#so the contractor can't even begin to work

[duelcafe]

As you all may have seen, my mother passed away on September 3rd in a very sudden way. We held a funeral service for her on the 10th and laid her remains to rest on the 11th. Needless to say, I am still grieving, and a lot of changes are happening in my life currently on top of that. For one, I lived with my mother as her caretaker, and am now moving in with my grandparents for the time being. Admittedly, I may find myself leaning on my role-play blogs to get through this difficult period in my life if and when I can find the time for myself, but at the same time, there are still various things me and my family still need to take care of and that takes priority naturally. I'm sorry to have to say again that I will not be around or even in messages much, at least in the beginning, but I hope you guys can understand. Thank you.

[soy-soi-si]

Leona, Azul, Idia, Floyd, Jack, Rook, and Sebek with a Fem! Reader who texts to try and get more cuddles.

Leona

He was just dealing with practice not actually doing anything since Vargas was off fuckin around with track and he was just making the rest do a final work out he himself tired sweaty and fucking peeved when his phone buzzes.

He pulls it out expecting it to be some shit from Cheka stealing his brother's phone again for the sixth time today. Then he spots the name and he immediately opens it.

「wheer are u」

He takes a second before smiling imagining y/n half asleep in his bed where he left her.

「practice, you just wake up?」

He barely pays any mind to the group running laps panting like dogs.

「cmoe bavk im lpnely」

Leona can barely resist the urge to get up and fly straight to the dorm on his broom.

「give me a sec」

He looks up at the group hissing in a breath as his tail sways, “That's enough we're done for the day!” immediately he gets up grabbing his shit before walking off to go take a shower before going to the dorm.

Azul

Azul was just dealing with some contractors' study guides when his phone buzzed. He didn't even hear it the first time, or he equated it to Floyd sending another meme. Then it buzzed again, and again though pretty spaced apart by probably fifteen seconds. He got annoyed by the sound quickly grabbing his phone to see who's interrupting his concentration.

Then it immediately goes away at the nickname he put as y/n’s contact info. His beautiful pearl and he opens it taking a second to lean back.

「azzy」

「why’d you leave me」

「i'm coming to the lounge for cuddles」

He pauses remembering he left her at ramshackle after she fell asleep during lunch on him.

「alright, I'll see you soon」

Azul opens jades number calling him who immediately answers him. “Yeah?” “y/n’s coming to the lounge if you see her just send her straight to my room since I'm busy.” “Alright.”

Idia

Idia for once left his room just to retrieve more snacks for him and y/n when the text chimed through his music causing him to jump before fumbling with his phone and the grocery bag of snacks to see it was y/n and he immediately sighs in relief before glancing around then opening it.

「come back」

His hair turns pink before he texts her back.

「omw」

If he wasn't out of shape, he would've run back to his dorm room.

Floyd

Floyd was just playing on his phone skipping out on practice again since it got boring a little over halfway through, he's just sitting on the sidelines as the rest of them play. He hates how he smells but he can't go into the locker room because it smells worse there. He's just waiting until Vargas finally airs it out when the text comes.

「it's cold come back.」

His eyes light up since he's currently sweating from the heat. And he practically jumps up bolting out of the gym back to his room where his sleepy girlfriend is.

Jack

Hes finishing up with his cactuses in the main area of Savanaclaw when his phone buzzes. And he pulls it out just opening the text expecting it to be ruggie again asking him to grab something.

「babe, where did you goo」

His tail immediately begins wagging dusting the floor as he's kneeling down.

「I’m just in the common area」

Immediately she texts him back and he turns red.

「come back I want my boyfriend to cuddle me」

Rook

He probably went out to stalk Leona or some unsuspecting merman. And as he's sitting in a tree his phone buzzes. He pulls it out quickly spotting y/n's name so he opens it sparing a few glances to his prey who is not going to move anytime soon. Then he spots the picture of her laying in his bed on her stomach clearly tired as she looks into the camera.

「come here」

Rook immediately abandons his objective to go see the domestic beauty in his very own bed he denied his full attention.

Sebek

Sebek was just standing by Malleus when silver showed Malleus his phone. Malleus pauses for a moment before chuckling, turning to sebek who's clearly not amused by silver pulling out his phone at all near waka-sama. “Sebek, you're free to go to y/n. I’m going to retire for the night.” Malleus stands up waving the boy off as he and Silver walk away, leaving him confused.

「I want cuddles I'm lonely」

[1864reruns]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ౨ৎ nanami, hiromi, shiu & 'sir' kinks

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ2024 ©1864RERUNS

includingㅤ━ㅤnanami kento, higuruma hiromi, shiu kong

tag(s)&warning(s). drabbles, gn! reader, nsfw, sir kink (duh)

from vyon. the holy trinity of jjk men. i'd call em all nasty nastyyy things ( @sugojosgf a tag for my fellow nanami wanter :p )

kento is called 'sir' as a joke; your lips curl up into a mocking smile, your tone light–hearted as you tilted your head, salute him, and follow with 'yessir'. he's not one to stray too far away from the confines of traditional sex, but you've always been far from congenial, either in bed or in public. so when you feel he falters in bed, his mind far away from the immediate now, you're pushing his buttons. you poke and prod, wondering if that's all he got and you punctuate it with a sir, and then he snaps. all of a sudden, he's disciplinary and refuses to do anything until you'll tell sir that you're sorry, you won't do it again, and you'll listen to him in the future. though it's great for him in the moment, all it does in the long run to let you control when and where you guys fuck just by calling him sir in a specific way.

hiromi hears sir on a day to day basis, it's never really done anything to him; if anything, it comes with a burden that he doesn't want. but, admittedly, it makes you happy so he lets it happen, it's not like allowing you to call him sir comes with any negative side effects. it's still slow, intimate, loving intimacy. until, he comes home one day, his nerves grinding inside him from an annoying client and then, it's sir, he hears and then any sense of rationale slips. admittedly, it's force he'd never thought he'd use with you but there are sudden tears sparkling in your eyes and you're begging sir to slow down cause you can't keep up and you need a break inbetween orgasms. he comes back into the moment and he's halfway through an apology when you kick your shaky leg against him and ask him why he stopped. it's all he'll ever wanna hear from that moment on.

shiu: keeper, mediator, contractor, sir. he has a very traditional 'sir' kink and he takes being your sir seriously. he's good with dealing with stubborn, hot–headed clients and unsurprisingly, it translates well with dealing with brats in bed— though he wishes that his clients were half as pretty as the brat he keeps at home. it comes with being his lover, you're not going to get out of it. if you think you have a chance, you can tease him for it all you want out of bed, but he'll work it into you— that's a guarantee. his touch is ghosting over you, patience that you didn't even know he had in him taints all of his ministrations, it's been hours and you've still yet to get close enough to an orgasm to justify all this frustration building up in you. you're acutely aware of everything and shiu knows this. he uses it to his advantage when he sees frustrated tears begin to prick at your eyes, leaning close to your ear and promising you pleasure if you be good for sir. and well, what other choice was he giving you? you've got a keeper! good luck trying to get rid of him.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Errors, "Errors," and Sci Fi: The Nail Gun Gray Zone

I have more thoughts on errors in sci fi, specifically what does and does not count as an error. So I made a graph.

I'm a firm believer that at some point, your story will just be better if you bend certain rules of reality. A story with 100% realistic gun battles will be impossible for audiences to follow. One with ultra-realistic dialog will be boring and impossible to follow.

HOWEVER. Ice floats in water. Residents of now-Phoenix in the 1700s might've not known that, but it's hard to imagine anyone alive today who hasn't at minimum seen an image of a drink with ice in it. So GI Joe (2009) hinging a major plot point on a block of ice sinking in liquid water is widely regarded as silly and world-breaking. Same goes for The Strangers (2008) making a character unable to use her phone while it's plugged in and charging. Even in 2008, a solid majority of U.S. moviegoers owned cell phones and regularly used them as they were plugged in. Errors. Firmly.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have "errors" that only bug a small subset of your audience with relevant expertise. You can always count on some of that subset to take to Reddit and whine pedantically about a 10-round gun firing 11 rounds, but I doubt those count as errors. My personal example is the lack of a character named Surprise in Inside Out — I've studied and taught Paul Ekman's theories, so to me the fact that they included only 5 of his 6 "universal" affects is always going to look weird. But I know that's less an error than a pet peeve, because there wouldn't be much for the character Surprise to do that isn't taken up by Fear or Joy. (The sequel also has a Surprise-ish and a Contempt-ish character, so there's that.) Same goes for the water main not being pressurized correctly in Batman Begins — I'll take city planners' word for it that Scarecrow's plan wouldn't work, but COME ON. It's a sci fi movie about a furry who makes a living punching aliens. If you want realism, watch a documentary.

That said. There's also that middle zone. What I call the Nail Gun Gray Zone, because it really is hard to tell how much some errors are obscure and piddly, how much they're mainstream and obvious. Because. Nail guns can't shoot nails. They're not projectile weapons. Not unless the story takes the time to show a character modifying the tool to override the fact that it has to be pressed flush against a board before it will fire. BUT. If you told me "99% of modern Americans know that!" I'd believe you. If you told me "only professional contractors know that!" I'd believe you. That poll clarified basically nothing — roughly 25% of respondents had used a nail gun, ~25% didn't know much about them, and ~50% had only seen one used. (I didn't ask "do you know that a nail gun can't be used as a projectile weapon" because then anyone who read the question should by definition answer "yes.")

Anyway, I think that a lot of online arguments about errors/"errors" in sci fi can be captured by the Nail Gun Gray Zone. Most of us can agree that only pedantic blowhards would say that the lack of Surprise ruins Inside Out, and most of us can agree that it'd be nice if The Strangers had simply broken Kristen's phone. Nail guns? One person's "oh come on, that looks ridiculous!" is another person's "it's called a nail gun, right? so why not use it like a gun?" and I don't think doing more polls will resolve it one way or another.

[the-ace-with-spades]

Someone posted about Jake having a sister who is deaf and uses ASL (I can't find it, sorry) and it woke up the fic idea I had some time ago from hibernation

An AU where shortly after Carole's death, Bradley starts losing his hearing. At first, Mav thinks it's just a lack of focus and him being inside his head too much (which, normal given the mourning/depressive state of Bradley's emotions at the time). But then he and Ice notice it only happens when they're on his right side and start to get worried.

A visit with a family doctor and a visit with an audiologist later, and they find out his hearing loss is expected to progress, they just don't know how far — it can stay mild, it can get worse over the years, or it can get worse quickly. It's probably been happening for some time already, they might have not noticed because so much was happening (which Mav will forever feel guilty about).

Mav and Ice are left to explain all that this implies to Bradley. Mainly that Bradley will never be able to become a pilot with hearing loss, even if it stays mild. And even at thirteen, almost fourteen, all he's always wanted to be was a pilot and they have to break the news to him — even if his hearing doesn't get worse, he won't be able to join the Navy in any deployable role.

Obviously, it doesn't go well. Bradley is in denial, rebelling against anything related to the hearing loss — won't go to the SLT, to the audiologist, won't wear the hearing aids.

Until he starts high school after the summer break and realizes he can't hear the teachers well — not in the front seat, not when the classroom is silent. Turns out, the hearing aids are not enough — he needs a new set up already.

Mav takes out a sabbatical and they start everything from the beginning. New audiologist appointments, new hearing aids, new ASL lessons for the two of them, and some extra ones for Ice as well, lip reading lessons, SLT. Bradley doesn't have a choice, his hearing is getting worse and either he will adapt or his life is going to get difficult — and they're in a good enough situation, financially, and with Mav and Ice caring enough, that he can adapt as much as possible.

By the time he's in junior year, his hearing loss is severe. Their options are either sending Bradley to a boarding school for deaf kids or having him have an interpreter at school. Bradley feels strange about the boarding school so he has an interpreter for the rest of high school — which doesn't get him many friends...

College-wise, he doesn't know what to do. There's a few colleges in California that offer programs with support for deaf students, but the degrees are limited. Eventually, he decides to enroll in the Rochester NTID for aerospace/mechanical engineering and it kinda changes his perspective a lot.

There are other deaf students on campus, some even on his course, and it shows him so many different ways life can be still okay — he's never met anyone deaf his age before and being friends with people who either lost their hearing like him or were born deaf and had been involved in the Deaf community for years is amazing eye-opening. He stops being so bitter about life, even if he'll never stop feeling sad about not realizing his dreams. It teaches him to not care about what others think he is capable or not capable of doing and just do his own thing.

The Institute also has great support, also including the newest hearing aid tech. Cochlear implants only became widely available when he was finishing high school and despite many people celebrating being Deaf on campus, there's many people who also opted to have surgery or implants to help restore or conserve their hearing.

By the time Bradley gets the cochlear implants (funded mostly by Mav and Ice), he's not that set on having them, actually, not as much as he was when he was seventeen and they just came onto the market for kids. In fact, he only wears them for the purpose of work (he gets a civilian contractor job for the US Air Force of all places...) and prefers to have them off when he's at home or around people who know ASL (which is most of their family now). Being deaf is part of him, a part that is bigger and more settled than the part that used to wish he was 'normal'.

He only swaps the implants for a newer model sometime around the early 2010s because they can actually meet the FAA regulations and at the age of twenty-seven, Bradley is finally able to get his pilot license and then a commercial pilot license.

Now the hangster bit...

TG:M happens — Mav is there with the team obviously but Bradley is kinda around him because he's been contracted by the Navy the past few years (kinda like Charlie) and working with Mav in China Lake before.

Bradley shares the office with Mav and they hang around whenever Mav isn't training the Daggers — the whole group is kind of speculating on who he is — and Jake actually meets him once when he's looking for Mav and comes to the office.

He makes an ass out of himself (because this is Jake Sersin we're talking about) and basically shouts at Bradley, who is not wearing his hearing aids at the moment (he's doing paperwork, near the airfield, it's easier to focus if he doesn't hear ever single aircraft taking off) and gets super humbled when Bradley looks at him and only then clicks his very visible external processor on, and then asks him if he needed something.

After the mission, Mav and the Daggers stay close, work and outside as well (trauma bonding, even though Bradley calls them his little ducklings). This means Bradley is around them a lot, too.

Around the Daggers, Bradley wears the cochlear implants almost all the time, just for the sake of being able to be part of the conversation and having a better grip on the background noise and to know what is happening around him.

Now, this is when Jake gets a little... enamored.

Bradley is objectively cool, okay? He's deaf, but he's a commercial pilot and a stunt pilot on the side, he likes to jump out of planes (for research), he volunteers as an ASL interpreter and is certified to interpret. He's hot as well and Jake's brain overheats anytime he answers his half-flirty remarks with the same, if not bigger, force.

And Jake is a bit smitten, but Bradley never really makes a move. He's obviously contemplating making a move himself — Bradley is chill, even if it was a no, he'd not make a big deal out of it — but he's also his CO's kid and the COMPACFLT's kid and like, Jake doesn't wanna be the one to cross the line.

It's Mav who tells him — when he notices him staring at Bradley playing piano (and isn't that super cool? he's deaf and he can play piano better than anyone Jake knows) — that if he wants it, he should go for it because Bradley is too shy to make the first move, ever.

So one evening when they're at a barbecue at Mav's, Jake stays late, basically the only one left, and he is helping Bradley bring the dirty dishes into the kitchen, and Mav leaves them alone (giving him a goddamn wink as he steps out...)

The second Bradley begins with, Look, I'm flattered, he knows he's in a losing position, but tries to negotiate anyway — because he can see Bradley does like him, and for whatever reason, he just needs to point out it's enough and that he can see they have some chemistry and he promises to treat him to a good time if he gives him a chance.

So Bradley tells him how it is — he hasn't dated anyone who isn't deaf/hoh since he was nineteen and he doesn't plan to. Jake is great and he's sure they'd have great chemistry, but he's not the type to do the casual bit and he's pretty sure Jake will never make the effort he needs him to make because he doesn't understand how big part of Bradley being deaf is.

Jake denies it — so Bradley starts signing at him the alphabet (the first thing people learn when they learn ASL usually) and Jake just blinks at him dumbly, proving his point.

Obviously, Jake doesn't get it and says exactly what Bradley expected him to say, Well, I don't really need to know it, you've got the hearing aids.

And to Bradley, it proves that he's either not thinking of them as something long-term or that he just doesn't get what Bradley being deaf means, long-term, for his life. You realize I don't wear them all the time, right? Not at home, not around family, not around most of my friends. Wearing them constantly is exhausting. What will you do when I take them off? Or do you just expect me to never take them off?

Jake goes home and that's it, really.

It's sometime later, a few weeks or a couple of months. Jake's never brought up going on a date again and Bradley made peace with that — he was right and Jake either didn't want to commit or the effort was too big and he's no longer interested in him. Shame, but it's not the first time it happened — mainly why Bradley doesn't date people outside the deaf/hoh community anymore, they don't understand, he's cured or acceptable kind of deaf to them, because of the implants but when they come off — he's deficient.

The Daggers are sitting down with Mav when Bradley comes home and they're in the middle of a conversation and Bradley doesn't want to interrupt Bob so he just asks Mav via signing if he ate dinner already. Before Mav answers, Jake says out loud, We ordered in, leftovers are in the fridge.

And fair enough, Bradley goes to the kitchen and he's unpacking gyro from the plastic container when it hits him — Jake just understood his signing. And like, what the hell.

He doesn't want to make a scene so he waits until Jake is a little bit more alone (not really possible with their group).

When Jake notices him staring, he just goes, Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?

And Bradley feels a bit stupid, but he signs the same thing he asked Mav before and waits for some kind of answer and Jake just says, Shit, and gets all red in the face.

So Bradley just starts signing. How long, why didn't tell me, what the hell, and all that. Because why didn't Jake told him he could understand, that he knows ASL?

And Jake just stares at him. You're going way too fast, I'm not that good at it yet

And Bradley stops and stares at him dumbly. Yet?

Sheepishly, Jake's face gets even redder, and he's avoiding Bradley's gaze as he says, I was gonna tell you once I can actually communicate and not just know a few words and phrases.

You know it's going to take months, right? I took me months and I was learning for hours every day and practicing with my dad all the time.

Well, I assumed you meant I need to know it if I want to take you out so, y'know...

And Bradley just looks at this dumb dumb man and just maybe falls in love a little bit. You don't need to be fluent in a whole new language to date me, just acknowledging you'll have to at least try is enough.

It's actually more than enough. Maybe Bradley is a bit fond of Jake, sue him, but it's more than enough to give him a chance.

Oh, is all Jake says, okay then.

And Jake clears his throat, steps a little bit away and takes a minute to revise in his head, and then signs,

DATE-YOU-WANT-GO-WITH-ME

It's a little clumsy and a bit slow, but Bradley takes his time to slow down and just signs YES in reply

[ghcstao3]

(cw minimal mentioned drug addiction)

thought about this post about informant ghost and thinking that. maybe this is the backstory

so AU where instead of returning to the military after helping tommy get clean, ghost becomes a… contractor of sorts, after a long series of events that follow deciding to help his brother.

ghost knows that part of tommy's downward spiral was a cause of falling in with the wrong people—the other part an aftershock of their father's piss poor attempt at raising them—but he never realized just how bad said people are, nor how severe the kind of debt tommy had accrued.

so the actual helping tommy get sober ends up being the easiest part.

ghost finds himself working odd, legally-questionable jobs in his brother's place, everyone more than happy to use the military grunt over a (now ex-) drug addict—and ghost happy enough to do it, so long as it keeps tommy out of it.

then the jobs become less legally-questionable and more definitely illegal, but now that ghost is known to these circles, and now that he is continuously sought out because it turns out he's good at these things, there isn't an escape. people keep insisting that tommy still has a debt to be paid off, but ghost begins to suspect that they're almost past that point, if not already, but ghost has become too much of an asset, and he knows too much, so he can't leave. they can't lose him.

he doesn't. they don't. years pass and tommy is plenty sober and no longer indebted—has a wife and kid now, too—but ghost is still at work, though at least he makes good money now. dirty money, most definitely, but good money nonetheless. and now he has the freedom to pick and choose jobs as he pleases.

then one day he's approached by an old colleague from before he left the military, john price, who is now the captain of a special task force. he makes a promise of even more money, clean money, as well as protection for ghost to play both sides, like a double agent of sorts. an informant. ghost thinks about it, eventually agrees, though on the condition that the money goes to his brother instead. price says that's no problem. they shake on it.

tommy finds out, obviously, once the number in his bank account goes inexplicably up, and gets pissed at ghost. says he's already done more than enough, says he still feels guilty for what he's roped ghost into, but ghost is dismissive. tells his brother to take the money and shut up, he's out of danger now, shouldn't he be happy? ghost is doing fine. but tommy says he'd only be okay with it so long as he can help in some way, to feel at least that he's not getting paid for nothing. for his brother's work. ghost reluctantly agrees to allow him to help from afar, from out of danger. lets him be a witness to any meetings with military personnel.

ghost isn't contacted very often, but he proves very useful. price relies on a criminal probably more often than he should, but ghost is diligent. knows how to cover his tracks.

but it's this part-time gig that leads him to meeting one sergeant john "soap" mactavish, who couldn't look more displeased with coming to ghost to get information to help a mission—and he doesn't try to hide it like most do.

ghost decides pretty quickly that soap is his favourite of the people price has sent so far.

he appreciates the honesty. he seldom experiences it nowadays.

[crazycatgirl420]

Fuck Around, Find Out

Ghost King Danny tutors Impulse, Bart Allen, in Summoning magic after a horrible drunken Summoning disaster.

Part 1

Monday came much too soon. Danny had spent his weekend preparing his first lesson for Bart, considering he was so deep in his non-belief of magic that he nearly started a war, Danny decided they would have to start with the basics as taught to newly formed entities in the Realms.

Danny removed his pc and monitors from his desk, snapping on a white board attachment and putting several notebooks, pens, pencils, and markers in the drawers. He held his folder of lesson plans and his own notebook. At exactly four o'clock he put one hand on the desk and appeared right in front of his Contractor.

There was a crash sound behind him, and a wide eyed red-head on the couch, a game controller in his hand.

"We agreed on four to six for your lessons." Danny reminded him. "We have a lot to cover and I do not want to spend my entire existence teaching you."

Thee human grimaced but nodded. "What are we doing today?"

"You'll be learning to read and write," Danny said. "Magic is its own language, if you don't know it you can't effectively use it."

Bart spent two hours copying the Infinite Realms Dictionary of Magic into his first notebook while Danny read it aloud.

"There are six hundred and seventy languages used in this dimensions magical script," Danny explained. "As a living being born of this realm you only need to be fluent in those six hundred seventy languages, which is a lot less than what I had to learn as a being of the Infinite Realms-"

Bart paused in writing, glancing at the book he was copying from. '670 Alphabets, Beginning to End'

"I'll leave you with the Dictionaries to study in your own time. On Wednesday we'll go over grammar, and Friday we'll practice speaking. You'll have the weekend to practice as you wish and next week will be your first set of tests,"

"Tests next week?" Bart asked. "After only three days of lessons?"

"This is easy stuff," Danny said. "You're magical friends learn this as young children before they even choose a specialty."

Bart had a week to learn six hundred languages. He couldn't believe Raven or Zatanna knew all these languages, and only a week to learn them all was insane.

"Keep working," Danny said. "We don't have time for you to change your mind now. You signed a contract, I can't even explain what that entails until you understand magic script. The gibberish you scrawled on the floor in your drunken Summoning could've been the end of your deminsion and every deminsion that surrounds yours."

Bart kept writing.

Two hours for Bart tended to feel like an eternity but Phantom taught at the same speed Bart lived his life normally. There was no slacking off for milliseconds waiting for outside time to catch up. Phantom kept up, as soon as Bart finished a notebook another was handed to him. Phantom recited the dictionary and passages on culture, history, and traditions with ease, asking questions and having Bart read the passages as he copied them down.

"You have until I return on Wednesday to learn all six hundred and seventy languages here." Phantom said, pulling several stacks of books out of the desk. "Feel free to ask those magical friends of yours about magic script of you don't believe me, though your inability to believe them was what lead to this in the first place,"

Phantom left just like he has appeared, with a flash of light and an ice cold breeze.

Bart groaned, eyeing the stacks of books with regret. This was going to be a lot of reading.

[baronessvonglitter]

Cherry, Cherry 🍒 Chapter 2 🍒 "Coffee & Garth Brooks"

pre-outbreak! AU!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: 1,247

Summary: Joel visits you at work and during some innocent flirting, you reveal something that you probably should have just kept quiet about.

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Mature and Explicit, however this chapter is pretty tame, age gap (reader is 18, Joel is 35), reader is tomboyish but otherwise no race mentioned and will not be throughout the series, until specified this story takes place in the summer of 2003 and is AU with no outbreak, flirting, reader has mild fantasies about Joel, no use of y/n

Series Masterlist

Mondays at the cafe are hectic. So as eager as you are to see if Joel will show up, you're also swamped with orders. It's not until the crowd begins to clear that you see him. He's smiling at you and you can't ignore the way your heart does a little backflip.

"Hey!" You greet him with a smile.

He approaches the counter. Today he's wearing a heather-gray t shirt and jeans. His hair is tousled, beard neatly trimmed, and you catch a whiff of clean-scented shower gel coming off him. "I remember you," he says, a playful glint in his dark eyes.

"I remember you too. . and I remember I owe you a coffee for helping me yesterday."

"Hang on there. Where's that ring I labored so arduously to free from your kitchen drain?"

You smile at his wordiness. "Why, it's right here." You extend your left hand to show off the ring, a lot cleaner and shinier than the last time he saw it.

He surprises you by taking your hand with a delicate touch. "It would've been a shame to lose somethin' so pretty." His eyes move up to yours, as if to gauge your reaction. "That offer still on the table?"

This small yet meaningful gesture mesmerizes you. "The… offer?" you mumble. "Oh! The coffee." Crimson, you fix his coffee, giving him a bigger size than you're supposed to. "Are you on your way to a site?" You ask as you hand him his drink.

"Thank you. Yeah, I've gotta check in on a site before noon." He sips his coffee, leaning against the counter. You try not to stare but you give a quick glance - his body, even when at rest, seems powerful.

"What's it like, being a contractor? Do you like it?" Before the words come out of your mouth you realize how immature you sound. Of course he likes it. He wouldn't be in that business if he didn't.

You feel a little relief when he smiles. "It depends on the day. You get plenty of sun, and you have to deal with a lot of bullshit, deadlines.. but it pays. So I don't mind it all that much. What about you? You enjoy bein' a barista?" Joel smirks and you wonder if he's enjoying your exchange as much as you are.

"It's thrilling," you say in a deadpan voice. "Wanna trade places for a day?"

"I'll pass," he laughs. "Sounds like you're tryin' to get out of work right now," he teases you, leaning over the counter. He places his elbows down and rests his chin on his clasped palms.

"Can you blame me? At least you get your choice of music in your truck, not whatever this is," you roll your eyes at the indie jazz playing over the speakers.

"I'm in charge of the radio in my truck. Just the way I like it."

"What do you listen to?" You also lean against the counter, subconsciously angling yourself towards him. You're only vaguely aware of the cafe, of your surroundings. As you talk with him it just feels good.

"I'll listen to almost anything: rock, oldies, anything really. I guess I don't like anything too artsy and pretentious-soundin'," he answers.

"You strike me as a country music lover," you give him a little bit of teasing.

He tilts his head to the side. "You got a read on me already, huh? Well I won't lie, I listen to some country, but only the old stuff. Not this new, pop-py, overproduced stuff."

"Do you like Garth Brooks? George Strait? They're the greats. You have to like them."

"Girl, you're too young to tell me who the greats are," he grins. "George is the king of country music. Garth's a given. He's kinda cheesy sometimes, but his songwriting is great, no denyin' that."

"When I was a kid I used to go around singing his songs to anyone who would listen. I would put on a show, sing at the top of my lungs.. I was a pretty rambunctious kid," you laugh at the memory.

"Bet you're just as rambunctious as an adult too," he says playfully.

You smirk. Joel's flirting with you, there's nothing more obvious. "I'm a college girl. I'm supposed to be rambunctious."

He gives a low chuckle and an intrusive thought slides into your brain: you want to know what that low rumble in his chest sounds like, with your ear pressed against him… When you come back to your senses you catch his eyes scanning your face. "Fair enough. I'm sure you've got all the boys chasin' ya, huh?"

There it is: the question you thought was only ever asked in books, in movies, and Joel is the one to ask it about you. "Oh.. not really.."

"I find that hard to believe."

You look away a moment, wiping an invisible spot on the counter with a cloth. "Truth is, I kind of have someone.. back home in Houston." You dare a peek at him only to see something like relief cross his face.

"That's great," he says, maintaining a smile.

You regret saying something like that. Trevor isn't someone worth bringing up to Joel, yet you have used him almost as a shield, and you don't know why. "It's, uh.. kind of uh.. ambiguous," you add. "He's going to university there. I guess we're still figuring things out."

Joel nodded slowly. "So.. it's complicated, is what you're sayin'?"

"A little.. I don't really, you know, want to talk about it." You smile and shrug as if it's a minor thing.

"Of course." He puts his hands up, then he looks like he wants to say something but he stays quiet. Looking at his watch he says, "I gotta get to the site."

"Yeah.. I should also get back to work." You turn your back for a moment then turn again to say something else to him but he's already outside going to his truck.

The rest of your shift goes by smoothly and you pocket your tips and start home. Once you're comfortable in the house you allow yourself to think about your interaction with Joel. Of course the first friend you make in Austin would be the ruggedly handsome, middle-aged man next door. A man with a daughter only a few years younger than yourself.

You've never really been in this position before. You don't really recognize your own feelings. You've had crushes on older guys before: teachers, coaches.. so why is this time different? And why are you struggling with it?

Joel, meanwhile, feels himself in almost the same predicament. He doesn't want to admit it to himself but he really likes you. The age difference is too much for him to even consider, but your presence.. it's getting to him. He likes talking to you, wants to be close to you.. but he can't. He doesn't want to mess up his life, and it will only cause problems if he doesn't keep his distance. He worries he won't be able to fully shake you off his mind.

A few days later he spots a paper on his truck windshield. It's a handwritten note from you:

pool party at our place this Saturday @ 2 pm

and your name signed underneath. Joel smiles and gets a pen from inside his truck to write a reply.

We'll be there, he writes beneath your message and he leaves the paper on your car windshield.

<- prev chapter

next chapter ->

divider by @saradika-graphics 👑

[smytherines]

∇owen (make it fluffy? pretty please?)

A fluffy aging/old age headcanon for Owen 💜

(I'm having kind of an emotional day so... sorry in advance)

Okay. In order for Owen to actually grow old, this has to be an au where he doesn't die on the staircase. I think there'd be a long, complicated, painful reconciliation process, but ultimately Curt and Owen would get back together. In this version of reality they get out of the spy game, and have a remote little place somewhere far away from either of their countries. Maybe Costa Rica or something like that. So let's take all that as read.

I like to think that Owen gets to have a home. A real home. That someday Curt brings home a stray dog he finds on the side of the road and Owen is dead set against having a dog, but eventually he and the dog become inseparable. I like to think that he gets a little patch of land, and spending his time growing things- beautiful flowers, vegetables he uses to make dinner- helps to heal something in him. Something he thought was broken forever after the fall.

I think as Owen gets into his 40s, a lot of the injuries he sustained in the fall start to get worse- arthritis in the places he had breaks, scar tissue, etc. Modern knee replacement surgeries last for around 15 years. I'd assume 1950s joint replacements are not quite as durable, so maybe ten years on he needs to have surgery to replace the worn out knee and hip replacements Chimera did for him.

And even though they've made a lot of progress, Owen hides how much pain he's in for a long time because he's terrified that Curt would leave him- if not for needing surgery to begin with, then certainly for all the care he would need for the long recovery afterwards. Curt wasn't there after the fall. He doesn't know how bad things were. Owen explained some of it to him, but couldn't bring himself to talk about having trouble walking, needing help to go to the bathroom, being constantly on the verge of tears for months because the pain was unbearable. The stuff nobody likes to talk about with injuries like that.

He has a lot of insecurities about himself that he didn't have when they were together before- burns, scars, limited mobility, chronic pain. His body is different now, and it's a long, slow, horrible grieving process to deal with that.

But eventually he has to have these joints replaced. He could hide the pain, but he can't hide it from Curt when his knee starts suddenly giving out on him. He was using a cane only on really bad pain days before, but as the joints start to break down he has to use it every day. So he gives Curt an out, tells him to go, maybe even tries to push him away. Owen tells himself that this would be easier for him to survive than Curt seeing the reality of his injuries after the surgeries and choosing to leave when Owen needs him the most. At least this way they're parting on terms Owen has some control over.

But Curt is older now. He's had a chance to be in a real relationship. The kind of thing where you wake up together and go to sleep together and have a home and a life together. And also he's stubborn as fuck. Curt has never had a problem caring about people, but he's never really been able to care for someone. To take care of someone. Hell, he could barely take care of himself sometimes. But he refuses to leave. He refuses to let Owen push him away. He chooses to commit, to stay, even if its messy and uncomfortable.

I think before all this, Curt was probably doing some defense/security contractor work- there's plenty of it out there for someone with his background. He does enough to pay the bills, which isn't much. And in his spare time he takes up woodworking. It keeps him busy. Keeps him doing something with his hands, something he gets to be creative with. So when Owen comes back home after having these big surgical procedures, Curt has built a little ramp so the wheelchair can get up the stairs. He's put up railings and hand-holds everywhere he can think of. He rebuilt a couple of doorframes to make them wider. He made a little cart on wheels that fits over the wheelchair, so Owen can still prepare and cook food if he's up for it. He really goes wild with it. He's still him, he still struggles to say how he feels in words, but he finds other ways to express it. He takes care of Owen's little garden while Owen is recovering (and accidentally pulls half of it up because he doesn't know the difference between a weed and a growing vegetable, but it's the thought that counts)

And they get through it. Curt understood on an intellectual level what happened to Owen after the fall, but didn't really have any way of knowing exactly what it means to be that injured, that dependant on the people around you to survive. So this thing that can and does drive a lot of couples apart (seriously look up the stats on men leaving their partners when they become sick/injured, its bad) ends up bringing them closer together. It ends up soothing that constant fear that Owen has had ever since they got back together- that at any moment Curt might just get sick of him or decide he isn't worth the trouble and leave him again. It helps Curt understand how vulnerable Owen was when Chimera convinced him to work for them.

Eventually Owen heals up, the chronic pain issues go back down to his post-fall baseline. He is still a full-time cane user, but Curt loves to find the most beautiful downed branches, exotic hardwoods, and make Owen a variety of canes. He gets into woodcarving so he can decorate them. He tells Owen that the cane makes him look distinguished, that its actually kinda hot. And Owen chooses to believe him.

By the time Owen is in his late 50s, maybe early 60s, he's a full time wheelchair user. He can walk short distances with a cane, but for the most part its better for him to just use the chair. But thats okay, because the house is pretty well adapted for him already. Curt helps him when he wants to tend to his garden, and he makes big family dinners whenever Tatiana and Barb come to visit.

Curt's mom visits while she's still alive, and although Curt and Owen never outright tell her about them, she knows. She knows the same way a kid knows that their unmarried aunt with short hair and a longterm female roommate is probably a lesbian, even if nobody ever says that word in front of them. She treats Owen like a son.

That's my soft, sappy, overly sentimental alternate universe headcanon for Owen Carvour growing old. That someone cares about him. Someone cares for him. Not because he's useful, not because he has skills they can exploit for their benefit. That Curt cares for Owen just because he loves him. And Owen loves Curt.

My dumb fluffy headcanon is that after the first half of their lives being so brutal and violent and painful, they get to have a second chance. A second chance they never should have gotten. A chance to find things that are beautiful and wonderful and hopeful. And they take that chance together.

[desultory-novice]

I recently found out that “weekend Susie” is a mistranslation and it’s actually called “susie on vacation” in jpn. I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be Susie in the future like Manager Magolor..any ideas on why shes missing her hairclip and the “Secretary” title she always has in jpn? Susie is so hard to figure out..like how she only smiles three times in the entirety of robobot (once when she takes the program controller and twice when singing the noble haltmann but ONLY when saying the words father in jpn) so I’m curious on what your thoughts are on her (and unfortunately has the worst localization ever…i had to look at the robobot translations from @/kaialone on tumblr) sorry for rambling but shes so interesting to me and it’s a bit sad seeing how a lot of the details she has in characterization never get talked about

Anon...Did you somehow know I've been replaying Robobot in Japanese?! And it's basically strengthened my confirmation that some people - though less than before - are a bit too harsh and/or restrictive in their takes on both Susie and her father. 

That said, I do I try to give people room to "safely hate" these fictional characters as, for a lot of people, it may be one of their only ways of processing a gross problem that affects the real world/so much of history that they can't do much about.

But I love the silly/tragic Haltmann family. I'm sympathetic and even semi-defensive towards 'em. Which is why I'm happy to answer any good faith Haltmann asks.

Ahem! Also, before I get into it, I wanted to say that technically "Weekend Susie" vs "Susie on Vacation" is not a mistranslation per se.

What it IS is a localization.

休日 can mean "vacation," yes. When you break down the kanji, literally it is made up of the words "rest day." So it can also be just about any day when you're not working/not at school/not busy.

For most of western civilization (not me because I'm a contractor XD ) the weekends are people's "rest days." To read 休日 as "weekend" might not even be that much of a stretch/localization!

Probably explains the lack of "secretary" title. She's literally not on the clock! As for the hairclip, who can say...? Similar reasons? I know in Susie's case, it's sentimental, though hairpins in Japan often have this association with studiousness/"time to get serious" so removing it is an easy indicator "She's allowing herself time to be silly!"

I do like to imagine that this is a post-canon Susie though. That girl deserves something nice after her trauma...

Anyway, reminder that post-FL, the localizers have been working more closely with the Japanese team to create a more accurate translation for us. I know the wounds from PR's rough translation (and SA's fast-and-loose in weird places one) still hurt, oof, but the Kirby series is getting better about its translations!!

Actually... you know... there's not THAT many cutscenes...

Maybe I will make my own "If they'd hired Dess to translate Planet Robobot" translation of the game? I've already threatened several times to do a full translation of "The Noble Haltmann" with all references/metaphors intact...

But yes! Speaking of how Susie uses her emotions, I was so moved by something in her first meeting with Kirby, I actually wrote about it! And I'm going to share it here, because you might find it interesting~

-

So, I had my eyes peeled for any interesting bits of characterization left behind on the cutting room floor. Immediately, I was amused by how politely Susie talks to Kirby in the beginning. She doesn't really "talk down to him" or insult his intelligence in the slightest. (One could argue that it's a false business politeness, of course. Although she only breaks that in like, the second to last cutscene) Any dismissal of him feels very "company-mandated." (And the company is run by a murderous computer but leaving that aside...)

She gently praises how beautiful the water and the air on this planet is and that's when something... starts to change in her...

Susie gets impossibly sad. And her attitude changes COMPLETELY.

I stopped for a second reading this. "Hold on. What? Why does she lose her cool HERE? Is this some indication that the place she and her dad used to live on was a really poor planet without clean air and drinking water?" And heck, maybe that is the case!

But something else struck me about her line:

"...You don't even know the value of what you have..."

It's not the snooty we-know-better-than-you "misappropriation of resources" that is triggering her. It is having something precious right next to you and you don't even recognize it.

It's about her dad. Right from the beginning.

She can't NOT talk about it. It affects all her actions. Maybe another reason while I feel like it's better to judge Susie on a whole than any one individual action she takes, because (like Magolor, oops oops oops) she is masking her intentions alllll the time.

Also, omg, I know some people are still sensitive about the Mechaknight thing but that is PEAK grim humor in Japanese! It is treated way too cold and business-like in English, imo.

In Japanese, she starts to describe him exactly like she's telling her bestie that she just met the man of her dreams and then the WHAM line: "So, I gave him a full-body modification!"

Yes, it's unhinged. But it's also wonderful. (She's so Eggman-core.)

[sophieinwonderland]

Personal story, related to the other diagnosis asks. Feel free to ignore

Diagnosis is sometimes more harmful than helpful. An upsetting number of psychiatrists and therapists still operate on the "make them a singlet" model of treatment for DID or any plurality, or will just pressure systems into "voluntary" committment

I am pretty sure it doesn't work, or at least doesn't work most of the time, and it causes a lot of trauma in the process regardless

Our system has a lot of internal communication issues, difficulty distinguishing ourselves from each other, and only the most abstract metaphorical headspace as a result of this "therapy". We're still plural, but now it causes issues, moreso than it did before we were diagnosed and treated

Of course this story is coming from a place of personal trauma to our system, so results definitely may vary, but when you're looking to get diagnosed make sure that your mental health care providers are safe first

That's totally fair. It's horrible that you went through this.

I think one thing systems need to know in these doctor-patient relationships is that the client does have a lot of power here even if some doctors might try to make you think otherwise.

I think it's best to approach psychiatrists as contractors. You need a job done so you're paying these people to do it for you. You need to be upfront about what you want help with and what you don't, and set clear boundaries. Make sure from the outset they know what you want the parameters of your treatment to be, and that they agree to that. And if they can't, that you would rather seek other providers.

Basically, if you don't want fusion, make that clear from the very beginning. And if they ignore your boundaries and still try to push you into it anyway, be prepared to drop them and find a better provider.

Your mental health belongs to you.

Also, it can be helpful to remember that doctors are humans. I imagine it's difficult to have to treat over a dozen people, and keep track of their lives and what they're trying to achieve. All while keeping up with current medical information.

Older doctors may fail to keep up with current psychiatric views and findings, and can have a "multiplicity bad" mindset that was prominent in their generation that they need to unlearn.

Conversely, newer doctors will be inexperienced. They'll hopefully try their best but if they haven't worked with a lot of patients, they might make mistakes.

The main thing I want people to remember when seeking therapy is that, even with years of schooling and training to deal with patients... it's still a fallible human being on the other side who is dealing with their own issues and will not have perfect judgement.

If people remember this, I hope it can make it a bit easier to not give in to being pressured into doing something you don't want to do or you believe could be actively harmful to you.

[discordantrhapsody]

A Lesson in Modern History: the Other Side

Lecture 1

Ten years and eight months ago, Oz Vessalius was thrown into the Abyss.

This is where every Story begins. The day of this young man's coming-of-age coronation, when the hands on that ancient clock moved, setting fate into motion. And yet, this Story unfolding before us now appears to start somewhere far removed from the events of that evening.

I know this Story well, I've read it dozens of times. The setting changes, the time period differs. The Ending varies, just as much. And yet, I can't predict how this current Story will go.

All that I can do is use this journal to recall the details of the Story I'm most familiar with, (comparing them with the current version as necessary). I do this not for myself, but for the sake of you, the Reader. Call it History, call it Reference, call it Context.

Just make sure you pay attention, and ask questions if you have them.

On the day of his 15th (18th) birthday, Oz and his valet Gilbert were exploring the grounds of one of the Vessalius family's properties when they came across a hidden grave. Though the name had been worn from the headstone, a pocket watch in perfect condition dangled from the stone cross. When wound, the watch played a delicate music box tune, the melody of which would awaken someone else's memories within Oz.

With the start of his ceremony growing closes, Oz saved that watch to ask about later, only for the event to be interrupted by a group of rogue individuals wearing the red robes of the Baskerville cult. The words they spoke as he was cast into Abyss would haunt him:

Your very sin is your existence.

When Oz awakened in the Abyss, he found himself attacked by gruesome monsters called Chains, only to be saved by a peculiar stranger. Though she appeared as a human girl, she had all the strength of a powerful Chain. She called herself Alice. The other Chains called her the Bloody Black Rabbit.

She convinced Oz that by forming a Contract, they could escape together. And so they did.

But when he returned to the real world, it wasn't quite the one he knew. 10 years had passed in the blink of an eye. His childhood best friend was all grown up now, working for an organization called Pandora that researched and investigated matters of the Abyss. And unless Oz agreed to work with them, he would be arrested as an Illegal Contractor and Alice killed as a Chain.

Luckily, his motivations happened to align with Pandora's, and so Xerxes Break suggested that they could use each other.

Alice wanted to find her memories. The voice of the great hero Jack Vessalius inside his own soul was telling Oz to help her, to chase those memories at all costs.

And so, this is where the Story begins.

[nonbinarydeity]

Help. I am a cashier. I LOVE being on a register. I hate despise loathe self check out. I practically affirm non stop that I am PRO register (for contractors or anyone). SO WHY donI get scheduled for sco or put on it. I desire to be 100% PRO register. I can't visualize so I affirm. Thank you!!!!!!

Oh, dear, it's totally okay and I promise you aren't doing anything wrong or failing or anything like that. Let's take a deep breath and let go of any expectations for a moment...

Okay, so you want to be on register. You do not need to affirm or visualize or anything like that if it doesn't feel good!! If it does feel good, you can totally keep doing it, but I 100% suggest that you stop affirming so much and keep it to a few times whenever you think about it. One of the big keys for manifesting is Letting Go and letting things happen in the perfect way.

The next step is to be totally open to whatever experience might come your way, even the "bad" things. Accept that you are not in register right now, allow that experience to unfold. Don't fight what is happening right now. This is a very important step!!

Now, you've affirmed for what you want and accepted what is happening now. All you have to do now is wait. You don't even have to believe that your affirmations worked (although it does help, and as you continue in this process, the knowing will naturally come to you 🥰)! All you have to do is stay consistent in being present, and let life play out.

Keep accepting your present circumstances. Your #1 job is to let things play out perfectly, so do not fight any part of the process!! Some things to expect and embrace are:

New thoughts coming into your head (this may cause some discomfort, but allow these positive thoughts to be there and I promise they will begin to feel more natural!!)

New experiences coming your way (possible new job offers, someone talking to you about if you want to be on register, etc. Do what feels right for you!! Don't quit your job if it doesn't feel right, please!)

New feelings in your body (these feelings will likely start out feeling scary or bad. I promise that they are not bad, and letting them be in your experience will release them!!)

As you allow life to unfold perfectly, in perfect timing, and you allow new experiences (even "bad" experiences !!) into your awareness, you will begin to notice a shift towards loving your present circumstances and yourself. This shift will happen all on its own, as long as you allow it to flow into your life freely!

This process may take some time, and you may need to clear some blockages inside of you (the heavy emotions. These will come up on their own, no need to force anything!!), but after this process is done, you will have an open heart and mind, and you will be able to manifest freely, without restrictions.

I really hope this helps you and Abt others who might have similar questions!! Please ask me for help, I'm terrible at explaining this stuff without questions lol

[lostinfantasyworlds]

Life Update

Heyyyy it’s been a while! I never really expect anyone to notice when I fuck off for long periods of time, but in case you did and happened to be wondering why I was mostly MIA for most of 2023, here's what I've been up to.

The short version: My husband and I sold our first house over the summer and bought our “forever” home! It worked out so much better than I could have hoped, but it turns out that prepping a house to sell and moving = lots of stress and chaos...which caused me to tumble off the deep end mentally for a while afterwards and I’m only just starting to recover.

---

Before I elaborate, I feel like I have to give a disclaimer because the last thing I want is to come across like I'm complaining or ungrateful. I'm very aware of how lucky and privileged I am to be a homeowner, so I am by no means asking for sympathy or trying to act like "buying/selling a house is so stressful, woe is me!" I understand that homeownership is a pipe dream for a lot of people, especially in the current economy, and I don't take that for granted. I'm genuinely grateful that I even have the opportunity to be stressed about something like this, but I can't deny that it was stressful.

If anyone is wondering how I managed to buy a house at all, I'm happy to answer that in a separate post. The abridged version is extremely lucky timing plus countless hours of hard work put into fixing up our first house that we bought for cheap back when the market was way more balanced (2016).

When I talk about the stress of last year, it's almost entirely in regards to my own mental health which is something I've always struggled with. I get overwhelmed VERY easily by regular life, let alone when I go through a major change (no matter how positive it is). Every big transition period in my life has triggered intense anxiety disorders and/or depression for me, so that's the main reason why things felt so difficult.

If you happen to be thinking something along the lines of "shut the fuck up, no one cares you were stressed, you're so privileged to even be able to own a house," ...believe me, I've already said to myself a million times. That is part of why I end up so depressed in the first place, because I feel like I “don’t have the right” when my life is so wonderful. But thanks to therapy I understand more about my mental illnesses and I'm trying to be less hard on myself now.

Still, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea 😅.

---

Anyways! If you want to know more about our house/see some pics, the long version with all of my rambling is below the cut!

The long version:

My husband and I bought our first house in 2016, right after getting married. It was conveniently located right across the street from where we had been living with 4 of our friends (which is how we were able to save enough money to buy a house), but it was in such bad condition that it didn't even meet the FHA minimum property standards so we had to use a special type of mortgage to purchase it. We always meant for it to a long-term flip, planning to live there while renovating it so that we could sell it after a few years and use the profit to buy a house that would be more permanent.

We put so much literal blood sweat and tears into that house. In the beginning we spent every single hour of our spare time fixing up the house. We do all renovation work ourselves because my dad and husband have experience with demolition, electrical, and plumbing. And anything we don't know how to do we just figure out as we go along. The only time we hired a contractor was to replace the roof that had extensive water damage.

(This is the water damage discovered down the whole back of the house a few weeks after we bought it 🙃)

(One before-and-after out of many to avoid making this post absurdly long. The contractors finished the ceiling when they did the roof but otherwise we did all the work on that bathroom ourselves, including moving the shower wall back 6 inches so that the shower door wasn't mounted to the window trim 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Over a few years we worked on remodeling each room until we eventually we got super burnt out, and then the pandemic happened and we both fell into a deep depression. Finally, in 2022 I got myself a therapist and started clawing myself out of the dark place I was in, and at the start of April 2023 we started prepping the house to sell. I had been watching the market steadily increase to absolutely insane levels and knew it was kind of a “now or never” situation, even though I still felt very fragile mentally so I was worried how I would handle such a large undertaking.

I never could have imagined just how amazing it would turn out. We truly couldn't be happier with our new home, it’s pretty much everything we were hoping for and I still can’t believe how lucky we are to have gotten it. I was prepared to have a hard time finding an affordable house. I had heard of all kinds of horror stories and the crazy competition going on in the market was intimidating. I thought we were gearing up for the long haul, and prepared myself for a lot of disappointment. Our house was the first house we put an offer on (the third one we looked at in person) and we somehow got it! It’s insane, I'm so fucking grateful.

The only catch is that it's a lot more of a fixer upper than we had originally planned on buying. I didn’t think that we would ever buy another house that required as much renovation as our first one did, because that shit was intense and we are now in our 30s and very tired 😂. But our new house has so many features that were on our “would-love-to-have-but-probably-won't-find-in-this-economy” list like laundry upstairs and an attached garage (also a pond??!?! We have a fucking pond and I love it so so much🥹). So we knew we could turn it into a home we’d love spending our lives in if we put in the work. Plus it was actually well below our budget (probably because of the condition it was in).

We decided to offer what we were willing to pay, which was well above asking but we still didn't think we'd have a chance because the market is so competitive. I don’t know if our real estate agent just worked some magic (she was amazing), but we were genuinely stunned when she told us we got the house.

(Our beautiful pond🥹 🥰)

After that, things moved SO fast. The timing made it overlap with the prepping/listing of our first home, which was really stressful to juggle all at once on top of our full time jobs. I thought selling was going to be the easy part since the market is so skewed towards sellers right now. And it did go amazingly well once we listed (64 showings and 12 offers in one weekend, fucking nuts?!?!!), but the months leading up to listing the house were CRAZY. I knew it would be a lot of work to prep the house since we had a bunch of unfinished projects, 4 open permits with the town that we needed to get closed, and had accumulated so much shit over the years, but I definitely underestimated how intense it would be, especially with the overlap of buying our new house. I had used up all of my PTO for the year by June in order to deal with house things and felt like I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. I pushed myself way past my limits and knew I would pay for it eventually.

But we made it through the chaos and officially moved in July. Let me just say that I hope I never have to move again😵‍💫. It was 90+ degrees (F), 95% + humidity that weekend, and then POURING rain on the day of the move🙃. But other than that, everything went pretty smoothly! After a couple weeks of getting settled and sleeping in the living room, we started on the renovations in early August.

(Before and after of our living room that we are using as a hobby room for D&D, music, art, etc I love it so much!)

(Before and after of the downstairs bedroom which we use as our office)

We remodeled two whole rooms in about 6 weeks, which was wayy too much. We had been going nonstop since April and by the time we got to October, I hit a wall. Because my mental health was incredibly fragile to begin with, surprise surprise I ended up stuck in another bout of horrific burnout-fueled depression for a solid 2+ months after we finally paused to take a break. I've struggled with my mental health since I was a teenager, having periods of depression, panic disorder, and GAD on and off. Also over the past year, I’ve started to suspect that I may have undiagnosed ADHD so there's a lot going on with my brain. I've always been a very sensitive person, and my mental health is the first thing to suffer if I don't take care of myself.

I started feeling a bit better in December, but then things got crazy again with work and the holidays, so I ended up back in burnout land yet again. Now I think I'm finally starting to truly recover as I enter the slow season at work. We are easing back into renovations but I've been trying to take it as easy on myself as possible to avoid falling back into that dark place, which is why you haven't seen much of me on tumblr. It bums me out, and I often feel frustrated with my own limitations when I see everyone posting and chatting and creating and I want so badly to join in, but I sadly just haven't had it in me for a long time. But I'm still lurking and forever obsessed with InuKag and hope to be recovered enough to participate in fandom stuff more soon!

I've still been writing and drawing here and there whenever I get a bit of inspiration. I actually just finished an Inuyasha redraw that I'll be posting soon! I've also been writing a lot more recently, or at least thinking a lot about my WIPs😂. The main one I've been working on is If It Kills Me, which I am dying to share with you all. But it's a mystery/thriller/actiony type of story with plot points that still need to be figured out, so once those pieces fall into place I will hopefully be able to wrap it up. I'm going to be working on it a lot in February, so we'll see what happens.

I would love to share my other main WIP The First and Last this summer (since it's a summer-based story), but we'll see how things go. The next major renovation project is the kitchen 😵‍💫, so fandom things might have to sadly take a backseat again during that. But I'll still be lurking here and missing you all! ❤️

[sarahgrows]

When I had Tumblr back in like, 2010-2012?, I used to share really intimate things on my page. It's nice to have a space to vent. I know you don't follow me for that, so here is a pretty picture of my plants from this morning 🌱💚

Now here we are. Vague and brief but still helpful all the same...

Although overall I have been having incredible weeks in terms of my mood stabilizing and genuinely feeling the serotonin from my new meds. They are starting to really help and it's easier to feel more like myself again.

That being said, a former friend/still coworker has been making my actual family friend/also coworker's life a living Hell at work. What's worse is that management really hasn't or won't do anything about it because my friend is a contractor, not an actual company employee. So they can't call our company's HR, just their own. I'd go into detail but I really don't want to get worked up.

Leads me to my next point...this is the only thing that is truly triggering me right now. Unfortunately it is the biggest trigger I've ever had on a near regular basis. It is entirely disruptive to my peace. Just thinking about it while looking through my microscope working, my pulse rate will jump up rapidly and I will start shaking.

I understand I am allowing this to happen to myself. It's just something I have been struggling with. There is absolutely no reason for any of it, which is the cherry on top. I always try to see different perspectives but this really doesn't seem to have one for the aggressor. Who has also lied to many other coworkers about them, myself, other coworkers, and the fact they got a raise and promotion. But nothing will be done because "legally she can say whatever she wants". Yes she can, but we also have standard conducts of business, our "work culture" that is a key highlight and pride of the work experience for the company I work for.

It's just been incredibly frustrating. She stopped talking to me out of the blue, which I am fine with. I have no idea why she did but I'm at peace with it. Then this begins to happen and I can't help but feel guilty because I A) got my friend the contractor job and B) may have been the one that upset the chick in the first place and since she never sees me she's taking it out on someone she can, especially since the contractor is my dear friend/son's "auntie".

So that's been unsettling and a reason I have been rather closed off. I don't like interacting when I feel such negative energy in me at all. It's leaked out before and I'd just rather keep it to myself.

Here is to a better tomorrow, and an even better one to follow 💚

[mushroompollution]

Chapter 36: the Sablier Arc part 2

previous chapter

read the manga (r-slur tw): imgur || mangaread (ad warning)

The heroes are escorted to The House of the White Angel Fianna, an orphanage for children whose parents were Illegal Contractors, or killed by them. Children like Phillipe, Oz realizes.

As one of the nuns approaches them, Gilbert overhears that the Duke Nightray, his adoptive and Elliot's legitimate father, is in town and seems uncomfortable. But as Oz begins to introduce himself, Elliot suddenly grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him off into a sideroom with a sharp insult.

He tears into Oz for forgetting about the feud between their families and announcing himself in a Nightray facility. But Oz is just pleased to hear that Elliot believes he's really Oz Vessalius.

Oz's focus shifts to Phillipe, the child of an Illegal Contractor he had tried to save. He'd managed to speak to the man back then, to calm him down despite the rampaging Chain linked to him. But just when it seemed to be working, Vincent had stepped from the shadows and shot the man clean between the eyes.

And Phillipe had watched.

It was the first time in his life that Oz had failed to keep a promise, and it was a night that had haunted him for months.

But now, as Oz takes his tiny hands and apologizes so heartfully, Phillipe just cocks his head in confusion. "What's that about? I just received a letter from father the other day!"

Oz's eyes widen. Elliot and Leo are silent and stoneyfaced, the latter holding Phillipe in his lap as the child yammers on and on about the conversation gleefully. Leo squeezes his shoulder gently and tells the child to let his big brothers talk, and carries him out of the room.

Oz recounts his story of Phillipe and his father, but Elliot doesn't seem very interested in most of it. With a serious expression, he asks if Oz heard anything at all about a "Headhunter" from either of them.

Oz seems confused, and Gilbert interjects, saying Oz wouldn't know about that, and he shouldn't bring it up.

Well then. Elliot decides their business is done, he has nothing else to say to them. When Oz tries to be cute again, Elliot shoves him to the ground and turns on his adoptive brother

He reminds Gilbert that not only is he a Nightray, he's the one who inherited Raven, and should be carrying the family's black-bladed sword. He chastises him for turning his back on their family when they needed him, especially to serve a Vessalius kid, and wonders if Gil even realizes he's hurt him.

Elliot takes a moment to collect himself, and remembers all the sideways glances and whispers. All the rumors that the Nightray family had collaborated with traitors, playing a part in the Tragedy of Sablier. All the words his father had imparted on him throughout his upbringing:

"Hate the Vessalius family with all your might. They're the reason our family's reputation is tainted."

He's broken from his seething by an approaching Leo, who asks why they came by. Elliot doesn't know, but one of the children at Leo's side does.

"big brother said he wants to go to the inner part of the hole!" she chirps happily. Elliot and Leo both freeze.

The protagonist trio make their way down the rocky embankments of the crater. As they do, Oz says he'd heard from the children of Fianna's that the hole is a scary place, that those who go in, never come out.

That it connects to the Abyss.

"I used to say 'that's just to scare kids' but..." but then he'd been pushed into Abyss himself.

As Oz thinks that, Alice gasps, looking off into the empty darkness of the crater. "there's someone there--"

"There isn't anyone--" Oz starts to say, but has he turns, the scenery suddenly changes

But as they go deeper still, it doesn't feel nostalgic to Oz. It feels terrifying.

Suddenly, Alice stops. Again, she seems to see something the others can't. The ghost of a girl who looks just like herself calls out to her, and suddenly she finds herself in a memory again.

Oz turns quickly, only to realize that Alice is gone. Gilbert cries for him not to get separated, but his words hang in the air, halted as the ghost of a small child that looks just like him runs past, and he suddenly finds himself lost in a hedge maze.

Oz realizes he's alone. He calls out to Gil, then Alice. They were just by his side a second ago... But when he looks again, Oz finds himself in a memory as well. It's a haunting memory he's seen before but isn't quite his own.

The smell of smoke and blood. Bodies all around him.

The Tragedy of Sablier.