#so therefore to feed everyone else i will have to do it myself

[lyriumsings]

everytime i try to draw during the day like clockwork people bother me lol this is why i’m always drawing and posting at ass o clock

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

might be an unrelated ask with how things are going on right now, but the only way i ever see traitor ace theory coming into fruition is if he destroys yuu's way back home because of how his feelings will boil over (since he thinks being vulnerable is uncool). i've always tried to convince myself that his silly tsundere moments are yume bait, though i really can't deny the fact that yuu is literally everything that his ex-girlfriend is not. they've watched a horror movie together from idia's lab sr (and sending grim all alone to get snacks???) in playful stage, they ride a roller coaster, and if you tell him you like it, he suggests going again again (just the two of them without grim???) bro is not slick with how attached he is to mc.

I have my own thoughts on Ace traitor theory (which you can read here)! To summarize, I don’t believe in it. If Ace betrays us at all, I think it will be in a trivial capacity (like he does something stupid that the rest of the group disagrees with, like taunting Malleus to attack him) and without malicious intent.

He may think being vulnerable is uncool, but I don’t think he’d take an action as drastic as destroying Yuu’s route home no matter how emotional he got. (That feels more like the stuff I see in angst and/or yandere fan works.) Ace gets mad and acts out, yes—but it tends to be in situations where he feels like being has been wronged, not to hinder the people he cares about. His character and his actions the entire story have done nothing but demonstrate that he values his friends and will be there for them until the bitter end, even if he whines about it the entire time.

And well 💦 when it comes to “is this platonic or romantic”, I always default to “it’s up to individual interpretation”. TWST will never give a “canon” ship for Yuu because that would impede the self-insert mass appeal design of the blank slate character. Not everyone wants to perceive X (in this case, Ace) as a love interest. Not everyone wants to perceive X (again, Ace in this case) as a friend. Therefore, there’s always going to baity lines to feed the yume crowd (Michard voice: give me your ur wallets) but lines are also kept plausibly deniable (framed as “jokes”/nor serious) or ambiguous enough to be interpreted either way.

In Ace’s Suitor Suit vignettes, he says this about his ex: “She said the thrill rides were too scary for her […] She vetoed all the action and horror flicks. Hanging out was just plain boring, so I stopped contacting her as time went on.” And indeed, Ace engages in the activities his ex refused with Yuu. They’re watching a horror movie together in Idia’s Labwear vignettes, as well as riding roller coasters and other thrill rides in Stage in Playful Land. Yes, you can interpret these as romantic since they sent Grim off by himself to get popcorn and want to ride again by themselves.

However, that’s not the only possible interpretation, and nor should it be. It could just as easily be argued that Ace and Yuu were just hanging out as friends in a “kicking back with your bros” kind of way (regardless of whatever gender Yuu identifies as). Watching horror movies and going on exciting rides are normal things that friends could do together. There is nothing inherently romantic about those acts by themselves. It could also be said that Ace is lazy and constantly trying to get out of work, so of course he’d pass off the job of getting more snacks onto someone else. The ride thing is innocuous too—maybe the others just aren’t feeling another round, while Ace and Yuu are still on that adrenaline high and want another hit of it. And again, it’s probably framed as wanting to do activities with Yuu specifically to help foster that parasocial relationship and create a sense of bonding with the player.

Of course Ace is attached to us and likes to hang out. We’re his friend, and that much has been established since the prologue. We are naturally a lot closer with him by default compared to several of the other guys (with maybe a few exceptions, like Deuce). Whether you see Ace and Yuu’s relationship as anything more than that is up to the individual!

That being said, I’d rather not talk in terms that imply one ship is “better”, “absolute”, or “more supported by canon” than others 😅 Not just for Ace x Yuu, but any ship, really. It unintentionally frames the discussion like a competition and leaves some people out of the talk if they don’t vibe with it or have different preferences, y’know?

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for initiating pvp in my d&d game?

[tw: fictional cannibalism]

so, this is kind of about something that i ALMOST did but backed out of, but i regret not doing it because i think it couldve been good both strategically and for roleplay fodder, but the reason i backed out was because i was worried it would be an asshole move. there's been other similar stuff that i did actually commit to, so i'll talk about that too.

for context, I'm playing Curse of Strahd with an internet group who i dont really know very well outside of dnd. ive played with all the people in the group before, but just in oneshots. we dont really chat much outside the game.

my character is a dhampir barabarian who is chaotic evil because she. uh. well she eats people. she's the only evil PC in the party, and i've been very conscious of that fact because i dont want to be That Player that completely ruins everyone else's fun by being a rampaging murderhobo. (for those who dont know CoS is a horror campaign that has a lot of fucked up violent stuff in it, so this is not extremely out of place for the setting. one of the other party members is also undead, but hes good-aligned.)

some of the stuff that has actually happened has included my character sneaking away from the party to feed on a random villager (she was followed by another party member) and also trying to eat the corpse of a guy we let die in order to save ourselves. i dont think this was assholey of me because the "pvp" in those situations amounted to slapfights and ic arguing, which i think was good roleplay. i also recently attacked a party member during combat, because my character was raging (heightened emotional state) and he basically triggered her while they were fighting side by side so she lashed out at him. the attack was a bite (potential max damage of like 6) rather than with her weapon (potential max damage of 14) but it missed anyway.

which brings me to the thing i didnt do, but wish i did.

basically, we were fighting some vampire spawn and it wasnt looking good for us. our frontline fighters (myself included) were low on hp, our cleric was being menaced by Strahd himself, and our warlock was unconscious. iirc there were two spawn left to kill when i realized i could do something beneficial to myself with no MECHANICAL cost to the party, but i was worried (ooc) that doing this would have unexpected consequences or make the other players not want to play with me anymore.

our unconscious warlock had been stabilized with Spare the Dying, so he was unconscious but not making death saving throws. being a dhampir, my character has the ability to bite a humanoid and regain hp equal to the damage caused. i hadnt been able to use this ability on these enemies, because it doesnt work on undead. but our warlock is laid out all unconscious and looking like a snack... if i had bitten him, it would have automatically been a critical hit and done double damage, therefore also healing me more, and although it would have caused him to lose two death saving throws, he was technically stable at that point. idk. the dm might have ruled that taking new damage would have restarted death saving throws, but i dont know that for sure. it seemed like a very slim chance that doing this would have resulted in the character's death, but i didnt want to take the chance because i KNOW that would have for sure made me the asshole.

tell me, tumblr. did i do the right thing by choosing not to attack my fallen camrade even though it would have healed my character? would i have been the asshole for initiating that kind of pvp without asking the other player first?

[babyhatesreality]

Hi honey🍯🍯

May you can do daddy stucky x little reader x little Peter where the reader refuse to eat her meal bc she got called fat that day and when they are trying to feed her she cries and ran to her room and cries in the corner with her stuffy after a while petie goes to her and ask her why she won't eat and she tells between sobs that she's called fat today and don't wanna eat and he conforts her with cuddles and falls asleep after that petie tells daddies what happened after awhile she wakes up and daddy bucky hug her and tells how perfect she is and goes to dada Steve and petie and maybe they get her to eat (she isnt really fat)

Just much comfort and fluff 💖 it's actually on a true Story bc i get called fat often and sometimes I get Afraid to eat soo I just need some comfort about it

My darling honey bee <3 I'm so, so sorry that that happens to you. I have a lot of the same struggles myself, all the time. Let's get some Daddy Stucky comfort to deal with these mean thoughts, shall we? I'm tackling this as a head canon and writing away some of my own issues. I'm right there with you, babe.

From the moment you heard someone else at school talk about "that fat girl", your anxiety kicked into high gear. Didn't matter that they were talking about someone else- all you heard was the word "fat".

As you went through school and college, you were constantly aware of the pressure to "stay thin but not too thin" and kept hearing the phrase "you'd get a date if you lost some weight" in your head on repeat.

You developed some not-great eating habits as a result of the constant pressure and anxiety.

When Steve and Bucky came into your life, it was one of the things that you asked them to help you with- after much, MUCH lengthy discussion.

You'd held the secret for so long that telling anyone else your fears was incredibly nerve-wracking.

Your super soldier daddies took it on as their personal mission.

Steve was a stickler for healthy eating anyways, so this was right up his alley. He was always sensitive and caring about it, but his firmness and structure really helped you find your footing and start to enjoy and not just endure food.

Bucky was all about the healthy food too, but he also taught you that it was okay to indulge every now and then. The both of you had issues with feeling that you didn't deserve good things, so by splitting a cupcake every now and then, you two worked through that side by side.

Every now and then the insecurity would rear its ugly head, and you found yourself sobbing, curled in a ball, feeling like you were too fat and therefore in your mind so ugly that you'd lose everyone who ever loved you.

Steve and Bucky would just hold you in these moments, whispering to you all the good you were doing for your body, how healthy and beautiful you were, reminding you that it didn't matter what the world said about exterior beauty. THEY thought you were the most beautiful little baby they'd ever seen. They reminded you that you were loved and always would be, no matter if you gained or lost weight. You were perfect to them.

And over a long period of time, you began, very slowly, to hear what they were saying. They'd never lie to you. They love you, and always will.

[destinygoldenstar]

It’s honestly very crazy that a garbage Hollywood trailer makes so many people apologize to Minecraft Story Mode.

My experience with MCSM was that I was gifted the show by my dad as a teenager the same year the news came that Telltale went bankrupt. (It was the summer, so a couple of months before that)

I got a lot more into it than I was expecting. It had its problems, sure, but I was incredibly immersed with its story and atmosphere. Later on it became one of my obsessions once I finished the two games. It was the first fandom on the internet I ever became a part of. It was also the first time I ever outright became a shipper over a ship that wasn’t canon. (Jetra is my OTP to this day)

But in terms of real life, I never really felt confident talking to people about it. That’s because this was around the same time the hate train for MCSM started to arise. Then it became “Pure Fact” quote on quote that the games were these terrible things.

Now in my opinion and from my experience this started when some popular Let’s Players bashed the games. And even then I can’t blame them for simply having an opinion. But it’s because of their influence that their audiences take their opinions as gospel. (That should not be how that works)

From there every time I brought it up I would get cyberbullied for liking the games. And this was true for a lot of people who did like the games as well. We were all getting cyberbullied into joining the popular crowd and that we were wrong.

“Everyone else is saying it’s bad, therefore it must be true”

And then every time MCSM popped up in my feeds, my heart would sink and I would feel sick. Weird part was, while I did become far more critical of the games as a result of the trend… I NEVER found it in myself to outright hate it.

Like I said, the games have problems. They are by no means perfect games, and some of my critiques of it still hold up. (Not all of them though, ones I do wish I could take back) it was talking about THESE games that even spawned my hobby of writing essays of stuff I like.

So… that’s a sad origin story for how AnalyzGolden came to be. Now you know.

I’ve since drifted away from MCSM, simply because I was older and getting into new stuff. I talk about other stuff on this blog, like The Amazing Digital Circus, Ninjago, Total Drama, and quite recently Disventure Camp. And more. I also try to advertise my own stories to failing results cause no one cares.

So to see, after all these years, people like me finally being VALIDATED for our soured opinion on something… it just warms my heart so much.

I became more critical because of the trend of “MCSM sucks”. And now that that’s growing to not be the case, and I became more exposed to some crazy and wild fandom takes on other media that boggle my mind, that I’ve stepped more away from being negative and made choices to be in my corner and simply “Enjoy Something. Because I enjoy it.”

Oh I’m still a critical cynical bitch. And I do talk about my own critiques and problems if I personally have a problem with it and how the writing or whatever was handled. But I guess I’m more willing to hear the story itself out and what it’s trying to do before I jump to conclusions.

I cringe at my old emotionally impulsive self. And I hate having regression episodes of reverting back to my awful teenager self. But I can say that through experiences, I have to thank that for the person I am now, even if it sucked.

So… thank you MCSM. And thank you Hollywood for making a trailer/movie so awful that it made people such as myself finally feel heard and validated.

(Oh and btw, you guys don’t need to follow the trend of loving MCSM either. This doesn’t need to turn into the complete opposite thing. The lesson here is that you are allowed to like and dislike MCSM, and anything really, and trends should not sour your take on it. You can still not like the games if that’s your honest opinion.)

[soracities]

Hi! So I tried not to say anything about some anti makeup posts I saw on your blog but I need to say this. I think you're very wise and I agree it's very important for us to love ourselves as we are. But some people like myself doesn't care about 'empowering' of makeup or whatever but we just have fun with it and we just love it. I say we because I know there is a lot of people like me. Yeah, we are feeding capitalism or whatever, but world is beautiful and it's also terrible so people trying make themselves feel good, have fun, ect. I see a lot of people who don't wear makeup and i'm happy for them! I didn't wear makeup until i turned 20 i think and felt good.

One thing I wanted to add is in response of post about feminine girls. I think everything needs balance and sometimes people tend to overreact in their opinion and divide everything in black and white. Personally I never cared how women around me looked and what they were wearing. But I would like to have same treatment, and not to feel silly for wearing pink or feminine clothes.

Sorry, I don't know English very well so maybe I can't translate my idea entirely. What I'm trying to say i think everyone should do what they like and leave each other in peace.

Sorry for this essay, just wanted to share my point of view.

Hi, anon! I'm sorry for the delay in getting to this, but I appreciate you writing this (and your English was fine, don't worry)

I think the main argument of those posts (and my own feelings about this) is not about makeup on its own, or even judgement about who does and doesn't choose to wear it--what they are criticizing is a particular part of the society we live in which puts a huge emphasis on women's beauty and appearance in order to fulfill an idea of what a woman "should" be, and the role that makeup plays in that as a result. Because whether we like it or not, whether we believe in them or not, whether we feel pressured by them or not, these expectations do exist. How we personally respond to them does not change that.

I personally don't have an issue with makeup or the concept of it (in almost every culture on earth, humans have been using makeup of some kind for literally thousands of years)--but what I do have a problem with is when we treat makeup, or other traditionally "feminine" forms of expression as neutral things when they are not. A comb or a hair tie is neutral--it's just a thing. Lipstick and eyeliner are also just things, but only when they exist by themselves--and in reality they don't exist by themselves: they exist in a world where we value women on their physical appearance before we value them for anything else--lipstick and eyeliner exist to emphasise parts of your appearance, to make you look a certain way--and in a society where we put so much importance on women looking a certain way, they aren't just ordinary things you toy around with for fun. You can have fun with them, but it doesn't change their role. They can't be treated as exceptions from the world they are used in.

I think sometimes people assume that being anti-makeup is the same as being anti-women-who-wear-makeup, which misses the point (and also suggests a very dangerous idea which I think, sometimes, is why people respond so angrily to these criticisms: because if we believe that being anti-makeup = being anti-women, then therefore makeup = womanhood, and this is simply not true). Whether you wear these things just for fun and to enjoy yourself isn't what is being talked about because these criticisms are not about you on a personal level: they are about looking at a society that is as image-obsessed as ours, and asking why makeup has the role that it has when 1) it is almost exclusively aimed at women--women who, as a group, have been historically marginalised, and whose value, historically, has almost always been measured in terms of their beauty before anything else and 2) the makeup that is emphasized, the trends and styles that come and go, are often not so much about self-expression (if they were, people would be freely wearing all sorts of wild colours and styles: when we talk about "makeup culture" it's not the same kind of makeup used in the goth, punk, or alt scenes for example where makeup plays a very different role) but almost always about achieving or aspiring towards a type of beauty that is valued or expected: to make you look younger, to make your eyes brighter or larger, to make your lips bigger or sexier, your cheekbones more prominent etc--again, on their own, these things may not be a big deal, but they exist in a world where having these looks means you are valued in a certain way as a woman. And when this exists in our kind of world, where the power dynamics we have automatically mean women's perceived power is through beauty, and where we insist so much on women being a particular kind of beautiful (and this starts in childhood) we have to ask and investigate WHY that is--why this type of beauty and not another? why (almost only) women? who benefits from this? who suffers as a result?

The argument of "not all women" wear makeup for empowerment misses the point of these criticism, because it is focusing on a person's individual choices in a way that suggests our choices can define the world we live in, and they can't. We are deeply social animals. Therefore, how we appear to each other and to ourselves is a socially influenced phenomenon. This applies for race, for sexuality, and for gender. How women are perceived at large, in different social structures, is a social phenomenon influenced by the societies we exist in and the values of those societies. These criticisms are about the society we make those choices in and how that can affect us. For you, makeup may be something fun and enjoyable and that's fine. I'm not saying that's untrue or that people don't feel this way or that you are wrong for feeling this way. It's also not saying that you are brain-washed or oppressing yourself for it. But it doesn't change the world we live in. Someone feeling perfectly happy to go out with makeup or without makeup, and feeling no pressure to do either, is great--but it doesn't mean there aren't a lot of women who do feel pressured into wearing it, and that pressure is a social one. It doesn't change the inequality that exists between how women's physical appearances are judged compared to men's. It doesn't change the fact that almost every childhood story most kids hear (that aren't about animals) have a "beautiful princess" (and very little else is said about her except that she is beautiful) and a "brave" knight/prince/king/whichever: the princess (or maiden or whatever young woman) is defined by how she looks; the male in the story by how he acts.

It also doesn't change the fact that so many young girls grow up hearing the women around them criticize various parts of their bodies and that they carry this into their lives. It doesn't change the fact that we expect (in Western countries at least) for women to have criticisms about their appearance and they are "stuck-up" or "full of themselves" if they don't. It doesn't change the fact that magazines photos, red carpet photos, films, tv shows etc., feature actresses who are beautiful in a way that is absolutely above and beyond exceptional (and who either have had work done cosmetically, or are wealthy enough to be able to afford to look the way they do through top-class makeup artists, personal trainers etc) but who we think are within the "normal" range of beauty because faces like theirs are all that we see--how many famous actors / entertainers can you name who look like they could be someone's random uncle, or "just some guy" (writing this, I can think of 5). Now how many actresses, equally famous, can you think of that are the same? Very, very, very few.

The point of those posts, and why I feel so strongly about this, is that we have a deeply skewed view of beauty when it comes to women, because, as a society, we place so much on how they look in such a way that it is not, and was never meant to be, achievable: therefore anything that contributes to how women look, that markets itself in the way that the makeup industry does in this day and age, needs to be questioned and looked at in relation to that. No one is saying don't wear eyeliner or blush--what they are trying to say is that we need to be aware of the kind of world eyeliner and blush exists in, what their particular functions as eyeliner and blush do in the world that they exist in, that we exist in, and how this does impact the view we have on makeup as a result. Your personal enjoyment may be true to you and others, but this doesn't change the role of female beauty in the world because, again, our personal choices don't define the world in this way. Often, it's the other way around. And we cannot deny this fact because, while it may not affect you negatively, it does affect others.

I absolutely agree with you because I don't care how other women around me choose to dress or express themselves, either--that's their freedom to wear what they want and enjoy themselves and I want them to have that freedom. But my view is not the world's view, and it's certainly not the view of a lot of other people, either. I don't care if another woman loves pink and wearing skirts and dresses--but, like makeup, pink, skirts, and dresses, are not neutral things either. They're tied to a particular image of 'femininity' which means they are tied to a particular way of "being a woman" in this world. I'm not saying, at all, that it's wrong to wear these things. But I'm saying we can't treat them as though these are choices as simple as choosing what kind of socks to wear, because they aren't. They are choices that have baggage. If a woman is seen as being silly, childish, or treated unequally because she enjoys cute tops and ribbons and sundresses, that's not because we are demonizing her choices, or because being anti-makeup is being anti-woman (again, it is absolutely not): it's because we as a society demonize women for any choice. That isn't because of anti-makeup stances--that's because of sexism.

You mentioned that you want to be treated the same as anyone else for wearing feminine clothes--but the fear that you wouldn't be isn't because of the discussions critiquing makeup and other traditionally "feminine" things--it's because we live in a society where women are constantly defined by how they appear on the outside, and no amount of our personal choices will make this untrue. Whether you are a girly-girl or a tomboy, you'll always be judged. And, in reality, when women follow certain beauty standards they do get treated better--but this doesn't mean much in a society where the standards are so high you can never reach them, and where the basic regard for women is so low to begin with (not to mention the hypocrisy that exists within those standards). This is what all those criticisms towards makeup and "empowerment" are about: it's about interrogating a society that is built on this kind of logic and asking why we should insist on leaving it as it is when it does so much damage. It's saying that that if we want everyone to truly feel free in how they choose to present themselves we have to go deeper than just defining freedom by these choices on their own, and look at the environment those choices are made in. And that involves some deeply uncomfortable but necessary conversations.

Also, and I think this important to remember, views on makeup and the social place of makeup will also depend on culture and where you are, and the beauty expectations you grew up with. And when it comes to the internet, and given American dominance online, a lot of these posts criticizing makeup and the way makeup is being used to sell an idea that wearing it is "empowering" to the woman (which is basically saying: you are MORE of a woman when you wear it; you are stronger and more powerful because, in our society, beauty is portrayed as a form of power: it tells you, you can battle the inequality women face by embracing the role beauty plays in our lives but it doesn't tell you this emphasis on beauty is part of that inequality), are based on the way makeup is portrayed in mostly English-speaking Western countries. My views are shaped by what I grew up seeing, and while a full face of makeup (concealer, primer, foundation, mascara, highlighter, contour, blush, brow tint, brow gel etc) may not be daily practice or even embraced in a place like France or maybe other places in mainland Europe (but that doesn't mean they don't have their own expectations of feminine beauty), they are daily practice in places like the US and Britain, and this is what most of those posts and criticisms are responding to.

We can argue as much as we want about makeup, but when you grow up in a society where women feel the need to put on makeup before going to the gym there is something seriously wrong. Embracing makeup and enjoying makeup is one thing, but it cannot be a neutral thing when so much of it is about looking like you're not wearing makeup at all, or when we assume a woman is better qualified for a job or more professional when she wears it. It cannot be a neutral thing when a singer like Alicia Keys goes makeup-free for a red carpet event and it causes a stir online because people think she looks sick (what she looks like is normal--I would argue above normal--but wearing makeup to cover up "flaws" is so normal now that we genuinely don't know what normal skin is supposed to look like because the beauty of these celebrities is part of their appeal: they are something to aspire to). It is absolutely very normal for me, where I am, to see young girls with fake lashes and filled in brows: it's not every girl I pass, but it is enough. I'm not saying they are miserable, or brain-washed, or should be judged. I can believe that for them it's something enjoyable--but how am I supposed to see something like that and not be aware of the kind of celebrities and makeup tutorials that are everywhere on TikTok and YouTube, and that they are seeing everyday? How am I not supposed to have doubts when people tell me "it's their choice!" when the choices being offered are so limited and focused on one thing?

I never wore makeup as a teenager and I still don't, but a lot of that is because I grew up surrounded by people who just didn't. Makeup was never portrayed as anything bad or forbidden (and I don't see it like that either)--it was just this thing that, for me growing up, was never made to be a necessity not even for special occasions. I saw airbrushed photos and magazines all around me, for sure, and I definitely felt the beauty pressure and the body pressure (for example, I definitely felt my confidence would be better if I wore concealer to deal with my uneven skintone, and I felt this for years). But I also know that, growing up, I saw both sides. No makeup was the default I saw at home, while makeup was the default I saw outside. And that does play a part, not just in the choices you make, but in the choices that you feel you are allowed to make. No makeup was an option for me because it was what I saw everyday, even with my own insecurities; but if you do not see that as an option around you (and I know for most girls my age, where I grew up, it probably wasn't) then how can we fully argue that the decision you make is a real choice?

If I wanted to wear a cute skirt outside, for example, and decided to shave my legs--that isn't a real choice. And it cannot ever be a real choice, no matter how much I say "this is for me" or "I prefer it like this" because going out in public with hairy legs and going out in public with shaved legs will cause two completely different reactions. How can I separate what I think is "my choice" from a choice I make because I want to avoid the negative looks and comments? And how can I argue that choosing to shave is a freely made choice when the alternative has such negativity? If you feel pressured into choosing one thing over another, that's not a choice. Does this make sense?

This is how I feel about makeup most of the time, and what I want more than anything else is for us to be able to have a conversation about why we make the choices we do beyond saying "it makes me feel good" and ending the conversation there. Again, I'm not saying people need to stop wearing makeup or stop finding enjoyment in wearing it, but I think we tend to get so focused on our own feelings about this and forget that there is a bigger picture and this picture is a deeply unequal one. That is what this conversation is about. I hope this explains some things, anon, and if I misinterpreted anything please feel free to message me again. x

[margindoodles2407]

@seeking-elsewhither I was going to put this in the tags of that last post but nope, there's too much to elaborate in such a limited amount of space

Therefore

Let me explain to you The Big Family Experience (tm), for your enlightenment and understanding and perhaps even. Amusement

So. I have seven younger siblings at home. Also three who have gone to the next life and whom I can't wait to meet when I get there too, but for the purposes of this essay I am speaking only about my living siblings who I spend my day-to-day earthly life with.

When you live in a family as big as ours, there's a certain point you reach where the entire household falls into a kind of hierarchy of age. It's the only way to keep things civilized and also save our parents from premature deaths to cardiac arrhythmia. In my family, it looks something like this:

Me (Margin) Brother One Sister One Brother Two Sister Two Sister Three Sister Four Sister Five (Baby)

The first tier, the Damage Control, consists of myself, my first brother, and my first sister. Our job is essentially to keep everyone else from killing each other (this... also includes ourselves) and, as the name implies, smoothing the messes out as best we can when the attempted murder does inevitably occur. In practice this means we're the ones who do most of the chores, the ones who wake up in the middle of the night when a little one is crying to spare mom and dad the trip upstairs, the tantrum-soothers and get-an-ice-pack-the-toddler-has-a-black-eye brigade and the right-hand-men of our parents. I don't think they've hired a babysitter in at least five years. We're also the main organizers of sibling events- which we have a lot of; I make jokes about how we're always two side-eyes away from fratricide but we're actually all extremely close. We run an impromptu camp for them (and our cousin) in the late summer, we have an Olympics-esque tournament in the spring, right now for Advent we run a nightly mini scavenger hunt and have for years- these are only a few examples. The three of us are a unit, we rely on each other for support and as the closest and most mature there's rarely any major infighting we can't smoothe over in a couple of hours.

The second tier, the Assists, is made up of my second brother and sister. They're the middle children, too young to be part of Damage Control but too old to be considered little, and they play a critical role in helping us oldest three when things are Too Much. They're single-handedly challenging the "useless middle sibling" stereotype- they know their strengths and they know how to play them. My second brother is really, really, good with little kids- so when, for example, we babysit, he's usually the one in charge of the youngest three on a personal level (so one of Damage Control- usually me- can focus on like. feeding people. and making sure the house doesn't burn down), while my second sister, who's a little more pragmatic and better at solitary tasks, helps out with the more practical side of sibling culture: household chores and cooking and stuff like that.

The third tier, the Littles, consist of my three youngest sisters. The babies. The vod'ike, if you will. They're too young to do any real heavy lifting- right now, their job is to learn, to grow, to practice making good choices and getting along with each other. They're perhaps the second closest-knit sub-group after Damage Control.

There's an average gap of two years between each of my siblings, myself included. For example, I'm around two years older than my first brother, who's around two years older than my first sister, and so on. The largest age gap is between the Assist siblings- this is because we moved when brother two was a baby, so there's more like three years between those two. Now, two years may not seem like a lot- until you remember how many of us there are. What does this mean, you might ask.

Well, it means that I am a whopping fifteen years older than my youngest sister. (Which isn't even the largest age gap I've seen between oldest and youngest siblings- we know a lot of other big families- but I digress.) And this is actually the reason that last post reminded me so much of my own family. See, when Baby was born, Damage Control was old enough to take a new level of responsibility for the baby that we couldn't even take two years prior, when Sister Four was born. She was the first one of our siblings we kind of had a hand in actually raising. We held her almost as often as either of our parents. We fed her bottles. We helped change her, we helped put her to bed, we were an integral part of her infancy. She was the first infant that mom and dad left us to babysit- and she's barely ever had a sobbing meltdown when they're gone, like her older siblings did (no you don't understand they'd literally just sit there and scream-cry for hours and there was nothing you could do except ignore them until they fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion), because it was just normal for us to be there.

And... our hijinks were normal, too.

What I have to emphasize is that that post was spot on. Seriously, yeah, you do balance your food on the baby's back when you hold her. Your little brother will stand on your face for no reason. You absolutely use the side of your face to keep the bottle in the kiddo's mouth while your hands are occupied. This is how big-family-inter-sibling culture is.

I've got a scar on my face from a time I threw Sister Two in the pool and the bridge of her goggles caught on the bridge of my nose. The only time I've ever gotten a nosebleed was because Brother Two headbutted me right in the face. Sister Three is nicknamed "The Creature" because she is actually a little feral rodent in human form. Once Sister One and I were cleaning the attic in preparation for me to move in, we had a scuffle over the music, and she completely shattered my front right tooth (I've got a replacement now but it still aches a little when I eat cold foods). Brother One and I are the most tactile out of all of our siblings because our dad would wrestle with us when we were little, and to this day we still just all-out brawl each other affectionately for no reason. Sometimes I just pick Sister Four up by the ankles and shake her (she loves it). Baby and I have an entire love language that just consists of us repeatedly slamming our foreheads together. The list goes on and on and I'd be more than happy to give you more examples if you're so inclined to ask for them but I think you get the picture.

Anyway. Yeah. The Big Family Experience. It's hard. It's not for the faint of heart. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

[buckysqueen80]

Warning: angst, smut and the end to the slow burn

AN;

Thank you for your patience while I uploaded this final part.

It was one hell of a ride writing it.. Ha! See what I did there 🤣

Anyways I hope you enjoy this.

So without further ado

Save a Horse, Ride a Bucky Pt 3

It had been a couple of weeks since the episode in my kitchen with Bucky.

Seeing as how we implemented the new work and training schedule, the days slowly blurred into long days, and short nights, and therefore didn’t leave a lot of time for me to think on things too much with Bucky.

To say that my interaction with Bucky was anything less sexually charged was an understatement.

If anything, the underlying tension that was between the two of us, was overcharged and seemed ready to blow.

It was a week before the Qualifiers were to take place, and we had ramped up the training more, in order to make sure that everyone was going to be ready, and can do this safely.

I really needed to make sure that above anything else, the people I cared about were safe doing this, as anything could go wrong.

Thinking back on the training the last few weeks, my mind wandered back to one particular night in question.

~~~~

Flash back:

I had come back from the feed market one day, after securing an order of cattle feed, when I got out of my truck and saw a bunch of people crowded around the paddock.

Curious as to what the commotion was, I made my way to the edge of the paddock, and my heart leapt into my throat.

There Bucky was, astride a bucking Brimstone.

To say that this horse was pissed was an understatement.

Knowing what Bucky was trying to do, it made chills run down my spine.

I immediately stood on the rungs of the paddock and started yelling to get Bucky’s attention.

There was no way Brimstone was a horse to use for a rodeo when he wasn’t completely broken in.

When Brimstone threw Bucky off, and he landed practically in front of me on the ground, I called his name once more and he looked up and moved quickly when he saw the look of panic on my face.

Brimstone charged towards Bucky, clearly intent on showing him who was boss.

Bucky managed to move at the last second, avoiding getting trampled by the charging stallion.

Once Brimstone trotted away to the other end of the paddock, Bucky reached down and grabbed his hat, dusting it off.

“Are you crazy? Like certifiably crazy?!” I yelled at him.

He turned to look at me, with a look of feigned innocence.

“What do you mean?” he asked me, nonchalantly.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” I screeched.

“You were trying to use Brimstone for Saddle Bronc Riding and he’s not even fully saddle trained. That’s why I’m asking if you are crazy!!” I seethed.

“I can handle the horse Y/N!” he said, hopping over the paddock fence.

“He almost trampled you!!” I rounded on him, shaking but it wasn’t just with anger.

Seeing how Brimstone charged at Bucky, how if Bucky hadn’t moved right when he did, he could have been seriously hurt.

“All I am saying..” I start, taking a deep breath as I do, “Is to be careful with that horse. I don’t want you getting hurt because your pride and ego got in the way!” I finish, turning to walk away.

Before I could get any further to the house, I felt a hand grip my wrist and spun me around to face a bewildered Bucky.

His chest was heaving, probably due to the combination of the adrenaline from the training, and with anger.

“My pride? My ego? Is that what you really think? You really think that I would put myself in a situation to train a horse because I couldn’t see past my pride and ego?” he ground out, his jaw clenching at every word.

“No, what I’m saying is that, you’re too stubborn to make sure that the proper measures are taken so you don’t hurt yourself!! Your pride and ego just get in the way of you admitting you might have been wrong in choosing that particular horse!” I fired back at him.

I don’t know when it happened, but I was acutely aware that our faces had become inches away from each other.

“I am quite capable of knowing what horse I want to work with! So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to undermine my abilities!” he grits out, his breath fanning across your face as he turns on his heels, and saunters away leaving me standing there exasperated.

Things had been going along that path ever since.

~~~~~

Present;

I was sitting in the office, when there was a light knock on the door frame.

I looked up from the pile of legal paperwork and saw Clint standing at the door.

“S’up Clint?” I ask him, nodding for him to come in and sit down.

As he casually folds himself in the chair, he lets out a sigh.

“So you know how Barnes’ is a stubborn jackass at times?” he starts off.

I couldn’t help but let out a long breathy chuckle.

“Tell me something I didn’t know?!” I get out.

“Well you also know, according to all the paperwork that we filed, which horses are going to be brought with us to the Qualifiers, right?” he questions.

I raised an eyebrow at him, indicating for him to continue.

“I’m sure you saw the horse that he put down?” he asks.

At this I start rifling through the stack of papers, pulling out the one Bucky had submitted.

I let out a sigh when I see the horse’s name.

At my expression, Clint continues.

“I’m not sure Brimstone is ready for this…. “ he draws out.

“And Barnes sure as hell isn’t backing down from this horse no matter how many times any of us tell him it’s not a good idea.” Clint finishes.

I drop the paper down on top of the pile and pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache forming behind my eyes.

I picked up the paper again and double checked all the events he was listed to try for.

“Cutting, Barrel Racing, Steer Wrestling… “ my eyes trailed over the list.

As I continued with the list it was the last four that worried me the most.

“Reining, Bareback, Saddle Bronc and Bull riding!” I blew out a breath at that.

That was a lot. The fact that a lot of the events listed pertained to a horse, he could and probably would be using a different horse for the first three events.

It was the last three and the bull riding that worried me the most.

“I can’t fight him on this Clint. He wants to prove he’s capable, well this is his chance. If the idiot breaks his neck, you can step in as Buckaroo!” I said, trying to make light of the situation, but seeing by the nervous expression on his face, it didn’t work.

“Look, all I can do is pray and hope for the best. Brimstone has gotten a lot better with him, and seems to be responding better at the commands. So who knows, this could be a miracle.” I tell him, not sure if I was trying to convince myself in the process.

All Clint could do was nod, as he started to get up and walk out the door. He stopped and turned around looking at me.

“I hope that whatever is going on between you two, it doesn’t get into his head, because then who knows what can happen.” he says, before turning and walking out the door.

I sat at my desk, letting his last words sink into my head.

I completely forgot that a rider needed to have a clear mental state in order to be able to focus on the task.

I hope to God, Clint was right and that the tension didn’t get to Bucky’s head.

~~~~~~

The following week, all the horses were being loaded up into their box stalls, once they got one final check up before boarding.

Those that weren’t coming with us, were staying behind to watch the livestock and mind the ranch.

As I stood up from checking over one of the mares that were going, I saw Bucky coming towards me, a swagger in his step.

I nodded at him as he approached. “Barnes!”

“Hey Y/N,” he started, the bravado that he had in his walk over quickly seemed to falter.

“Look, I know we’ve been butting heads a lot the last couple of months, between the regular job duties, and then training, I know I haven’t made it as easy on you as possible. I just wanted to apologize, and to thank you for letting me do this, with Brimstone!” he says, nodding back towards the horse, as he was being loaded into the stall.

“I can’t fight you when it comes to doing what you want to do, and how you feel with your capabilities as a rancher. You know your own worth, and I needed to learn to trust you on that. I needed to put aside what was going on between us, and let you prove that worth.” I finished, but made sure to emphasize the past tense of the situation between us.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Bucky in the slightest, as his jaw tensed the moment I said the word was.

Straightening up so his back was ramrod straight, a steely look flashed in his electric blue eyes.

I put my hand on his shoulder, looking from its placement, then back up to him.

“I know you’ll do great, Bucky, please just be careful. I’d hate for anything to happen and you get hurt. Your safety in all of this is the only thing I’ve ever cared about. I just need you to know that.” I tell him, and then turn to walk away, leaving him standing there, his mouth slightly open.

“Ok everyone!! Let’s get this show on the road!” I yell at everyone, earning an enthusiastic whoop from everyone.

~~~

We arrived at the rodeo grounds for the first day of qualifiers.

As the day progressed, I was quite impressed with my team, as everyone qualified in all the events except for three.

Bucky qualified in all of his events.

I was quite surprised at how well Brimstone was handling this. How well he responded to Bucky’s movements and commands.

Maybe there was hope.

Over the course of the next few days, we watched the competition unfold and took notes of how certain riders moved, and what their strengths and weaknesses were, hoping for the best.

As the competition progressed on, the rest of the team had done their events, Clint placing second in Cattle roping, and first in Team roping.

Bucky placed first in Cutting, second in Barrel Racing, and third in Steer Wrestling.

Today were some of the harder events. Bull riding and Reining.

I stood at the stall gates, looking up at Bucky as he got on Brimstone.

I didn’t know what to say to him, as he sat astride the horse, and clearly he didn’t either as he looked down at me.

Something about the way Brimstone fidgeted in the stall drew my attention.

All of a sudden I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, but before I could say anything to Bucky, he was out of the gate.

Things started off ok.

Brimstone was responding to Bucky’s movements as he had many times before, but then something happened, and in a split second Brimstone started bucking wildly.

It’s like the horse's sole purpose was to throw off its rider.

I could see that Bucky was hanging on for dear life, but no matter how much he held on the reins, Brimstone bucked one final time throwing Bucky high into the air and kicked back with his hind legs, making contact with Bucky’s side, sending him flying across the grounds.

I watched in horror as the groundskeepers rushed out trying to get control of Brimstone, and brought him back to the stalls, while the medics rushed out to where Bucky laid unmoving.

I felt Clint’s arm around my shoulder as he held me, while we waited.

Finally I saw Bucky start to stir, and gradually he was able to stand up after he was quickly checked over.

Once he got to his feet, the crowd erupted in cheers as he was escorted off the grounds, coming in my direction.

Once he got through the gates, I rushed over to him.

Before I could say anything, all he said was “Don’t!” and pushed past me to the stalls.

“Just give him some time Y/N.” Clint tells me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms, creating a warmth I didn’t know I needed.

After what happened, Bucky opted out of that event and the Bull riding event.

The event coordinators announced that the events for the day were done, and would resume the following day, first thing in the morning.

I rushed out of the grounds to try and find Bucky.

When I got away from the crowd, I saw him over by Brimstone’s stall, petting the horse’s flank.

“If you’ve come here to gloat, I’d rather you save it. I don’t want to hear it.” Bucky says, not even looking at my direction.

“Actually, I came to check to see if you were ok?” I said, my voice soft, barely above a whisper.

It was then that he finally looked up and over at me.

I must have looked a mess because his expression softened and I couldn’t read the emotions that crossed over his face at that moment.

As I finally made my way to stand beside him, I put my hand on his arm.

We stayed like that for a few minutes. No words being said, until we hear a voice from behind us.

“A bunch of us are going to the bar for a drink. I’m not sure if you two want to come with or not, but we’re headed there now.” Clint tells us.

I look over at Bucky, and he nods.

“Sure! We’ll meet you guys there!” I tell him, as he nods and turns to walk towards the other towards the bar.

“Come on, let's go!” I said, grabbing his hand.

When we got to the bar, it was pretty busy, and the music was loud.

As I looked over the crowd for our friends, I saw Clint on the dance floor, keeping step with a very fast line dance.

I nudged Bucky and pointed to the floor.

He started laughing, but then suddenly turned to look at me.

“Wanna dance?” he asks me, yelling over the music.

“Sure!!” I reply back, as he grabs my hand just as the one song finishes, and another one comes on, slower.

“Oh!” I breathed, as he pulled me close, his hand pressed against my back as we start to sway.

“I’m sorry I was rude earlier and snapped at you. My ego took a huge hit with being thrown off. And I didn’t want to hear anyone say I told you so.” he said.

“I would never have said that, Bucky.” I tell him, and honestly it was the truth.

“I know that now, it was a matter of my pride.” he says, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

There was nothing else I could say after that, so I just put my head on his shoulder while we danced.

Part of me was starting to regret the way I handled our interaction in the kitchen a couple of months ago.

I had been fighting the want to be with Bucky, so I was torn between making sure it didn’t affect the ranch, and wanting him.

As we were dancing, I could feel his hand pull me closer, and my arms went up around his shoulders.

It felt like an eternity, but eventually the song ended, and it took us a moment to pull apart, while the next song started.

We walked over to the table where Clint and the rest of the crew were.

“Hey guys, I think I’m going to turn in for the night. It’s been one hell of a day so far, and tomorrow looks to be just as busy. I’ll catch you all tomorrow, but don’t stay out too late!” I tell them.

A resounding chorus of “YES MOM!!!” rang through the bar over the music.

I just laughed and turned to walk out of the bar.

As I made my way outside, I heard footsteps behind me, followed by a soft touch on my elbow.

“Hey, can I walk you back to your room?” I turned my head to see that it was Bucky.

“I’m not going to stop you!” I said with a giggle, as we continued towards the hotel.

We actually walked the rest of the way in silence, and only when we had reached my room did either of us speak.

“Bucky, I … “ I started.

“Y/N, …” Bucky said at the same time.

“You go first!” he said.

“I was just going to say thank you for the dance, and I’m glad you’re ok.” I said, as a blush creeped up my neck.

Bucky blew out his breath that he’d been holding.

“It was my pleasure, Y/N, and thank you!” he said, looking at me intently.

“Well, this is me.” I said, gesturing to my door.

He looks up, as if surprised that the room was there, then looks back down at me.

“I.. I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Good Night Y/N!” he says to me, starting to turn away, just as I start to unlock my door.

All of a sudden, I’m being spun and crashed up against the door, as a pair of soft but delicious lips crash against mine.

The overwhelming sensation of pleasure, need and passion in the kiss was enough to momentarily stun me.

It wasn’t before long that my hands slid up his shoulders into his hair.

His hands traced up my hips and my sides, making me moan against his hungry lips.

Somehow, we managed to get into the room and the door was all but slammed as I was pressed back up against it.

His hands trailed down over my hips to my ass, as I’m suddenly hauled up into his arms, as he walks us to the bed.

He drops me down on the bed and stands to look up at me, panting, and his lips swollen.

To be given a sudden moment of clarity, I shake my head and put my hand up before anything else happens.

“Bucky…. “ I said looking up into his taunting eyes.

“Y/N…” he says, mocking me.

“We can’t. We shouldn’t. It’s not right!” I try to reason, definitely trying to convince someone, but I half heartedly believed it was Bucky.

He doesn’t say anything, instead stands there, panting, as his jaw clenches and unclenches for several moments.

His voice is ragged when he next speaks.

“You keep denying what’s between us. You keep letting me get close, then push me away. What. Are. You. So. Afraid. Of?” he says, punctuating the last part.

“It’s so much more than just you and I, Bucky!” I said feebly, still not sure if I was believing the words coming out of my mouth.

“Bullshit!” he exclaims.

I look up at him, eyes narrowed.

“I think you need to leave… NOW!” I said, pointing to the door.

“Fine!” he says, storming out of the room after ripping open the door and slamming it behind him.

Once he was gone, I curled up on the bed, and cried until I couldn’t anymore and sleep was beckoning me.

The last thing I remember consciously thinking was, “What am I afraid of?” just as sleep took over.

~~~~~~~

The next day, I made my way down to the grounds, and saw my team, apart from Bucky, ready to go.

“Ok everyone, good luck today. We’ve got some competition, but I have faith in what we can do. Go out there and show them what we got!” and with that, everyone dispersed to where they needed to go.

As I turn to head to the stalls, I see Bucky swagger into the grounds, with a blonde on his arm.

She was all over him in a way that looks not only pathetic, but so beneath Bucky’s standards, or so it used to seem.

After he left last night, I had no idea where he went, but if today showed me anything, it was that I didn’t care.

I walked over to the stalls, and started checking Brimstone over.

After yesterday, I wanted to make sure he was ok, and that there was not going to be any repeats of yesterday’s events.

I gave one last look over Brimstone, and then spared one last glance over at Bucky.

The blonde leaned up and put a kiss to his cheek, before he got ready for his first event.

I turned and walked away, not waiting to bear witness to any sort of PDA they were going to offer.

I didn’t have any reason to feel the way I did, did I?

I shook my head. No, of course not.

It was just that one moment, he’s in my room, kissing me and wanting more, but then when I turn him away, he goes to find someone else.

It was then that I realized what I was feeling was jealousy.

Why was I jealous?

I pondered that over a moment, and then it hit me.

I liked Bucky.

No, I had feelings for Bucky that went well past liking him.

Shaking my head, I went to the bleachers.

Bucky’s first event went flawless, placing first in the Bareback Riding event.

In the time allotted for the intermission, I went back to the stalls, checking on Brimstone again.

This time he had his saddle on, ready for the Saddle Bronc Riding event up next.

Giving him one more pat on his flank, I turned to leave.

Something caught my attention, and I turned back to the stalls,

What I saw made me hide behind the closest wall, peering around it to watch.

There walked the blonde up to Brimstone.

As if the horse knew something was wrong, he stomped and kicked the back part of the stall.

“There, there. That’s a boy, that Buckaroo isn’t going to win this event. Not this time.” she said, placing something under his saddle.

I waited for her to leave, and just as she was about to leave, Bucky came around the corner.

“Oh! There you are Babe!” she says, with a false demeanor.

“Hey, I was just coming to get this guy before the next event.” he says, taking hold of the reins.

And with that Bucky led Brimstone out of the stalls and towards the grounds.

I wish I knew what was going on, but if I went over to Bucky now and told him that she did something to Brimstone, he wouldn’t believe me.

All I could do was pray and hope for the best.

Once I got back to the gate, Bucky turned to look down at me. His eyes were cold and reserved.

“Good Luck!” I whispered, not sure if he’d hear me, as I turned towards the grounds.

What I didn’t see was Bucky’s eyes softening briefly.

The announcer called for the start of the event.

I watched as the first few contenders had their turn, pulling off impressive records, with seven, seven as the best time.

Bucky was up next.

As he got up on Brimstone, the horse right away became agitated. Stomping and plodding on the ground, kicking at the back wall.

Before I could turn around and say anything, Bucky was out the gate.

Brimstone tried really hard to shake Bucky, but he withstood everything that the stallion gave him.

That was until one brief moment when during the momentum, Bucky was lurched forward and thrust back down into the saddle.

Brimstone lost it.

He was shaking and bucking like the demons of hell had a hold of him, wanting to drag him back to where he came from.

I could see the brief moment of panic flash across Bucky’s face.

Then Brimstone did something I had only seen happen once.

He couldn’t shake Bucky off of him, so he crashed down backward, pinning Bucky under him.

The crowd went silent, waiting for any sort of movement.

When it felt that time had stood still long enough, I hopped over the gate and ran over to him, cutting the rope that held his hand to the saddle, and quickly taking the saddle off of Brimstone so the horse could get up.

Once the saddle was off, on the ground fell, what looked like a sharp nail covered in blood.

I looked at Brimstone's back, and sure enough, there was a bleeding wound on his back, right where the nail would have sat.

I quickly looked in the crowd for the blonde, but I couldn’t find her, so I caught Clint’s attention, and had him go look for a blonde that looked like she was out of place.

My focus was brought back to Bucky, as a groan escaped from his lips.

He looked up and saw me kneeling beside him.

“Y/N??? What happened?” he asked, looking all around his surroundings.

“Long story short… the blonde you were with? I saw her at Brimstone’s stall before you got there for this event. I saw her walk up to him, but I couldn’t see what she did. You came around the corner just as she was getting ready to leave. This is what she put under his saddle!” I said, holding up the bloodied nail.

Bucky looked from the nail, to me in disbelief.

“So when Brimstone lurched you forward, and you came back down hard on the saddle, it dug so far into his back that he went berserk. He tried to throw you off, and when you didn’t, he did the only thing he could do to try and get rid of the problem. He went backwards and pinned you under him!” I finished explaining.

Bucky tried to find something to say, but when the words failed him, he just closed his mouth again.

I stood up, and extended my hand to Bucky for him to take so I could help him up.

As he stood,the crowd went nuts.

Despite what happened, Bucky had managed to set a new record.

Officially his time, until Brimstone went backwards was fifteen, nine. Unofficially his time was over a minute, as he was still attached with Brimstone until I had cut the ropes.

The crowd cheered and started chanting Bucky’s name.

Bucky turned to acknowledge the crowd, then went to brush the dirt off of him.

He realized at that moment that he was missing his hat.

I had seen it off to one side, and had wandered over to where it was, some ten feet away from where Bucky was.

As I bent down to pick it up, I suddenly remembered the hat rule.

I knew the rule well, and had avoided it at all costs up until now.

I dusted off his hat, toying with it in my hands.

I thought back at the fact that I had been worried about starting something with Bucky because I didn’t want it to affect the ranch.

But after watching him almost get killed not once but twice in two days, I had to ask myself.

Was it really going to affect the ranch that much if I allowed myself the chance to be happy, even if it was with my Buckaroo?

My Buckaroo… My Bucky……

I looked up and over to where Bucky was standing, his eyes very acutely trained on me. His eyes wandered from his hat, back to me.

I couldn’t help it.

A full blown grin splayed across my lips as I looked him dead in the eye, and put on his hat.

The crowd went wild and cheered at this.

Bucky stood and looked at me with his mouth agape.

I sauntered back over to him, taking the hat off and putting it back on him.

“Y/N????” was all he could say, before I put a finger under his chin and closed his mouth.

“Are you coming, Buckaroo?” I said to him over my shoulder, as I had started walking away, giving him a wink.

I didn’t have to wait too long, as Bucky came running up behind me, scooping me up and practically running back to the hotel.

Once we got back to my room, I unlocked the door, and pulled him in with me,

After he came through, I turned and locked the door.

I reached up, grabbing his hat, placing back atop my head.

“You know the hat rule, right Buck?” I ask him, letting every ounce of seduction drip off my words.

He visibly gulped! And I couldn’t hold back my laugh as he launched at me pulling me close and kissed me until my brain sizzled.

When he pulled away from me a fraction of an inch, I could see a great big smile on his lips.

There were no other words needed as hands flew over pieces of material, stripping every last scrap off of us, except his hat.

I pushed Bucky back on the bed, straddling his lap.

I was about to take the hat off, but was quickly halted, as I looked down and stared into the electric blue eyes I had come to love.

“Keep the hat on Y/N! It looks good on you!” Bucky says, as his hands travel down to my hips, and positions himself at my entrance.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time, and now my fantasy is about to become a reality,” he says, as he pulls me down onto him until he’s fully sheathed in me.

I couldn’t help but let out a low moan, as my hips started to rotate, while my hands held onto his chest.

As I looked down at him, biting on my bottom lip, Bucky reached up and took off the hat, tossing it onto the pile of clothes that we had discarded, and rolled us over so I was pinned under him.

I looked up at him with adoration, as he leaned down to kiss me, proceeding to move and thrust his hips.

We lost track of how long this went on but the air in the room was thick with heat and steam, but we didn’t care.

His mouth trailed kisses over my body until I couldn’t take it any more.

As he kept thrusting, my hands trailed down his back to his hips, as I held on tight.

Suddenly he takes my hands and pins them over my head, his fingers intertwined with mine as I whimpered, my orgasm not far.

He must have sensed this, as his hips started to snap faster and harder, while his mouth attacked my neck and throat, leaving love bites on my collarbone.

I couldn’t hold it any longer.

“Bucky!!” I cried out, arching up against him as the coil in my stomach snapped and my release washed over me, making me tremble.

This was just enough to push him over his edge.

His hips faltered as he groaned out my name against my neck, giving a few more thrusts and then collapsing beside me.

We laid there for what seemed like forever, not saying a word, but enjoying what had just happened.

Finally, after a long enough time, I turned on my side to look at him.

“You know yesterday, When he tossed you off then kicked you. I was worried. Honestly I was. But today. Oh my God, Today, all I saw was Brimstone going backwards with you under him, and my heart stopped. And when you didn’t move even to signal for help, I couldn’t stay where I was. I needed to get to you, and there was nothing that was going to stop me.” I tell him, my voice barely above a whisper.

He reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

“I thought I had lost you, even though you weren’t mine, and then I was trying to figure out what I was afraid of?” I said, as his eyes looked up at me, and his expression softened at me asking the same question he had asked.

“What I was afraid of was losing you. The ranch had nothing to do with why I was afraid. That was an excuse and I realize that now. I was afraid of losing my Buckaroo!” I said with a smirk.

At the nickname, Bucky’s head went back with a deep belly laugh.

“I don’t want to lose you, and I know we can make this work for the ranch!” I tell him.

“That is if you want to, and don’t want to go back to your blonde?” I added.

“She wasn’t my blonde. She saw me this morning when I came into the grounds and said she’d seen me yesterday. I didn’t even catch her name to be honest!” he said, and then giggled when I swatted at him.

He pulled me close to him again, and kissed me deeply.

After breaking apart, I looked at him and suddenly started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he says, eyebrows arched up.

“Well I saved a horse to free you, and then I got to ride my Bucky!” I said between giggles.

Bucky just shook his head and launched himself on me, pulling the sheet up over us.

We held each other in our afterglow and eventually drifted off to sleep.

And that was how I ended up with my Buckaroo.

[decepti-thots]

Hello this is out of nowhere but I found myself suddenly musing on Prowl and responsibility. You're a very good Prowl thinker, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on how he takes or doesn't take responsibility (or blame) for things.

This is an interesting question! It's one of those questions where I'm inclined to answer it with a bit of meshing of interpretations of the character that 'disagree' with each other, regardless of authorial intent, because between writers and series I think that gets a bit... messy. But that makes welding it together fun. So! Prowl and responsibility, let's go, completely free of the thought 'did any of the writers intend this?'

I think he's a character who has circumstances in which he takes on an inflated sense of responsibility, and circumstances in which he overly abdicates responsibility, without much in between. Which is the kind of thinking that real people do all the time but can come across in fiction as paradoxical I think, haha. On the one hand Prowl tends to assume he is the one person on which everything hinges and if he doesn't do something, it won't get done- more to the point, if he doesn't do something, it won't get done and there will be consequences. A lot of that comes from arrogance, because he thinks of himself as fundamentally more competent than the majority of people around him. And a lot of that translates into trying to control what other people do (often by controlling what they can do), so any influence sits with him first and foremost. And finally, a lot of it involves him feeling like he's the only one who will do what needs to be done when the thing is something he doesn't want to do. Which ties into the whole 'overblown sense of taking responsibility' thing a lot, because it feeds into a complex of: here is a thing that people will find excuses not to do because it's awful and they don't want to. If I don't do it, noone will. It makes him miserable, but it also gives him an inflated sense of importance. We have all either known someone like this or been that person at one point, to a less exaggerated degree, I think. The person who thinks that something being unpleasant means it's their sole duty to take it on... aaaand so also, everyone else shouldn't criticize them because look at what they've done for everyone! (And never mind that nobody asked and that maybe nobody had to force themselves to do the shitty thing they hate for the sake of doing it.)

And then on the flip side, there are things that he just. Will not take responsibility for period. And those are usually things where if he did so, it would contradict his self image too much, so they have to be made external. Sins of the Wreckers is one long ironic reversal of the 'Prowl has his fingers in every pie and does it all behind the scenes' narrative; in Sins, and generally in Roche's work in fact, Prowl allows himself a kind of emotional distance from things he is very much responsible for by... adding a few degrees of separation in. He doesn't kill Mesothulas; he tells Impactor to deal with the lab. He has him thrown in the noisemaze. Realistically, this is in no way anything but Prowl's murder attempt. But he can create a degree of plausible deniability. Not to anyone else- nobody else is supposed to know- but more to himself. Or another example is when any time Optimus in exRiD goes against what Prowl wants or disagrees with him, he always shows that he thinks that this is Optimus not understanding, and any fallout from Prowl going behind his back is, therefore, Optimus' fault. Even when Prowl's ideas are absolutely what caused the issue. When there's a hypothetical scenario he can imagine where he would have been backed up, Prowl says: well if you'd backed me up my plan would have worked, so this is the fault of everyone who just doesn't get it. Not mine.

(I'm trying to remember if the moment in exRiD where he's annoyed that Arcee won't play along with his 'well of course you tried to arrest the Decepticons you attacked first' nonsense is before Bombshell... I thiiiink it is? There's an example of Arcee puncturing his defenses, which she does a lot. She's like. lol shut up. I killed them like you asked. It's not quite the same- he's trying to get her cover story straight more than anything- but it feels a little like he finds her bluntness... uncomfortable. Even if he knows it's a lie, he still prefers, well. The lie.)

It would be pretty easy to gloss this dichotomy as 'Prowl takes responsibility when it gives him something or works for him, disowns it whenever something goes wrong', but I don't think that's... quite right. A little underbaked. Prowl takes responsibility when it puts him in a position where it justifies what he does on a wider scale, whether or not it goes well for him necessarily. And when that justification starts to look flimsy and the threat looms that he might be wrong on a fundamental level, that's when he starts to insist it's someone else's fault. Like grit in the machine, and if you took the grit out, of course it would work perfectly. Other people are the convenient grit when the machine is breaking down. (Going back to Sins: the single biggest 'this is not my fault' he pulls in all of canon is, IMO, the blatant lie that Mesothulas was 'influencing' him to be worse somehow. His personal justifications for his behaviour started to crack when he killed a bunch of civilians in cold blood and immediately realised that was completely unjustifiable, but he can't take responsibility without admitting his approach is the issue, and therefore without not just taking responsibility for this, but for all his actions in the war to date that were just... wrongheaded. So he goes 'no. this isn't my approach making me act this way. it's Mesothulas', even though it's ridiculously obvious that if anything, Prowl has been at least enabling Mesothulas to be worse. As he says, he wouldn't have started making bombs without Prowl's 'for the greater good in war' perspective.)

So you get this kind of slippery character who will insist everything is directly his responsibility one minute, even when he's miserable about it, and then turn around the next and say: no, no, none of this is my fault. If it reinforces his belief that his way is the only way and therefore anything he does can be justified, it's his responsibility. Even the bad stuff, or the stuff that will land him in trouble. If it challenges that belief, it's no longer his fault but just external influences that need removing, smoothing away, fixing. We haven't spoken about MTMTE Prowl as written by Roberts yet, but I think he shows a lot of this in the Overlord arc. It goes against his self-perception to think that how he acts or what he's doing puts Chromedome off agreeing to work with him in itself. That he finds Prowl repugnant now, in a way he didn't used to. So he gets pissy at Rewind, acting like he's getting in the way. You get the impression that Prowl is the sort to think Rewind is clearly the issue here and if he can just get Chromedome alone, things will go fine. (The irony, of course, being that he did, but doesn't remember it because of just how badly that went.)

Prowl has set himself up in a very precarious psychological trap by staking his entire sense of self on something which, if knocked over by a stiff breeze, would basically ruin every single thing he does or has done for the past few million years. His belief that his ends always justified his means. If he takes responsibility for anything that contradicts that, every single one of his decisions loses its place in his weird moral calculus and becomes a candidate for something not worth it that he cannot fix. And if he doesn't take responsibility for all the shit that he thinks needs doing but hates, then every awful decision he's made to the present becomes pointless, because if he can't end what he started there's no ends to justify the means. He can't stop or else it falls down. (See: him not wanting the war to be over despite hating it because it didn't end on the terms he was working toward.)

And I think that's how you marry the Prowl we see in stuff like Wreckers, whose stock in trade is gliding on through without it touching him and insisting there was always someone or something else to blame, with Prowl in exRiD, who takes way, way too much responsibility for everything.

tl;dr god i would also punch this guy if i met him jesus christ

[quindriepress]

This week's spotlight is on Ell J Walker and their comic Catharsis. Ell is an Edinburgh-based artist who originally washed up on the shores of Orkney. She likes drawing sad men, horses, guitars and folklore. (@elljwalker | website | instagram | mastodon | twitter)

Catharsis follows Dimitri and Asha, two young heavy metal musicians. "Catharsis is about self confidence, figuring out how to express vulnerable and destructive feelings, and about seeking confidence from within yourself rather than from some outside source. It’s also about death metal, demons and young aspiring musicians, backed by the setting of remote coastal Scotland."

Read the spotlight below the cut!

"This comic is a bit of a mix of things - first and foremost I wanted to create something that I’d really have a lot of enthusiasm about. I’d had a really rough time creatively over the past few years during lockdown and the ongoing pandemic, and I really needed to be kind to myself and make sure the next thing I made was going to be fun. I remember thinking to myself when I was putting together the pitch: ‘if I’m going to be drawing 40 pages of this, it’s going to have to contain things I really enjoy drawing’. Hence the sad boy with long hair, the horse, the demon, the guitars and the sea."

"On top of that, I’ve been on a huge metal kick lately. It was something that helped pull me out of the strange, buzzing, numb anxiety that the pandemic had injected into me. Listening to metal was weirdly soothing - it felt like a way to feed the parts of me that had been depleted with music I could really feel. Growling, angry, monstery vocals, insane shredding, weird time signatures, the seismic thrum of double-pedalling bass drums, galloping rhythms - it’s something that helps me simultaneously soothe myself and really feel things. Maybe that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I just really like metal, and wanted to express both how it’d helped me, and how much of a valuable medium it is to safely express volatile feelings - a key theme in Catharsis." 

"I think since music has always run parallel to art for me, they naturally feed into one another, even if it hasn’t felt like it at times for me. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but personally, playing music feels like tapping into an internal part of me that knows what it’s doing - it’s how I found confidence in my teen years. I was lucky enough to start learning piano from age 8 and guitar and bass from age 12 - so I got the awkward part of the learning process out of the way fairly quickly, when I didn’t have all that much self-consciousness to hinder me. And while I’ve never been super great at composing or improvising, having the confidence to know my technical skills let me perform always fuelled my confidence. Saying that though, like Dimitri, at times I do often struggle to play in front of people. Ironically, my younger, more generally self-conscious self was better at that than my current, more confident adult self. I wonder why that is? Maybe I should draw another comic to find out."

"Art, although I’ve been doing it for even longer than music, feels very different as a creative process. It definitely comes from somewhere else in me, somewhere maybe a little bit more introspective and personal, and therefore more delicate. I’m still grasping to find my art confidence - I suppose writing and drawing Catharsis is a reflection of that, and reminding myself that it’s just a case of finding it within yourself eventually, even if it means taking baby steps, and gradually practising how to express that vulnerability."

While music has played a big role in Ell's life, it hasn't been their only influence. "For a long time I’ve drawn inspiration from folklore and stories that appear fantastical, but can be read as allegorical or metaphorical. I think art and stories are made real by the viewer/reader and their interpretation, and ancient stories that are retold through the mind of someone new are super interesting to me - what new themes can be added by the reteller, and what original themes that were put there hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, persist? I particularly enjoy the Hellboy comics for this reason (also because they’re so much fun) as well as the God of War games.

"I also take a lot of inspiration generally from the natural world around me, and how I feel when I’m in nature. I think having recently taken more time to practise mindfulness and work on my own mental health has really expanded how I think about stories, the world around me and how I relate to it. I want to help inspire others to find the strengths that exist within themselves that they might think aren’t there, or they can’t reach."

"I grew up in the town of Stromness, in Orkney (a small archipelago of islands off the top of Scotland, for those who aren’t familiar), and therefore spent most of my young life living about ten paces from the sea, so the sea in particular has always felt like a part of me and my development.

"I was taught to fear and respect the ocean from a young age, particularly because the sea could be incredibly rough and dangerous around the islands. I know of several people who have lost their lives to it in one way or another. I think the fact that such a powerful natural force that was nevertheless teeming with life - the contents of rockpools, seaweed, seals, otters, seabirds, fish, cetaceans - was just really fascinating and interesting to think about. Of course folklore is something else I heard a lot about as a kid, and being able to hear these stories, then go for a walk down the shore and imagine these creatures of myth and legend existing in the same place - or even to see the selkies watching me from the water - was an amazing inspiration."

Ell has this advice for aspiring comic creators: "Make sure you’re making comics for YOU, not what you think other people want! This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time (art school taught me to make what the tutors wanted, not what I wanted) and can be more difficult than you think. But ultimately if you have enthusiasm for your project, it will always shine through. If it’s a slog, and you’re not enjoying it, hit the bricks! Have fun with it and don’t let expectations, or worse, perceived expectations, curb what you enjoy making."

 You can pick up Catharsis, alongside the other three comics in our 2023 collection, right here on Kickstarter!

[sxplict]

★ . ᕀ⠀⠀ALL⠀⠀ABOUT⠀⠀LATEST⠀⠀INDEX⠀⠀LAWS⠀⠀ᕀ . ★

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 : open !⠀⠀|⠀⠀𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 : open !

[ ✦ ⋆ ⋆ ୨୧ ]⠀the law obligations for user sxplict. please do understand that most, if not all, will contain (n)sfw works and sometimes dark content. continue at your own discretion.

◜ 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 ◞

this blog is not spoiler free , please advise.

i don’t take requests for multi chapter fanfics , but as seen above , my other requests are open.

i don’t mind if you ask to be mutuals , and/or friends even , i’m autistic so it’ll honestly help me better disclose our relationship status tbh.

i only ever write for above average/tall indigenous latine fem!bodied readers , please do not ask for any other ethnic/race based readers because i do not feel comfortable writing for such seeing as i am hispanic/latine myself. though , i will redirect you to others who do write for what you request to promote them.

i can’t control minors being on my page , therefore i don’t care enough to tell you to leave. you can follow if you want , i won’t throw a hissy fit about it because i have more important things to pay mind to. just don’t explicitly tell me you are under 17 (i.e., sending an inbox expressing how you’re deliberately -17 on my page).

please don’t like more than 5/6 posts at a time , it’ll tell tumblr i’m a bot and would put my account at risk. just make sure to reblog inbetween.

blank and ageless blogs leave or you’ll be hard blocked without question. i honestly dont know why to be frank with you , but if everyone else is tripping about it then i guess its /srs.

if my pinned tags weren’t bitchy enough , i do not allow any form of inspo, help, tuts, remakes, advice, nothing when reference to graphics. TDLR; way too much plagiarism and copying throughout my years that i no longer allow it. you can dm for a negotiation and we can work things out , though i’ll still be heavily strict.

i do not allow translations of my works, idgaf if you ask for permission first. absolutely tf not.

do not interact if , you write anything that is in my “idnwf”; especially yandere and stepcest. are zionist. anti-black. racist. homophobic. ableist. transphobic. sexist. xenophobic. heavily religious. believe in misandry. terfs. white celebrity stan’s of ANY means (i.e., taylor swift, lana del ray, billie eilish). you age up minors and/or interact with that content. nicki minaj / doja cat fans AND listeners. skz & twice stan’s.

◜ 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 ◞

i do not write for , anything that is sexual content with minors. dubcon. noncon. cnc. incest/stepcest. grape/s3xual 4ssault. pregnancy. somnophilia. pedophilia. teacher x student. feet kink. piss kink. ed’s. race play. pet play. scat. mpreg. breast feeding. age regression. DDBG. MDBG. suic!de/s3lf h4rm. scat. yandere (this romanticizes ppl with bpd so absolutely not). p3dophelic characters. vore. necrophelia.

i do write for , fem!reader. smut. sub, switch & dom!reader. size differences. praise. violence. voyeurism. exhibitionism. alcohol consumption. 'under the influence' scenarios. choking. spitting. dumbification. 'brat tamer's. breeding. unprotected sex. dom!characters. spanking. (pussy) slapping. breast play. threesomes/orgies. cunnilingus. blowjob/handjob. degradation. age gap. bondage. polyamory dynamics.

if you’d like to be one of my anons, all you have to do is ask ! simply like; “hey lysi, could i be ★ anon?” (´꒳`)♡

⠀ thanks for reading these, you may see the board !

[presleyannn]

hi :) - 9.19.23

Hello, my name is Presley. I am 20 years old, and I am currently in my first semester of law school.

I am also extremely mentally ill. I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression in the 9th grade, having dealt with suicidal ideation since the 5th grade. I am a suicide attempt survivor, and I have been on mood stabilizers ever since. I was also diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago.

Due to my mental health issues, life hasn't been particularly easy for me, especially when it comes to basic life skills like time management and the ability to accomplish basic tasks.

I finished at the top of my class in high school and kept a high gpa in undergrad simply because I am smart, not because I applied myself and worked super hard. I am a terrible procrastinator. My brain can only start working on something if there is an impending deadline, and even then I still struggle to do it.

As you might have already inferred, those habits don't fly in law school. In law school, you have one exam at the end of the semester worth 100% of your grade, built on ALL the material you learned throughout the semester (and you learn A LOT of material in law school). There is no way to cram right before your exam. You must manage your time wisely throughout the semester to stay on top of your work and ensure you have a good handling on the material before you move on.

I am currently struggling to do just that. I am six weeks in, and I am massively behind. Executive dysfunction is very real and it is crippling. I struggle with simply starting a task, and finishing it is a completely different beast.

My brain loves to hyperfixate on things, and 9/10 it is not the thing I need to be focused on. As a result, I will have a laundry list of things I need to do, but find myself unable to do them because I am only focused on that one thing.

However, my brain also says that I must get everything on my to-do list done before I can call it a night. Therefore, I will lose sleep and STILL not get anything done. I was recently awake for almost 48 hours because I told myself that I couldn't sleep until I checked off everything on my to-do list. By the time I finally gave in to exhaustion, I had yet to do anything on it.

It is also extremely difficult for me currently to perform even basic life functions. I've already missed several classes because I simply couldn't find the energy to get out of bed. When I do, I feel like I've run a marathon before I even walk out the door just from waking up and getting dressed. By the time I get out of class, all my energy has disappeared. It takes everything in me just to feed myself at least once a day (and I usually love to eat). When it comes time for me to do work, I am absolutely drained, and my work seems so overwhelming and unapproachable.

All of these things have caused me to be extremely behind on school work, and that is a difficult thing to sit with. Especially when you need to do well because you still have to graduate undergrad, and you have scholarships you need to keep.

It also doesn't help when everyone else around you seems to be well prepared and fighting for the top spot. It makes you begin to wonder if you're even cut out for it, even though this is something you want more than anything else in your life.

Please don't worry about me though. This isn't my first rodeo. I've been dealing with these issues for the past 8 years, it's just that the stakes are much higher right now. I am in therapy, I am taking my medicine, and I have a wonderful support system of family and friends. After everything I've been through, I believe in myself enough to say that I will make it out on the other side, and I will finish this semester strong. I'm just going through a rough patch :)

I am simply here because I would be writing these things down in my personal, private journal anyway, but I want to share them in hopes that they reach someone who needs them. I've made it my mission since I was finally diagnosed in the 9th grade to help break the stigma around mental illness and mental health issues. I want people like me to know that they are not alone in this, because I want to know the same. I also want them to know that feeling these feelings is nothing to be ashamed of and that it's okay to ask for help, because I would be six feet under right now if I had never realized that and gotten the help that I needed.

If you're going through some tough times, just know that I'm sending so much love your way and that I believe in you. You're doing awesome with the hand you were dealt! <3

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Me:

Also me but from today:

[metvmorqhoses]

So I'm obsessed with so many fictional characterd and media but a devastating thought occurred to me that what's the point of enjoying it if isn't even real? I know it's a ridiculous notion but I can't stop thinking about it. How do I stop letting this get in the way of enjoying fiction?

Everyone enjoys fiction for very personal and different reasons and none of them is more valid than the next. Some need escapism, some need a laugh, or company, or inspiration. Some find in it higher things.

I, for example, have always found Art the one way to perform and experience the highest forms of myself, and therefore of reality. I dare say my thoughts and feelings are the most real part of myself, and that's exactly what fiction is made of.

Art is arguably one of the most real things that exist, the place where the soul takes actual, tangible form and, above all, can be shared outside the cage of the individual self. This is one of the greatest and arguably most real of human endeavours.

As for obsession towards characters, I confess I've never experienced anything of the sort. I enjoy specific characters and stories because I see myself in them, because they feed myself to myself, even the possibility of a new, better form of it, my life and their life have the same colors and that can paint reality in even grander detail, but I've never considered them objects of worship or fixation. They are what they are, passion and feeling personified for a purpose.

As you can see, to me Art and Life are deeply interconnected and both extremely real. The concept of reality is far wider and more marvellous than what we are trained to think.

I have the feeling though, you are perhaps mourning your favorite characters as if their actual non-existence as "real" people meant their fundamental irrelevance. They are in truth as real as they come. They are existing characters in an existing form of Art. What more should they be? They don't need to be anything else. Not being actual people who ever walked the earth doesn't take away anything from them, especially not their very tangible beauty or value, which were the reasons they were created in the first place. All the grand things they are able to evoke in people are incredibly real, and that's what makes creativity and Art so fundamental to Life.

I don't really think there should even be the need for such thoughts or absurd comparisons, to be honest.

[corvuserpens]

Hi everyone, I need to blow off some steam about something that’s Not Even That Big of a Deal But Kinda Is In the Grand Scheme of Things, it’s just that this crap pisses me off and I want it out of my Tired Brain so bear with me a moment.

But Gods, watching the Shadow & Bone fandom on Twitter going through the whole renewal anxiety, biting their nails off wondering if it’s going to get cancelled bc some dipshits in fancy suits are too lazy to make any decisions on their own and would rather rely on a fucking algorithm to tell them how good or profitable a show is instead of listening to the fan base, when I’m fresh off the literal months-long battle to get Netflix to renew The Sandman for a second season is so Exhausting.

It’s tiresome y’all, and stressful. 

(A little disclaimer before I continue this next section: none of this is aimed at the fans all over social media urging each other to keep watching to get the numbers S&B needs to get season 3, not at all, this is 100% about those brain rotted top execs making all the decisions, okay? Don’t at me all offended, please.)

I got shit to do, man. You think I got entire days, weeks even, to waste watching and rewatching the same show over and over again in hopes of tricking the algorithm into thinking more people watched and therefore declare that it’s worth renewing? That might be the Netflix execs’ pathetic little lives, but not mine. I got bills to pay, paintings to finish, a family to feed. Real priorities. And now I don’t even have Netflix anymore, thanks to their new fucking No Password Sharing bullshit, and I’ll be damned if I open an account for myself (can’t afford it, so good job losing some five subscribers in one go, real clever Netflix). 

Hhhhhhhh. I hate, hate, HATE streaming services so much. We lost DVDs and Blueray and are on the verge of losing movie theaters for THIS SHIT? I don’t want to have to fight for a show to get renewed every time there’s a new season, okay? I’m stressed enough already, I don’t need this, this isn’t fun. No matter how much I love a show, eventually it will start feeling like a chore and then I’ll be too resentful to even appreciate it anymore. Or imagine the season was a disappointment and I hated it, did I really waste all those hours rewatching for nothing? This is why I only follow like, 3 shows. Streaming sucks balls.

So honestly? If Shadow & Bone gets cancelled? Fuck it. We never get that long coveted Six of Crows spin-off? Fuck it. The Sandman gets cancelled after season 2? Fuck. It. At least we got the books, which are superior anyway. We got amazing fan artists and writers, what else do we need? I feel for the actors, the screenwriters, the cinematographers and everyone who works so hard on these TV projects, I really do. But goddamn, this... This is not Ideal.

End rant, Crow out.

[writingwithinwriting]

How to Learn not to be Writing.

I haven’t had much to say recently when it comes to writing. I haven’t been writing at all. Or, I have been trying not to write. I have the time to be qriting now that my manuscript is all tidied up and ready to submit, and I have plenty of ideas which I have been jotting down. But I am trying not to write.

I’ve had a few people comment on the fact that, as writers go, I’m a hard worker. Fellow poets have told me they have seen my output during Napowrimo in the past and wondered how I managed it. Others have asked how I manage to come to a new poetry night with a selection of new material every time. 

This is a wild thing to hear when you have had it pummelled into you through school reports and parent’s evening visits that Pascal would be so successful if only they put in more effort... I still remember being a short little kid and looking into these kindly ladies faces who would look down at me with all the expectation in the world. Which, in turn, was very jarring to hear when I was struggling to do basic things like tell the time, tie my shoes, climb stairs and bathe myself.

As a kid, I felt exhausted all the time. Not in the same way I do now, I felt emotionally exhausted. I was drained by the constant bullying at school, I was getting heart palpitations and stomach cramps from the anxiety of constant testing from middle school to senior school and through to a-levels. 

I started to have panic attacks in my teens that would soon last hours and hours. My phobia was spiralling into obsession and terror. I attempted on my life twice. And I was convinced this was normal. Therefore, I had to carry on at the same speed everyone else was managing to keep up.

I am paying for that now. ME/CFS has forced me to stop taking everything at a break neck pace. And yet writing is the one thing I haven’t slowed down on. I do write a lot. Its not all good, you don’t see it all and certainly quantity isn’t quality, but at least I have that on my side.

I don’t have any impostor syndrome. I believe I’m a good writer, I’m not exceptional, but I have two things on my side which I think have given the illusion that I am somehow always writing all the time. I write to relax and I do not care how good or bad my writing is when I am at it.

These are both, in fact, big fat lies. And I have known this in the back of my heads for years. 

I do care very much how well I write and that’s why I write so often. It feels like the memory of all those beaming teachers praising me for the one thing I exceeded at is engrained in my brain. If I stop writing, I stop having purpose, I stop being useful.

Writing is often something I do to keep myself awake. This isn’t a problem most people have; most people do not need to find activities that balance needing tiny amounst of physical energy with high mental stimulation. If I don’t have both, I go slightly berserk. If my fatigue is too high, I struggle to form basic sentences and look after myself. If I get too bored, I get anxious, I get angry, I get depressed. It is a tight rope walk where I have to keep running or else I will fall into a bottomless pit.

That is a not a healthy way to go about any kind of work. Especially when I have a life outside of writing. I have a family I need to look after during a difficult period and a body that needs feeding, washing and excercising. 

I have poured everything in the last year into my manuscript. Because my ‘everything’ is so small and insignficant next to the forty hour work weeks I see my family and friends a part of, it didn’t feel meaningful. Right after Good Listeners was published, I gave myself a month or two of a break and began shaping the manuscript I have just finished.

I had spent the previous two years shaping Good Listeners. And the previous five years grinding through the most challenging and transformative part of my life. I remember working so hard on my dissertation in the final days, when I went to hand it in, the staff in charge of the printers insisted I sit down and get some water because I looked so pale. 

Someone thought I was high. I felt high. I felt so adrift, I was walking around like a zombie. Someone said I was speaking in whispers. I showed up to the hand in with flowers in my hair because I was so giddy from lack of sleep. I had so little sleep my eyes would start darting around if I relaxed, I would fall asleep on the floor folding towels or unconciously try to sit down in the shower and sleep.

Afterwards I moved back into my parents house and began working until my fatigue slowed me to a crawl. And all I could do to be useful was cook, clean and write whenever I could.

Before that was a-levels. Before that was school. I do not remember a time in my life when I have not been chasing a deadline or creating my own to feel a sense of purpose. I don’t think I can do this any more. 

Not because I don’t want to continually get better and better and better, I adore writing. It is a beautiful thing to find the way you can make yourself whole in this world. I write down every strange dream, weird film idea, every game I want to make one day.

I am writing this down to make it real. To make sure I know the only way I know how to accept what is better for me. I said I would try and finish two manuscripts this year, I finished one and now I am fighting to get up each morning to take my medication. I think it is best if I just step away from deadlines altogether until the new year. 

This is what we call in the writer world a really shitty situation. I hate this, I hate knowing I need to do this. I know every time I have taken a break from performing or publishing I have been left behind by opportunities and valuable experiences. But if I keep I trying to out run my exhaustion, I won’t grow, exceed or expand on what I can do.

This means that some projects are going to go into hibernation, like the nonfiction manuscript and most likely Hundreds & Thousands podcast. I have to re-learn that writing isn’t all typing and scribbling as you’re chained to a desk as people peer over you waiting for shakespeare to happen. I have books to read, workshops to attend, writers to talk to and so much more.

I recently read a Vietnamese epic called the Song of Kieu. Its stunning, heart wrending and world rearranging. And it did very little to further my own writing. But now I have that book in my world. It has grown my purpose to love and perservere and listen to the demon on the road.

I might be posting more on this blog, to get things out of my brain. Or I might not. I will be cooking, cleaning and helping my family. I’ll be taking naps and medication. I will still be here.

[moments-withshelby]

Princess or Queen?

I've never been able to hide from the community. Everyone has seen me. I have seen me. I have known. I don’t think I’m "all that" but I feel I have potential and I feel that I've been avoiding it for I simply haven't felt ready to title myself Queen of my own life.

Ruler of my own world. Creator of my own reality.

Yet I've known this all along, creating my own reality and walking into my future shoes, taking steps, baby ones, to make sure that I am building this life right. Yet while I've been doing this I've also continued to tie myself around the idea of "Princess", the avoidance of wanting to be anything more than just a commoner. Running away from responsibilities and taking no action to get to where she is destined to go, therefore delaying her coronation and feeling completely out of loop within herself because of the fear of failing her own Queenship (I am aware there are positives to 'princessing', this is just where I am at with it right now).

One can not fail their Queenship by the way...

A queen simply asks for guidance from the land below her feet and from the spirit around her elements for guidance and support in times of confusion and internal disruption. A queen simply receives the love from the community, the community that the queen serves on a regular basis.

Please don't begin to assume that I believe I am The Queen, above all else...EVERY being has the potential to step into their own highest.

Side note-- I feel I have a past life of such a reality, where I was in power and 'control' of the lands.

I also don't believe it is ALL princesses that refuse their crown for years on end and run from responsibility. Look at Cleopatra, I don't honestly know all that much about her but I feel that she stood forward with confidence. With knowing of her potential and potency (I wonder if she was a triple water sign with a deep plug of unworthiness somewhere in her core... doubt it.) Everyone has their things. everyones tried to "release" their things, yet everyone also thrives off of what those things provide for us. By holding onto "my" unworthiness, I also hold onto a reality where I don't have to take responsibility for anything. I hold onto a feeling that feeds me with a desire to be loved, a craving to be supported, a NEED to be taken care of.

By letting go of the unworthiness, I will HAVE to take responsibility, I will HAVE to fully love myself and expect nothing less of myself because I WILL believe in my worth. I WILL believe in my own life, like I never have before. I will work harder and do more, I will create workshops and support people, I will offer up my sarcastic truth serum to support others in their journey with emotional regulation and all that jazz. By letting go of the unworthiness, I step into a reality that I have never felt before and it might met get to let go of the desire to leave this planet, i will have to let go of the desire to have it all just end one day because I will want to stay and endure all that this planet offers me because I WILL BELIEVE IN MY WORTH.

Perhaps I fear staying, perhaps I fear the potential of life. Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the possibility of me having an extraordinarily beautiful life that I tried to work hard for but ended up with beauty and shallowness. Perhaps if I lay low and stay fearful and run away from my responsibility then I can get away with a 70%, at best...I'm used to 70%, thats a good-enough ending. At 15 I stayed up all night to study and I believed so deeply that I was going to do so well with a school assignment and I tried so god damn hard to receive anything more and 70% and I did, I got 90 something % but the words that came with it were "good job" ... GOOD JOB!? Does she even know how hard I worked for this, for her approval of me and she gives me a good job!? .. what a cow.

I guess it was never about achieving greatness, but more about being recognised for my efforts from someone that hardly recognises my existence. Funny that.

Perhaps the core belief could have shifted if I hadn't of received a mediocre comment at all, probably not though. Perhaps if they knew my learning style and taught me in accordance with my truth? Perhaps if I had of a received the following; "Great job Shelby, I can see how hard you worked on this and you should be so proud of all your efforts, let's go through this together because I believe that you can get every answer correct next time! Keep up the great work because you're a god damn fucking star and you deserve to believe that you are" ... something like that would have been nice.

But alas, I did not, all I got was a one shitty teacher in grade 9 (that didn't believe in me or many others for that matter) to support the limiting belief within that I was worthless and will never amount to anything. Perhaps I placed her in my reality because thats how I felt anyway and it just needed to physicalise as do all beliefs in this 3rd dimension. Perhaps her hated for me and my over the top personality all just came from my own growing internalised belief of 'I am nothing' and maybe, just maybe did this begin way before I was born. Maybe it's birth came from somewhere along the ancestral line, laying dormant until poked by one moment, poked by an ick, an experience that did not sit quite right and then WHOOSH, off it grew, through the veins and through the flesh, through children and through lifetimes. Passed down from generation to generations until recognised for what it truely is, an experience to look at, to tender to and to re-pot into its own garden. A space that doesn't allow it to take over our entirety any longer. Perhaps this "weed" is actually a flower, that is truely beautiful to look at and to experience, only a few moments though for it holds a kind of emotion so powerful, so potent that when we sit with for too long it takes root in the darkest zone of our being. This flower is so powerful and perfect just the way it is that so many of us hold it so closely, too closely that we don't know its even there, not knowing that it killing us from the inside. This flower is an experience, not a way of life. This flower helps us to evolve, for when we connect to it, it holds us so deep in pain that we must hug ourselves the way we wanted when we were 3, we must nurture ourselves the way we wished when we were 12, we must slow down and breathe deeper through each moment and we must feel all that we have been avoiding for this flower, this magical moment is here to help us shift into our next possibility, out of turmoil and into what we have always craved, true un-conditional love (cliche I KNOW, but I can promise you that I wouldn't be typing this if I hadn't of done this work myself)

This flower is here to remind us to thank the past, but to CREATE our future.

So here I sit, gardening within, tending to all plants, emotions and moments that my bloodlines have passed down FOR me. Holding closley the beauty and recreating the garden to be what I want moving forward, to support and nourish and feed those that come after me.

Once we receive, it is up to us to do what we want with it, it holds no contract.

With my choice, I GET to re root what I've always known that has never felt all that nice to hold onto. I CHOOSE to put those plants somewhere safe.

I also get to choose to walk through this lifetime teaching the ancestors that came before me what they did not know while simultaneously learning from them as it was their choices and wisdom that lead me to this and every other moment of self recognition and deep exponential growth.

It was all of our ancestors that lead us to this very moment and its us who chooses how we allow it to consume our reality... You are an ancestor of the future, are you passing on an overgrown garden self doubt and lack mentality with a large sprinkle of egotistical self righteousness and lack there of true joy or are you passing on a garden that you looked at, felt, tended to and nurtured for the next owner to step in and look after? What gives us the right to pass on a sad, malnourished garden? I deeply understand the anger and frustration of "it was never mine to begin with, i didn't ask for this shit" BUT a little goes a long way! I began to see that it wasn't just me in the garden, I started to magnetise to new frequencies and all these wonderful people wandered on in and helped me, planting new flowers, carving new pathways, pruning flowers. Yes it's a "big job" but isn't it also a big job to constantly shit in your garden and then complain about the smell?

Leave it better than how you found.

To close this off I am going to connect us back to the beginning, I have and you are the ruler of your life, but we have to walk through all of the cards in the deck to learn the wisdom that helps us grow our fruit.

With colour and love, Shelby