set on her decision and what she had to do to get moving on her to-do list. And that determination is exactly why she stepped directly into the hulking figure that seemed to be just as determined to make good time to his own destination.

[lurkingteapot]

Step by Step ค่อย ๆ รัก Ep 3

Ep 3, let’s go.

- Oh, this is the kind of “morning after” regrets that really … urgh.

- (standard disclaimer of “I’m not fluent but”) text convo has some linguistic nuance lost in subs, not just because the subs cut off: Pat addresses Ae as เจ๊ /tɕéʔ/ (honorific for older women, particularly of Chinese descent) and talks about Jeng as ‘Khun Jeng’; Ae, in her response, calls Pat อีพัท /ʔiː pʰát/ -- his name with impolite/intimate prefix อี /ʔiː/, commonly transcribed as ii or ee, the feminine-speaker equivalent of dudes calling their friends ไอ้ /ʔâj/ [name] -- and มึง /mɯŋ/ while using กู /kuː/ for herself.

พัท มึงบ่นเรื่องนี้กับกูมาจะอาทิตย์นึ่งแล้วค่ะ อยากรู้ก็บอกเลยสิคะอีเสือ ไม่ก็ทำอะไรสักอย่างเถอะ ถือว่ากูขอ!!

“Pat (derogatory), you’ve been bugging me about this for a week now.” “If you want to know, just say so, tiger (derogatory)” “Or if not that, just do something, I’m begging you here!!”

She’s throwing ค่ะ/คะ “kha”s in there (Pat was not using polite particles with her) which gives it an overall sarcastic/exasperated tone, and I’m pretty sure given the overall tone the อีเสือ /ʔiː sɯ̌ːa/ is also meant as a “you coward” kind of thing considering tigers are generally considered strong, brave, and bold – sort of like English “go get them, tiger”.

As always: more advanced speakers please chime in with additions/corrections, I appreciate opportunities to learn.

Okay, on with the episode …

- Jaab is Jeng’s BROTHER???? Oh this explains SO MUCH, whoa, not least the friggin names (one’s เจ๊ง -- (very) skilled, great, awesome, one is จ๊าบ -- cool, spiffy, sharp-looking …)

- oh no, he’s read it and he’s worriiiiied/taking it to heart :(

- oh no oh no Jaab baby “Do you (big brother) have a method how to stop liking someone?” these disaster brothers, I swear.

- oh goodness, Jeng, is that the approach you’re currently trying to take with Pat?

- Jaab I get that you’ve got a crush but ffs stop hitting on the dude with a boyfriend, that way lies pain for all involved.

- oh god this is excruciating

- ahaha plot twist (of COURSE)

- he can COOK, too!! my GOODNESS

- remembering all the reasons I’ll never be a party person, yike

-15k?? what in the hiso, who’s dropping that kind of money?

- okay this is just toxic now, in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the word.

- love this “I only know this person by the name they go by in daily life because nobody ever uses their legal name” thing

- careful with the camera ffs those things are EXPENSIVE

- Jaab, you’re self harming here and I’d like you to stop

- okay but Jen you’re also NOT HELPING

- these two are like a car crash

- OISHI ZERO my old friend

- oh kids don’t DO this to yourselves

- … what was this cut, am I missing something? (youtube)

- the AWKWARDNESS here, holy shit

- omg, did he crash at A Place Of Jeng’s? we knw that they Jeng said he didn’t go back to the apartment he shares with his brother, so …????

- okay apparently these men just have too many houses (or I’m misunderstanding things, which is just as likely)

- ohhh Pat come ON this is NOT HELPING

- AWKWARD

- I’m laughing my ass off at Jeng, he’s incredible.

-  “WORK DISCUSSION” you’re making it WORSE please Jeng

- vibes say this is yet another dad for the bad dads of BL collection, huh. Jury’s out on the mother.

- Pat, WHY are you still in Jeng’s clothes

- … Jeng, is this you worrying about him? because “you’re so slow” is NOT the way to get people to feel supported.

- this is hitting my second hand embarrassment squick HARD rn, yikes

- oh you’ve got it BAD, Jeng, huh.

- Jeng really can’t catcha break, poor dude

- I want to go to Pearl & Oliver, that place looks so nice, gd

- ah, the classic “booze-fuelled honest conversations that half of the participants won’t be able to recall the next day” trope

- oh nooooo like Jeng needed confirmation that there’s ~potential there

- It’s so unusual to see actual more-or-less professional behaviour out of BL ship part, this is incredible (maybe sad that I think it’s incredible, idk)

- Nan is my favourite for REASONS, okay. PROFESSIONAL.

- … okay I take that back, the boy is thinking too much already, he doesn’t need MORE fodder for that, yikes

- Jeng is so sincere, it hurts me, goodness. He’s trying so hard!!

- oh no oh no this is BAD, you don’t get the aggressor and the victim into the same room for this kind of thing, ffffffffffff that’s gonna make things harder for Pat.

---

I love the pacing of this, and the fact that by starting late I don’t have to wait a week for ep 4. Good going me.

[artificialqueens]

[WIP] The Miracle of Living - Lita

A/N: So - picture it, Sicily, 1934. Many many moons ago I wrote a ludicrous/devastating Bitney AU based on the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror that I never bothered my arse posting the conclusion of. Veronica specifically was obsessed with this AU, and has been pestering me to upload the rest of it almost incessantly for literally years. Cut to last year, myself and V met up IRL and turns out spending three days in a hotel with the bitch gives her a lot of time to peer-pressure you into restarting writing projects that you originally started when you were still in high school. The original AU is…fine, but there were plot holes and unaddressed issues that have been bothering me for years, so because I’m me, I’ve decided to just totally restart the whole gd thing with more backstory, more tragedy, and more bullshit. 

This has been a long, long time in the works, and I have no ETA for the first completed chapter, but you’ll get it eventually. So, now I’m here - again, under duress by V, but here regardless. Since I’m a good daughter, here’s the first snippet of the prologue to the main story (because I inexplicably decided it needed a prologue.) Enjoy, divas xoxo

Los Angeles, California

“BEN!” 

Bianca’s furious voice rings out through the small apartment. She’s sitting on the toilet with her pajama pants and underwear around her ankles, willing the second blue line to disappear. If anything, it’s getting darker. 

“Uh…yeah?” The tentative reply comes from the other side of the bathroom door..  

“I thought you said you wore a fucking condom!”

“I did!” Ben protests from the other side of the bathroom door. Then, meek and cautious: “…It might have split.” 

“It might have what?”

Two and a half months ago, Bianca and Ben had gone out drinking to commiserate the ends of their respective relationships - Ben had found out about his long-term boyfriend’s secret Grindr profile and dumped him, then Bianca’s longest-lasting FWB had called it quits with her less than a week later. When they got home, drunk and dumb and miserable, they’d started making out with each other on the couch - as a joke, just for something to do. And then, since they were shitfaced and apparently didn’t know any better, one ‘joke’ led to another, and they’d woken up naked in Ben’s bed. They had laughed it off the morning after, hunched at the kitchen table over alka-seltzer and black coffee - too much liquor, too many emotions. Shit happens. 

And then tonight, Bianca had mentioned offhand that she was incredibly overdue her period, and suggested going out to buy a test half as a joke. Ben had gone along with it a little too willingly, and he’d been overly-energised and super fucking weird on the walk to the drugstore. Really, Bianca should have known something was up when he’d detoured via the liquor store across the street, and came back with two bottles of tequila. 

“Ben, are you fucking kidding me?” Bianca says through her teeth. 

“I was gonna tell you,” Ben replies, sounding flustered. “Is the door locked? Can I come in?”

Bianca wants to say no, but it was Ben’s curiosity about her vagina that got them here in the first place, so who cares about whether or not he sees her now? She reaches over to turn the lock. Ben shuffles into the room in his leopard-print boxers and an oversized pajama shirt, and perches on the edge of the bathtub, looking at the floor. 

Part of Bianca wants to burst into tears - another part of her wants to scream until she throws up. Not now. Not fucking now - not like this. She’s twenty-two; Bianca doesn’t even know that she wants a goddamn kid at all, forget about one fathered by her gay best friend.  

“Look, I didn’t notice until after we were done. And I didn’t want to freak you out - I figured it would probably be nothing, and then there was never a good time, and then you told me you were late and I…”  

“You’re a faggot, we were hammered, we fucked because we thought it would be funny - if you knew that there was anychance whatsoever that you’d knocked me up, you should have fucking told me!” 

“So, you’re pregnant?” 

“Yeah - no shit, Sherlock.”

“Do you think you should take another one? To make sure or whatever?” Ben asks. Bianca presses the heel of her hand to her temple, still not breaking eye contact with the pregnancy test. 

“Nope - that looks pretty positive to me,” Bianca shows it to him, wiping the mist of stress-sweat from her brow. Ben pulls a vaguely disgusted face. There’s a moment of pause - Bianca bites her lip, struggling to make sense of the messy cocktail of emotions swirling around inside her head. 

“Are you okay?” Ben tries to take Bianca’s hand. It feels weirdly violating to have someone touching her while she’s sitting on the toilet. She swats him away, chuckling and shaking her head. 

“I think so. I need a little time to get my head around…everything,” Bianca sighs, still staring at the test. “I really didn’t see being a single mom in my life plan.”

“Who says you have to be a single mom?” Ben tilts his head. 

Bianca scoffs. 

“What? No- Ben, I really don’t want to date you - one night was bad enough.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. But like…if you’re gonna go through with this, I’m not just leaving you by yourself to do it. Both of us did something dumb, and now we’re here - so, both of us should have to parent the consequence.” There’s a quiet, sympathetic smile on Ben’s face. Bianca still wants to fucking kill him. 

“You’re just saying that so I stop being mad at you.”

“No! Anyway, I can’t let you raise it by yourself - I love you, but the world really, really doesn’t need two of you.”

“Ha-ha, go suck a dick,” Bianca rolls her eyes. She can’t help but crack a smile. 

“If this is what happens when I try to go outside my comfort zone, then yeah, that’s what I’m sticking to.”

 **** 

Sydney, Australia 

“So…what the fuck do we do now?” 

“Get ratarsed?” Vanity offers, lifting a bottle to her lips with a grin. 

The Louboutins she’d insisted on dropping a bomb on for graduation had barely stayed on the whole way through the ceremony; her bare feet are resting in the grass, her dirty-blonde hair glowing golden in the sunset. Her red lipstick is smudged and her foundation has half-sweated off, and she looks beautiful. 

“I mean beyond that,” Courtney says, lying back on the hard ground and stifling a burp. “Like…how the fuck do we doanything? I don’t wanna be an adult.”  

There was only so much formality that the two of them had been able to stomach. Vanity has the attention span of a toddler, and Courtney didn’t know anyone else well enough to give a shit about socialising with them. She had Vanity; she’d been there since they were in kindergarten, and she was all that she needed. So, they’d stolen two bottles of cheap champagne from the boring, stuffy grad afterparty and escaped to watch the sunset in the park - the endeavour was more killing time pre-drinking and waiting for the clubs to open than trying to do anything cute or memorable, but Courtney couldn’t lie and say she didn’t love it a little bit. Calm moments with Vanity didn’t happen very often - she herself was the storm. 

Four years of university for…this. Life seemed so vast and confusing. Courtney had expected to come out prepared to face it; but if anything, she just feels smaller and less ready for the next fifty or sixty years she had left to screw around on the planet. She doesn’t know how to entertain herself for that long. Sucks to be her, she guesses - the journalism degree she’d pursued felt useless. After spending last summer interning at a newspaper, she’d learned that the career choice that seemed chic and fun when she was seventeen was mostly sitting around in an office being bored, when she wasn’t being sent on coffee runs. 

At least she wasn’t in Vanity’s boat - passing her major by the skin of her teeth and with the assistance of a stack of mitigating circumstance forms, with an attendance rate of 17%, two spates of alcohol poisoning, and one arrest for pissing in the street under her belt. She’d viewed higher education more as an opportunity to party for four years. But they’d made it - both of them had. 

“Tough shit,” Vanity shrugs. “Nobody ever fucking knows what they’re doing, they just pretend to. You’ve got like, forever to figure it out.” 

“Are you really someone I should be taking life advice from?” Courtney tilts her head. 

“What do you mean? I’m a fucking delight.”

“You did skip a month’s rent to pay for those shoes,” Courtney observes - Vanity elbowing her in the shoulder with a playful laugh.

“That’s not irresponsible, it’s self-expression - fucking transphobe,” she scoffs. “I’ve got twenty years worth of masculine posturing to get out of my system, let me have my expensive shiny shit.” 

“You think you were masculine? Like, ever?” Courtney laughs. Vanity nods in a way that indicates a little too much sincerity. “Vanity, I’ve known you since we were six - I’m still convinced that the only reason we’re friends is because my parents let you play with my Barbies.”  

“It was originally, but I learned to like you too,” she shrugs. Courtney grins. 

Last year, after a particularly messy night in the club, they’d stumbled home - Vanity a dozen drinks and two lines of white miscellanea deep, Courtney not far behind her - and congregated in the cramped bathroom of their shared apartment. It had become a ritual. Getting home as the sun was coming up, parking themselves on the tiled floor, or in the empty bath, or kneeling in front of the loo if they’d really overdone it - exhausted and sweaty and coming down, but unable to accept that the party was over. Like most nights, Vanity started crying. Usually it was about a boy, or her parents, or her general ennui. The bitch had a lot of fucking demons. But this time it was heavier. And she wouldn’t tell Courtney what the fuck the matter was. Eventually, the confession had tumbled out of her mouth in between breathless sobs, as she slumped against the wall with a half-finished bottle of wine in her hand; Courtney sat on the toilet, mid-piss and unsure what to do with herself. 

So, that was it. Vanity was a woman. And left to her own devices, she would have been all too content to keep pretending that she wasn’t - with the help of a steady stream of one-night stands and whatever mind-altering substance she could get her hands on. Can’t acknowledge your problems if you’re not sober enough to remember what they are. Courtney hadn’t so much helped her come out of the closet as she had dragged her out of it kicking and screaming. 

Vanity had always been the one who knew what she was doing - louder, more confident, even when they were kids. Growing up, Courtney really hadn’t had friends; Vanity had friends who let Courtney hang out with them. Courtney adored the bitch - someone had to - but she had always felt a little pinch of jealousy towards her too. She shrunk in comparison to her best friend. 

And now here she was; Vanity was staggering blind into this new phase of her life, with Courtney - who at that point had been accomplishing womanhood to relative success for twenty-one years - by her side, ready and willing to teach her whatever she needed to know. She’d had all of these cute little fantasies about shopping trips and manicures, being the one to school Vanity in femininity. 

Annoying thing was, once Vanity had finally admitted that the ongoing gender crisis she’d been ignoring since her mid-teens wasn’t going away any time soon, she’d just blossomed into herself. Everything seemed to come so naturally to her; she hadn’t needed any of Courtney’s help, except from borrowing a lipstick here and there. So, the jealousy remained - she’d only been doing it for eleven months, and Vanity was better at being a girl than Court was too, on top of everything else. 

 But Courtney didn’t really give a shit. Whatever saccharine big-sister daydream she’d had about her role in Vanity’s ‘new’ way of being didn’t really fucking matter. Vanity was…actually happy, arguably for the first time ever. 

“Do you think we should start thinking about making a move? That three-for-two happy hour thing at Ginger’s finishes in a bit,” Vanity ponders, swallowing back the dregs of her champagne.

“Can we just chill here for a bit longer? Let me finish my existential crisis before you start thinking about where your next drink is coming from,” Courtney scoffs. 

“You can sweat over the futility of your sad little life any time you like, do you have to do it right now?” she huffs, picking at her chipping nail polish. 

“Please,” Courtney says, looking up at her with plaintive doe-eyes and reaching for her hand.  

“Fine - you’re such a fucking loser,” Vanity grins. 

She lies back in the grass, resting her head on Courtney’s shoulder and playing around with a lock of her hair. The last sliver of sunlight is still glowing dusky orange, and Courtney is pleasantly tipsy and, for all her internal stress and bullshit, she feels this air of calm washing over her. Panicking about what she was going to do with the rest of her life could wait until tomorrow, at least. 

Vanity slips her hand into Courtney’s. Her presence feels warm and safe and familiar - she smells like cheap vanilla perfume and hairspray, and it’s overbearing but Courtney adores it anyway. 

[mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa]

"Why would Tae use a gay ship to cover up a hetero relationship?" -This anon was replying to my original list of questions I sent you.

I want to start off by saying I do believe that there's something going on with th and jk. The reason I asked the original ask is because there's so much photos and coincidences with jennie and th, so I won't dent that sometimes I question things

So Why would Tae use a gay ship to cover up a hetero relationship?- my only theory is that the kpop industry loves fan service. Regardless of me believing taekook or not, we can't deny that kpop fans would rather ship male x male idols then see them with a women. IF jennie and th are dating then I'm sure they've seen the shit storm that has been going on online. So what's the best way to cool it down? Give them some fan service content!! look now the th and jennie stuff has died down again.

I will say that my theory could go both ways. Maybe th sees the jennie posts and doesn't like it so he posts about jk to shut the shippers up and make it known that taekook is a thing.

One thing I did love about the live is that th excluded jk from his friends. He said he's playing with his friends AND jk is here. So jk is more than just a friend. Reminds of that clip where jk told tae to introduce him properly and not just as his friend.

If anon wants to talk then comment and I'll send you a dm. My account isn't kpop related so that's why I'm under anon -🍒

AAHH okay, I remember (hopefully, though I've got so many asks now I sometimes do get what people are talking about when refering to an ask from days/weeks previously), and now that ask makes a whole lot more sense. At least if you and the anon are referring to this ask:

Firstly, I will say you're (if that is the ask you and they are referring to) slightly contradicting yourself, as in the original ask it states "I actually don’t think tk are together, I just lurk on army spaces, so I wouldn’t care either way whether Tae was dating her," but then in this ask you say... "I want to start off by saying I do believe that there's something going on with th and jk." If it's not your asks then this whole paragraph getting weirder by the character....

Now back to your theory...

It all hinges on the photos...

Photos that have from both Blackpink and BTS fandoms (and not just shippers mind) proven been shown and proven to be photoshopped from stolen private photos, from two artist we have no knowledge of ever being close.

But why would they use a ship that for BigHit had for 4 years presented the narrative to the public/fandom that Taekook were not close only to start shipping them. BigHit still really doesn't promote Taekook, yes they let moments happen are kept in, but it's still anything like what other ships got in content and Taekook push that themselves.

Plus, Taekook for the last 3 years have been on a trajectory that shows them to be much more close and intimate to the general public well before Taennie was a thing. So pushing a ship that had been more in the forefront doesn't make sense.

Plus, in May she dumped GD only shack up with Tae in the same month, all the while being on the other side of the planet (as confirmed by Blinks), I she must be a superwoman/time-traveller.

The rest of Taennie is all just loose threads and coincidences nothing more.

Regarding Taennie as a potential TK cover, I think it was less about Taekook and more about Tae. Cover for Tae and Tae's sexuality, Just like G Dragon's sexuality and sort of Kai's sexuality. All the men she's had relationships with, all have whispers of being queer.

But the live is great I do agree, and just adds further weight to the fact they are close and together... a lot.