#now for the exclusive storytime told in the tags

[witchinatree]

"Gwen Bouchard; Too Close to the Sun"

third time's the charm except this one was a disaster and i just want to be DONE with it 😡

i was waiting hoping for more sad gwen and then 23 handed me exactly what i needed. and alice i love her too

this also made me think about like 1. babygirl blackmailed lena into letting her icarus herself, and 2. alice never doubted her for a moment, even when sam was cackling about the bonzo thing, i hope gwen and alice talk more because they need it/each other

so originally i was going to use the song "the rockrose and the thistle" by the amazing devil but i listened to the lyrics a bit more and realized it's way better for basira and daisy. guess what the next one is gonna be LMAO

i'm exhausted though so pls don't hold your breath you will suffocate ‼️

the podcast is the magnus protocols, song is "bubble gum" by clairo, and i used capcut (evil) to do this

sorry this one is kinda all over the place, i didn't have great scenes to transition between. it was so much easier with jon we got 200 episodes of him never shutting the fuck up (/pos)

if anyone ever asks me who my favorite tmagp character is pls show them this, it will not answer their question but i want internet points for my labor (it is gwen and alice though)

[erlenmeyertrash]

so can we ask what happened, or is that rude?

ALRIGHT. buckle up buds. this one is the most Dramatic Event that has probably ever happened to me. I was not equipped, I was not prepared, I’m still reeling from it, and… well. you’ll see why.

if any any point you think “holy shit, is this even real? can this get any more wild?” just know that a) i felt the same way, b) it is all 100% real and accurate to the best of my memory, and c) it can and it does. ugh.

ANYWAYS. without further ado. (i would say storytime, but i’d hate to taint the phrase with this… also this is going to probably be swear-filled. and i’m not sure how many trigger warnings to tag. i will try my best? it’ll involve mentions of breakups and emotional struggles for sure so please proceed with caution, lovelies, i’d hate for anybody to get hurt

okay note after reading- there’s food mentions, mentions of swearing, emotional manipulation, relationship issues, character insults, slight drowning mention, and if there are any more please let me know and i’ll tag them. proceed with caution. enter if you dare. i still cannot believe the vast majority of this happened.)

sO. the backstory of all backstories. (if you want to skip to the most recent hiatus-inducing drama, look for the bolded text (and screenshot) a bit further down)

I went through a god-awful breakup just before school started last semester with a guy named Collin. I’m talking two days after we move in to the same apartment complex, three days before our one-year anniversary, totally out of left field. i had kind of put too much emotional investment into the relationship and was really unprepared for it- not to mention (and this may be biased) he handled it kind of poorly- let me re-invest in person after a summer apart, got me very attached, then didn’t actually break it off the first time he tried because he wimped out at seeing me sad, so semi-led me on for another day before he actually cut it off.

…and then tried to be friends while simultaneously calling up his past ex and making an FWB with the girl he met over the summer that i wasn’t supposed to worry about and i’m gonna stop myself now. basically, i was distraught and, despite having many wonderful friends, felt extremely alone starting off this year of college. collin was Not Ever allowed over into my apartment again, an executive order unanimously agreed upon by me and my 2 roommates.

flash forward a couple of days to my organic chemistry class where i sit by a guy named joey. joey looks like a chill dude, right? and i’m not even remotely thinking about relationships. i think i’m done forever, goodbye cruel world, hello Single Dog Mom status eternal. joey’s awesome. we become friends, bond over C-H bonds, it’s lit. joey’s a senior- two years older than me- and he’s got a girlfriend, who i meet once before a football game and try as hard as i possibly can to convey “i am joey’s weird ochem nerd bud, i pose no threat, and trust me if he tried anything i would run screaming to you so hard to help you beat his ass.” not that joey would- he’s a good guy, we’re strictly platonic pals, and he really likes his girlfriend and they’re kind of totally adorable together. we’re all chill, right? right.

over that semester, joey and i are friends, my roommates- we’ll call them Snow White and Mulan, which are accurate monikers in terms of both appearance and attitude- are super supportive and helpful. i love them both to death. snow white goes through her own emotional turmoils (mulan is a bit more chilled out and stone-faced but still absolutely a dear friend to the end), and we try to be there for each other as best we can. i had a lot of emotional struggles that i had to work through both with them and without- and with a few other people. but. yes. last few months were quite a lot for me to handle and i handled it poorly, but we’re doing better now. i get teased for “liking” joey and it takes everything in me not to rant EVERY SINGLE TIME. i just wanted a friend!!!! i was not about to crush on anybody. i was over deep romantic ties for a solid while, let me tell you.

so. this semester. i’m doing a lot better!!! i join an organization full of wonderful people, my roommates and i are doing great (snow white went through a rough spot with a boy early on but we helped her as best we could), joey and i stay friends, some friendships that hit a rough spot last semester are on excellent mend, ochem 2 is WRECKING me but that’s to be expected so it’s fine. collin is basically an awkward, distant memory at this point. i’m still hurt, yknow?, but we don’t talk much. it’s not even a dull ache, it’s just “wow that relationship was rough and i’m scared of them now it’s fine i’m fine everything’s fine i just love my dog and my friends” (as one does). joey breaks up with his gal Sabrina in late january i believe?- nothing serious but it did shock me to hear since they seemed cute together, and i offered support if he needed it and we keep on movin along.

joey’s over at my place one night in february cramming with a few other buds for an ochem exam; he meets snow white and after leaving texts me that she’s really pretty. i, ever the biggest fan of my gal pals, am like “I KNOW RIGHT?!?!” because lbr, i didn’t nickname her a disney princess for nothing. she’s gorgeous. sO. 

joey and i are pals but he finds out he and snow white share a stats class together, so he starts coming over every so often to do homework with her (aka argue about it, judging by the strained voices filtering into my room through the living room). valentine’s day comes along and snow white winds up going out with joey for dinner. lit, right? they come back and i… realize joey is. Not. dressed in the same manner as snow white. so she may have misunderstood the meaning of the dinner. nonetheless, whatevs, it’s all good right?

….and then a few days later, before our spring break, i get some messages from joey. saying whatever he and snow white had is totally off. she… kind of went a little stir-crazy on him (which i’ve seen happen before, so i wasn’t too surprised?). he had, as far as he’s told me, stated he did not want any relationship at all, especially a serious one, and did not intend to make theirs a very exclusive “thing.” she either misheard this or didn’t want to hear it, but then called it off on the exclusivity clause she didn’t seem to like (she wanted more and he said no and she called it off…. is. how that went. fam ion even know). but snow white mentions to mulan and me that joey “implied a relationship” but that she doesn’t want him over anymore. and i’m like… i mean, he’ll probably come over for ochem? but i understand and i’ll see what i can do. they were only “together,” or whatever it was, forrr probably around two weeks? it was a short thing that just seemed to sour very quickly. as both of their friends, i didn’t want to intrude on their relationship, so i let it run its own course rather than give my unnecessary two cents about their compatibility (….they had none, i’ll tell you right now. zippity. zilch. zero. joey is very straightforward and direct and laid-back, and snow white- love her to death- is…. not.).

anyways, just before spring break, joey and i start hanging out more. conversation with this kid flows like a waterfall- we both love to talk and he’s hilarious and interesting and a really great listener. we grab food a few times- i had to stay in town for a bit for spring break, as did he, and we spent an evening or two over sushi and cheap mexican food having a blast. this kid rocks, seriously, and i’m so glad he’s my friend.

…anyways, after spring break he’s got to stop by my place to pick up a parking pass i borrowed, and he mentions wanting to talk to me. i’m like “of course!” and he heads over and i hand him the pass and we laugh about the atrocious state of his car…. and he then scuffs his shoe on the ground

and

goes

“…so, this could end. very badly. but…. i really like you.”

and my brain breaks for a second because what. there’s no way. i’ve been telling myself for a semester that i’m not interested in anybody, especially joey, and he’s definitely not interested in little old me!!! i had even told him once, when he admitted around february to mildly crushing on me the semester previous, that i hadn’t crushed on him. i realized in that conversation i hadn’t let myself think about liking him, and maybe that had been wrong of me to push my feelings down. joey’s a nice kid, and this may go to the moon and back or nowhere at all. i do point out that he made things very not fun by trying with snow white first, and he guiltily admits he was simply a bit lonely after his breakup, and as awful as it sounds, a bit bored. but as soon as he realized she wasn’t right for him, he called it totally off, before his friends knocked some sense into him and he realized he needed to talk to me.

sO. joey and i are a thing. i remind him that i got out of a piss-poor relationship and ask if we can take things slow. he says that that is perfectly fine with him, and. well. off we hilariously go, friends.

…that lasts about three days before we realize we are crazy compatible and great together and decide to not be idiots any longer and call it dating. seriously, y’all? what a step up. i won’t bore you with the details, but i’m extremely, extremely happy. 

…but then there’s snow white. 

she’s my friend, and yet i don’t want to “hide” a relationship from her. mulan has said, during those aforementioned three days, that she thinks joey is a good person and good for me, and that i’m not breaking some girl code- snow white didn’t share much about their relationship with us, but it didn’t seem too serious and didn’t last very long. although the timing is crummy, i believe the best thing to do is come totally clean. i’d rather be candid and try and alleviate what i can.

so i approach snow white one day as soon as i figure out the best way to say it, and say, “hey. so my foot is probably already in my mouth with this, and i really don’t mean to hurt you. but joey and i are… in a thing. a relationship. and i wanted to come clean about it and not sneak it around. i wanted to keep your feelings into account but also ask you to understand- i do like him, so he may be over, but i will do my absolute best to not be loud or in-your-face about it, because i don’t want you to hurt over it.” which is almost verbatim, i believe, so props to my brain.

and snow white goes “i mean, i could tell. you weren’t very subtle about it.”

“…yeah, subtlety isn’t my strong point. i’m sorry. but my main point is that i don’t want to exacerbate any bad feelings you have about us being a thing.”

“abby, i’ve known you liked him for a semester. and i mean, y’know, he said he’d be willing to date either of us, so.”

…and then proceeds to divulge into a sentence or two of information about joey that we have yet to discuss with each other. and i kind of blanch at it but apologize myself in circles for making it weird, i love her to death and don’t want to hurt her, and then exit stage left.

…i get back into my room and realize it was not her place to divulge that information about him, especially because she seemed to do it explicitly to throw a wrench into my line of thinking about him. instead of doing this, it makes me wary of her. who uses some private information like that? so i relay this to joey, who i see later that day, and we talk about it and then move on.

later that evening, i tell mulan and another friend the same story- with permission from joey to share his personal information, too, of course. and we’re discussing her decision to share this when we… kind of realize she was hiding in the apartment.

now. while i did disagree with her actions, i didn’t bash her. i explicitly remember this. i’ve worked extremely hard over the past year to not say any emotionally-charged judgmental statement about people. i understand them and i used to say them all the time, but they’ve gotten misconstrued around me so often i try to avoid them. so i didn’t say any character-bashing statements about snow white; simply that i was upset that she shared information that wasn’t hers to share in a way that only seemed to serve to sabotage my relationship and happiness. (that’s… actually almost verbatim of what i said).

but alas, snow white is there. she hears the conversation. she leaves and… sends me a message.

******so this is where shit starts to hit the fan, for those skipping the longer backstory and wanting that juicy gossip. to recap: got into a relationship, the boy had a casual thing with my roommate a few weeks beforehand, she heard things that upset her. and sent. me. this.

…and i. am. reeling. like. i still don’t know what to say about any of this, except for the part where i tried to not start anything worse while also hold my ground and not be a pushover. (i should note: joey does not live in a place where we can easily hang out together. if we could, we would to alleviate this, believe me. neither of us is particularly confrontational).

…so that. happens. and snow white stops sharing her location with me, as i with her, and we move on.

…until thursday (hiatus day). when joey and i come home with dinner and realize snow white is home. and we are like “wow let’s not be assholes and sit in my room rather than out in the open, and quietly eat to try and make this less awkward for her.” which is what we do.

…until snow white comes up outside my door and goes, “he can leave now.”

and i, calmly eating my muddy buddies, go “…or he can stay.” and snow white starts to yell. some favorite quotes include: “i want him out,” “he can leave now,” “he dated me first” (which is, let me remind you, false, as they did not date), “ we both know he’d rather date me again,” “he tried much harder with me than he did with you,” “i didn’t realize you were this desperate and shallow,” “i didn’t know you were okay with dating a manwhore,” “have fun getting him to manipulate you into doing what he wants,” “he just wanted someone desperate enough to do whatever he wanted” (…let me assure you guys right now that this is false. and i’ll answer any questions y’all have about it!! but this is. just. blatantly not true.), and- a personal fave- “i mean, i always knew you were desperate when you dated collin, but i didn’t think i’d ever have to say it out loud”

…these. are. verbatim, folks. she’s yelling these at me through the door. joey looks like he wants to die. i am hoping that if i placate it enough, and ride it out, that she will stop. so i accept every comment, take it in stride, try to make her realize her point and ceasefire (especially since he’s in my room, which is mine, not her domain)- which she does after a bit.

…then mulan gets home, and i realize i don’t want it to seem like i’ve been bullied into hiding in my room. i take our dinner trash and throw it away, avoiding snow white’s gaze from the kitchen, until she stops me by saying “yeah, i want him gone.”

… “i am sorry, but he’s going to stay, because i want him here.” “i don’t think so. it’s pouring rain out- perfect weather for him to drown on the way home!” “…he is staying here.” “no, he’s not. “yes, he is, [snow white].” “no. he’s not. you don’t get to make that decision.” “i don’t- but neither do you. he does. and he is welcome as long as he wants to stay here, especially in my room.” …and then i get a repeat of everything she said earlier, except this time, it’s to my face. i get to be yelled at that i am shallow; that i am desperate; that he’s only with me because he wants someone easy; that i am disgustingly ugly; that i’m stupid, and she can’t believe she has to say it to my face; do i even realize how horrible of a person i am?; that she has felt this way since this summer; that i have been an awful roommate all year. this goes on for about 10 minutes before i, in a moment of extreme hurt, turn to joey (who rightfully was staying out of it) and, in a moment of anger and desperation, yell “are you going to help me out with this shit?!” and as snow white goes “oh, yeah, perfect, go get him to fight your battles for you,” he comes to join me. and says “you cannot say that to someone. that isn’t fair. you are being cruel. abby is none of these things and you have no right to tell her any of this, especially since the way you’re feeling is my fault.” cue snow white turning to yell at him as well- not only is he an awful person, but “i’m trying to make abby feel as low as possible, since it’s what she deserves,” and “your girlfriend’s stupid.” it’s a mix of character insults for the both of us, and joey and i are trying to let them roll off as best we can.

…this lasts for about 30 minutes, before i go to apologize profusely to mulan (who says it is all fine and she’s sorry it’s happening as well). i then go back and go “joey, you don’t deserve this, and i’m sorry. let’s go.” and shut my bedroom door behind us, cutting off the most awful conversation i have ever endured in my life.

…but it keeps going, friends.

snow white messages sabrina- joey’s ex, remember, who snow white has never met before- on instagram, saying how awful of a person he is and how he used her to get to me (which is. again. untrue. i have known joey since september). sabrina then texts joey, insulting his character even further. he deflects very calmly with an extremely docile message (i believe it was something along the lines of “i’m happy now and i hope you are doing well”)- it does nothing to placate her, but that’s the most we hear.

….then joey and i go to his friends’ wedding this weekend? and have a blast. seriously, you guys, it was one for the books. a beautiful wedding, joey slow-cooked all of their amazing pork, we take a 5-mile hike around his parents’ beautiful property and nearby land, talk for hours on end and watch the stars… seriously. it was some of the most fun i’ve had in a while, thanks to not only the situation but the person i got to share it with. 

we got back a few hours ago, and i went on facebook to check some event details… and i see i have a message from sabrina… it’s this.

….so. that. was. quite the event. i’m dead serious when i say i read that message less than 6 hours ago.

...and then, around 30 minutes later? i realize snow white moved out of the apartment.

i am still reeling. 

….and that, pals, is The Incident. and i hate it. i hate drama. i avoid it like the plague. and it has been dumped on me in the past few days and i’m. i. just. ???? it’s fine i’m fine everythings fINE

but i’ll take any questions! obviously left bits here and there out bUT. yes. questions. or you guys can think “holy mother of goodness this is CRAZY” and i’d simply sigh and agree.