#sometimes when my coworker goes on one of her rants about how she’s glad she never had daughters bc of the Way Teenaged Girls Are | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lokilickedme · 3 years

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Submitted by @fudgemuffinanon

Ok I think I’m up to date….

1. HOLY SHIT WOMAN! You had Covid and just learned about it? How did you find out? Was it with a test? And you handled the asshat at the grocery store way better than I would have. I’m not patient, nor diplomatic, and I have major RBF syndrome… The temper goes with the face more ofter than I care to admit…

2. Your grandmother’s story was incredible. I know you don’t need another project but this could be a beautiful book. No fandom incorporated, just her story.

3. As @mollage said, the Universe is after you! But you may be one of the strongest woman I know, going through all your adventures with that attitude. Thank you Elizabeth for passing down your fiery spirit!

4. With everything that happened to you in the last few weeks, I can’t expect you to write anything. I’ll just wait and take what you give us. Fuck, I just have to deal with Baby Girl’s online school - Big Boy is responsible enough to deal with his class mostly alone - and I have to tell her to go back to the computer every 5 minutes and I’m going NUTS! And we have one more month to go…

Ontario has been in stay-at-home order since April 8th, and non-essential stores MAY reopen mid-June at 15% capacity and outdoor activities in small groups MAY resume IF we have 60% of population vaccinated with their first dose. We’re about 58% now according to Health Minister but they stopped giving Aztra as first dose, so all the pharmacies that could give it now can’t. There’s a lot less Pfizer and Moderna doses available so I don’t know how fast it will happen. But it means I will most likely get my second dose quicker than August. Yay me! Second phase won’t happen until we get 70% 1st dose vaccination. So we’re stuck for a while. We’re going out in the woods for walks once in a while so we don’t get too close to people but I want to go to a fabric store sooooo bad!! I’m done picking ticks off hubby everytime we get out. And I’m running out of crafts to learn on youtube.

Ok, enough ranting… gotta go finish knitting Baby girl’s bday gift. A 6" turtle. With clothes. And a shawl. And boots. Yeah… Love ya!

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Fudgey!!

Yup. All four of us had covid back in November of 2019, before it broke wide and before anyone really knew it was in the US. Husband was able to track it back to a coworker who’d returned from a family visit to China (he works with a large community of Asian Americans who travel back and forth a lot). The coworker came home sick, and shortly after that our household got the worst “flu” any of us have ever had (that was what we thought it was, a weirdly violent flu that hit each of us differently). I’ve never been sicker in my life, my husband thought I was going to die and he claims I told him to just let me go if it looked like I wasn’t going to make it. I’m pretty sure I meant it…it was that bad. I may have actually requested an assist to the other side at one point.

So anyway, a little while later it broke wide and when the symptom lists started coming out we started wondering if that wasn’t what we’d had. Husband finally a few weeks ago went and talked to the guy that had come back sick from overseas and the guy said “Oh yeah, I had the covid, did you get it too?”

By that time there had been approximately 150 known cases at husband’s workplace and six confirmed deaths from it. Grrrr.

At this point it was too late for us to get confirmed, but husband contacted a friend in Colorado who is a covid specialty ER nurse and described our symptoms and the timeframe of our illness to her. She said we absolutely had it - she’d had it too during that same timeframe, before it broke wide and before anyone knew what it was.

So now all my lingering weird-ass symptoms make sense. Big and Little are fine, they don’t seem to have any long-term problems, though I’m keeping an eye on them (especially Big). Husband is fine as well. Me? I took it in the seat of the pants, but like I was telling someone the other day, as soon as one of the longhaul clinics sets up here I’m gonna be there.

The putz in the grocery store was nothing unusual for here. What really gets me is the way people glare at us for continuing to wear masks - it’s almost scary. WTF is wrong with people.

Glad you liked my grandma’s story. Honestly I don’t know enough to write a book about her without having to speculate on a lot of in-between stuff because she was a very secretive person (probably for a good reason tbh) but what a tale it would be. She was a mess :D My mother has always been mad at me for taking after her - she never liked my grandmother much, there was some bad blood between them from decades back, and yeah that’s kind of a good story too lol

Ah, speaking of writing, I’m going to toss out a short chap of that silly self indulgent side-thing for The Department tonight (probably as soon as I send this reply off) and then I’m shooting for a chapter of the actual fic tomorrow at some point. Taking advantage of the husbandary absence (yes I know that’s not a word but it works)

I feel ya on the homeschooling - the boys finished their semester two weeks ago and the stress of that final week for Big (9th grade) was insane.

I wish we were under a stay-at-home order, but where I live hardly anyone obeyed it when we WERE. I love living here but I swear sometimes the people make me want to move off-planet just to find a higher intelligence demographic.

Anyway, I gotta see this turtle when you’re finished with it. You mentioned it so now you gotta show it. I’m going to bug you every day until you provide pictures because even though I can crochet a blanket like nobody’s business I cannot crochet a doll to save my own ass. Gonna have to rely on you for that ;P

@fudgemuffinanon

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animemeg27 · 3 years

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I feel like I complain a lot about work on twitter so I’ma rant here for a change so I’m not so negative in one space, but honestly depending on how my work’s new owners deal with this situation, I’m genuinely considering looking for a new job next month..

I was just on the phone with one of the new owners and I actually broke down crying a bit...

lemme explain the situation

It’s a friday, it’s lunch time, it’s hot out, that morning a fight broke out between dogs because dog A wants to fence fight with dog B whenever he walks by, dog B is chill but will defend himself so he fence fights back. Dog C is in the same yard as Dog A and because dog A is reacting aggressively, dog C wants to join in and the only dog he can get to is dog A. All 3 dogs are of large strong breeds so obviously sometimes they can be a handful if they get out of control. Asshole coworker is in the yard with the fighting dogs and luckily had them on leash so he had them both at arms length and dragged them away from the fence. Doggy Day Kamp manager in my yard with dog B goes over to Asshole’s yard to help keep them two apart as the Asshole’s hand got bit and is bleeding. The dogs are never put away, but are kept on leash until they’re calm enough the Asshole finally goes to wash his hand. The Manager keeps the leash on the instigator, dog A, and soon the dogs in that yard are moved away into the backyard so they don’t see dog B and start another fight.

I personally don’t know why the hell dogs A and B were in yards next to each other when I’m pretty sure it was established awhile ago that dog A hates dog B. But the Asshole has a superiority/dog trainer complex when he is neither of those things so I wouldn’t put it past him if it was his idea.

Couple hours later Assistant manager comes in for her shift and hears about the fight. She tells the Asshole “hey next time put the dogs away when they fight so they can calm down” cuz ya know, that’s standard protocol. It’s dangerous to have em still out because the aggressive energy can build up again with other reactive dogs still in the yard that could still be anxious from the fight that just happened. A fight broke out literally a week prior and SHE had her hand bitten and that same dog C was involved and he was put away. That time all dogs were going after one in the yard and many of the dogs were ok in doing so because dog C was in on it and riling everyone up. Ya know what the asshole says? “that’s not gonna do anything they’re not children putting them in time out won’t teach them anything” completely ignoring her who’s been here at least as long as I have aka 7 years while he’s hardly been here more than half a year. Like um they ain’t human either they’re dogs aka animals so they can be kind of unpredictable when they are in such a reactive state. The assistant manager is just as sick of him as I am and scoffs but doesn’t have the energy to argue. The asshole had really been pissing her off lately by kind of bossing her around out of nowhere when the manager had been on vacation earlier in the month.

few hours later it’s lunch time, and this is where shit goes down... kinda literally. Asshole leaves for lunch. Or so I thought. We were in the same yard and he left through one of the side pens, but he found a missed pile of dog poop in there so he decides to pick it up himself. Ok whatever. He leaves the gate open a bit and a little dog slips through. he picks him up and puts him back in the main yard, I come over and close the gate over so he can hurry and pick up the poop and head to lunch. He tells me to leave it open because the dogs won’t learn anything if I close it. like dude it’s just poop, so I kept the gate shut. granted I didn’t say anything, but my logic was who the hell wants to spend and extra 5-10 minutes dealing with dogs trying to slip through a gate depending on which dogs come over just to pick up poop instead of wanting to head to lunch as soon as possible. So he says something along the lines of “what is wrong with you” or “what is your problem” to which I simply responded with “Just go to lunch, I’ll take care of it.” My patience with him was thin already but at this point it was just gone. This asshole is so obsessed with teaching dogs in general but also not to slip through gates that he always get so angry, or at least really annoyed and pissed off at me whenever I try to help holding dogs back, like I was taught to do, especially ones that are more difficult - ones that are strong or speedy and don’t sit still and take every opportunity to slip through the gate. like it’s understandable to try and teach them, but it can be a long process, especially with the more difficult ones. No one really has time for that when we’re busy or need to be someplace. In the end he just picked up the poop while I had the gate shut. When he left for lunch for real he said “I’d suggest you don’t get on my bad side” to which all I had to say to him was “really?????” like he hadn’t been on my bad side for at least the past 6 months. I can’t remember if he mumbled something under his breath but my last words to him as he left were “you’re not the manager”

now up until this point, I didn’t realize my heart was racing. like “I’d suggest you don’t get on my bad side” like what the fuck is that supposed to mean???? Honestly he’s got such a shit personality I wouldn’t put it past him to actually do something threatening. So I put in a request from July onward to never work with him ever again. I never mentioned anything that happened because I had actually grown nervous of having him confronted and I wanted to wait for things to theoretically cool down before I said anything. I wrote a solid list of 10 reasons why I can’t stand him anymore if I was ever asked about my request in preparation.

Unknown to me at the time, the Assistant manager who had been in the next yard over had heard the threat he said to me and confronted him with one of the new owners about it and he actually got a serious scolding. So a couple days later when my request was received and the Kennel manager wanted to talk to me, I was surprised to learn they already knew the story and wanted to confirm that that was why I had made such a request as the kennel manager knew I’d never do something like that unless it was serious. We talked a bit and the owner that had scolded the ass was there and was reassuring me that they were on my side and even THEY didn’t really like him and there was talk of potentially firing him and the owner asked if I wanted an apology and I said “sure” but I doubt it would ever be serious or genuine and it’s not like I’d forgive him or be ok working with him again.

I was hoping he’d be fired, but unfortunately we’re only hiring teenagers with no work experience atm instead of people who know what they’re doing in the kennels or around dogs so if he were to be let go it’d be a while before he can be officially replaced. And the owners have made it clear as much as they don’t like him or his methods, there is a sense of a little more control in the day kamp yards. Anyway, because people’s shifts are all over the place it’s difficult to properly set aside a time to really discuss things. They’re trying their best to “knock him down a peg or two” to get him to better respect his coworkers and what not. I dunno how that’s going cuz I do my best to not engage with him and be in a separate yard as much as possible.

Anyway, it’s been like a week, it’s the last week of the scheduled month, next months schedule will be coming out in a day or so, and the other new owner called me to talk about how we’re gonna deal with next month. On monday we briefly talked... while the asshole was still in the other yard?? about the situation and whether or not I was comfortable talking with him to work things out so there’s no miscommunication because the assistant manager and the ass were I guess able to work something out. Whether or not he actually listens to her from now on would be interesting to see, but I’m standing my ground on the fact that I’m putting up with him for the last assigned week of the month, then I want nothing to do with him ever again. I gave a quick “no” to talking with him. The new owner said we can continue the talk about the situation the next day. Yesterday rolls around and obviously we’re busy and there’s no time for that.

So today the new owner called. Reiterating how much of an asset I am up in day kamp, and how much they still need the asshole, and if there’s any chance I might still work up there and talk it out with him. This is were I start tearing up and choking up. I told her “it’s just been slowly building up over the past several months and that was the last straw” and “sorry, no”. She reassured me she didn’t want to make me uncomfortable or upset or force me to do something I didn’t feel comfortable doing, and understood the ass was, well, an ass to me and had no respect for me or my other coworkers. She revealed that apparently the ass interpreted me holding the gate closed was an “act of disrespect” towards him when she understood that was ridiculous as she knew closing a gate so dogs don’t escape is what you’re supposed to do. as if and “act of disrespect” gives him the right to casually threaten someone. Like I don’t even care if he was having a bad day getting his hand bitten, you’re bringing that bs on yourself. She said he wants to apologize and I dunno how true that actually is or if he’s just been guilted into it, but again I said an apology would be nice but it won’t change the way I feel about him. Anyway she said she’d like to talk to me again tomorrow when I’m in work cuz I forgot to mention I had off today and that’s why I received a call, cuz by that time I’ve got tears and snot running down my face like a fool lol I’m glad it wasn’t in person.

But also I never told my parents about this and my work doesn’t have my cell number only my home number so it was my dad who answered and handed me the phone and I talked to the owner in my room so no one would hear. But with my face as it was it was clear I’d been crying, but I hadn’t scrubbed my face or gotten dressed yet so I took that as the perfect excuse to hide my red eyes before returning the phone downstairs and taking my own dog for a walk.

But yeah they really want me in day kamp. And I really don’t wanna work with the ass. and the ass only works in day kamp. There was a time where I actually almost prefered day kamp to kennel work, but since the ass was hired that’s quickly reversed. I want to be in the kennel. I’ll do the annoying chores I don’t care. I cannot be anywhere near him. I refuse. The tension and awkwardness is too great, I’ll be too stressed out in day kamp. If they put me in day kamp most of the month, or more than twice a week which even that is a bit of a stretch, I need to look for another job because I cannot do that any more. I really don’t want to leave because I more or less have job security here, they need me, but I cannot come to work and deal with this shit anymore.

we’ll just have to see how next month’s schedule turns out.. :/

#um be prepared for an enormous rant if you actually bother to read #like a long post warning is probably an understatement lol #I basically just spilled the whole story instead of short vague bits and pieces #baby bat unmuted #I have nothing to destress......#i need somthing to watch.......

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searchforthescars · 5 years

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Saying Your Names

Emori walks into the bar Murphy manages. Romance ensues. Part of a universe I plan on expanding eventually. Inspired by true events.

Merry Christmas, my dear @maelidpoetree. I love you lots and lots and I’m so glad these crazy kids brought us together.

Title, excerpts from Richard Siken’s Saying Your Names. Also on Ao3.

Imagine a room, a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart, my throat, my wrist.

As Emori stands in the center of the room, holding a drink in one hand and a purse that isn’t hers in the other, she renews her commitment to never forgive Raven Reyes for dragging her out of the lab on a Friday night.

Thankfully, it’s only 8:30. The bar is nearly empty; most of its patrons are in the back room playing pool or outside on the patio. No one is drunk enough to be entertaining, and the music playing is a surprisingly eclectic mix of pop hits and soft rock. She hasn’t even seen a bartender, although she knows there must be one since Raven didn’t make her own drink.

Actually, maybe she did. Emori wouldn’t put it past her coworker to shove back behind the bar and do it herself.

“What, you’re not having anything?” the object of her ire asks, coming up behind her and taking both drink and purse in one fell swoop. “Emori, come on.”

“No.” Emori says, firmly. She hears footsteps behind her but doesn’t turn around. “I don’t drink.”

Raven snort, taking a sip of hers. “You do too. I saw you and Monty at Bellamy’s party.”

“That was beer.”

“So get beer. It’s all alcohol. It’ll all get you drunk.”

“Are you trying to get her wasted or get her laid, Reyes?”

Emori turns toward the sound of the voice. He’s standing behind the bar, bracing both hands against the worn wood counter. When his eyes meet hers, they rest there for a moment. Blue, like ice. They calculate something she can’t name. His face, lit up eerily by the neon signs behind him, shifts in recognition. She doesn’t know why. Isn’t sure she wants to

Raven lifts a triumphant middle finger. “She’s new in town, she never goes out and I’m bound by the contract of friendship to make sure she has a good time.”

“Friendship?” He raises an eyebrow at Emori before smirking at Raven. “I thought I was your only friend.”

Emori opens her mouth to answer but a snapCRASH from the back tears her concentration away.

“Excuse me,” the bartender says, half-jogging around the bar. “Reyes, sit down. I’ll be right back.”

He jogs toward the pool hall and Raven magnanimously takes a seat on one of the rickety silver bar stools. Emori reluctantly follows suit, clasping both her hands atop the counter and staring at the red wall ahead of her.

There’s a rather respectable assortment of alcohol displayed there, everything from Jack Daniels to blueberry vodka, which Otan told her is the worst-tasting alcohol out there. Above the tiered bottles are the standard licenses, all haphazardly framed and hung in crooked patterns.

“Cool, aren’t they?”

Emori knows Raven can’t be talking about the licenses. “What?”

“The drawings.” Raven gestures. Emori looks to the side, at the pieces of paper tacked into the flaking plaster, waving in the lazy breeze from the rotating fan.

“Are those bar napkins?”

Raven nods. “Yeah. Sometimes people draw on them. J pins up the good ones.”

“J?”

“John. Everyone calls him Murphy, though.”

“Hmm.” Emori squints at the drawings. Most of them are caricatures of who Emori guesses are bartenders, but there are some perspectives of the bar itself that surprise her. Whoever drew those wasn’t drunk. Either that, or they were too highly-trained for it to matter.

She watches as Raven’s friend – John – rounds the bar. His eyes immediately go to her and, despite her instincts, she stares straight back, gratified when he looks away, a red flush rising to his cheeks.

Without saying anything, he grabs a glass and fills it with ice, then water. “Here,” he says, sliding it to Emori. “If you work with Raven, you probably never eat or drink anything that isn’t absurdly unhealthy.”

He’s not wrong. “Thanks.”

He looks disarmed all of a sudden, as if unfamiliar with the concept of gratitude. “For what?”

“For the water.”

He blinks, slowly. “It- no problem.” A frown creases the skin between his brows, but he doesn’t say anything, just crosses to Raven’s other side and leans his forearms on the bar. “What’s up with you, Reyes?”

Raven launches into a rant about people and things Emori doesn’t know but John clearly does. In the absence of anything else with which to entertain herself, Emori does what she does best: waits and watches and studies.

John’s profile is sharp, all angles and corners, a defined jaw and delicate mouth, strong nose and long eyelashes. When he smiles, it’s sharp and sudden like a knife, slashing across his face for a moment and vanishing the next. He laughs, once, when Raven recounts something Bellamy did, and it sounds sarcastic and doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

She doesn’t know why, but she wants to touch some part of him under all that gruffness. He keeps cutting his eyes over to her and she keeps looking away. He keeps talking to Raven and she keeps listening to the room around her while staring straight at his face.

Emori’s water is half gone when the front door creaks open and Raven hops to her feet. “Is that Lexa?” she asks, half teasing. “At a bar? Who knew?”

“Fuck off,” Lexa grumbles, adjusting her blazer, her shoes tapping on the floor as she sidesteps Raven and heads straight for the pool hall. “I’m going to hit on the hottie playing pool back there.”

“That’s your wife!” Raven yells, at the same time another unfamiliar voice shouts, “Don’t objectify me, woman!”

Lexa vanishes and Raven follows, seemingly unaware that there are people in the back she might know. Emori can’t help but laugh as she goes. When she turns around, John is smiling.

“Something funny, John?”

He frowns again, that same soft crease in his brow. Emori frowns too, reflexively. “No,” he says, and she doesn’t believe him. “Raven’s just…. Raven. I’ve known her long enough to find it all funny.”

“How long have you known her?”

John sighs, thinking. “Since fourth grade, I think. We both had shit moms and no dads. I’d bring her food and she’d help me with my homework.”

Something in Emori’s chest shivers. “That’s... I’m sorry.”

He shrugs, lean shoulders working under his worn grey shirt. “I’m guessing you had the same time of it that I did.”

Emori frowns, tilting her head. “Why?”

He taps his cheekbone where the thick knife scar peeks through her makeup. Then he taps the spot where her tattoo arches above her eyebrow. “No one gets a tattoo like that for fun.”

She doesn’t want to fight with Raven’s friend, so she doesn’t get defensive, even though every fiber of her being begs her to. But she’s trying to be different. Not necessarily better. But different.

“No,” she agrees softly. “I didn’t.”

They regard each other for a quiet moment. His eyes go soft, then hard, then soft again. “Where did you come from?”

“Baltimore.”

His mouth twists with the hint of a smile. “How the hell’d you end up in Virginia?”

“I drove.”

He does smile at that. “I mean, why here?”

“There wasn’t anywhere else to go.”

She could’ve gone into detail. There’s a story there, one about her high-achieving roommate at MIT, every bit the scholarship kid Emori wished she was, and how said roommate inherited a mechanical engineering lab somehow and begged Emori to come work with her.

“You can get your masters online,” Raven had said, propping herself up on one elbow, resting her head on Emori’s shoulder. They were reclining on Emori’s narrow bed in her even narrower studio apartment that felt like a converted alleyway with how little space there was to move. But it was cheap. “You’re super qualified even now with all your experience-”

“Criminal acts-”

“Experience, and no one has to know about your-

“Criminal record-”

“Past indiscretions, so will you please shut up and take the job?”

Obviously, she did take it. A few years later, but she took it nonetheless. But that’s not a story she thinks John wants to hear.

John is watching her expression. He hikes himself up to sit atop the row of coolers behind him and braces his hands on his thighs. “Do you like it here?”

Emori looks around. Shrugs. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

“This town is boring as shit,” says the guy sitting down the bar from her. “You’re from a big city; you should know.”

“You’re welcome to fuck right back off to Richmond, Miller,” John says easily, rolling his eyes conspiratorially at Emori.

“Richmond isn’t even a big city,” Raven says, effortlessly reinserting herself into the conversation. Her long hair swings against Emori’s arm when she settles in. “Go to Philly. That’s a big city.”

Miller says something derisive into his beer. Raven cracks a smile and switches to Emori’s other side so she can rib him some more. Emori used to be good at that: talking to people, making them like her and trust her, only so she could use them later.

She doesn’t want to use people anymore, and she doesn’t trust that those old habits have died completely, so she stays in her seat and watches John move about the bar.

“Do you- sorry- do you have any more quarters?” a slim woman with wild dark hair and big brown eyes asks, sliding in next to Emori and leaning across the counter. “Lexa’s bill got stuck in the change machine again.”

John nods, popping over the cash register. “I keep trying to get that thing serviced, but…”

“That’s what he said!” Raven calls, making Miller cackle. The woman beside Emori rolls her eyes. John hands her the quarters with a flourish. Their skin - his light, hers dark and smooth - contrast beautifully.

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he says cheekily. The woman makes a motion with her hand and fingers, elegant and fast. “Hey!” he squawks. “Did she just tell me to fuck off?”

“I think so,” Emori says, laughing a little. “My ASL is rusty but…”

John shakes his head ruefully. “The number of languages I’ve been cursed out in is growing.”

“Maybe don’t be such a caberon,” Raven says smoothly.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Yeah, this time.”

John turns his back on Raven, fixing those strange blue eyes on hers. “Will you come back here, do you think?” He sounds like a hopeful child, looks about the same, too.

Emori shrugs. “Maybe. Bars aren’t really my scene.”

John nods, slow. “Fair. But you’re nice to talk to. I could use the company.”

Raven reaches over to pluck John’s cell phone from his shirt pocket. “She’ll call you,” she tells John, typing in what Emori assumes is her number. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I will text him,” Emori gripes, slapping Raven’s arm, “and only if I feel like it.”

“Text, call, whatever,” John says. Raven replaces his phone. “I’d like that.”

The woman who asked John for quarters earlier comes back up, squeezing in beside Raven. Raven overbalances on her bad leg, trying to brace herself between the counter and the stool, and falls forward onto Emori, ripping the wrap from Emori’s left hand in the process.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Raven grabs the cloth from the floor and hands it to Emori. The woman behind Raven is also apologizing, but Raven waves her off. “You okay?”

Emori balls up the cloth in her hand. “Fine.” John is watching her. Great.

“Where’ve you been hiding that?” he asks, voice all boyish admiration and respect. “Damn, you could take out a guy with that. Might wanna make you a bouncer here.”

Emori smiles a little at that, at the impressed way he’s staring at her hand, so different from the awkward half-stares she usually gets. “I normally don’t cover it up anymore. But I didn’t want to embarrass Raven, so-”

“You don’t embarrass me,” Raven snaps, flicking Emori’s ear. Down the bar, someone signals. As soon as John turns his back, Raven leans forward. “Emori!”

“What?”

“You like him!”

“I don’t know him.”

Raven shrugs. “You still like him. There’s no harm in getting to know him.”

“Raven.”

Raven’s eyes go soft. They glitter in the faint neon lights. “Look. I know you’ve been hurt. I know you’re trying to put down roots. You deserve to love and be loved back. You deserve to give yourself a chance. So give yourself, and Murphy, a shot.”

“But-”

“I’M NOT ABOVE SHOUTING OVER YOU!”

Emori laughs. “Damn, okay!”

------

Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over the canned music and your feet won’t stumble, his face getting larger, the rest blurring on every side.

It’s not pretty when John bleeds.

Emori enters the bar to absolute chaos. In addition to the usual Friday night crowd, there also appears to be a fight going on between John and a patron, one the door guards are unsuccessfully trying to break up.

So Emori tries, with middling results. She takes the woman’s elbow to the cheek and someone’s shoulder to the jaw, but manages to haul John outside by his shirt and deposit him rather aggressively on the curb, where she stands over him and watches unapologetically while he spits out blood.

“What the fuck?” She still sounds breathless despite the minimal physical exertion on her part. “John, dammit, what were you thinking? Actually, no, don’t answer that.”

He blinks up at her, the blood on his pale face standing out like a scar. “I got carried away?” Emori snorts. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I just get...too angry sometimes.”

“Murphy!” Harper sticks her head out the door. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Don’t you have barbacking to do?” he snaps back, absent any real heat. Harper rolls her eyes in Emori’s direction and disappears. John heaves a sigh and hangs his head. “I fucked up.”

“At least you won’t get fired,” Emori says, dry. “Being the owner and all.”

“Small mercy.” He lifts his head again. “Don’t tell Raven.”

Not like it would do any good. “Okay. Sure. But if she asks, I’m not gonna lie.”

“Fair.” He hikes himself to his feet. “Sorry you had to see that. And jump in.”

Emori feels her cheek throb. “It’s okay. I’m good at breaking up fights. Better at being in them. I brawled in alleys a lot as a kid.”

“You- What?” There’s a laugh in his voice that catches. “I can’t picture that at all.”

Emori only realizes how close she is to him when the air of his words skates over her flushed cheeks. “Ask Raven. I’m a fighter.”

“I don’t doubt it.” It sounds like his mouth, as well as his tone, is dry. “It’s a little scary, come to think of it.”

“Guess you’re going to have to keep an eye on me then.”

His eyes drop to her mouth. She steps back. A cool wind blows, taking music from the outside patio with it. Emori hasn’t been drinking but her vision still swims.

“I should get the blood off my face,” he says softly, turning halfway towards the door. “Don’t want to scare the children.”

“If there are kids in the bar, you have a whole other set of problems.” John laughs. Emori follows him inside.

As soon as she enters the pool hall, she’s accosted by Lexa, collar askew and hair a mess. “What the fuck happened in there?”

Emori waves it off. “Nothing. John just lost his cool.”

“I’ll say. He’s lucky that bitch didn’t want to press charges.” Lexa adjusts her shirt cuffs. Her wife, Costia, appears behind her and fixes her collar. “I helped throw her out.”

“You seriously don’t know who that was?” asks a third woman, tall and imposing, lounging in a corner booth and nursing a Long Island iced tea. “That was Ontari.”

“Who?” Emori asks at the same time Costia winces and Lexa snarls, “the fuck is she doing here?”

“Lexa, shush. Ontari is Murphy’s ex.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Echo, you too. Hush.”

Echo takes a sip. “Sorry, Cos.”

“She was awful to Murphy and none of us have really forgiven her for it.”

Now Emori wishes she would’ve done some damage. “He didn’t say anything.”

Costia smiles. “He wouldn’t. I didn’t even hear the fight until it was over.”

Lexa passes her a pool cue. “That’s because you turn your hearing aid off when you shoot pool.”

“It helps me concentrate,” Costia snaps without any heat. She turns to the table and Emori turns to Echo.

“Why did she come here? Do you know?”

Echo stares at Emori for a long moment before she answers. “Ontari doesn’t do well with the word ‘no.’ Or with anything requiring consent or boundaries.”

Emori feels nauseous. “Oh.”

From the arch of Echo’s brow, Emori can tell she knows Emori understands. “He’ll tell you if it matters. But I wouldn’t ask.”

“I won’t.”

It’s a little awkward, standing there, cheeks still hot, Echo is sizing her up, face unreadable. “You’re Raven’s friend.”

“Yes.”

“She speaks highly of you.”

“I’m...glad.” It sounds like a question. The corner of Echo’s mouth twitches.

“Quit giving her a hard time,” Raven says, rounding the corner aggressively and plopping down near Echo. “Emori, J wants to see you up front.”

Grateful for the escape from Echo’s prying eyes, Emori weaves toward the bar. It’s calmed down notably since the fight; John has wiped the blood from his face and is jittering around near the end of the bar.

“Go out with me,” he says in a rush as soon as she gets close enough to hear him. “Please?”

She wants to pretend she couldn’t hear him over the loud music, but she did. She wants to pretend she has a reason to say no, but she wants to say yes.

She nods. “Okay.”

He smiles, sharp and quick, disbelieving. “Really?”

She nods again. “Yeah.”

His smile widens. Before she can think twice, she gets up on her toes to kiss his cheek. John groans when Raven starts cheering obnoxiously from the doorway to the pool hall. Emori hides a smile against his shoulder.

----

Here are the illuminated cities at the center of me, and here is the center of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.

He shows her the rooftop above the bar, a tiny balcony with a door that leads back to his apartment above the establishment. She figures it’s a special place to him, somehow; he talks about it quietly and tells her she’s one of three people who has seen it. But that’s all he says as they regard the expanse of homes, dark in the 3 a.m. quiet.

“It’s nice.” He hums. “Peaceful.”

“I didn’t know you were a criminal,” John says suddenly.

“What?”

“Someone was talking shit at the bar.” He’s not looking at her. “But I looked it up and it’s true.”

Emori’s heart sinks to her feet. “John, I-”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts. “But why wouldn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t realize you were entitled to my past.”

“Isn’t that something you tell the person you’re dating?”

Emori laughs. “That’s rich coming from the guy who won’t call me his girlfriend.”

“You know-”

“I know you’re good at loving me when we’re alone, but not when anyone else could see us, let alone call you on it.”

Her bitter words just hang there. They stare at each other, chests heaving, the humid air heavy in their lungs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, soft. “I had no right to-”

“It’s okay.” Emori’s never been good with apologies. “I’m sorry too.”

He shakes his head. “You’re right. I’m just scared.”

“Of me?”

“No. Of- People look out for me here. It’s weird, but they do. And I don’t want them to come after you if this doesn’t work.”

“Do you think it won’t?”

She tries to convince herself his answer doesn’t matter. But when he shakes his head, relief floods into her bones. “I really like you, Emori.”

She smiles. “Me too.”

He takes her hand, the big one. “Would you let me kiss you someday?”

Emori laughs a little, low in her throat. “Let you?”

“Hey, I’m a classy guy. I always get permission.” He says it with that boyish smile Emori adores, and it’s enough to prompt her rising up and pressing her lips to his.

“Oh,” he breathes when they break apart. “Okay.”

Emori laughs out loud, the light and joyous sound ringing over the streets below. “That bad, huh?”

He catches at her waist to pull her closer. “The opposite,” he murmurs, mouth brushing hers. She closes the gap, pressing her tongue to his lower lip, hand tightening on his shoulder when he lets out a soft sound.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she breathes when they break apart, resting her forehead against his. “I wasn’t supposed to get attached.”

He kisses her nose. “Is it so bad?”

A humid wind whips her hair. “I guess not.”

John kisses her again. “Good.” Another kiss. “Be a shame if you regretted-” Another kiss- “All this.”

Emori leans into him, pinning him to the wall near the door. “Nope,” she breathes. “No regrets. Not even one.”

#saying your names #memori fanfiction #memori fanfic #maelidpoetree #merry heckin christmas Liz I kept the angst to a minimum for you <3333

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cakeandcrows · 5 years

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I remember this one time I was watching some documentary about a white actress, I can’t recall who. One of her first roles was something like... a German lesbian with some kind of drug addiction (I think cocaine?). Point is, in her interview segment about it, she said something like, “When my mother heard about the role, she said, ‘if I were you, I would have told the director to pick just one of those things, not all of them at once.’” And all I can think about is how like... so many of us on here are more than one kind of minority or ‘invisible’ identity, or neurodivergent, or in some level of recovery from one thing or another.

Like, this isn’t huge news, y’know? Yeah, privilege is a thing. And people are so absolutely unaware of it when they have it that it makes me want to scream. I’m even unaware of my own privilege a lot of the time and I won’t go into a moment of how I feel when I realize I’ve forgotten, because my guilt on the matter is irrelevant. I just need to get better at keeping myself in check and that’s that.

Yeah I’d love to be cis some days because of how much easier it would make my life (and honestly for not many other reasons, I’m pretty happy being trans... if it just... y’know, weren’t for how people react to it). Sometimes I think, “Man, straight people are fucking insane; how on earth do they function,” while looking back on the days when I thought I was straight and realizing that even back then I was lost as hell, but some days I’m just like, “If I were straight, would life really be so much easier?” And it would. It really would. If I were also cis at the same time. Etc.

And I don’t want to make this into an us vs them sort of thing for even a minute, either, because everyone has common ground somewhere. Does that common ground always matter as much to one person as it does to another? Probably not. Jeff Be/os probably shares a home town with a fuck ton of people but I’ll bet he doesn’t give a shit about a single one of them, or that commonality, while you could see a popular rock band and never hear them shut up about how proud they are to be from the West Coast. Sometimes it just doesn’t fucking matter to other people what you have in common with them, because to them, what’s different is so much more volatile. And it goes both ways.

There’s people from my home town, my graduating class, and even old friend groups that I could never see myself talking to again because of how we’ve split paths in beliefs and lifestyles. Or, maybe they’ve stayed the same and I’ve changed, or the opposite... and I’ll bet they’d see how I’ve changed and think the same things of me. “Wow, I want nothing to do with that person.”

I’m just... constantly having little wake-up calls over and over again of how some people seriously think that I’d choose a harder life on purpose. And I’m not ashamed of living as I am; I’m very proud of who I am and what I’ve overcome to get here.

Customers at work, where I feel like I live 2/3rds of my life these days, are always just like... a window into the world for me sometimes. Most people don’t mention my pronoun button. Some people don’t notice it outright and misgender me because they’re looking at my face; entirely being polite and engaged, and not at all aware of how they’re upsetting me. I let it go a lot of the time. It’s not worth it.

There’s the few good folks who listen carefully and patiently and are seemingly brought to a new awareness by my gentle explanations. They’re polite and they honestly revive part of my faith. Like the guy who opened his coffee order saying, “yes, miss,” and left the store tipping his hat to me saying, “thank you very much, sir.” God or whoever does things fucking bless that guy.

Then there’s the people who decide to look at my pin, and ask about it. So far, it’s either people who are just reading it aloud for the sake of it, and then becoming confused but not actually wanting to understand so much as they’re just desperate to make some kind of conversation with a Youth (which is wild because I’m 25??). They don’t actually care, so I don’t really put effort into explaining. They either cut me off mid-explanation, or listen and don’t say anything further.

Then there’s the people who look at it and laugh at me. Or the woman who decided it was a good idea to read it, listen to my explanation, and say, “You know, my daughter tried to explain that to me. I just don’t get it. I think it’s silly and too complicated. People should just stick to the old ways.” Like... lady. What the fuck do you want me to do about it. Why the fuck do you think telling me this will make me happy or even... want to engage further. I straight up just don’t understand where these people get off. They’re just as rude and uninterested in me as a human being as the people who start rattling off their order and refuse to wait for me to get it all down before shoving their credit card at my face. They do not care. They do. Not. Care. And my patience is starting to wear extremely thin.

I had a new coworker, who knows I’m trans, the other day stop mid-sentence to say, “Oh, you know, sister? Oh! Also, I call everyone ‘sis’, boys or girls.” “Not me, you don’t.” “...oh?” “You don’t call me that. Ever.”

“ >:/ tch. Glad we got that out of the way.”

It’s not cute. I don’t think it’s endearing. I don’t think it’s funny. And I don’t give a shit if you call other people that. If you thought about it for five seconds you’d realize how insensitive and fucked up it is. If anyone, anywhere, I swear to god, just thought about ANYTHING for five fucking seconds... I wish... I hope, that they’d be better human beings than they are.

Like, god, what a horrible inconvenience it is for you to have to stop and think about what to call another human being. To use their name. To use the right pronouns. To avoid nicknames or pet names that would be inappropriate for such a person. Heaven forbid you have to do that for anyone, right? Why am I different? Why are you trying to step on my toes and see if I’ll just sit here and take it? I know why. Everyone knows why. And I’m so sick of being the dog under the table who gets kicked every time it whines about having no escape or being surrounded by the feet of people sitting around the table.

I don’t hate being trans. I don’t hate being pansexual. I don’t hate being poly. I don’t hate myself. I hate the people who hate me for being myself and intentionally or ignorantly go out of their way to make my life an extra level of hell Just Because They Can. ,

I have been bullied and abused all my fucking life by one kind of person or another and not a single excuse I’ve been given justifies it. Humans are better than this. I want to have faith in humans. And there are good humans; I surround myself with them. But if I have to pry yet another motherfucker’s eyes open to yet another goddamn social issue they were too thick-minded to notice, and then have them turn around and bless me and hail me for some kind of... Joan of Arc bullshit, calling my suffering and my existence some kind of blessing, like my life had to be this hard to spread words and messages across time and space to reach their Oh So Important Ears, I’m gonna choke. Or... even the people who mean well that just straight up make me think that they actually believe that the queer people in their lives are some sort of Manic Pixie Dream (gender) who’s come into their lives to teach them something new and advance their own character development. That’s what it fucking feels like! Being reduced to someone else’s educator and being placed as a Background Character in their own fucking Growth Arc.

If there’s some sick destiny where I’m lined up to be some kind of flogged messenger to idiots for the rest of my life I want a motherfucking refund. Ship me off to the next incarnation. I don’t care if I come back as a ladybug for two days and die under somebody’s shoe.

And I’m not somebody’s teacher. I’m not somebody’s martyr or savior. I’m not somebody’s free fucking Queer Almanac and Seasonal Guide to the Experiences of Not Their Own. I’m so fucking tired of explaining myself.

I’m so fucking tired of People ™ But I also want to have so much faith in People ™ that I think I’m just setting myself up for disappointment.

Sometimes people prove me wrong and it’s okay. Other times I write a several paragraph long rant at one in the morning. Fuck me honestly, just, fuck me and boy howdy do I wish I could pluck one or two things off my list of identities if only for the sake of not having to Explain Shit To People ™

And at the same time, I very clearly care about people. I want people to understand because fuck, I was there! I used to be some Jacked Levels of Crazy and I was hugely homophobic when i was a teenager. I look back on the way I used to be and I can’t feel proud of who I was and what I believed. I know a lot of it was internalized hatred and disgust. I know all of that shit now. But I see myself in some people and that’s the mistake I make sometimes. Most of the time, I’m fine; I help other folks learn something new and it’s good and I feel fine about it. I just hate feeling like other people assume it’s my motherfucking duty to tell them and speak on behalf of all non-cis, non-straight people everywhere. I sound like a goddamn Gender and Women’s Studies textbook.

Fuck, I’m going to bed...

#rant #long post #2/14/2020 #transphobia tw

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shimshenanigans · 7 years

Text

Alright, rant ahead. I’ve been trying to forget it all day, but it’s still bugging me. Maybe venting will get rid of this nasty feeling.

For the past couple of nights, I’ve been getting shit sleep for various reasons, and last night was the worst one yet because I woke up several times. Today was super busy, but as always I was trying to do my best to stay cheerful and polite, because that’s what you do when you make coffee.

We have some customers who use food stamps for their drinks and snacks. Due to regulations surrounding the SNAP program, only cold drinks and unheated items qualify. (I’m not going to go on about whether or not it’s right to use food assistance for frappuccinos, but long story short I’d rather have 20 customers like that than have one kid go to bed hungry).

Today I had a new customer who just ordered a snack and two salted caramel mochas. I assumed she meant the hot drinks, because that’s the default. Also, she didn’t correct me when I was writing the drinks on hot cups. I had no idea she was going to try to pay with her food stamps. I couldn’t even see her card because our register is dumb and the card reader is on the opposite side from the open space on counter. I can’t see it at all without leaning over a lot, which I wasn’t.

So the payment is only approved for the brownies, not the drinks. I ask her if she wanted to switch her drinks to cold drinks instead so her food stamps could cover it. She goes off on how she had never been here before, so she didn’t know. So I try to be helpful and explain what is and isn’t accepted to be used for food stamps.

She tells me that I’m being fucking rude and that I shouldn’t look down on her for using foodstamps. I wasn’t, I was just trying to help, PLUS I’m REQUIRED to explain why we can’t do something if there’s a problem. She tries to interrupt me and keeps dropping f-bombs at me. Mind you, this is a kiosk in a grocery store, so it’s very public and sometimes there are kids. Even if I get a slightly rude customer, it’s very rare for someone to cuss at me for precisely this reason. All I wanted to do was give her the info she needed to properly use her food stamps and make sure I made her order accurately, come on.

I switch her over to ice drinks so she can use her damn stamps, and the whole time I’m making them she keeps going on at me about how I was being ‘fucking rude’. This little skinny white bitch with shit eyeliner could’ve just noticed with a single damn glace that I had bags under my eyes and that I was super tired but still trying my hardest to be nice. I COULD have make her drinks half-assed, but I didn’t. I COULD have made them decaf, but I didn’t. She and her friend trash talk me the entire time and give me dirty looks through the glass. I finish and hand off her drinks with a smile and tell her to have a good day, and she throws one last snide remark at me before walking away.

ANYWAYS my coworker gets back from lunch a little afterwards, and our closer comes in about the same time. I tell them what happened, and they both go off about how they wish they had been there and would have told her off. I’m kinda glad they weren’t because I didn’t want either of them getting in trouble, but it felt nice. Because of what happened, they let me take a longer final break and go home a little early.

AND I GET TO SLEEP TONIGHT NO ONE IS COOKING WHICH MEANS NO SMOKE DETECTORS, PLUS I DON’T WORK UNTIL MY SHORT SHIFT IN THE AFTERNOON HUZZAH

#long post #I actually do feel better now that I got that off my chest #Life of Shimmy

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thegothicalice · 7 years

Text

A rant

So this is a somewhat overdue rant about tattooing I’ve had in my head awhile and is a tad lengthy.

A disclaimer to start: I really do love tattooing. Overall, long haul, most of the time, whatever, it’s an awesome career and I’m super glad to be in it. However there are so many things that just, drive me up a fucking wall.

Reoccurring stupid shit that customers do does suck though. Such things include:

-Taking children to tattoo appointments (toddlers are the WORST because they absolutely cannot sit still and have to touch every fucking thing, plus it’s a fucking health code violation) when we have FOUR signs, two on the door and two in the lobby that say no kids, because of course their little pains-in-my-arse are the exception to the rule

-Complaining about price, which hey, like many things, tattoos are a “get what you pay for” kind of deal. Sure, your buddy can do it for $20 in his kitchen, and we’ll see you in a few months to get a coverup that was twice the price we quoted. Asking for discounts is also incredibly rude and seriously, you’d be pissed if someone asked the same of you (someone came in a few days ago and balked at my coworker’s decent price for a session, replying with a “is that the best you can do” without even seeing her work, and she’s more than worth every penny). You’re hiring an artist (or any other tradesperson, not just artists) for their expertise, aka allllll that training and knowledge behind them, as well as the time it takes to do the job.

-No call no shows to appointments. People often flake out on tattoos because to them, hey, it’s a luxury item and something more important came up and they forget artists are people too so they chose to not show up, neglecting to understand or care that tattoo artists are 100% commission (no tattoo, no paycheck, it’s not a clock in clock out deal); so by leaving an artist hanging they’re out money, and often unable to fill that time so last minute. (people that demand deposits back are a different story and infuriating in a different way)

- Customers “talking shop” in a trying too hard, bullshit kind of way. Which is frequent, usually not a big deal, and means to impress. But calling machines “guns” sounds like scratcher talk, calling them “tats” is tacky and outdated, and trying too much to sound like they known everything is just kind of exhausting. Worse offenses include saying “it shouldn’t take you that long” because that’s just dicky (because oh yeah, you know how long it’ll take me to accomplish that? I’m not a human printer, you don’t pay me and art just instantly appears because art is work).

-Sometimes people just have a need for a “kitchen sink” tattoo; they only want the one, but they want everything in it including many elements that don’t work together (flowers and tribal and six names and a ledger’s full of dates and an anchor and a semi color and an infinity sign with birds...) and then want the whole thing to fit in a baseball-sized area. Which means a shitty tattoo that’s overdone anyway will be a shitty blob of a tattoo in a few years because skin moves over time and it all blurs together into a big mess. Trust the artist when they tell you no because 99% of the time we’re not being assholes, we’re trying to save you long term misery.

So that’s the “pet peeve” part of the industry, in general, which could run much longer than just what’s listed. But onto other bits of why the timing on this particular rant: I’ve had a few too many rough customers the last few weeks. On the one hand, I’ll gladly do silly trinket tattoos they found off Pintrest and deal with people in the same phony personable way that I did working retail, it really isn’t bad. But sometimes it’s just, well, worse than retail.

For example, back-to-back tattoos from a couple weeks back, two girls. One getting her second tattoo, the other getting her first, the designs are about the size of my hand on their calves which I personally find to be a “whatever” kind of spot to get tattooed on (I’ve tattooed my own calf a couple times, like seriously it’s one of the less painful spots). The first girl had been tattooed at my shop before, and had admittedly been talked about because of the fact that she cried, full blubbering, at a shoulder tattoo. She did better on the one I did but twitched like crazy, subtly trying to get me to hurry so she wouldn’t be late for work, which makes clean lines really not so easy. Her (I believe) stepsister was next, and nervous, and wanted the back of the calf. I told her it was more painful there and if she had pain tolerance issues maybe she should try the side? Nope. I barely started and she starts sobbing. For the first half of the tattoo. Now, the real trouble is less her crying; I think it’s kind of excessive to cry from physical pain past childhood, but her mother was the real trouble. Hand holders are often more of an issue than criers/twitchers/whiners, whatever, because they encourage bad behavior and make whatever is not good, worse. Her mother telling me how to do my job (she seriously said “you missed a spot” which was not something I have patience for when I know I’m not getting anything resembling a proper tip), doing a weird running narration to her 18-year-old like she’s a tattoo expert, and babying the whole crying thing is just, not what that messy day needed. Everyone in my shop breathed a sigh of relief when they left; people were lapsing in conversation to eavesdrop on the shit this lady was saying to me and the girl in my chair like it was a soap opera or something.

The other example was a week later. Saturdays are typically the busiest day of the week, but the day had been weirdly slow and most of my coworkers had left/were leaving by 5 pm (we have six artists including me, and we’re open til 8). Just before the shop owners leave, a guy comes swinging in, talking a mile a minute about tattoos he wants, ones he wants fixed, and covered up, and chatting like he knows us and being kind of a bossy prick. His eyes light on me and he nearly demands that I do the tattoos he wants, then and there, his son and daughter’s names in a “tribal” font with “your own twist on it” to put on either side of his ribs. I’ve hit the fuck it it’s money mentality and draw something up based on a font he chose, he pays a “down payment” (seriously dude?) and goes to get some food, be back soon. The whole time he’s waving his right arm around, or, the half that is left, since it’s amputated above the elbow area. He comes back about 45 minutes later, with some friends. By that point, only one of my coworkers stayed because he didn’t want to leave me in the shop by myself, especially not with this guy and with almost two hours til close. This guy is cracking jokes and being a general fucking pest, such as “do I look like I drove here? I don’t have a license, I brought my friends to vouch for me, you understand” and not doing paperwork before coughing up an ID because gee, it’s like professionalism matters. By that point, I’m definitely aware that he’s hitting on me. Bad. To the point that even I, thick as I am when it comes to the whole flirtation thing, am nearly struck dumb by the nerve of someone twice my age, redneck as hell and more annoying than a lapdog going full tilt hitting on me. My prerogative is to get him in and out of my chair quick as I can. The left side tattoo went ok (though I think tribal lettering just looks like shit because hey, it’s not 1995) and he just kept talking straight on through with my “mhms” interjected and bland comments occasionally offered. He went out for a smoke before the other side was going to be done, and my coworker was grimacing for me. Inappropriate comments were made by him though he was somewhat quieter when he asked that I wouldn’t accept anything from anybody and a cold “nope” was the reply. The other tattoo went worse, because he decided to make a phone call to his son, insisting on holding the phone up to my machine (dude, it’s not a fucking coil machine, it’s a rotary so it’s really quiet, you’re not going to hear shit on the phone) with his one hand and trying to maneuver the phone better with his hand and his other arm. So his half arm is swinging all over the place dicking around with his phone, when I’m tattooing his ribs like three inches below the arm pit. The image of one of the Jackass bits of the smily face tattoo on an ATV came to mind as my coworker watched the whole thing from the lobby with bewilderment. Both of us were beyond grateful when he left.

The whole incident was incredibly draining, because six years of previous customer service jobs drilled politeness into me and being polite is sometimes just so damn hard when people are jackasses. I don’t care that sometimes people are ignorant of some things in this industry, it’s mostly expected and not a big deal, but blatant stupidity and assholedom is just so exhausting. Artists are really people and our jobs are really hard and being rude just makes it harder.

End note- just please, be nice to tattoo artists (artists in general really). I love my job, wouldn’t trade it for the world, but sometimes shit just gets to me and needed a rant-out.

#personal #tattoo apprentice #tattoo artist #tattoo artist problems #thegothicalice #rant #this is kind of a mess sorry

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inkuisitivskins · 7 years

Note

Top 5 Series that fundamentally shaped you as a person

Ask Me My Top Five Anything!

ohhhhhh yikes. Lemme think haha, there’s several that immediately come to mind but I really wanna put some thought into this uwu I’ll try to put them in some semblance of a rational order heh

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (and slightly 2003)

I had always been into “anime” like Pokemon and Hamtaro when I was a kid, but it was about seven years ago when I started watching actual anime. My first was Kekkaishi on Adult Swim, and I liked it enough, but that was also during the first English dub airing of Brotherhood, and it would come on right after Kekkaishi did, so I would watch it sometimes. I think the first episode I remember seeing was a flashback of Ishval, and one scene I prominently remember was Riza talking to Ed in her apartment (when she’s cleaning her pistol and she asks Ed if he loves Winry LMAO). I thought it looked cool and I realized that my mom’s friend’s (she lives with us) son had all but one dvd set of the original 2003 anime. I binge watched it (only missing the short dvd arc where Hughes was killed, which was later in 03 than in Brotherhood), and I fell in love. After that, I dove into Brotherhood and started buying the manga volumes (which were also being released as the anime aired). It remains my favorite franchise to this day, and I’m honestly glad that I saw 03 first because??? there’s certain things I still like about it, and even though Brotherhood is the superior and truest (to Arakawa’s actual vision of the story) version, I’m glad I was able to appreciate the original. I feel like I’d be turned off by it if I watched it after the fact, you know?

What I love about Fullmetal is just the thought that goes into the characters and the events that go on. In Brotherhood, every single character, including fuckin side characters like Yoki, have a specific purpose. The story and lore of the world is so immersive and well thought out and just so intelligent? I love all of the scientific and historical allusions Arakawa makes, and the character development is so beautiful and wonderful (namely in characters like Ed and Al, whose quest changes from something that only concerned themselves to something that concerns literally their whole country and eventually the entire world, if they hadn’t have stopped Father– and Scar, who only wanted revenge, but eventually saw past it and recognized the same greater good that Ed and Al did, even going as far to make the huge mindset change from REVENGE IS ONLY THE ANSWER AND I WILL DISOBEY MY GOD IN ORDER TO ULTIMATELY SERVE THEM to Miles’s mindset of I will use what has been given to me to change minds and make the world a better place for my people)

No joke I’m literally so tempted to apply for a panel at a convention that would just be a huge love letter to this series, where I discuss all of these things I feel in depth. I have 0 idea how to apply for a panel tho haha

2. Pokemon

When I was little, I would go to my mom’s work and just hang out after school. There was one coworker she had who was a young guy, like early twenties, and he really liked me. One day, he brought Pokemon LeafGreen for me to play, and I absolutely fell in love with it (literally my first playthrough, I got in one of the Ye Olde Metapod vs Metapod Fights hahaha). I think that was around first grade, soooo like 2004 ish? It just so happened that I had a friend who was getting a DS, so she gave me her gameboy advance SP and I bought LeafGreen uwu

After that, I’ve had at least one pokemon game from each gen and a few of the spinoffs since. I have FireRed and LeafGreen, Emerald, Blue on the virtual console, Gold, Crystal (that didn’t work), Pearl, Diamond, Platinum, Black, White 2, Y, Omega Ruby, Moon, soon Moon Ultra, Mystery Dungeron Red and Blue rescue teams, Mystery Dungeon Darkness/Time/Sky, Trozei, Rumble Blast, Battle Revolution, and the original Pokemon Ranger.

It really helped me when I was little because it exposed me to the world of creature design, which is like my ultimate career path (I would like to be a creature and character design artist for a game company, though for now I’ll settle on an art teacher haha). Some of my first shitty OCs were Pokemon ripoffs, heh. It’s just why it’s always been easier for me to draw animals and creatures; I’m only just now getting into humans tbh.

3. The Land Before Time

This is probably the most random series on this list lmao. I grew up with the original movies, like, big time. Ever since I was 5 until I was like 17, I had wanted to be a paleontologist because of these movies. I still absolutely love dinosaurs so much, and Imma rant for a second buttt

The main tattoo I want is of a Tylosaurus P. skeleton because??? i loved dinosaurs and I bought this wii game where you play as different prehistoric marine reptiles (since they’re not considered dinosaurs but still) ((and i recognize it now but that game was so bad but i loved it to death)) and one of them was a tylosaur, it was my favorite. Fast forward a few years, my aunt took me to go on a dig (which I hated bc it was out in the heat) but I met a woman there who worked at a museum and she??? invited me to come help excavate one in the lab???? and guess what the actual fuck it was

it was a tylosaurus p. skull. My exact favorite dinosaur, right down to the specific genus.

That was incredible because I was actually able to touch and help excavate the skull? which is a big deal bc the skeletons you see in museums usually aren’t the real thing, just plasters. So the fact that I was able to touch the real deal was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

So yeah I fucking love dinosaurs and if teaching doesn’t work out I’m gonna try and do paleontology stuff

4. Okami

This was one of the first wii games I ever got REALLY SUPER into. If you don’t know what this game is, it’s a literal work of art where you play as the reincarnated Japanese sun goddess who took on the form of a wolf, and her power is that the tip of her tail is like a brush and she can paint things into existence. This really got me to make my first ever “real” OCs, even though they were mainly fan characters. One I’ve abandoned, but two became like their own entities. One I still call a fan character because her entire story has to do with the game and I can’t really tailor her into her own thing, but for the other, I made her her own series. Little Baby Dylan wrote enough content for 4 whole manga series with this bitch, because even I had an “I want to be a mangaka” phase. Obviously looking back on it now, they were garbage, but I really want to redo her series because I miss and love her. Anyway, if Pokemon introduced me to character creation, Okami introduced me to worldbuilding and lore development.

I also kind of want to write fanfiction for the one fan character bc I feel her story is really good? I just don’t know if there’s a place for fan character-centric fics on Ao3, since she’s the main character and she only interacts with canon characters (especially since she’s kind of an OCxCanon thing and idk how well that’s accepted there;;;;; )

I doubt anyone would want to see them but I may draw them again sometime if anyone’s interested haha

5. Dark Souls

One of my first “more mature” gaming experiences along with Skyrim and Fallout 3, the Souls series exposed me to the wonders of Dark Storytelling and Dark Atmosphere and *gasp* Eldritch themes. The unforgiving and sinister nature of these games just fuckin drew me in, I was enraptured at the tone that this game was able to produce. When I branched off from the Okami verse and made the world for the fan-character-turned-original-character, I took a lot of inspiration from this game and the atmosphere it was able to create. The story was so dark and the characters were all very weird and even some could have been considered otherworldly. I still really love the feel of it all and, through it, I learned how to draw certain creepy things and evoke certain emotions from my art (see: that drawing I did of Envy’s true form haha)

Sorry this was so long Megan;;; Thank you very much for asking though!!

#askmeme #about me #princesstuttu

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monoton-e · 8 years

Text

Update: My Romantic Identity Discussed Below

The statement that started it all

I honestly feel like I’m slowly becoming repulsed at the idea of ever being in a romantic relationship again. The thought of being romantically intimate is honestly:

1. Gross b/c intimacy with another person is not my thing, first off (since I’m asexual af and, although not sex repulsed, I still am not totally with the whole having sex thing)

2. Pointless in every aspect b/c tbh platonic relationships are way better because those are relationships that may be long term or short but still bring me happiness like no other. (I COULD HONESTLY GO ON A RANT ABOUT MY PLATONIC LOVE FOR MY BEST FRIEND AND MY GROUP OF FRIENDS FROM HS THAT SOMEHOW STILL STAY STRONG TO THIS DAY BUT I SHAN’T SINCE THATLL BE LONG AF. I will mention my best friend throughout this post as my #1 example tho so we shall temp name her N)

My evaluation of self

After experiencing and assessing my past relationships, I noticed my actions were all exaggerations of what I had interpreted what a relationship was meant to be like.

I never noticed that I found it more to be this “job” or “activity” that was to be fufilled and that I could fufill the needs that were placed. I wanted to feel like I was really romantically interested and invested, that I really wanted something more intimate than my friendships. But instead, I would look for something that wasn’t there, that I had to force it out because I got myself stuck in it & because I had a long period of time where I felt like the only way I can keep a person in my life that I wanted to be friends with, especially guys, was to have some sort of romantic thing with them.

Example of my experience that first brought out the idea of being Aromantic to mind

Like, don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of loving someone in a way that you and the other person become close beyond the boundries of time and circumstance. I fully believe in that, for example myself and my first and genuine best friend N. I had known her since my sophomore year of HS and mAN DO I LOVE HER. Like, at first we were cool af and complimented eachother so nicely, and still do! Everything about her is beyond lovely and I want to spoil her in anyway I can. The thing is, in hs I told her I would date the shit out of her if she wasn’t strictly straight and she responded positively and kindly. I would bug her about it and constantly tell her but man, I’m so glad she didn’t take it seriously or on a whole other level. Instead we continued to get closer as friends and if anything that was our way of me solidifying that we’re going to still be cool as shit no matter what. Of course this is all how I felt during the first two years of us being friends and it also goes to show that I honestly felt like in order to keep her in my life I needed to be more intimate than friends with her to do so. But I didn’t need to. There’s a reason they’re called my friends and a name to why I feel the way I do: Platonicness.

Acceptance

My experience and time with N, and most certainly with the rest of my friends, have made it slowly easier for me to understand why I do certain behaviors and have certain mindsets about having the need to be in an strictly intimately romantic relationship. I need to feel loved and I get jealous b/c when I see couples that are so deeply invested and genuinely loving eachother, I get mad jealous. But I also noticed the last time that I hung out with my group of friends thAT I HAD FRIENDS WHO LOVE ME AND ARE THERE FOR ME AND GENUINELY LIKE MY COMPANY. IMMA SAY IT AGAIN IN CAPS. I HAVE FRIENDS WHO LOVE ME AND ARE THERE FOR ME AND GENUINELY LOVE ME FOR ME. And dude that blows my motherfucking mind. It took so long for it to settle in my heart and mind but since that day, since the last time we all hung out, it’s safe to say that I feel the fucking love and the feeling that it gives me is honestly better than any feeling I got while I was dating. And even now Im still recalling and evaluating my relationships and the best ones are those that are platonic as fuck and man, theyre the best.

I was going to take a small break from dating to see what the fuck is wrong with me and why I can’t seem to be doing the whole dating scene and feeling connected to it right, but I don’t think I need that small break. I feel bad for saying this, honestly. I feel ashamed, but I’ve been slowling connecting myself to it for the past few months/year. I know about it and explored it when I was exploring asexuality and solidified it to myself.

I believe that I’m aromantic.

So that makes me an aroace which is pretty darn cool and man makes me feel so much better about myself. Like, I’m also pan af but in a platonic sense. Like dude. I love to love and the best way to love is to love the people I hold dear to me. Like DUDE IT FEELS SO GREAT TO KNOW THAT I CAN PLATONICALLY LOVE MY FRIENDS AND THOSE DEAR TO ME, KISS THEIR CHEEKS, HOLD THEIR HANDS, HUG THEM, AND LOVE THEM AND THEIR EXISTENCE W/O FEELING FORCED OR PRESSURED INTO DATING THEM BECAUSE ew yucky and I personally can’t see myself doing that. However, the only downside is that I love to flirt around and compliment constanly and etc. with them and sometimes when I text people in general, that part slips out and gets misinterpreted so looks like I need to clarify these things with the people who don’t know this to avoid miscommunication ^^;;;;;

Like, I wouldn’t go out of my way to yell to my coworkers or family that Im aroace, but it is a little victory for me. And the thing is, if someone were to like me:

1. Impossible

2. I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of it but I wouldn’t say yes right away.

I would think “ok wait, if I were aromantic but still dating, isn’t that lying or being fake?” Well, I don’t think it would. I used to feel like that when I first identified myself as asexual. I don’t find sexually attracted to people but I’m not against having sex or masturbating. AND THATS OKAY. So I’m pretty sure it’s okay for me to be aromantic and date if I feel it genuinely appropriate and comfortable. I found this statement when I was exploring this idea and it almost instantly calmed my nevers b/c of relevancy:

“Think of it like Asexuals liking/ being ok with sex without sexual attraction/ getting moral satisfaction out of sexually satisfying their partner. Replace the sexual with its romantic counterpart. It is a real thing, just probably (not common).” - Starbit, AVEN member

TLDR:;

Not only am I asexual as heck, I’ve finally come to terms with my aromanticism. I may not know which kind of aromantic, the same goes for which kind of ace, but at least I’ve found terms that make me feel at ease. It took me a long time and a lot of reflecting but I’m glad I’ve come to terms with it. Looks like I gotta change my bio now, mates.

If you read all of this omfg I ♡ you for being a champ! I really needed to let this out, and without the whole “read more…” button b/c fuck that. This is important to me and I refuse for it to be unnoticed. I guess having a term for me is going to make things a lot easier for people to understand me now.

Anyway yeah, thanks for a lot of things. I’m still going to be here. I’m still going to be me.

♡

#that was a lot #but so is trying to figure out parts of ourselves #i'm genuinely excited and happy that it's okay to feel the way that i feel #yeah man #a lot of positivity this month #me #text #aromantic #aro #asexual #ace #aroace #lgbtq #lgbtq+#pride #my story #about me #thank you ♡

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