#to help me keep my money going until April when my seasonal job starts again

[tuliptiger]

Hehe. Sunday breakfast at a local hole in the wall cafe, a little treat for me.

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: March 30th, 2021- Part 1

We’ve been really focused on getting the Step 3 DLC done and keeping up with asks kind of got away from me, aha. Thank you for waiting for a reply! We’re still definitely behind, but here’s a good chunk of responses!

I love Our Life so much but if the release of the step 3 dlc is in April, please don't "release" it on April 1, my poor heart can't take that prank 😭

Don’t worry! I’m horrible at pranks, haha. When we do post something specifically for April Fool’s it’s always to pretend it’s a joke when in reality it’s something we’re actually planning to do. But we don’t have anything like that arranged for this year. Any posts on April 1st will just be like normal.

Omigod, can you end the game in love with Cove but not in a relationship? My character stayed calm at the restaurant and Cove slept over at her home and I think I may have missed it. I'm delirious if I did, may never stop laughing. The children are idiots 

Haha, yes, it is possible to be in love and still not get into an actual relationship. There’s no forced ending where the two are made to confess their feelings and accept, it’s all optional/avoidable.

How can you see the new main character cut-in images? I'm not trying to be rude, but, all of my playthroughs, but I haven't seen them yet. (I know you can go through an entire game without seeing them, but I have went through multiple games.) 

It’s a bit of a spoiler to say here, but you can check out the guide we posted on Steam HERE!

Is it possible to win first place in the library quiz with Lizzy (Step 1 DLC) 

Yep, it is! Someone made a guide for the answers HERE (it’s also on Steam). We probably shouldn’t have required a perfect score to win a children quiz, but oh well, haha.

Hello!

In the future (in step 4) can you marry Cove even if you are friends? I would love to have a platonic wedding with him!

I’m afraid not. As much as he cares for the MC when they’re besties, Cove would only really want an official marriage if it’s based on romance.

Hello! I bumped into Our Life randomly last month, and it is one of the best coincidences I have ever laid on. I love how the choices and little details in the story changes throughout the game, and I'm excited to keep supporting you! I'm absolutely in love with Cove and would like to ask what keeps him to be especially interested in the MC? Other than how you can choose what fondness level you have with him, what ultimately leads him to be in sync with us? Sorry if it's a little much & thank u! 

Cove likes the MC because, regardless of the different personality traits you can give the MC, they meet him on his level, listen to him, understand him (even if you’re indifferent and not really close the MC still gets where he’s coming from), and if you’re fond/crush/love than you’re there for him. He finds the MC someone he can respect, trust, and, if they’re close, feel safe with. I’m glad you enjoyed the game!

hi there! for xoxo droplets i see the that female pronouns are used in the description, in the actual game can you change the pronouns or are they stuck as female? i'm aware the game is free, but i have a bad habit of buying dlc's before playing the game so it would be helpful to know before i spend money on it. if anything i'll save that money for more our life dlcs when they come out :D

XOXO Droplets does have a set MC. It’s the story of a specific person rather than a game about making your own story. All of our games prior to Our Life were about exploring MCs that were fully fleshed out people in their own right, so you can’t get the OL experience from what we did before. But we do plan to do more custom-style MCs going forward from here!

For the our life nsfw dlc, will you have to be in the patron to have it or  will there be another way for people who really support the game but can't pay to get it? 

I’m afraid not. We might put it up for sale somewhere other than Patreon someday (though never on Steam or Itch) since we know not everyone can use that site, but it will still cost money on any other hosting page we use. It’s unfortunately not a piece of content we can give away for free.

Hello! I finally got to play Xoxo Blood Droplets and it mentioned about a DLC coming out soon. Is it already out or are you still planning it?

We are still planning to finish it when we can, we just had to put it on hold because 2020 was a tough year and we needed to put all our focus on Our Life. There’s some of the extra DLC stories available for beta testing on the Patreon.

Is there a link to the soundtrack for Xoxo Blood Droplets? I really like the music in this game! 

That’s not available yet, but we’ll probably put it up for sale once the rest of the stories are done.

Would there be any chance for XOXO Droplets OSTs to be released in the future? (Please take my money-) 

We might! There are some things we wanna do and fix before we really start advertising XOXO Droplets things again, but hopefully it all comes together.

Why does Cove dislike Shiloh so much despite all of Shiloh's efforts to get along? I can understand his dislike for Lizzie, but why Shiloh? 

They met under bad terms (with an arranged play date he had no choice in), Shiloh’s sort of pushy himself when it comes to trying to get along, and Cove thinks he’s just kind of unusual in how he interacts/reacts with people. They don’t click, basically.

Is there a way to have your character be a tsundere? And have Cove toughened up a bit due to that? Sorry if the is a stupid question! ^^;

Maybe? The options in the game aren’t based on those types of personality tropes and I don’t know them well enough to say if you can accurately find a way to make it work with the available options. But it’s not a stupid question, I’m sure plenty of other people have considered something similar c:

do voiced names work only with their exact spelling? cause my mc is called Sophia and one of the voiced names is Soffia so i was wondering but if only works like that it's fine (sorry if i made any mistakes, english isn't my first language) 

“Voice” and “text” are separate! You can pick the “voice” you want and then type in whatever “text” you prefer. And your English is really good.

Will OL:NF be based on a season/break like the first game? Or some other type of setting? 

Our Life: Now & Forever takes place over the full course of Autumn. So, the start of school and then into the fall holiday season type of time period.

Will we ever see a jealous cove😭😭 please im begging u- 

Only in small ways, really. Sadly, I’m just not someone who enjoys jealousy in stories and therefore I don’t know how to implement it in a way that feels enjoyable. Maybe I’ll figure out a angle I can work with in future projects.

Do you have any plans with Our Life once step 4 has been released along with step 3's DLCs? 

After the Step 3 DLCs and Step 4 we’ll be releasing the Cove wedding DLC, the Derek romance DLC, and then the Baxter romance DLC. The project will likely be considered fully complete at that point.

Hello, I just needed to first of all sat how amazed I was when I discovered this game. I thought I would be disappointed by the lack of love interests, but you worked so hard to make sure Cove is the Best Boy for so many different people!! It really has been my comfort game for a while now, and I think all the different choices you allow make it the best romance game I’ve played in my life. The only problem is now my expectations for love are Cove level, and no one can live up to that. You’ve put so much consideration to make this game super inclusive and I think it’s amazing. If I can ask, for the exclusive NSFW Patreon dlc, will it only be available for the month it comes out? Or could I become a patron months later and still be able to download it. I just don’t have a job right now otherwise I would LOVE to subscribe to your Patreon and definitely will once I have the money again!! Thank you so so much for making such a lovely game that’s brought me so much joy.

&

Hiya! I'm so sorry for sounding like a complete degenerate for asking, but will the nsfw moment on patreon still be available even if i'm not a patron of the month it comes out? (e.g. i didnt pay/join the necessary tier before the moment is released) Thank you for your hard work on OL, I really connected with Cove in a way I never anticipated.

Thank you very much for such kind words! The Patreon DLC will be up for download on the Patreon indefinitely once it’s done. Just like the normal DLCs, you can pay to get it whenever you like but it won’t be up for sale until it’s finished. So take all the time you need.

Sorry to bother you guys, but there was an earlier ask detailing the OL LI's love languages and I was just wondering- Would that be for them personally, as in what they do, or the love language they enjoy receiving the most? Because I know for some people it's different for both on giving and receiving and was a bit confused, haha. Sorry for the trouble, your games are really nice!

For Cove and Derek it’s what they like to receive and what they give. For Baxter, it’s what he likes to get. What he gives is tailored to his partner. He’s flexible that way~ And it’s no trouble.

asking (and also fanning... fanboying? fangirling? fanpersoning? screw it- from a distance) anonymously because my confidence is nonexistent.

will you be doing a kickstarter for our life: now and forever? i know it's probably been asked and mentioned before, but will you be doing a kickstarter akin to the one done for our life: beginnings and always? if so, will you be doing similar tier rewards? (if you guys do so, i will [politely] throw my money at you).

now, to the fan.. personing? FAN. uhm. to the part where this anonymous agender idiot will begin to act as the fan they are.

THE GAME IS SO. SO NICE. IT'S CUSTOMIZABLE. I'M REALLY HAPPY ABOUT THAT PART. AAAAA I ALSO ENJOY THAT YOU GAVE US THE OPTION TO JUST STAY BEST FRIENDS OR SOMETHING A8DBAIHEW- AND YOU INCLUDED AROS AND ACES IN THAT SEXUALITY CHOOSING PART- aaaAAA AND YOU MADE ELIZABETH FILIPINO- THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR CREATING SUCH AN INCLUSIVE GAME!!!

to summarize; will you be doing a kickstarter? and thank you for creating such a nice game. i, and likely the majority if not all of those who have played the game, am thankful.

Aw, thanks <3! I’m so happy it was such a nice experience for you. We are planning on having a Kickstarter for Our Life: Now & Forever. It’ll have similar rewards to the Our Life: O&A Kickstarter, but some changes will have to be made. Like, we’ll definitely need to increase the rate for getting a voiced name. Originally it was $3USD, which was super low for how much work it really took to add in a customized piece of voice acting, aha. Live and learn.

So sorry if you've already answered this, I looked but I couldn't find anything. Is the 18+ DLC coming out alongside the Step 3 DLC, or do they have different development timelines entirely? I'm so excited for all the DLC coming out in the future, and even though the release dates aren't out, I'm already counting down the days. :)

They have different development times and will come out separately. Despite taking place in the same Step period, they’re disconnected pieces of content and making progress on one doesn’t mean the other is closer to being finished. The normal Step 3 DLC is releasing first. It’s great to hear you’re looking forward to them!

Hey!! I'm absolutely LOVING Our Life! I have been pondering on one question though, what's Cove's ethnicity, if there is a set one? Or is it something we can Headcanon? 

&

hi hi! i wanted to say first of all that i absolutely adore our life. it's one of my favourite games of 2020, and i think it was just the perfect dose of positivity we all needed, even if you didn't intend to release it during such a hectic year lol! secondly, i wanted to say: if it's alright to ask, what ethnicity is cove? :-0 and what about his parents? i was just curious about it ^^)/ thank you!!

Cove’s mom, Kyra, is white. But his dad’s, Cliff’s, race doesn’t come up and players are able to headcanon it. So Cove is half white and half whatever you prefer Cliff to be! 

hello! there was a post on the patreon where you can run your fingers down cove's chest in errands - how do you get that scene? ♥ 

That was an old mistake on my part- you can only get that scene in the Ending rather Errands. You have to leave the big family dinner at the restaurant to go into the car, be dating Cove for a while, have Cove come see you there, and then mention using your hands when Cove makes a joke about hands.

in baxter’s dlc, is there any point where you can tell him about the previous renters of the condo? 

You can talk to him about that in the normal Step 3 DLC!

—– —– —– —–

Thank you for all the interest in our games everybody :D

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[heytherejulietx]

The Office - Bughead

Masterlists

Requests open (ONLY for Bughead)!

Read on AO3 here!

Notes - Ahh I’m so excited to post this one! This fic is for an April writing challenge by @writers-chateau using the prompt “office au”. This is based on an actual episode of the show “The Office” - season 6 episode 17 “The Delivery”. I’m so happy with how this turned out - this is fuelling my obsession with the show and bughead amazingly. Also thank you to @andmybelovedneitherdoyou for helping me out with some of the characters in this and beta reading it for me, I love you tons! Some characters and lines are taken from the show so not all of this fic is my original content!

Warnings - Pregnancy / labour, mentions of pain.

Word count - 5k.

Riverdale tag list - @bucky-j-barnes @adorably-sweet-hufflepuff @kpopgirlbtssvt @booksmusicteaandanimals @happy-puff @cheryllclayton @jesso80 @dietbreadloaf @thebluetint @hppygmc8 @lilireinhartsimp @camiczzzz @bitchy-broken @crazyninjalight @luella-cane @bc-jh22

To join my tag list fill out this form

“Good afternoon, I just wanted to check and see if there was anything you needed before I went on my maternity leave since I won’t be here for a while,” Betty leaned back in her seat as she spoke, her free hand resting over her eight months pregnant stomach. She should have been on maternity leave already for a few weeks now, especially considering how far along she was in her pregnancy, but Betty was stubborn and had refused to only until she really had to. Her and Jughead needed the money from two incomes, especially with a baby on the way, and although Jughead had tried to get her to take it sooner, there was no stopping Betty once she was determined to do something. So at almost eight and a half months pregnant she was still working her office job, selling printers, paper, and other stationery supplies. “Yeah, I’m having a baby. Thank you, you're so kind,” The blonde smiled at the nice comment that the customer had left, scribbling down a note on her pink post-its as they continued. “Great, I’ll type up your order for you now. Thank you, have a nice day.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t do that,” Betty sighed as she put the phone down and looked across her desk, where Bret was seated opposite her. “You cannot exploit your baby for sales.”

“Hey, did I tell you we’re having a baby?” Jughead’s voice cut in from where he was sat on Betty’s left in the middle of herself and Bret speaking with a customer, shooting a wink in the latter’s direction when he started glaring at him.

“Hey, stop that Jones.” He snapped.

“Bret, there is nothing bad about talking about your life. People like that kind of stuff-” Betty started, before she winced and squeezed her eyes shut as her right hand pressed into her side.

Jughead looked up over at his wife’s desk with a small concerned frown, a crease forming in between his eyebrows when seeing the pain she was in. Betty had been having contractions since the morning, though since they were irregular and far apart, they had agreed to wait until they were seven minutes apart before going to the hospital. Their insurance company only covered two nights there so they were trying to hold off until midnight, but seven minutes apart was when they were going if she got there before midnight.

“See? Even your baby hates it. They aren't even born yet and you’re using them for your own personal gain. How disgusting.” Bret scoffed, and Jughead just shook his head at him as he wheeled his chair closer to Betty around the corner of the desk.

“You try giving birth to a baby then, Bret.” Betty shot back towards him once the contraction had pretty much passed, gently squeezing her husband's hand when it had been offered to her.

“Fine, easy, my hips are big enough for an easy birth anyways. Maybe that’s why you’re already so bad, you’re too small.” Bret rolled his eyes.

“Why don’t you have a baby then if you’d be so great at it,” Jughead proposed, somehow managing to keep himself composed through the ridiculous proposal. “Then you could use your own baby for sales.” He shrugged before he leaned back closer to Betty to check that she was okay, leaving Bret staring into the distance as if he was actually considering the idea.

-

“So, what are you thinking about baby names? I’m dying to know.” Veronica enquired with a smile as she leaned against Betty’s desk, beside where the woman herself was seated in her chair.

As silly as it sounded she had been trying to avoid anything that was even rumoured to induce labour; so no spicy food, no sex (although that wasn’t really a problem in the office - at least not recently), and no walking around unless she really had to. Jughead had offered to wheel her around in her desk chair, but after a recent incident with a shopping cart and a cast on Archie’s arm she decided against it and declined his offer.

“Well, if it’s a boy then he’ll be taking up Jughead’s name as the fourth,” Betty smiled when she caught Jughead winking at her from across the desk, deciding to ignore the sarcastic fake yawn that Veronica let out. “And if it’s a girl then we’re thinking, oh-” She cut herself off with a quiet groan, her hands coming around her stomach as she stiffened in her seat. She felt Veronica’s hand on her arm soothingly, and just as she heard her husband start to speak beside her, his voice was soon drowned out by their excited boss making his way out of his office.

“Oh oh! Contraptions she’s contrapting!” Reggie’s voice rang through the office loudly, very clearly excited that Betty’s baby was slowly but surely on the way.

Reggie Mantle was a strange man. For such a well put together man; slicked back hair, expensive looking suits, and the smoothest talk when he needed to sort a business deal - he was honestly quite far from that. To everyone in the office who got to see Reggie outside of formal business and meetings; he was a loud, childish, obnoxious, idiot. To put it politely. He had a good heart, but he either didn’t use it enough or went too far. When it came to Betty and Jughead’s baby, he was definitely pushing it too far.

“Okay!” He clapped, standing in front of the entire office as he grinned. “Someone call an ambulance, grab the go bag. It’s hospital time let’s go!”

“Why do you have a go bag-” Betty started before she was cut off.

“Okay, calm down Reggie,” Jughead shook his head a little, lifting a hand. “We aren’t going to the hospital yet, we’re trying to wait until midnight because of our stupid HMO.”

“Right, of course, Betty cross your legs and keep ‘em in there.” Reggie pointed at her and earned an irritated look in return from Betty as her contraction started passing.

“Yeah sure, I’ll do just that.” Betty muttered sarcastically with a sigh as she managed to relax back in her seat.

Veronica usually had the best chair in the office - she had lied to corporate about some back issues just to get an expensive though very comfortable chair out of them, compared to the cheap and uncomfortable ones that everyone else in the office had - though through the last week of work she had been letting Betty use it to make sure she was comfortable. She could handle an uncomfortable chair for a week. Just about, anyways.

As Bret distracted Reggie with something that led the two to retreat into his office and Veronica left to go and find Archie, Jughead wheeled his chair around the desk again to be beside Betty and gently took her hand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just go in now?” He asked as he gently ran his thumb across her knuckles.

“No, no I’m fine,” Betty smiled and shook her head as she gently squeezed her husband’s hand. “When they’re seven minutes apart then we’ll go. I really wanna try and make it until twelve, Jug.”

“Okay, as soon as they’re seven minutes apart then we go.” Jughead gently squeezed her hand back and pressed a kiss to her lips for a moment, matching her smile with his own once he had pulled away before he wheeled back to his own seat. Of course he was worried about her, he hated how much pain she had to go through for their baby to come, but he was happy that they would be going to the hospital soon to have their baby - whether it was before midnight or not.

-

“Alright, seven minutes,” Jughead clapped his hands together as he walked over to Betty’s desk where she was sat with a grimace across her features as she gripped the arm rests of her chair, breathing out through her teeth. “Couldn’t quite make it to midnight but that’s okay, we’ll just get you settled at home after. Let me just grab the bag and then we’ll go.” He gently rested his hand on her arm before he turned to leave, though stopped when her hand reached out to grab his arm.

“No no, slow down Jug. I’m okay we don’t have to go yet.” Betty breathed out, and Jughead couldn’t help but frown in confusion and concern.

“What? Betty, no, we need to go.” He shook his head with a frown, becoming increasingly worried that they would be putting it off for too long. Jughead was well aware of how stubborn Betty could be, especially over something like their insurance, but he really didn’t think that it was such a big deal that they wouldn’t get as much time in the hospital as they had liked. He would just settle Betty comfortably in their bedroom when they got home with the bassinet for the baby. He didn’t really get why it was such a big deal to stay at the hospital.

“No, Jug, we can wait a little longer. It’s okay,” She managed to smile a little once her contraction had passed, reaching out to gently take his hand with a gentle squeeze. “The doctor said anywhere between five to seven minutes. We’ve still got time.”

Jughead stared at her for a moment before he sighed and reluctantly gave in, knowing there wasn’t any persuading Betty once she was being stubborn about something. If there was anything he had learnt about his wife after being with her for a good couple of years, it was that she was even more stubborn than him. And that was saying something.

“Fine,” Jughead sighed and nodded. “Fine, we’ll leave at five minutes. But no later, okay? I’m serious, Betty.”

“Of course. Five minutes.” Betty smiled.

Jughead exhaled and nodded as he squeezed her hand again before he sat back in his seat at his desk beside hers, trying to focus back on his work. But he could barely pay attention, glancing back at his wife every few minutes; and practically staring at her with a frown when she had another contraction that left her wincing as she leaned back in her seat.

“Stop staring at me,” Betty breathed out as she met his gaze, her hands cradling her enlarged belly. “I’m fine don’t worry.”

“Okay crazy,” Jughead scoffed as he rolled his eyes. “I think I have some better things to do with my day than worry about you. Like sell printers. Well, now ‘till Friday; twenty percent off all toner cartridges. That’s a big deal. While we’re on the subject why don’t I just run you down to the hospital?”

“Nice try,” Betty shot a finger gun at him, smiling a little more as her husband shook his head irritably. “Five minutes apart, sweetie.”

“Yeah five minutes apart I know.” Jughead grumbled in annoyance, the tapping of his fingers against his keyboard becoming harsher and louder as he grew more irritated.

“Hey, guys,” Archie wheeled over on his seat from across the office, one hand on his arm rest as the other - which was still in a cast - rested in his lap. “Word of advice, speaking as a former baby. Don’t get too hung up on baby names. I was named Walter Jr. named after my great grandfather, until I was about six or so when my cousin was born, and my family changed their mind. They thought my cousin better exemplified the Walter Jr. name so they gave it to him, and I was renamed Archibald out of a baby names book from like the eighteenth century. How cool is that?”

Betty and Jughead blinked and glanced at each other for a moment, trying to process what Archie had just told them, before Jughead nodded as he turned to face him again. “Thanks, Arch. We’ll be careful about it.” He nodded, and Archie grinned at him as he nodded to.

“Oh my god, Betty,” Veronica gasped as she came over, standing beside Archie as she rested her hand over her chest. “You are such a strong and brave woman. Did you know that you could be in labour for like twenty hours? That’s twenty hours of pain like this-“

“Veronica?” Jughead cleared his throat.

“-and your hair and teeth can fall out, like you could lose them all-“

“Veronica.” Jughead repeated a little firmer.

“-and the baby can get stuck and hurt and you can like pass out and bleed really bad-“

“Thank you Veronica for letting us know!” Jughead spoke loudly, causing Veronica to jump and shut up immediately. “Don’t you guys have some work to do?” He shot an irritated glare towards her and Archie, which caused them to just nod before they retreated to their own desks. He looked back at Betty and frowned when he saw her scared expression, reaching across the desk to take her hand. “Hey, that’s not gonna happen with us. You’re already pretty far along. Far enough along to get going already-“

“Jug it’s not happening.” Betty told him, and he rolled his eyes, but frowned when she groaned quietly and clutched at her belly again.

“Okay, baby time!” Reggie stepped out of his office and clapped his hands, a grin over his expression as he walked over towards Betty and Jughead’s desk.

“No, we aren’t going yet.” Betty got out through gritted teeth, and Jughead just sighed as he looked at her, his bottom lip being brought between his teeth for a moment as he started to get a little frustrated.

“Okay, well do you want a distraction to keep you from thinking about it?” Reggie asked, and Jughead practically shot daggers at him as his eye twitched slightly in annoyance.

“Actually, Reggie-“

“Yes please.” Betty cut Jughead off, smiling at Reggie some as Jughead gripped the armrest of his chair tight enough for his fingers to dent the cheap rubber covering it.

“Okay great. Uhm, Jughead and Veronica will you guys go in the break room with her?” Reggie asked as he gestured to Betty, and Jughead had to clamp his jaw to keep from expressing how irritated he was as he stood up and took her arms to help her up and to walk her to the break room along with Veronica.

“Betty, I have this brilliant movie on my laptop we can watch together since Archie doesn’t want to watch it with me. It’s got Leonardo DiCaprio in it; total bae, I know.” Veronica grinned as herself and Jughead helped Betty into one of the seats in the break room beside the many vending machines they had in there.

Once Betty had smiled and nodded Veronica left to get her laptop from her desk, leaving Betty and Jughead alone as he moved to sit beside her.

“You’re annoyingly stubborn, you know that?” He asked her, and she just fondly shook her head as she took his hand.

“You still love me though.” She told him with a smile as she leaned over to kiss his cheek.

Jughead chose to sit with Betty and Veronica to watch the movie, just to make sure Betty was okay and to sit with her through the contractions. At some point Reggie had joined them, which only made Jughead more irritated at his attempt to talk Betty through her contractions, which we’re just extremely annoying.

“Alright, you’re at six minutes apart, another like seventy-five contractions and you’re going to be there.” Reggie told Betty with a grin, earning an irritated look from the couple and a sharp “shh!“ from Veronica who was extremely interested in the movie.

“Six minutes is close enough to five. You know what? I’m just going to call Doctor Keller he’ll know what to do.” Jughead stood up, extremely worried and irritated as he let go of Betty’s hand to grab his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Jug-“

“No Betty we should probably call-“

“Honey we don’t even need to go yet-“

“Actually yes I think we do-“

“Guys can you shut up I’m still watching this movie.”

“Yeah Jug you’re really distracting me from my distraction right now. Sweetie, I love you, but I’m trying to watch this movie.” Betty spoke a little louder over Jughead’s worried rambling, causing his jaw to clench and his eye to twitch in irritation again as he looked at his wife. “Why don’t you try and go do some work?”

“Great,” Jughead nodded with a sarcastic smile. “Of course. I’m sorry for worrying about my wife who’s going into labour.” He huffed as he walked out of the break room, leaving Betty with Veronica and Reggie to watch the movie.

Though instead of going back to his desk he walked straight past it and towards the exit of the office, ignoring Bret’s complaint that he wasn’t working as he quickly went down the stairs and left the building to head towards his car. He unlocked it and got inside, rooting around in one of the bags they kept in the back seat until he found what he was looking for; four pregnancy books.

“Five to seven minutes,” Jughead mumbled as he flipped through the first book, before he tossed it into the back seat and opened the next one. “Five to seven minutes,” He repeated, the next book being thrown. “Six minutes; different, but not really,” He huffed before he opened the next one. “Five to seven minutes.” He groaned and dropped his head down to rest on the steering wheel, though flinched and sat back up when he had accidentally beeped the car horn.

He sat down there on his own for a good five minutes before he heard a light tapping on the car window, and looked up to see Betty stood there. She motioned for him to roll down the car window and he quickly did so, leaning his arm on the door of the car afterwards.

“Hey,” She smiled. “I’m not going to get into the car because I know you’ll try and drive me to the hospital.”

“Ah, you know me too well.” Jughead nodded, fiddling with his tie as he looked up at his wife.

“Jug?”

“Hm?”

“Everything is fine, okay?” Betty smiled reassuringly. “I’m okay, we still have time, she isn't coming for a while yet.”

Jughead froze as Betty did, his mouth dropping open slightly as he met her gaze. “She?” He whispered.

“Oh god I’m sorry,” Betty clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “I called the doctor last week, I just couldn’t wait. Are you mad?”

“Mad?” Jughead’s voice broke as he smiled uncontrollably, reaching his hand out of the car to grasp his wife’s gently. “How could I be mad? We’re having a little girl,” He nodded a little as his vision grew slightly blurry, tears collecting along his waterline. “Really?” He asked, and was met with a teary smile from his wife that matched his own as she giggled.

“Yeah,” Betty smiled brightly. “We’re having a baby girl.”

Jughead let out a light laugh and nodded, his smile only widening as he lifted his hand to run over his eyes before he leaned out of the car enough to hug Betty, pressing a kiss against her shoulder. Originally he had wanted to wait until the baby was born to find out the gender. He had refused multiple times when the doctor had asked, not wanting to find out prematurely, but he couldn’t even be the slightest bit unhappy that Betty had let it slip early, the emotions that were running through him in that moment were indescribable; he couldn’t wait to find out how much better it would feel once the baby was born. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Jug.” Betty whispered, gently hugging him back before she let him go so he could lean back into the car.

“Okay, I’m gonna go back upstairs, okay?”

“Okay.” Jughead nodded and smiled as he gave her a once over, but paused when he saw what she was wearing. Before he had left the office she was in her usual attire; a skirt and a jumper. But now she was wearing a pair of maternity leggings and one of his hoodies, an outfit he knew that she kept in the office just in case. “Did you change outfits?”

“Oh yeah, my water broke so I had to.” Betty shrugged before she turned to go back into the office.

“Oh right.” Jughead nodded as he sat back in his seat, still thinking about the baby more than anything else. Though once he had processed what Betty said he sat up and looked over at her just as she was walking back inside. “Wait what?”

-

Jughead had been pacing outside of the break room where Betty was with Reggie for what felt like hours, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. He knew if he was in there then he would just stress Betty out more with his (rational) worrying, so he opted to stand outside. Though it was definitely worse out there; having to listen to Betty in pain and Reggie’s annoying talks through it was really just setting him even more on edge.

“Okay, that’s fine, almost made it to midnight but you should probably go to the hospital now.” Reggie was saying as Betty groaned again. “Too bad you didn’t have sex like… seven and a half hours later. But you had to have the afternoon delight, I understand, sometimes you just have to go for it.”

“N-no, I’m fine, the doctor said it’s s-still considered a minor contraction as long as I can still talk through it-” Betty barely forced the words out shakily before she groaned, causing Jughead to immediately walk into the room with a frown.

“Okay, Betty we really should go.”

“No, it’s fine,” Betty started as Jughead walked over to her, shaking her head. “That wasn’t even the worst of them, no-” She started rambling as Jughead took one of her arms and Reggie took the other to try and get her out of the seat.

“Betty come on.”

“No, no Jug it’s fine-”

“We should really go now-”

Everyone started talking at once as the men tried their hardest to pull a struggling Betty out of the seat before she scowled and shook her head harshly. “No!” She yelled, tugging her arms away harsh enough for them both to let go of her. “No! No I am not going yet! I’m not going okay? I’m not going because I can’t do this I don’t think I can do this.” Betty’s voice broke as she started crying, her lip trembling as her vision blurred with unshed tears.

Jughead’s gaze softened as he looked at her, a frown curving his lips downwards as her voice filled him with sadness and sympathy for his wife.

“Are you kidding me?” He asked softly as he crouched in front of her chair, taking one of her trembling hands in his as she sniffled in front of him. “Betty, you are the strongest person I know. If anybody can do this then you can, okay?” Jughead asked softly, and she nodded tearily in response. “I’m scared, love, I’m so scared. But this little girl is going to be the luckiest baby out there because she has the best mother in the whole damn world.”

“You’re having a girl? Really? Guys, I wanted to be surprised what the hell?” Reggie complained from across the room.

Jughead only rolled his eyes and chose to ignore him as he turned back to Betty. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do; we’re going to get our bag, go down to the car and drive to the hospital, and then we’ll have our beautiful baby girl. Okay?” Jughead squeezed her hand when she nodded and smiled as he stood up to kiss her forehead softly.

“Thank’s Jug.” Betty whispered as she looked at her husband.

Jughead nodded before he turned to look at Reggie, clearing his throat. “How’re we doing on contractions?”

“Two minutes.”

“Two- two minutes?” Jughead asked, a glare quickly being sent to Reggie as frustration quickly bubbled up inside of him. “I thought I said to let me know at five minutes- what good is two minutes that’s too late two minutes doesn’t help us! What happened to four and three minutes huh?” Jughead started rambling as he helped Betty out of her seat who was starting to get worked up again.

“Jug we can still drive-” Betty started, stopping his rambling for a moment, before she gasped and almost fell over at the intensity of her next contraction, groaning as she gripped onto Jughead���s hand tightly.

Jughead frowned and held her up, his free hand rubbing her back as she started crying again. Reggie, who was clearly flustered and not too sure what to do, grabbed Betty’s jacket from the chair and helped Jughead lead Betty out of the room as her contraction started to past.

“It’s go time people!” Reggie yelled across the office, letting Jughead hold Betty up completely as he walked out in front of the whole office. “Veronica call an ambulance!”

“No, ambulances are for emergencies only,” Bret spoke up with a glare. “You call an ambulance I call the cops.”

“We’re driving it’s fine,” Jughead spoke up as he carefully helped Betty sit down at her desk chair, gently pressing a kiss to the crown of her head in hopes of keeping her calm. “I’m just going to grab the bag and we can go, okay?” He asked softly and Betty nodded as she gave him a tearful smile. “Okay.” He gave her arm one last squeeze as he quickly jumped up and practically ran across the office to where they were keeping the bag in one of the cabinets in the kitchen, his heart racing a million miles an hour in the panic and excitement (though mostly panic) that their baby was on the way very soon.

By the time he was back in the main office area everyone was in a panic: Reggie was running around packing his own go bag for some reason, Veronica was squealing excitedly about getting to meet her godchild (they had picked her as the baby’s godmother a few weeks ago and she still hadn’t gotten over it), and even Bret was up and out of his seat, talking to Reggie quickly.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Jughead tried to smile as reassuring as he could towards his wife as he walked back over to her seat with the bag over his shoulders, taking her hands to help her stand up. “Are you good to go-”

“This is ridiculous,” Bret cut him off as he walked over. “Has anyone even checked how dilated she is yet?” As he spoke he pulled out a tape measure and kneeled on the floor in front of Betty.

“Bret!” Jughead and Betty gasped at the same time as he opened the tape measure.

“Bret are you serious?” Reggie scoffed as he walked over. “Give it to Jughead that’s his job.”

As Bret held the tape measure up to give it to Jughead he rolled his eyes and pushed it away, instead moving his hands to his pockets frantically as he started to just freak out further.

“Has anyone seen my keys- where are my keys?” He shouted, before he reached into his trouser pockets and sighed as he pulled them out. “Got them.”

As he started leading Betty out of the room he managed a genuine smile as everyone in the office started shouting goodbye and good luck, and he felt a little relieved when he saw Betty was smiling too. He gave everyone a big wave before he took both of her hands again and led her out of the room and into the elevator so that they could leave.

The whole drive there Jughead kept her hand in his free one, letting her squeeze it as tightly as she needed through contractions and constantly ran his thumb over her knuckles to try and soothe her somewhat. He truthfully was terrified, but wanted to get Betty there as calmly as possible. He didn’t have time to panic about it, as much as he wanted to, he just had to settle with the constant thumping of his heart until they pulled into the hospital and he ran out to grab her a wheelchair.

“We’re here now, okay? Everything is going to go perfect, Betty. We’re going to meet our baby girl soon.” Jughead assured her as he helped her into the wheelchair with a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you, Jug.” Betty smiled as she reached back to take his hand as he wheeled her to the door.

“I love you, too.” He smiled.

There were two doctors at the door waiting, and as they had offered to help her inside Jughead squeezed her hand before he let it go. “I’m just going to park the car, I promise I’ll be back in a minute.” He told her as one of the doctors started wheeling her inside, and smiled at her until he couldn’t see her anymore.

Jughead got back in the car and took a few minutes to find a parking space, though once he had he sat in the car for a minute longer than needed. His fingers reached up to brush along the edge of the scan photo that was clipped to the mirror of the car, an easy smile sweeping across his lips as it took everything inside of him to not get emotional again. Even though he was still panicked and worried and terrified, he couldn’t help but take a moment to smile and breathe.

He was simply excited to meet their little girl, and that would be enough to keep him smiling forever if he could.

[platypanthewriter]

The Tanning Rock

Harringrove April prompt 28, Tanning--Creatures!AU (This one grew to nearly 6k and I’m so sorry) @wasting-time-again​ HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, HAVE A MERMAN!  XD

The lawyer who summoned Billy—about an inheritance, he said—was...weird.  Straight out of a movie, with long incisors and a cravat, and he steepled his fingers as he talked.  

Max said he was probably actually a vampire, and Billy agreed���which was weird, because as far as Billy knew, his mom’s family wasn’t exactly old money, and it was hard to imagine a vampire getting on a plane to fly clear to California and summoning him to a crypt full of file cabinets, all just to read a will about his mom’s collection of surfing stickers and pile of old National Geographics.  

Billy knew his father had disowned him, so he bit his lips together, waiting to hear that his mother had died.

“I am here about the estate of your grandmother,” said the vampire lawyer, and Billy drew a shaky breath of relief.  “Your mother was disowned—” he said, and Billy almost snorted a laugh—like mother, like son, he thought, “—and so her domicile has passed to you.”

“Wait, what,” Billy breathed, wide-eyed.

“It is an unusual case,” said the lawyer—Fangun and Stayk, est. 986, read his card, but Billy wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to Fangun or Stayk, or whether the whole thing was a joke yet, so he kept his mouth shut.  “You will take ownership of the house and land, however, you may not live there—that is, not year-round, not unless you are given an invitation by a resident.  It is a closed community.”

“...can I sell it?” Billy asked, and the deepset eyes of the lawyer stared back at him, bloodshot and dry.

“At well below market value,” he said, steepling his fingers again.  They made a dryish noise.  “As I said, they dislike outsiders.  And a stranger will be even more of an outsider than you, in whom runs...the blood of the place.”

Billy wondered, dully, whether he’d inherited a haunted graveyard, or a den of werewolves, and groaned into his hands.  Maybe he was part zombie somehow.  Just his luck.  “Where is it,” he sighed.

“It is not on commonly available maps,” said the vampire, and Billy nodded.  It figured, he thought, though his ears perked up considerably when his grandmother’s lawyer laid out a map of Hawaii.

 They got a ride from the shore on a fishing boat at four o’clock in the morning.  “It’s barely tourist season yet,” said the fisherwoman, showing Max how to steer.  “There will be a ferry, in a week or two, but I can give you two a ride out the day your visa’s up if the ferry quits sooner.”

“We want enough time to look around,” Max said, glancing at Billy.  They’d let their lease run out, and sold most of their things, because a few orange crates of records were a small price to pay for never running into Neil Hargrove around town.  “You could get a job on one of the normal islands,” Max had suggested, quietly, over and over.  “If they don’t like us enough.”

Billy’d never suggested moving Max so far away, but she’d assumed they were going, and after a while he went along with it.  It wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, getting a job in a hotel somewhere after the islanders threw him out.  Max would probably love it, in Hawaii.  

A fresh start, she had said, and it sounded good.

He and Max were greeted by a woman in a wheelchair, who stamped their passports.  “Technically, we’re a different country,” she said, smiling.  She had very brown skin, and looked contentedly half-asleep in the sun.  “You’re the only visitors on the island, for a week or two,” she said, cocking her head.  “We’re not always in a big hurry to scrub up the ferry for the summer.  We love the money, but the tourists...” she laughed, shaking her head.  “Three-month pleasure trip visa.  Have a nice summer,” she said, waving them away.  

Her benign lack of interest lessened Billy’s initial fears that he’d inherited membership in some rich, yoga-pants-wearing, white Human Superiority cult.  

 The house was traditional-ish, with a grass roof and walls, big open windows with no glass, only shutters, and a wide shaded veranda all the way around.  It looked over a beach with rolling waves, and Billy couldn’t wait to get his board out there.

“I’m gonna look around the house,” Max said.  “See if I can find any neighbors.  Maybe I can bring them cookies.”  She set her jaw, frowning around at their luggage, and the scattered pillows.  “Maybe we can buy some furniture somewhere.”

“...we can always just come here for summers,” Billy told her, breathing it in.  

“Yeah, you’re gonna have a great time getting a tourism job where you don’t work summers,” Max said, raising a sarcastic eyebrow, and Billy realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that she expected him to figure it out.  Find someone who wanted him to stay, here, on the island, at his grandmother’s house.

“I’m no good at making friends, Max,” he reminded her, and she snorted.  

“Better get out of my hair, then.”  She folded her arms, taking another deep breath of the smell of grass in the sun.  After a long moment, she looked back at him again.  “...we’ve got a little over three months, Billy.”

He suspected it sounded longer to her.

 When he wandered down to the beach, Billy could see someone’s tanned shoulders lying across a jutting rock about fifty feet out, and he paddled a ways towards it on his surfboard, getting the lay of the ocean.  There was a rip tide, dark and eerily quiet, to his right, but the rest of the beach had shallow, warm, clear waves over white sand and coral until a dark dropoff about fifty feet out where the rolling waves began.  

As he paddled closer to the rock, he could see the man on it—asleep, Billy thought, just lying in the sun as the waves lapped at his skin.  As Billy drifted closer, paddling with his hands, he could see a long-fingered hand hanging in the water, and he paddled faster, suddenly wondering whether the man wanted to be out on a rock, or whether he was a Dude In Distress, his leg cramped, needing a ride to the beach on Billy’s surfboard and a trip around the boardwalk, and maybe some shaved ice.  

As Billy approached, the guy opened his eyes, frowning over at Billy with wide, half-awake brown eyes.  He pushed himself up on the rock with his arms like the goddamn Little Mermaid, Billy thought, amused. His throat went dry watching the flex of muscle, and the water droplets where the dude had lifted himself out of the bay.  

Billy paddled at random, a little, unable to tear his eyes away.  He cleared his throat.  “Just, uh, making sure you didn’t need any help,” he said, staring at the tanned arms and swimmer’s chest in front of him, nearly triangular, like a superhero.  “I, um.  Guess you’re fine.”

The guy raised his eyebrows, starting to smirk, and then his eyes widened, and Billy realized in a flash of blue and foam that he’d drifted right into the fucking rip tide.  Right in front of the gorgeous dude on the rock, Billy thought in the back of his mind, trying to hold onto his surfboard and let the rip tide take him wherever it would.  Just his luck, he thought, dying because he was so damn gay he saw nice shoulders and his brain switched off.  He hadn’t even gotten a chance to breathe before he got sucked down, and his lungs and sinuses were starting to ache worse than the rest of him, even as he was buffeted around against his board, when an arm slid around his waist.

He wanted to yell at the guy—and he did, in an explosion of bubbles—because what the hell good was it gonna do, swimming into a rip tide, but the muscles against his back and butt flexed, and they were moving sideways out of the rip tide, and then Billy’s head was above water.  He gasped and choked, coughing up half the sea.  The ocean moved soothingly around them, as this dude had no trouble holding Billy up, and Billy tried to clear his throat and eyes.  

“Have you seriously never seen a tail before,” the guy groaned, hauling Billy along like he was no more effort to lift than a little kid at the pool.  Billy felt rock against his thigh, suddenly, and scrambled onto it, coughing and wiping his eyes to see he was on the jutting rock the dude must have jumped off of, to save him.  

“How-how fucking humiliating,” he gasped out loud.  “Can’t believe.  C-can’t believe I fucking p-paddled into a rip tide.”

“You drifted back into the...yeah,” his hot rescuer said, still in the water, with one hand on the rock to hold him steady as he frowned at Billy.  His voice sounded a little odd—Billy was reminded of the Chinese grocery by his house, where their English was perfect, but they had a lilt as they tried to speak an atonal language with a tonal ear.  Up close, he was even prettier, with moles Billy wanted to track down his neck and shoulders, and a doubtful, scrunched-up mouth Billy wanted to kiss.

“Sorry,” Billy wheezed, still coughing.  “Sorry, I’m such a moron, sorry.”  He tried to keep his eyes above the water level, but some part of his brain kept looking for tanned legs kicking under the surface, and he suddenly registered that the moving colors weren’t just fish and anemones.  “Holy shit,” he coughed out.  “You have a tail.”

His rescuer frowned harder, probably worried Billy had brain damage.  “I figured that’s why you swam into the rip tide,” he said slowly, and Billy shook his head, groaning.

“No—fuck, I’m sorry, you—you’re just hot as fuck, I’m just a moron, I’m—damn it,” he sighed.  “Sorry, jesus, I’m so fucking rude, sorry, I just didn’t notice, I was like ‘How the hell did he get me out of there?  OH!’, sorry,” he muttered, sighing.  “...drown me.”

“I am though, right,” the merman said, grinning, “—hotter than you,” and Billy realized he’d found the only person on the island more annoying than he was.  

“Yeah, yeah, just laugh at the poor gay moron who nearly drowned staring at you, that’s nice,” he huffed, lying back against the warm rock to catch his breath.  

“Was it love at first sight?” asked his rescuer, and Billy opened his eyes to glare.  

“Shut up, asshole,” he grunted.  

“Just asking,” his tormenter asked.  “Are you gonna pine away, sighing over me?  Hey, d’you think you’ll always do that?  If I swim over in town, you think you’ll fall off the boardwalk?”

“Fuck you,” Billy told him, leaning his face in his arms and laughing.  “Yeah, probably, you shithead.  Are you gonna...follow me around?  So I can look like more of an idiot?”

“Mmm, can you though…” the gorgeous merman asked thoughtfully, and Billy growled into his arms, feeling his whole body warm.  He blamed it on the sun.  “Why,” his rescuer asked, pulling himself up to laugh against Billy’s ear.  “—you want me to follow you someplace?”

“Oh my god,” Billy groaned, laughing harder.  “Are you afraid to leave me alone now?  What if I try and eat my surfboard?”

“...are you gonna?” 

“Maybe?!” Billy told him, then pushed himself up, frowning around to look for it.

“I’ve got it, it’s right here,” the smug asshole told him, waggling the surfboard in the water.  “Want me to take you back to shore?”

“No!” Billy laughed, sighing.  “I’m going surfing, just because I nearly died making an ass of myself doesn’t mean—”

“Hrm, maybe I should keep an eye on you.” 

“Why,” Billy asked, then pitched his voice just a little lower.  “You like what you see?”

“I could get used to it,” the merman said, and Billy started to preen, but the dickhead finished with “—kind of a comedy special, kind of thing,” and Billy reached over and smacked a big splash of water at him.  

He laughed, his throat arching back, the gills along it thin dark lines that Billy fantasized kissing around.  

Just as Billy was considering grabbing the surfboard and using it as a weapon of blunt force trauma, the merman leaned in close, his smirk widening around pointed teeth, and his cool, salty lips pressed firmly against Billy’s.  Billy made a weird gulping noise in his throat, and the asshole started to pull away, but Billy leaned in, and fell clean off the rock.  His weight dunked them both, and they rose sputtering and laughing, Billy held securely in his merman’s arms as his surfboard floated away.  He couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“...my name’s Billy,” he panted.  

“...Steve,” the mer-dickhead said, raising his eyebrows, like it was weird to want to know his name.  

“...I inherited a house here,” Billy told him in a rush, drunk on kisses.  “I’m from California.  My mom used to talk about this place when I was a kid.  Surfing here.  With her mom.”

“...is she here?” Steve asked, steadying them with one hand on the rock, and glancing back at the beach.

Billy laughed, shaking his head.  “Fuck, sorry, you don’t need to know my shit.  We can make out.  You’re short-circuiting my brain.”

“...I should probably get your surfboard,” Steve told him, grinning, but he leaned his head in again, gentle with his sharp teeth, and Billy inhaled shakily as the points grazed his lips and tongue.  

“Jesus,” he whispered, once he could talk, and then he licked his lips and wrenched himself away to swim after his surfboard, just so his smug rescuer wouldn’t have to fetch it for him.  The waves got bigger as he got out to where the trees weren’t acting as a windbreak, and he clambered up on his board, glaring back as Steve wolf-whistled.

 When he let the tides pull him back towards the gorgeous merman on the rock, he lost his mind again, telling him his tail looked like a peacock butt, and Steve cracked up, grinning at him.

“...so, neighbor, you have to win someone over enough to invite you to stay,” he said, cocking his head.

“Yup,” Billy told him, pointing up at the house he’d inherited, built into the hill, the old grass vacation cottage blending in with the trees.  

“And your method is to tell me I look like bird ass,” Steve continued, and Billy grimaced, waving his hands.

“No!  No, I don’t—I know people have to get to know you.  Here.  I’ll…” he sighed.  “I’ll try for a few months and see what happens.  If nothing...clicks, maybe I’ll try again next summer,” he said, grimacing, and wondering what Max would do, if they weren’t allowed to stay.  Leave, maybe, he thought—she was seventeen, and she could get a job herself.

 He ended up teaching Steve to surf, after showing off his best efforts.  When he swam back, panting, Steve looked properly impressed, and even more tanned.  “Teach me,” he said, and Billy leaned in to kiss him again, nodding.  

“That gonna get you to like me enough to let me stay?” Billy asked, and Steve frowned at him, but Billy laughed, and leaned in for another kiss.

“Tomorrow?” Steve had whispered against his lips, and Billy got no sleep at all that night, he just rolled over every couple hours to check the clock, and see that another two minutes had passed.  

Steve was fascinating to watch on the board, his tail trailing as he controlled it with his hands around either side, his abs flexing as he held himself in a kind of plank pose with the support of his tail.  Billy watched, and realized he was drooling.  

“You like me enough to keep me?” he asked that night, teasing, and Steve laughed.  

“Ask me again tomorrow.”

 Merpeople—or at least, Steve, Billy corrected mentally, realizing he was dealing with a sample size of one—loved bread.  Like a cat, Billy thought, watching Steve eye his croissant, or bagel.  He started just bringing one every morning for Steve, and some coffee, and it was hilarious watching the fluffy flesh of a croissant dangling between Steve’s shark-like teeth.  He waited every morning, and even though Billy wasn’t sure whether Steve was waiting for Billy or the bread he was carrying, he got heart palpitations every time he came down the ramp to the dock, and he could see the little lump of Steve’s head on his folded arms, the rest of him hanging off into the water.

“A few bagels aren’t enough to win me over,” Steve told him, and Billy’s stomach twisted, a little.  He wished he hadn’t brought it up, kind of—the knowledge that he might have to leave hurt, like a sore tooth he couldn’t stop worrying at in his mouth.  “Maybe more croissants,” Steve said, smiling, and Billy brought him more croissants.

 When they’d arrived, they’d discovered the town was filled with mermaid stuff, and at first, Max and Billy had snickered at it, because surely even if there’d been a merperson or two living near a human town once, they’d died decades ago, or they just traded with fishing boats, far out at sea.  They hadn’t considered the amount of people in wheelchairs, or the spray bottles close to hand.

When Billy suggested he bring lunch down from town, Steve swam over to haul himself up—his tail flashing in the light—through the bottom of one of the little sheds on the dock.  Moments later, he banged the door open, wheeling out in an old rusty wheelchair.  He spun it in a circle, waiting for Billy to climb out of the water, and then zipped ahead up the ramp to the path.  

“Wait up, jesus,” Billy yelled after him, and Steve laughed, the muscles in his arms mesmerizing as they spun the wheels.  He slowed down eventually, panting, enough for Billy to jog and catch up.  “...lemme know if you want me to push,” Billy told him, and Steve snorted.  

“Touch my chair and die,” he said.  

“Fair enough,” Billy said, holding his hands up, and Steve laughed.  

“It makes me…” he squinted, thinking.  “...seasick…?” he offered, and Billy nodded, trotting along next to him.  

“Motion-sick, probably,” he suggested, and Steve mouthed it as he rolled along.  

 The lady at the shaved ice stand leaned out and folded her arms on the edge of the little window, laughing at Steve.  “You know they make those that work!” she called, and he flipped her off.  “They don’t have to be electric!  They make ‘em that just move smoothly.”

“It’ll just rust in my shed,” Steve told her, shrugging.  “It’s fine.”  As they waited for their tacos, Steve pulled up to a table, and his rusty, janky wheels kept rolling backwards, until Steve sighed and bent down to stuff some rocks under there.

“My friend Robin and I went in together on a nicer one,” he said, “—but I can’t park it in the shed.  This one’s not so bad,” and Billy’s perception of it shifted a bit—maybe it was more like getting stuck with an old beater car occasionally, instead of something Steve needed help with.  “...want to wander around, after?” Billy asked.  “I haven’t got any souvenirs yet.”

Steve paused, then licked his lips.  “Planning your trip home already?”

“...dunno yet,” Billy said, the invitation unspoken between them.  It seemed ridiculous to want to stay so badly just because he’d met a pair of gorgeously tanned shoulders and a teasing smile, but it also wasn’t...hard to imagine, lingering on the island to go snorkeling with Steve, and learning about the reefs—he’d absorbed enough for a few semesters of marine biology, he was fairly sure, but told as stories, just off-handed things Steve had seen—and Billy was already wanting a drysuit, so he could go in the fall.  Maybe Billy could get a job on a fishing boat, he thought vaguely, or help out in one of the shops.  

If Steve would invite him.

Steve had slid his hands under Billy’s swimsuit a few times, pressing him back on their rock, or on the docks, rocking into him as Billy panted and gasped and fell apart under his hands—but he never said anything, after, and Billy hesitated to ask whether it was...anything, to Steve.  Maybe he picks an idiot every summer, he thought, watching Steve smile at the depictions of mermaids on every surface of every shop on the main street.

“You all spend so much time keeping everything dry and dead,” he said, grinning over at Billy, who’d been anticipating a comment on the mermaid’s hourglass-like proportions, not her lack of water damage.  

“...oh,” he said.  

“I have a figurehead like that, but covered in anemones,” Steve said, cocking his head.  “It’s beautiful.”

“I mean...you could...plant a vine on it, maybe?”

Steve nodded.  “Put it outside in the rain, let it grow.”  The lady behind the counter sighed, rolling her eyes, and Steve laughed.  

“There’s a whole movement to ‘preserve’ our art,” he whispered to Billy.  “Which mostly means they don’t let it become our art.”

“Huh,” Billy said, wondering whether human houses looked like museums, or mausoleums, to merpeople.  

“Not to say that I’d pour water on your television set, or drop your mattress in the bay,” Steve said, grimacing a little, and watching Billy’s face.  “I get that much.”  He looked kind of uncomfortable with the lady behind the counter glaring at him, ducking his head.

Billy leaned to kiss him.  He nearly steadied himself on the chair, and then remembering it would roll, and just held his hands away.  Steve grinned up at him, particularly at his outstretched hands, and yanked Billy down on his not very much of a lap, hurriedly curling his tail up and around Billy’s waist as Billy threatened to slide down the smooth scales to the ground.  Billy threw his arms around Steve’s neck, wide-eyed, as Steve held the wheels firmly, keeping the chair from rolling backwards under the weight of two grown men.  

“Let’s go,” Steve whispered, and Billy nodded, breathing Steve’s sun-and-salt smell, and wondering whether it was okay to ask whether Steve would consider inviting him to stay—just until the next season, Billy thought, as the chair and Steve’s tail moved under him.  Until the next summer, when he could ask whether Steve wanted him to stay again, or whether he wanted Billy gone.

After staying a whole year, Billy thought he might not have it in him to ask whether Steve was tired of him yet, but the thought of waking every morning to run down to the docks with coffee and banana bread was addictive, and he tried not to think about the end.

 Billy ran into the lady who’d stamped his passport, and caught himself staring at her tanned legs propped up on the railing.  “Oh, I’m human,” she said, laughing.  “But I love it here.  I can even shop in the little bookstore, imagine,” she said, and now that Billy thought about it, he realized it had an elevator in the back, and little lifts for the walkways along the higher shelves.  “I’ve never had someone offer to lift me into their cafe, here,” she said, her nose wrinkled, and Billy nodded slowly.  

“Shoot that thing!” she yelled, when she saw Steve’s awful old wheelchair, and he flipped her off.

 “We can only invite a few people,” Steve told him, as they ate noodle bowls.  “It’s for somebody you marry, you know, their family, maybe.  Or if you leave the island, and have a kid.”

“Yeah,” Billy said softly, hearing the message clearly—invitations were not to be wasted, and Billy wasn’t special enough to keep.  He finished his lunch, trying not to feel all butthurt about it.  Max would probably understand.

Steve kissed him again, on the docks, and Billy leaned into it, feeling the familiar pressure of tears in his sinuses, and behind his eyes.  He had three weeks left, he told himself.  Three more weeks.  Steve slid a hand up the back of Billy’s head, humming against his mouth, and Billy let himself go soft in his arms.  

When they returned to the docks, Steve dug a big beach blanket out, and they spread it out on the sand, and Billy stayed out that night, losing himself in Steve’s warm hands and mouth, under stars like he’d never seen before.  

 Steve was watching his face the next morning, with a little frown, and Billy pulled away, sitting up.  

“Better than croissants?” Billy asked, smirking a little, and Steve sighed.  

“Was that what this was?  Fucking me won’t make me give you an invitation,” he said.  He didn’t look amused, the way he had over the bagels, and Billy wondered whether it had worked, a little.  Billy’d always had a talented mouth.

“I won’t know if I don’t try, will I,” he said, laughing.  “Maybe another round will help?”

“...I have to go,” Steve said, and he didn’t even fold up the blanket, just pushed himself off the edge and slid over the wet sand into the water, gone in a flip of tail.  Billy watched for long minutes to see whether he’d come back—they’d been spending every day together, but probably Steve had stuff he needed to do, all the things he’d done before Billy had shown up at the island, easy with his body and his affections.

Billy folded up the blanket, and sat it in the shed, looking around.  There really wasn’t much in there—it was the size of a small bathroom, with some knives for fishing, and a frayed net, and the beat-up wheelchair.  

It smelled like Steve, and Billy stood and breathed, his eyes blurring with tears.

 Steve didn’t come back, and after an hour or so Billy walked home, and ran into Max returning.  “Billy!” she said, with a wide grin.  “Nice night?  I was out getting breakfast.”  She told him about somebody named El, and somebody else named Lucas, and a Dustin.

Max was making friends too, he realized, which kind of made everything worse—she was doing her best, and Billy was just mooning over some guy who thought he was barely good enough for a fuck on the beach.  She’d even met their families, he realized, listening, and registered that he hadn’t met any of Steve’s friends.  He groaned into the pillows tossed around on the mat floor, and sighed.  

“Should I stop seeing him?” he asked, mostly at the ceiling.  

“I dunno why now,” Max said.  “You’re not gonna find somebody else in a couple weeks.”

“Shit,” Billy groaned again.  

“We can try again next summer,” Max said.  “I like it here.”

The idea of returning the next summer, once Steve was bored, was enough to make Billy clench his jaw tight against the pillow he was hugging, squeezing his eyes shut against tears.  “...yeah,” he said softly.

“God, you sound tragic,” she sighed, wandering over and dropping to sit on his butt.  He grunted.  “It’s fine, jesus.  Worst case scenario we have a, like, vacation home.  The vampire dude said we didn’t have to pay taxes on it.”

“Yeah, just pay for plane fare,” Billy sighed.

“He’s out there, y’know,” she said, “—tanning,” and Billy scrambled up so fast he dumped her with a drum noise on the taut mats.  

 When he swam out, Steve just stared out to sea, and Billy clung to the edge of the rock, biting his lips.

“I’m not giving you one of my invitations,” Steve said.  “So stop trying to manipulate me into it.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, kind of wishing they’d never met.  “Yeah, okay.  Do—is that all, or are you sticking around?”

“I’ll stay,” Steve said, frowning at him, “—if you still wanna waste your time on somebody who’s not—how do you say it?  Putting out?”

“...it’s not a waste of time,” Billy told him, swallowing hard.  “I just wanted it to last longer, is all—” and Steve’s eyes narrowed intently.  He grabbed Billy around the back of the neck, and yanked him into a kiss.  

 The remaining weeks, he took Billy snorkeling, and they had sex every night under the stars, Billy panting Steve’s name, and Steve holding him so tightly it almost hurt.  Billy took him to meet Max, and she eyed him warily, but Billy fought and succeeded at securing Steve a plate of brownies, and he was vocally appreciative.  She softened a little, at that.

 Two days before they had to leave, Steve was lying next to Billy on the wet sand, the waves lapping up nearly to their waists.  His shoulder was warm under Billy’s head, and smelled like the high ocean waves.  

“...d’you think you’ll come back next summer,” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.

“Depends on whether I can afford airfare,” he said, sighing.  “Depends on whether I can get a job somewhere that doesn’t need me in the summer.”

“...so I might just never see you again?” Steve asked flatly, and Billy laughed, shrugging.  

“I don’t know,” he said, “—do you want to?”

“...fuck you,” Steve sighed, and Billy pushed himself up to frown at Steve’s face.  

“I don’t know what you want,” he said, glaring back at Steve’s narrowed brown eyes.  “You wanted me to shut up about staying.  What am I supposed to say?”

Steve bit his lips together, and looked away.  “...you know I’m gonna give you an invitation.  You can just tell me.”

“What,” Billy whispered, scrambling to sit up, his heart pounding as Steve flopped over to scrabble around under his wheelchair, his tail flapping around a little in concentration, like a cat’s.  He held an envelope out to Billy without even looking over.

“There,” he said.  “All yours.”

“What,” Billy breathed, and then he half-crumpled it, opening it clumsily.  “You—you’re giving me one?”

“Two,” Steve said, flatly, frowning down at the sand under his hands.  “You and Max, right?”

“Holy shit,” Billy whispered, scrambling over to kiss him, once, then twice, relishing the little noise Steve made in the back of his throat when his lip slid between Billy’s teeth.  “I have to go tell her,” he said, half laughing, his vision blurring with tears.  

“Okay,” Steve said, quietly, and Billy hugged him before scrambling up and running back to the house.  

 Max stared at the two calligraphed invitations on the odd plasticky “paper” the merfolk used, written in Sharpie, and shook her head slowly.  “You did it,” she said, and Billy laughed, nodding.  

“He wanted me to stay enough,” he said, wiping his eyes, and desperately wanting Max to offer to handle the paperwork, so he could run back and kiss Steve.

There was a knock on the door.  Max ran and opened it, and a short-haired woman wheeled in in a rainbow overall dress, and a small, fancy electric wheelchair, her tail the reds and oranges of a sunset.  Billy never quite stopped being envious of how pretty the merpeople were.

“Steve gave you his invites, didn’t he,” she said, and Max slid them around her back, her eyes narrowing.

“...yeah,” Billy said, warily.

“Give them back to him,” she ordered, glaring between them.  “He’s been saving those a long-ass time.  He’s got plans for those, and he doesn’t need guilt-tripping by a pair of manipulative orphans, jesus.”

“I didn’t guilt-trip him,” Billy said, feeling guilty, suddenly, and remembering Steve’s stiffness as he handed them over.  “I didn’t,” he said, less certainly.  “...he...he just likes me, he wants me to stay—”

“He’s known you three months, and you told him you fucked him to get someplace nice for your sister to live,” she said crisply.  “Give them back.”

“He’s not giving them back,” Max hissed, but she was staring at Billy in horror.

“I didn’t say that,” Billy said, waving his hands.  “I didn’t!  Not...exactly.”

“Fuck you,” the woman said, glaring.  “You pressured him.”

“Fuck,” Billy agreed, his eyes tearing up again.  “Lemme—lemme go talk to him.  Max, give—give ‘em here.”

“No,” she said, sounding choked, but he walked over and grabbed them, and hugged her.  

“We’ll figure it out,” he said under his breath, for her ears only, and ran back out.

 Steve was perched up on his rock again, and Billy grabbed his surfboard and sat on it to glide out, paddling with his hands.  The water was clear under him, his shadow passing over the anemones on the reef, and he watched the fish darting around, swallowing repeatedly.  

“Hey,” he said, when he got close enough, and Steve’s head jerked around, glowering warily.

“...you came back,” he said.

“...you want me to stay, right,” Billy said, cutting straight to the chase.  “You gave me these because you want me to stay.”  Steve frowned back at him, and Billy’s heart sank.  “Answer,” he said, his throat closing around the word.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it,” Steve said, reaching out, but he just grabbed Billy’s board before he could drift into the rip tide again.  “You wanted to stay.”  He was tense, and he wouldn’t meet Billy’s eyes.

“What do you want,” Billy asked again.  “...because I think your friend Robin’s in my house, and she says I guilted you into it, talking about Max.  Do you...if I didn’t need an invite.  Would you want me to stay?”

“...I guess,” Steve sighed, and Billy swung his leg over the board, dumping himself straight down in the water, because he was definitely about to make some kind of awful noise, and the sea felt good on his hot, wet cheeks.  Steve couldn’t see him crying underwater, he thought, grabbing a jut of rock to keep himself from floating back up.  

He wished he could take a few slow breaths, he thought, closing his eyes, and then something brushed his arm.  He opened his eyes on Steve’s wide-eyed face, his hair swirling in the water.  Billy bit his lips together harder, his hands clenching on the rock, and Steve shook his head, pointing up. 

“Up,” he mouthed.  “Come on.”

Billy let himself be hauled upwards, and pushed up on the rock again, like when they’d first met.  

“What are you doing,” Steve asked, hanging on to Billy’s surfboard.

“Nothing,” Billy said, keeping his voice level.  “I thought you wanted me to stay.  For me.  You can have your invites back.  I didn’t—” he took a deep breath, hearing Steve’s voice say stop trying to manipulate me, and Robin’s guilt-tripping.  “I fucking know I’m pathetic, okay, you don’t have to pity me.  Sorry I—sorry I fucking tried, jesus, I just—” he shut his eyes tightly again, laughing as he imagined Robin’s disgusted look knowing Billy’d gone out and cried.

“Wait, fuck,” Steve whispered, clambering up next to him, where Billy barely fit by himself, since it was high tide.  He was warm from the sun, his tanned skin gleaming with water droplets, and Billy salivated, because his dick obviously hadn’t gotten the message it wasn’t wanted.  “Wait,” Steve said, half on top of him, his weight grating Billy’s shoulder blades against the rock.  Billy didn’t really mind.  “You only want to stay if—if I want you, what—what does that mean—”  His brown eyes were huge.

“...don’t really know how to be clearer,” Billy told him, unable to pull his eyes from Steve’s mouth.

“You don’t want to stay unless I’m happy about it,” Steve said, grabbing Billy’s hands.

“Yeah, that’s kinda how it gets, when you fall for somebody,” Billy told him, raising his eyebrows, and Steve took a shuddery breath and kissed him again.  He didn’t stop, though, he just kissed Billy and kissed him, laughing shakily, his eyes welling up with tears.  

“Don’t go,” he whispered, as Billy clung to him and the rock, trying to keep them from tumbling off.  “I want you here, I want you.  Stay with me.”

“I’m what you want?” Billy asked, startled, his brain hazy from warm kisses, and the scrape of pointed teeth.  “‘M yours then,” he whispered.  “All—all of me.  S’yours.”

They laid there so long, whispering and giggling, that Billy had tan lines of Steve’s fingers on his shoulder for months.

Here are the other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done!

[bunny-wk-fanfic]

Some News & Explanations

So, it's been a while, near a year I think, since I last posted anything really 'major' here or anywhere else. I did share a few pieces over on FF.net, but I wanted to explain the reason I was basically MIA for the past year.

2020 started off on a bad note for me and my family, which had nothing to do with the pandemic. Nearing the end of 2019, we noticed that my grandfather was not doing so well, and after learning that he had suffered a stroke and told no one, not even our family doctor, things quickly went south. Multiple tests were done, and each time he got worse and worse, until finally after New Years, he was finally diagnosed with ALS. Now those of you who don't know, it's a crippling disease. If you're young, you have a chance at a long life with treatment and medicine. If you're over 50, it's aggressive, quick, and painful. We literally watched my grandfather whither away for three months before he finally passed away in March.

March 2020 was shitty all around. My grandfather passed, his funeral was held a week later, although it had been delayed as Corona had just been declared as a pandemic so heavy lockdowns had been put into effect here in Germany. And to add insult to injury, some ass used a 'legal loophole' to swindle money out of me by claiming I was parked on private property. I did pay it, forgetting I did have insurance/coverage to help me for such situations, but when you're in mourning, thought process is pretty much nonexistent.

April 2020 was the first time I was affected by the pandemic as the company I was working with at the time had to close for two weeks since a few workers had tested positive as well as a lack of workers since some did come from France but were unable to cross the boarder due to the harsh lockdowns.

May 2020 things were looking a little on the bright side as I could officially move into my now apartment. Not only due to the fact that my sister finally found her own apartment close to where she was going to school and work, but because city hall was once again open and I could register to be a citizen of the city. Only to discover the apartment not only had water damage, but mold as well. Which was made worse since the landlord mentioned he did not have house insurance. Which is a big No-No here in Germany. Regardless if you live in the space or not, if you own it, you are required to have it insured in your name. Let's just say it made fixing it up and getting paid due to damages was made difficult because of his lack of insurance.

June 2020 I was once again living with my parents since the apartment needed to be cleaned and dehumidified. So, I was under stress since I was living out of their office and out of a duffle bag.

July 2020 I could finally move into the apartment and register with the city. Along with getting house insurance, since, as a tenant, I would need that, and it would help should any other issues crop up.

August 2020 I had to go through the process of quitting with the temp firm in order to be signed on officially with the company I was working with/for. It was a process as I was constantly asked for various forms of my resignation letters as well as various forms of sending it in.

September 2020 my car broke down. I could drive maybe for 15 minutes before the engine overheated. Which was enough time to get from work, to my parents, and from their place to our mechanic. He shared with me that the cooling system for the engine was basically leaking. It could be fixed for anywhere between 1000 - 2000 €, but with how old the car was, it wasn't worth it since he spotted other issues that would later cause problems that would either need to be fixed or replaced altogether. For an imported car from the US, it would be a timely and costly in the long run, so I needed to buy a new car.

October 2020 finally got a new (used) car which I'm happy with, still am to this day. Only to be laid off at the end of the month. The reason being was the low numbers of our product from the year; not just due to the pandemic, but also from a fire happening at a sister factory that slowed in us getting the supplies needed for us in production. All of which they had known since September, when they hired me on.

November 2020 went back to the temp company and immediately got a new job. Along with that, the restrictions that had been slightly lifted during the summer were once again in effect, along with a curfew.

December 2020 was actually calm, and I used this time to finally relax with my family.

January - March 2021 basically this is Germany's tax season, and I discovered that my temp company failed to give me my tax papers, so running around there. I was mostly quiet during this time, so I had planned on returning to both here and fanfic in general as I was comfortable with the company I was working with. Until they announced that they would be closing the location I was working at and moving their operation to a city that is literally in the middle of nowhere and would take me some 2 hours to travel to get there.

April 2020 was spent negotiating a new place to work with my temp company.

May - June 2020 a new job, a bit further away than I would have liked, but the work was alright and my coworkers were sociable. Until I was let go. And this was with the company lying to my temp firm, that I was caught playing on my phone during working hours. Which is impossible when you're working on a machine that needs to be watched, otherwise it was likely to jam. I learned the truth when I went in the next day to return my time-stamp chip that it was due to the reason that the next week there wouldn't be enough work to keep me. My temp firm said they might cross the company off their list of potential partners when I shared that bit of information, along with a few other details.

July - August 2020 so new job, closer to home, better pay, and with a few old coworkers from the company that wanted to close shop and move away. (I later learned they want to return back down to the area I live in, so, who knows what's going on with the higher ups). My family and I are also in the process of changing insurance brokers, as our old one was swindling us out of money, which we wouldn't have known if he had bothered to take the time to reply to our calls or messages or simply let us know that he wouldn't be in his office at certain times for whatever reason. Seriously, a simple 'I'm currently unavailable today, please contact me tomorrow' or 'I'll be out of office between XX to XX. Please wait until I return to ask any questions or address any issues' would have been better than waiting weeks to a month for a reply of any kind.

I'm sure I've explained this at least at some points during the past year, but then things just kept happening. Which then postponed and delayed my return more and more. I humbly apologize because of this and I ask for everyone's forgiveness. I do hope to return sooner rather than later, and if things continue to look as positive as they have these past two months, it looks like I'll finally be able to do so.

TM;DR 2020 sucked for more than just because of the pandemic, and hopefully I'll return sooner rather than later.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Final Four: Beaks in the Shell! or JESUS WEPT!

This.. this is a big occasion for me. It’s a return to regular Ducktales coverage.. but it’s also the first episode of the LAST four of the series. It was thanks to Ducktales my blog got a following, first through in character chat things, then through my reviews of this very season. It was starting this last year that took my blog from something I was passionate abbout but did ocassionaly to a vital part of my being and my source of income via one lucky boy who just wont’ let me stop! I kid of course, I thank kev for it, though i’d gladly welcome any other review comissions from you fine folks and fit them into the schedule. There’s a page on my blog for how and if your on mobile you can simply send me an ask or submit to ask about comissiong an episode or episodes of an animated shwo you like and i’ll give you my prices and what not. But it’s thanks to these Kev started comissioning in the first place and thanks to you all clicking on these reviews every week I do them that kept me doing them early on. So I wanted to thank you all. 

Covering the last four episodes is really bittersweet for me. It’s not the end for ducks here: I have most of seasons 1 and 2 to cover, and will be covering a lot of season 1 next month so I can properly cover shadow war for my Lena retrospective, not to mention continuing to cover life and times when I have the space, various birthdays, including Carl Barks Next Month!, and so on and so on. But this is not only the first show I covered on a weekly basis but it’s the first show i’ve covered like that to end. To put it in perspective, Loud House won’t be leaving until it WANTS to and even then nick will probably prepare a second spinoff to follow it up in some form, Amphibia has both the rest of season 2 to go, starting next month!, and a third season renewal meaning while that probably WILL be it i’ll have had two full seasons to cover by the time it’s over, and I went into Close Enough FULLY expecting it not to make it past season 1 as it’s long and harried production cycle lead me to belivie Time-Warner was just going to dump it on HBO Max and be done with it.. and to my utter and everlasting delight the opposite has happened: It didn’t just get renewed but it’s become one of HBO Max’s most popular shows, the flagship of it’s adult animation lineup, and been given THREE more seasons, two of which are coming very soon, and likely will get as many as it wants for the forseable future. 

The point is.. I went into covering Ducktales expecting at least one more season and genuinely not knowing if i’d make it thorugh covering this one, and once this started to really work out for me, to the point from doubting i’d EVER be able to set up a Patreon to having one that nets me ten dollars a month, feel free to contribute if you enjoy these reviews even a buck a month helps, honest. Plus thanks to that ten bucks a month i’ll be covering the five part 87 Ducktales pilot in April and if you get it up to ten i’ll cover super ducktales. But I wouldn’t even had one without these reviews giving me something to start with, and I figured they’d be around for a few more years, at least one more season. I didn’t think the show would just.. end with this season and while the season IS a proper final season of the show, wrapping up arcs, introducing long overdue cast additions, giving us the biggest and best overarching plot thus far.. a good final season dosen’t make it hurt any less. But as a wise Synthizoid once said...

It hurts it’s going.. I wasn’t prepared for it.. but it’s giving us one hell of a last act, and if this episode is any indication, just because the end is in sight dosen’t mean the last few eps before the finale are phoning it in. This is the end... so now i’ve got my emotional stuff and the weight behind it out of the way, for now i’m defintely going to be bawling come the finale and I’m not ashamed, we can dive into the begining of the end. Counting down.. because really when else am I going to get to use this...

We’re at four and under the cut it’s beaks in the shell. Let’s get dangerous. 

We open with a crime in progress as Gandra is stealing a thing for FOWL and Fenton has shown up on the scene to stop her as you’d expect.. along with Huey the boy wonder! He’s finally Fenton’s Sidekick!

Seriously it’s just so sweet to see this little payoff, to see Huey, after talking about it and clearly wanting to assit Fenton however he can, actually participate. Granted he dosen’t have an armor, yet, of his own, but still he’s been through enough stuff to be helpful> plus, Gyro’s reaction to Fenton trying to ge the resources for another gizmosuit was...

Gandra trips up his wheel, and im with 87 Scrooge in Ducktales Remastered, which I finally got to play recently! Horay!, what WAS gyro thinking with that design. Regardless she gets away, and our heroes return the loot off screen. Good day’s crime fighting. 

Except something’s off with Fenton as he’s been working extra late lately and lying to both Gyro and Ma’Ma about it with both suspcious, Gyro because he dosen’t like not knowing things and especially not knowing what his former intern’s up to because he’s a bit of a control freak.. and because he probably can’t go visit his new clone farm and work on speeding up the process of his replacement bodies after moonvasion used em all up without Fenton finding out as he’d tell Scrooge and Scrooge would be like “Stop playing God in ways that could get me a steep fine!”. It’d be a whole thing. The fact Fenton’s also using their now shared intern in Manny and neither is telling him why probably isn’t helping and i’ts only that workplace harassment seminar that keeps him from trying to strangle either of them again. That and Manny dosen’t have a neck.

Ma’Ma is more upset that not only is he lying to her again, more on that later, but .. that she’s figured out he has a new girlfriend and understandably thinks there’s some dark reason he’s not telling her, and unlike Gyro turns out she’s two for two. I mean she is a detective while Gyro is more worried about his clone army, his man horse and his robot son. I mean the last two are valid but still Mama just has to worry about her job and her socially awkward adult son. She has more time to focus on this.

But yes, not only is Fenton seeing someone.. but it’s Gandra again. A bit abrubt but honestly this isn’t the first Fenton episode to move his life fast.. and frankly i’m more lenient on final seasons, or seasons INTENDED to be the last ones in terms of offscreen stuff, as your trying to get everything you can wrapped up in the span of 13-24 episodes depending on how lucky you get, if not less. Sometimes you just gotta use a reveal and some exposition to hurry things along and if presented right it works.. and here it is a while the summary for this episode spoiled the reveal, i’ts still subtly dramatic that not only has hef ully forgiven her.. but their together.. despite the fact she still works for fowl. Wuh-oh.  After the credits we get an idea of what their working on, as Fenton used the gizmoduck suit to enter some kind of VR scape. This is the Gizmoscape! It’s a vast virtual reality landscape.. that looks like a fancy version of the VR Interface from community. Marble pillars, flowing water falls. Though ironically enough Jim Rash’s character is NOT a part of it and despite Fenton suggesting letting him in to help with their glitch problem she’s reluctant as it’s THEIR baby and she wants it to be perfect first before they allow other people in. Though i’m also sure part of it is that Gyro would start screaming JESUS WEPT! over and over. 

Meanwhile Mark Beaks is having a big flashy press confrence to announce the new Waddlephone. Only a 50% chance of exploding! And that’s not my dig at Samsung but the shows as that’s really Beaks sales pitch. Unsuprisingly only one VERY bored looking nerd is there at the confrence. As for why he’s finally fallen so low part of it is explalined in the episode: His attempted thefts of the Gizmoduck suit have gotten stale. As the bored nerd puts it he’s tried to steal it four times already, two that we’ve seen but i’m VERY unsuprised he’s tried again off screen. He’s made it PAINFULLY clear he has no ideas of his own, constantly steals them, and the public’s tired of it. As for why it took THIS LONG.. this is sadly realistic. As the throngs of “hardcore gamers” defending Cyberpunk 2077 before it was released can attest to, internet nerd culture can often be toxic, stupid and defend big personalities even when they’ve CLEARLY done something terrible as long as their doing something they like. Beaks was clearly pilfering enough good products and doing enough antics on social media to still be liked and for them to ignore his blanat and douchey crimes and had enough money on him during said crimes to walk away from it. 

Problem is.. while people can be awful and defend someone despite them not deserving their loyality, being a douche in public and doing VERY terrible things.. you have to have something to earn that loyalty. Waddle had that at first iwth project ta-dah, Waddleduck, various aps i’m sure... but it’s clear from context by this point Beaks has nothing left and no cult of personality to insulate him. Unlike say Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos he dosen’t HAVE some big product to mask his shadier wealth hoarding actions, he just has rampat supervilian attempts to steal someone else’s power armor and a hired hyjacking to get back at his cold unloving mother. Even when he does supervillian stuff like that.. he can’t be bothered to do it originally. The public will, and very sadly, defend you from terrible stuff, we’ve seen it with people supproting Gina Carano even though she’s actively spreading harmful disnfermation and then had the GALL to compare herself to jews hiding from the nazis, and one journalist trying to defend her had the gall to compare this to the hollywood blacklisting if the 50′s instead of you know, someone who woudln’t shut up about harmful dangerous shit finally getting fired for using teh platform said job provided to spread said harmful dangerous shit about masks and the vacine. But if you have nothing to offer.. thieri just going to forget you and move on. He has nothing to offer so they’ll gladly gravitate to some other jackass who can at leasat given them a neat phone instead of trying to steal a superhero suit for the 8th time. Mark realizes if he can’t steal something soon.. he’ll be forced to go with the Nuclear option: MAKE SOMETHING HIMSELF. 

Back at Fenton’s toilet lab, Huey finds Fenton having some cyber makeouts with Gandra... which translates to him kissing the air and Huey feeling evne more awarkd than usual. As for why Huey’s here despite it being late, he got a piece of Gandra’s nanotech during the robbery and figures they can track her. Fenton is.. less than enthused about that for obvious reasons but things soon get worse for our hero as our other hero notices the linkup. And while sidekicks are a good thing in my eyes; They allow young heroes to get proper training, help nuture their talents and prevent assholes from telling them to stop it instead of you know helping them. It’s.. a more common trope than you think let me tell you. 

But Fenton’s discovered the Downside is they can show up anytime, want to hunt your criminal girlfriend down not knowing the full story, and if their a genius like you, figure out what your up to with no effort and really want to try it. Seriously Huey’s almost as smart as you Fenton and will no doubt surpass you one day, this was a matter of when not if and you shouldv’e been more prepared. But Huey wants to try, and while Fenton tries deflecting since he only has the gizmoduck helmet and it only works for him now... Manny comes in with a bunch of vr rigs and Huey dives in.  Naturally, Huey soon running directly into Gandra dosne’t go great.. and given this is huey his natural instinct is to have a panic attack over his best friend, mentor and the only person besides maybe his family, boyfriend and girlfriend that really gets him possibly betraying him and his entire family. Gandra is of course mad Fenton invited someone in when she didn’t want that, and even more someone whose clearly not happy with her and will likely tell on them because that’s basic hue-man nature. 

Fenton explains he didn’t ask for this, so we get easily the best part of the episode: Gandra’s solution to the child having a mental breakdown.. is to summon a weighted blanket and throw it over him, which Huey mistakes for a trap and she explains helps with Anxiety.. and while he struggles.. it really does. Damn gotta get me one of those. Also while his Autisim remains vauge, likely on puprose, Huey having anxiety disorder, while obvious before, is now 100% confirmed. 

So now he’s calm, though his Anxiety meter shows he’s still not happy and Gandra doubts he’ll listen, Fenton can at least try and explain: The two have been seeing each other and working on this in secret.. but it has NOTHING to do with FOWL other than Gandra embezzling resoruces to make it happen. Gandra also explains why the project is so important to her and Fenton via her own backstory: Super Science is a dangerous, unrpedictable field and accidents happen a lot, and given people tend to hate what they don’t understand, hence why the X-Men founded their own island  after getting spat on one too many times, it often gets an unfair bad wrap.. and she shows she’s had to put up with this her whole life, making an intresting lazer thing as a kid that lost to a volcano and getting glared at for it accidently destroying said volcano. And as an adult due to her work’s dangerous and experimental nature, no one would take a chance on it and like many a super villian she had to experiment on herself. It’s also why she worked for Beaks last season and works with FOWL now, only supervillians with thier grandiose ambitions and lack of care for property damage would fund her. 

That’s part, at least, of why this is so very important to her: The Gizmoscap eprovides an invorment where scientests and others can experiment unabated, where the only limit is imagination and those glitches they keep having and any accident can be frozen , dragged and dropped away with no damage. There’s no risk but all the reward and they plan to give it out for free, to let the public use this and let the world grow from it. 

It also fills in a lot of Gandra’s character and gives weight to her last apperance: Her working with Beaks, while hypocritical, now has a tragic edge as he was simply the only one who’d fund her work. Her hatred of Fenton’s corprroate job and people like Scrooge.. is that in general billionares like him usually aren’t good people, and even SCrooge has his clear faults, and she assumed he was just making Fenton shut up and do things just to beniefit him and make him more money.. when Scrooge was instaead paying him to do a genuine public service as gizmoduck, and gives him and Gyro a LOT of leway and a pretty bottomless budget and only turns things down if their way too dangeorus for public release. The tragedy here is if she’d gone to Scrooge.. she never would’ve had to work for FOWL. He wouldd’ve genuinely supported her and likely given her a full ride and a spot in the lab of her own, maybe as an intern but probably on her own merit given how game changing her tech is and how he of all people understands a ballance of risk and reward. It turns her from a very hypcoriticla techie who works with the very people she scorns.. to someone who has no choice and desperatley wants out.  And this is her way out: something new and bold that’, while not hers alone as Fenton co created it, could change the world and make it safe for people like her to do what they do without ridcule, scorn or risk. It’s everything she could’ve dreamed of and more and once it’s done she promises to leave fowl and as the end of the episode bares out, and as her tone makes clear, she’s genuine about it. She also TRULY does love fenton and vice versa and both are desspearte for Huey to keep a lid on things from Gyro till it’s ready, as she rightfully worries if it gets out unfisnished they’ll just be mocked agian.  Naturally being a good soft boy Huey is now entirely on board, because he loves science, and he loves love and this is both. And frankly given what we saw way back in Astro BOYD... .he knows more than anyone what its like to be laughed at and mocked for being diffrent and simply being smart. And even though his family lvoes him.. only one member is as smart as him in the same way, his mom whose still a very diffrent person, and it wasn’t till this season he really got to connect with people his own age like him. And both Violet and BOYD could benifit form this.. everyone could. So he’ll keep it secret for now.  This proves problematic as both Gyro AND Mama are there and both have questions. And while Huey ducks gyro, Mama.. interrogates a small child who she’s defintely met and likely knows has anxiety over something as trivial as her son having a secret girlfrined. You.. you guys might’ve wanted to remove this bit given last year. I”m just saying. Does not play well. The most Huey can come up with is a girlfriend in Canada which fenton plays along with... but given neither her nor gyro are really buying into things, though Mama has a check done on seamstresses in canada just in case because this bit was clearly written years ago and not rerecorded for whatever reason, Huey uses little bulb to fake a gizmo emergency so Fenton can get out of there, go home and work on this himself while Huey stalls and lies. But since his best on the fly lie was “a girlfriend in canada”, which is somehow worse than “who’s Dewey”, and while our boy is many things: excellent at opera, a good friend, a wonderful wingman, excellent at setting a mood, a good son, great at panic attacks, a genius, an expert woodchuck, knowledgeble on quantum mechanics.. the list goes on lying is not one of those things and he seems to be in a pickle. 

Meanwhile Mark is struggling to create, can relate, because he’s entirely creatively sterile. And that’s probably why out of Scrooge’s foes.. he stopped being a threat. He has no vision. And while true the Beagle BOys also don’t besides steal stuff and maybe get our deed back, that’s by design as Ma knows they can’t take scrooge or gizmoduck so why cry. Stick to petty crimes and stuff he isn’t aware of or dosen’t care about. But Magica and Glomgold do. Magica is cunning, if not subtle, and manipulative and when on full blast horrifyingly powerful, and it took everything Clan McDuck had to stop her at full, and she still nearly won without any powers when she came back, and even if Lena can keep her in check now, she still GOT her powers back and got her new arch enemy to defeat her old one. Glomgold while only slightly more comipitent than beaks, and even then VERY slightly, he at least has vision. His schemes are entirely stupid.. but he dosen’t stop coming up with them. They may be his first draft but damn if they aren’t entertaining and damn if one or two haven’t WORKED. Simply stealing a few cents from scrooge and gaslighting him in a devil costume NEARLY drove him insane and cost him his fortune.  Beaks.. has no ideas. He has ambiation.. but it’s to steal the same tech that even if he got it, he woudln’t know what to do with. The ONLY time he’s been a full on threat has been using someone else’s scheme, that Gandra clearly came up with and STILL required piggybacking on the gizmo suit. He has nothing and while it was fine for a while.. eventually h’es left iwth nothing. Glomgold at least has money, magica at least has power... Beaks HAD both.. but had no idea what to properly do with it and now is on his last legs. Even his idea for a coffee cups with aps is taken because of course “even the dumbest ideas are taken”, this is america. Making dumb shit for rich morons is our primary export. But he sees the fleeing fenton, has a breakdown and declares FINE if that’s what fate wants i’ll steal the armor I’LL STEAL THE ARMOR ALL DAY. 

So Fenton heads home to recharge in both senses of the word, and to tell Gandra the timetable’s moved and Huey can hold them only so long. And he seems to be wrong as Huey confidently prepares to answer their questions.. but is seemingly thrown when we get the real reason Mama is so upset: She’s just worried and still a bit hurt from Fenton not feeling he could tell her he was gizmoduck and it breaks her heart that her son feels he has to hide from her again. However while this is genuinely sad and emotional.. the reason he’s thrown is it’s NOT huey, but Louie, whose a bit miffed as he DIDN’T know Fenton was Gizmoduck, and can’t properly bullshit without full info. it’s also really nice that bit FINALLY came up as the rest of the four main kids have known for a while now. But Huey convincnes him to do it.. for 6 months allowance. Frankly the real shocker here is that they actually GET an allowance. 

However Mama.. is again a cop. One who REALLY needs to rethink her ethics.. but a cop, and the best one on the force, and thus has easily guessed this is not Huey, and given she’s probably ran into his schemes before, figures out which one he’d bring in to buffer for him and easily gets rid of Louie by asking him to tur informant on himself, since the REAL Huey would under pressure and Louie instead flees in terror not wanting to get arrested and leaves both the lab and the episode. Though I’m pretty sure i know where he went

So yeah things are not great and only get worse, as Mark breaks into fentons house via the open window and upon finding out abotu the Gizmoscape naturally plans to hack into it and take it for himself. Before he does Fenton talks to Gandra and admits they may have to let other people in and we get another reason: She’s worried she’s not good enough. He reassures her.. and this tender moment is interupted by Beaks who imprisons them, hyjacks fenton’s security system aka a gizmo armor, and while still a creatively sterile douche, does have a decent if horrifically scummy way to profit all of this: use the open coloabreation concept to get the legal right to steal all this and say it’s his. 

Fenton bemaons the fact that Gandra was right, one bad apple spoiled the bunch and unveling it too qiuckly would’ve gone bad as she feared.. but Gandra’s grown and realizes Fenton was also right, and that they needed more people. While the wrong people can ruin a project, collaboration can help, finding perspectives you didn’t see and helping fine tune ideas. Huey, whose collapsed at Fenton’s due to the exustion of lying, wakes up to find Beaks crimes and being unable to just unplug him, as while Beaks is VERY dumb, even he’s not THAT stupid. But Fenton gets out an SOS over morse to tell everyone So Huey does.. and the calvary arrives, as Huey enters the Gizmoscape with Mama and Gyro. And while Mama is pleased to realize she’s right about the girlfirend thing they don’t really have time for that, so once Huey explains the basic concept, he uses it himself to give himself GIZMO ARMOR. AT LAST. 

He also has extra long legs, because of course, just.. of course. Naturally Beaks steals it, and everyone else takes a stab at their own gizmotech armor: Mama daawns a stunning police themed one, Gyro goes for a bulb mecha based on the giant version of little bulb from the great dime chase, an idea brought up by LB, and Gandra goes for a sleek tron esque nanotech number. Beaks take sa bit from each and our heroes wonder how to beat him.. but Fenton realizes that’s simple: Beaks can only copy and steal... they can create. And Gandra uses this against him by pointing that out so he drops his super armor.. to look like Andross from Starfox.. which shows that EVEN when trying to come up with a cool final boss form... Beaks has to steal from something. The rest of the Gizmo Corps, my name for them I own that, Gizmo Legion would also be good, after Iron Man’s iron Legion, suit back up and kick beaks ass as a team. I smell second spinoff.. or first if darkwing ends up hyjacked by Seth Rogen.. who I have nothing agianst he’s just not the one who put in the work for a reboot. 

So our heroes win in an awesome sequence, seirously spinoff and Beaks is knocked the fuck out and presumibly will FINALLY go to jail for good to this as he can get away from a lot but directly breaking into an officer’s house and stalking her son, they can omit the gizmopart and even if Fenton went public.. no one would care and he and Mama can take care of htemselves, as can Huey, Gyro, Gandra and Manny, so it’s not like anyones in danger. Beaks is well and truly defeated: he has no idea, an imminet jail sentence, and no one to back him up. Fenton’s finally got the little boil off his back

So now the big fight is over, Gyro can actually process the Gizmoscape.. and is genuinely impressed.. he tries to hidei t because of course he does.. but it’s clear for someone who himself has constnatly been called crazy and had his ideas blow up.. this is paradise to him. a place where he won’t be judged and has unlimtied funds to experiment with his ideas without having to get yelled at when they destroy a city block or nearly choked to death by his own robot son, daughter or nonbinary person. He also easily fixes the problem and proves Fenton right for wanting to include him, as he points out they hadn’t been DELETING anything, simply downsizing it and it naturally caused stress on the server.  Fenton talks about Gandra and defneeds her to Mama.. whose just happy he’s happya nd someone can take her son. Alls well that ends well right. 

Final Thoughts:  So this was a... wait.. why are we cutting back to fowl.. why is bradford there. 

Yeah turns out megalmanoical diabolical msterminds kinda monitor their employees so he knew she intended to quit and stole resources, and while she plans to leave, he simply calls in a bunch of eggheads who overwhelm her with sheer numbers and has her fined two weeks pay.. and taken to the lost library to indefintely lock her up. What’s that she asks “You have your secrets, I have mine”

So yeah a bit of a downer ending

Actual Final Thoughts: 

This was an excellent capper to Fenton’s character arc. While the Gandra relationsihp is a bit rushed the rest is a masterful capper to his character arc: This episode shows off how he’s changed from EVERY one of his previous three focus episodes, while a major part of astro boyd and how he got his docterate it dosne’t quite contribute to his character arc,  and grown from them: From beware the buddy system! he’s learned to colaberate properly and taken his desire to WORK with other people, like he always did with Gyro but was constnatly shut out, and found a proper and brilliant way to that allows people like him, gyro, gandra and huey to really express themselvs. He’s grown from a niave rookie trusting the wrong people in who is gizmoduck.. to someone whose STILL fully trusting despite constant betryals, but now knows who to trust, and an experinced hero who once freed easily counters his nemisis.  And finally from Dangerous Chemistry, he’s finally got a ballance in his life: inastead of running from gizmo or treating his alter ego as something else.. he’s found a way to use the gizmotech for science, and FINALLY found his world changing invention one so good and so practical even his mentor, despite trying to walk it back, is genuinely proud of him and genuinely in awe.

Every step lead to his happy ending.. well okay his girlfriend still needs to be freed from her insane ex-boss, but that’s just a few episodes away. Fenton has everything he wanted when he started: his boss finally respects him and treats him as an equal, his mom not only knows who he is but is proud and supportive of him, he has a loving partner creatively and romantically.. and a best friend who while a good two decades younger, is there for him and who he genuinely apologizes too for putting so much on him. LIke all the endings so far this season.. it feels like a throughly satisfying end to the journey we’ve been following. This fits in nicely with Penny realizing earth could be her home and that she dosen’t have to constnatly fight to have a purpose, Lena finally accepting magic instead of running from it and thus gaining peace of mind and power to stop her former abuser from hurting anyone else, Goldie finally accepting how much she cars about Scrooge and his family and that she CAN change... all of this, except penny obviously has been built up through three seasons and while I DEFINTLY could see frank and matt returning to all of them.. i’ts nice to get some closure.  It feelsd earned and impressive. The episode is also.. REALLY fucking funny, from the weighted blanket gag to Beaks in general, to Huey yelling at fenton about Mama “She somehow broke Louie!”. It’s a masterful and throughly satisfying end to Fenton’s story. And again we’ll likely see him in the finale but character arc wise.. its a good place to end his. 

Next Week: FINALLY, AFTER 10,000 YEARS, IT’S THE TAILSPIN EPISODE. OWEEOOO, OWEEHHHH. 

Tommorow: We return to the noiry furry world of John Blacksad as everyone’s favorite panther detective battles white supremacists to find a missing girl and we’re introduced to your faviorite sidekick and mine Weekly. 

Later on this week: The Lena retrospective continues with Jaw$, we celebrate Tex Avery’s birthday, and I tackle the awful original tom and jerry movie. 

So if any of that tickles your fancy see you at the next rainbow

[gleeblaineislife]

Glee- season 3 au one-shot/suicide note. by gleeblaineislife

I’m living a lie. Well, I was living a lie by now. My life was not perfect by any means, even though I acted like it was. I am not the bubbly, dapper schoolboy called Blaine Warbler. I am Blaine Devon Anderson and he is much different. Blaine Devon Anderson is an actor and Blaine Warbler is his character. I don’t remember what it’s like to be pure, unfiltered Blaine Devon Anderson. I don’t even know who that is. But that’s okay, since people wouldn’t like him. If anything he’s just a fucked up mess that no one wants to deal with. I get it. I don’t even want to deal with him. But, everyone likes Blaine Warbler. Blaine Warbler is charismatic, selfless, kind, confident, and a leader. All the things Blaine Devon Anderson isn’t... I am going to get this note started with an auto-biography so people can see just how my life was.

I was a mistake. My parents got drunk and went unprotected in July 1994. Nine months later, April 6th, 1995, I was born. My parents didn’t want to keep me, but Cooper (nine years old at the time) was ecstatic to be getting a sibling. And my parents would do anything for their perfect son. I didn’t have the best childhood. My parents worked a lot, so Cooper had to babysit me. Which means, some of my earliest memories are my brother telling me everything I was doing wrong. I was close to my lola, though. She lived in the Philippines, but when she was in America visiting my mama, I got her full attention. My lola taught me Filipino so I could speak to her better (Lola’s English was limited). Lola also made sure I took great pride in being half Pinoy. Then, my lola died when I was 7 years old. My mama and I went to the Philippines for her funeral. I remember Mama and I crying for hours together. Anyways, life went on. My bond with Mama was short-lived, which was an improvement from my non-existent one with my dad. Cooper moved out when he was eighteen and I was eight. My parents were disappointed when he went to L.A. to pursue acting. But, he was still their perfect son. 

I have always known I like boys in that way and not girls. I was twelve when I realized there was a name for that. Gay. And I knew that no one liked people that were gay. I was beyond upset that I was gay. I cried myself to sleep each night praying/begging for anyone to make me straight. Of course that never happened. It took 2 years and a lot of cuts on my thighs to accept that I was gay. I came out to my parents. My dad yelled. Mama cried. It was one of the worst days ever. In high school, somehow people found out I was gay. That led to countless insults, being the root of everyone’s jokes, and being shoved daily. I had no friends. I had no family. I had nobody. I started cutting everywhere that wasn’t visible through clothes. I tried to stay positive. I told myself that they would get tired of torturing me. That my parents would accept me. I thought one of those was coming true when my father came to talk to me. He was working less and he said he wanted to do something with me. I was so happy. When he presented the old car he wanted us to repair, I told myself it wouldn’t be that bad. It was. I’ve never been interested in cars and fixing one was incredibly boring. I knew what his true intentions were once he started talking to me about girls. I told him I was still gay and he got mad. We continued fixing the car without him mentioning it again. Until we were finished and he brought up the topic of girls again. When I once again said I was still gay, he just walked away. Two weeks later him and all of his stuff was gone forever. It was just me and Mama.

At the end of my freshman year there was a Sadie Hawkins dance. I asked my only friend/the only other out kid to go with me. He said yes and we went together. As friends. It was a night full of dancing and flirting with each other in a friendly way. Afterwards, we were waiting for his father to pick us up from the dance and we were jumped. Some people on the football team were the attackers. I got a concussion, five broken ribs, a broken nose, a fractured ankle, and PTSD. I had it worse than my friend. Mama was so scared and refused to waste any more time ‘failing as a mother’ (her words, not mine). Mama and I both started going to therapy. They put me on SSRIs to help with my PTSD. Mama got some kind of anxiety medication. For the next school year I enrolled at Dalton Academy. Mama picked up more shifts at her job and used the money Lola gave to me to pay for the tuition. 

Dalton was where I got to rebuild. Blaine Warbler was carefully crafted at Dalton Academy. I stopped doing therapy and went off of the SSRIs in November. I was so determined to be okay. Cutting was the only thing that kept me going. The doctors questioned the scars in the hospital but I was quick to assure them they were all accidents. I never brought it up in therapy either. I always made sure what we talked about was strictly related to my PTSD. Anyways, I joined the Warblers and became the lead singer. (I’ve taken a few vocal lessons before the Sadie Hawkins incident). Since Mama usually worked on the weekends, I didn’t feel a need to go to my house. So I usually spent them learning the school’s piano and guitar and perfecting my vocals. Music was the only other thing that kept me sane. Music and cutting. The only times Blaine Devon Anderson was revealed. Then I met Kurt. And most of you guys probably know the external perspective of that. On the inside I was battling with depression, self-hatred (for manipulating Kurt and everyone else that I was normal + making my dad leave), and recurring PTSD (from hearing Kurt’s story and going back to a public school). I am the only one at blame. That’s the story of my life. Now on to one last thing I have to say to everyone:

Mama, I love you and I’m sorry that I’ve been a burden making you work more and driving your soulmate away. 

Dad, I hate it but I still do love you. I’m sorry for being gay. I’m sorry for not liking cars and being too short to play sports. I’m sorry that I’m too feminine for you to love.

Cooper, thank you for not caring that I���m gay. You are a truly great brother and I love you.

Warblers, thank you for accepting me as your leader and believing in me as much as I believe in all of you.

New directions, I get why you guys didn’t want me to be on your team. I know I’m an outsider. You don’t have to deal with me now.

Kurt, you were an amazing boyfriend and I love you. I’m so sorry that you don’t love me since I’m a coward and am so afraid that once you found out I wasn’t perfect you’d leave. I hope you find an amazing husband.

I tried to have a great last day in this world. I made and ate breakfast with Mama, called Cooper, tried to be happy at school, sang ‘Cough Syrup’ in glee club, went on a coffee date with Kurt, and now I am about to call Mama one last time. Then I’m going to take the pills while listening to my favorite songs in my favorite spot in my backyard. It’s the perfect way to end my anything but perfect life. I’ve been acting for too long. I can’t live like this any longer. I am a fraud. A fake. I’m about to see Lola. Goodbye everybody. I’ve been battling with depression for so long and now I’ve lost. I can’t even stand to live with myself so how would other people stand to live with me?

I’m so sorry.

Goodbye

[feistypaants-archived]

Between The Pipes [Chapter 33]

Rating: M Words: 2860 Pairing: Kristanna Summary: When  a new owner takes over the Arendelle Ice Breakers, Kristoff isn’t sure  about his future with the team. That is, until a PR nightmare throws the  newest member of the media team, who also just so happens to be the  daughter of the new owner, right into his arms. Kristoff and Anna can’t  even stand the interviews they have to do together… how on earth are  they going to fix this mess? Hockey!AU.

[Chapter Index]

Where To Read: [AO3]

Notes: 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Enjoy!

It was about ten days before Kristoff felt all of his symptoms had fully subsided. He had started going for jogs a couple of days ago, but anything more than that tended to bring the headache roaring back. So he continued to take it easy, go for a short jog in the morning, and only watch an hour of tapes per day. Anything longer than that hurt his head, too.

Anna had… not so slowly started moving her things in. She didn’t have much, but he told her to put her stuff wherever she wanted, that she could make this place as much hers as she wanted. And he genuinely meant it. His house had just been a house. He hadn’t put much thought into it beyond the comfort of his couch and bed. Decor was minimal, and everything was very much brown.

Maybe she could help him make it a home.

Her just being there already made it closer.

—

After four weeks, they broke her lease and she had officially moved in. They figured it would help her save some more in the long run, help her skate by for just a little longer, even if he told her over and over that she didn’t need to worry about money.

But Anna hadn’t wanted to start things out that way. She had some savings, and she could pay for things here and there, and she didn’t want him to feel like she was taking advantage. Kristoff assured her that he could never think that she was. But still, she insisted, and he told her that that was something he absolutely loved about her.

He had been able to start doing more normal exercises again. Working with the trainers was annoying, but there weren’t any headaches returning when he pushed himself like he used to. They told him if he could do this for a week without any symptoms popping up, he could get back on the ice. 

—

That week went by like a breeze, and Kristoff relished in the feel of crisp ice under his skates. There was no feeling better than being on the ice. He sighed with defeat as they told him they wanted to wait another week before they started firing pucks at him, but he grudgingly agreed. At least he was skating.

And then, even better, he got to come home and see Anna, her hair wrapped into a bun on top of her head as she sat with her knee to her chest, drawing in an almost full sketchbook, her tongue caught between her teeth. “Hi baby,” he smiled, his heart warming as she looked up at him and used the back of her hand to push hair from her eyes. He kissed her softly as he walked past, enjoying the pure domesticity of it all. “Have a good day?”

“Oh yes! I went to that cafe downtown that we like - you know, Oaken’s Mochas and Teas?” 

He always laughed at the name. So on the nose.

“And well, I noticed that they didn’t have any sort of logo or anything so… I don’t know. I just…” she blushed and spun around on the chair, dangling her legs off the side. “They know me and I figured what was the harm in asking - so I’m designing something for them now!”

His eyes widened and he took three steps forward to clear the gap between them, placing an enthusiastic kiss on her lips. “Anna, that’s so great.” 

“They’re paying me, too!” She was giggling against his mouth, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Remember how the last place wouldn’t pay? I took it because, you know, portfolio, but I offered for free, but they insisted.”

“I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Then her arms were around his neck and not letting go and she hummed low and slow, “how about you? Good day? Worn out?”

Oh. He was never too worn out for that.

He hoisted her up onto his hips, grinning like a madman as they moved backwards to his bedroom. Well, their bedroom. She never did sleep in the spare room.

—

He was growing slightly frustrated at the week-by-week status, but he knew this was his second head injury, and they wanted to be more careful this time around. But only progressing to the next step after a whole week was growing agonizing. At least he was doing non-contact now, grinning from ear to ear as he slapped each puck out of midair.

God it felt so fucking good to be back like this.

Anna had come with him today to spend some time with Honeymaren while they practiced, and he could hear her whooping from the stands. Every time he made a save, “that’s my baby!” Every time someone scored on him, “you’ll get it next time honey!”

It was the most endearing thing ever, as she jumped up and waved her hands in the air, as if it were an actual game. As if it weren’t just her in the stands, cheering him on during a practice.

God he loved her so much.

—

Finally they were letting him practice back in a regular jersey. No more no-contact. He was fortunate that goalies rarely got touched anyway, but now they guys weren’t holding back anymore. Slapshots and more risky wraparounds and pucks fired in a way that made him dive were becoming the norm again, and he felt so damn good with every puck he saved. 

Shot by shot, the rust was shaking off, and Kristoff felt ready to get back in a game. It was almost April, and he needed to be playoff ready. They had promised him he’d be back in by March 20th, which gave him a little under three weeks of in-game play before the playoffs started. They were so close to a playoff spot, and he knew that he could help them win it.

But he wouldn’t rush, and he was going to trust the physicians on staff, and take it slow. 

If for no other reason than Anna.

He knew she was worried about him getting back in. But they weren’t playing the Stallions yet - they had at least until the Eastern Conference, and by then he would undoubtedly be a one hundred percent. Plus, the guys had his back, and, he couldn’t help but laugh about it, Warren had been scratched for the rest of the season. Coach’s decision.

—

Right on the promised date, Kristoff was starting in net against Tampa, and the literal electricity in the arena had him amped up beyond belief. Their whole team was working together like a well oiled machine, and he hadn’t realized what a vital cog he was to the whole operation until he had been gone. Even if it had just been in practice, he already felt the connection, and he knew this game would be easily won.

Anna had threatened him with an indefinite withhold if he didn’t let her come on the roadie, so she was up in their box, undoubtedly screaming along to every play, and just knowing she was in the arena made his game that much better. 

They won, 5-2, and dog-piled in the middle of the arena as they clinched their playoff spot.

Fuck. This was still the best feeling in the world.

—

The rest of the season went by in a flash, and before they knew it, the Ice Breakers were facing New York in round one. It felt so easy now as they swept the round, and had extra days for recovery. 

The Stallions lost against Boston. 

It had been a weird moment, celebrating someone else’s loss, but Anna had come home with two bottles of champagne and they popped bottles and got a little drunk and Anna had taken him to bed and all right, he might be okay with celebrating another’s loss if it meant he got this. Plus, it was the team that almost took him out for the end of the season.

Yeah, he was okay with celebrating.

Philadelphia was a harder won match. They liked to play dirty. It went to game seven before they finally secured the win, and they all felt the tiring ache of it. Kristoff hated going to game seven - it meant they only had two days to recuperate before the next match started. 

But Anna had drawn him a hot bath, had snuck in to lay on his chest while he relaxed, and scratched her fingers against his chin as she waxed poetic about playoff beards and how maybe he should just keep it and then her hands sunk a little lower, and he was suddenly feeling a lot more prepared for the Conference finals.

He genuinely thought they might lose to Toronto. They lost the first two. Won the third. Lost the fourth, and if they didn’t win all three of the remaining games, they were out.

It was close. God it was so fucking close. 

Game seven. They were 3-3. Sudden death overtime. It looked like it might head into double overtime, with only eighteen seconds on the clock, but then --

Pederson scores! Ice Breakers win!!!! 

Thank fuck.

—

Anna was there for every game. Every win, every loss, she was there. And he knew he wasn’t being a good boyfriend right now, he knew that he was too focused on his career right now and this was what he had been so fucking concerned about from the beginning.

But after game two against Nashville, which they lost miserably, Kristoff was sulking on the couch watching tapes to figure out where they kept scoring on him, and Anna wrapped soft arms around his neck. 

“Hey,” she hummed, not even reacting to his short, irritated reply. “I just want you to know… How proud I am of you.”

That got his attention. 

“You had a really traumatic thing happen, and you bounced right back from it, and you’ve been playing so hard, and so well, and… There’s no fear, and that’s amazing.” He let one hand raise to her arm, stroking his thumb across her skin.

“I love you so much,” he muttered, tilting his head back to look up at her. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a bad boyfriend.”

“I know,” she smiled, placing one quick kiss against his lips. “And you haven’t. I can deal with your job being most important for two months of the year.”

“You love me still?”

“More every day.”

He felt more confident in game three. And four. And then they were up three to one, and only needed one more fucking win to win the whole damn thing. 

—

They were in Nashville and Anna was lamenting the fact that they didn’t have the time to actually see the city this week, and Kristoff pulled her close and told her if they won tonight they could stay here as long as she wanted and see everything she could possibly think of. She blushed and kissed him and told him that he better bring his A game, because she was holding him to it and would be horribly disappointed if they had to fly back home tonight.

That was an extra motivation.

They arrived at the arena early, amazed at the crowd already forming and the insane energy just surrounding the building. Playoff hockey was a whole other world, and he was so ecstatic that Anna was getting to experience it by his side. He kissed her deeply before she had to head up to the box and him to the locker room, with a quick squeeze of her bottom and a laugh.

“Hey!”

“It’s for luck!!”

Anna swatted at him but grinned as she followed Jelissa up the stairs to the visiting team’s box, laughing with the blonde about their stupid men and how on earth do we put up with them and Kristoff tuned out the rest before he heard something he didn’t want to. Then he turned his focus to the game.

“Men!” Sven hollered, his voice booming through the locker room. “This game is do or die. We’re ahead, but you better not let that cockiness mess with your game.”

Kristoff couldn’t help but smile. His best friend had perfectly honed his skill of making a speech lighthearted but also motivating. The team followed him into fire, and Kristoff had always admired him for it. When Sven wrapped it up and hopped down from his perch, Kristoff held out a hand, gripped his best friends’ and knocked their helmets together.

“Captain.”

“We win together or we die together, brother.”

Kristoff almost laughed at the drama of it all. “Calm down, Aragorn.”

Sven was silent for a moment. “When the fuck did you watch Lord of the Rings?”

“... Concussion recovery was rough.” He dropped Sven’s hand and smirked. “But it was actually pretty good.”

“Haven’t I been telling you for years that you would like it?” He smacked Kristoff upside the head and grinned. “Never listen to me, but the second you get a girlfriend…”

They heard the announcements starting, and moved out towards the runway. As always, they were last onto the ice, and as always, they fist bumped before they stepped out. He was as ready as he’d ever be. The timer counted down, they got into position.

Three.

Two.

One.

The puck hit the ice.

Period one had a rough start. 2-0 Nashville. But he was recalibrating, remembering what it was he kept missing. They got him on his glove side. They knew he was a little weaker, a little more hesitant with it after the injury.

But he could fix it.

Period two, nothing got by him, and the guys scored three times. 2-3 Ice Breakers. Thank god.

Period three, and the pressure is on. Nashville doesn’t want to lose, and the Ice Breakers don’t want to drag it out. They’ve played three long matches already. 

Nashville scores.

Ice Breakers score.

3-4.

4-4.

5-4.

5-5.

And then.

Carruthers, the kid they just brought up from the minors to fill in a gap from another injury, fucking scores with three seconds on the clock. His third game. His first NHL goal.

The fucking Stanley Cup game winning goal.

The whole team runs to center ice. The whole team dog piles on top of the kid, still silent and slack-jawed with shock, still not believing what just happened. 

“Fuck yeah!” 

“God damn it Ruthy!”

“How the fuck, kid!”

The incoherent screaming from the team didn’t drown out the booing from the crowd, but nothing would bring them down right now. Nothing could.

After their celebration, both teams basically let the three seconds run. Nashville knew nothing could be done, and the Ice Breakers weren’t about to let anything past them anyway. The buzzer rang and they all cheered again, whooping and hollering as they received the cup, went through the motions in the arena that wasn’t welcoming them. Then they ran down the runway, back to the locker room to find their family and friends waiting with enough champagne for every person in that room to have their own bottle.

Captain Sven Pederson had the pleasure of carrying the cup back with him. 

Music was blasting, everyone was screaming, champagne was already flying through the air and as the team started stripping some of their bulkier gear off, Mattias took to the stage. 

“I’ve never been more fucking proud of you boys. You rallied together and in just a few years, we’ve already risen so far beyond what people expected of this new little team in the middle of nowhere. I’m not going to make some big long speech,” Kristoff could see the tears in his eyes as he sniffled, and he let out a booming laugh as he looked around the room. “But you’ve all just… you’ve made me feel like a proud father.” He waved his hands in front of his face and shrugged. “But fuck my speech, let’s celebrate!”

And celebrate they did.

Bottles popped, beers were distributed, everyone drank way more than they should as Sven emptied at least 8 bottles of champagne directly into the cup and lifted it to pour into every players’ mouth. The man of the hour, Scotty Carruthers, was herded to the middle of the pack and drenched in champagne and beer before he had even fully finished processing what was happening.

After far too long, Kristoff found Anna, and she leapt immediately into his arms, placing sloppy peppered kisses all over his face. “I’m” kiss “so” kiss “fucking” kiss kiss “proud of you.” And then a hearty one on the mouth, as her hands pressed firm to either side of his jaw. 

Kristoff smiled with his fingers spread wide over her back as she threw her arms in the air to add more beer to the rain in the room. She laughed brightly, lowered her hands back to his shoulders, and gave him the best smile he had ever seen. “I love you so much.”

And then he thought that somehow that was worth more than the fucking Stanley Cup.

[hellodeanna]

Started this blog because 2020 has been enough of a shit show that I felt it was time to write out my aggressions instead of complaining to my husband for the billionth time this week...

it’s October and instead of being in our current home state of Arizona, both C and I have been furloughed until....? Well, the current political climate will tell. Our jobs (yes, we both work for the same non-profit) are reliant on the national park nearby, and because funding has been cut, parks aren’t fully open and people aren’t being the tourists they were pre-COVID19, we will stay stuck in this holding pattern for the near future.

Applying to jobs feel like a joke when you’ve been working in a field that is literally halted because of the lack of tourism... Who wants to hire someone with such a specific career path?? receptionist? assistant? data entry?? I hated working those lowly positions before, and surely don’t want to do it again, but to even receive responses that my job applications won’t be moving past the application stage is quite disheartening.

Someday, I’m sure I’ll want to remember this stage of my life; after all, I am a very newly wed person and this shit show of a year is and will be historic... I imagine my grandmother living through the great depression and feel like these circumstances are fairly similar, but I want to preserve my own facts for my future family. Writing it all down should help, and frankly there isn’t enough paper in my planner/journal to write down my anger and bitterness.

So here’s the details:

In March, we got word that a virus called COVID19 was slowly seeping through the country. Because Arizona is such an Asian tourist destination with the Grand Canyon being nearby, and iconic Horseshoe bend being just over the ridge in our backyard, we were afraid, but it didn’t feel truly real. I was working alone in the archives at that point and truly felt that I would be safe to do my job despite the suggested stay at home orders. Within in maybe 3 days(?) that changed and we were forced to stay home. C and I took it very seriously, barely going out for groceries, washing our clothes in the bathtub (hell nah, to the laundromat) and laying low. We baked bread, we slept late and on warmer days we’d escape to the middle of nowhere in the desert to streak. Food began to get scarce by the end of March, and we had to drive a hour north to Kanab for meat. Produce was lacking too, but we were actively trying to eat all the food we had first before we panicked about where to get vegetables.

As April snuck in, we ventured out to camp several times in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area and Grand Staircase Escalante, and then there were the fires that forced us back inside. I never did follow up to learn if the fires around Grand Canyon and the Kaibab Plateau were accidental (lightening strike) or purposeful (rumors of a propane tank exploding), but they ravaged so much of the area that some days looked cloudy from the smoke. Exploring the area post fire was truly unbelievable - ash fields for miles.

C and I cancelled our 4.24.2020 wedding ceremony - which part of me is grateful we avoided the money and the awkwardness of a ceremony, but another part of me is bitter that I didn’t get to dress up and celebrate the love of my life. It was always a funny joke to us that we actually elope on 4/20, so we did just that, and feasted on s’mores and hot dogs post courthouse. Blunts and dabs instead of a true champagne toast - just the way we liked it. Oh by the way, I had bought this dress for $1200 which I didn’t wear and we barely got photos so that’s the part that still haunts me, and causes the immense amount of bitterness I’ve been feeling (especially now that it’s october, the pandemic is still alive and well, and I keep seeing people getting married with 150+ people in attendance *MaSkLeSs* like covid isn’t a thing still) Buying a dress that I can’t wear feels like I should have just saved that money to use for this season of indefinite unemployment.

Right after our wedding, we tried to go camping in California - which didn’t totally go as planned because everything was shut down, so we were forced to airbnb it (not really complaining). I finally got to dip my toes in the Pacific ocean, and we saw millions of Joshua trees. And shortly after our impromptu honeymoon, we set off for Ohio. This time we took the long way round, diving through New Mexico, Texas (stopping at a container home air bnb outside Amarillo), Oklahoma, Missouri (stopping at a secluded cabin on a Missouri Fox Trot Horse farm), Illinois, Indiana and Ohio in our hometown of Cincinnati. We stayed for 14 days to ensure we weren’t sick and attended a funeral service for C’s grandpa, who actually died on thanksgiving of 2019. 

After our Cincinnati reunion we headed back to Arizona, but this time the northern route, going up through Illinois to make a pit stop to wave at my cousins in Chicago, staying at a fishing shack in Wisconsin on the Minnesota border, going through South Dakota and staying in Deadwood (surprisingly I LOVED South Dakota), and driving through all the best cities in Montana. The idea was originally to explore Montana to see if it was a contender for possibly moving there in the near future, but like California, MT was totally shut down - Yellowstone was completely shut off on the highways. So we headed back through Wyoming, Idaho, and through the northern part of Utah that I’d never seen before.

So hands down, the perk of covid19 has been the off-the-grid traveling I’ve done. At this point I think I only have nine states left to go to until I say I’ve been to all 50.

So blah blah blah, we headed back to Page to host a few friends in a camping excursion and by the time July rolled around C and I realized that staying in Page was not realistic. We’d run out of unemployment and with all the work piling up back in Cincinnati, we made the heartbreaking decision to take the basics and head back to Ohio.

Well, after over two months of working odd jobs in Ohio, we’re still here. There’s gross family drama here, and I feel like I’m a total leech. We’re pulling money out of savings - you know, the money we either got for our wedding or got in celebration of our wedding (for what we hoped would be a honeymoon fund). I’m bitter, can you tell? I have no idea what’s next...

I think that’s enough ranting for today, so I’ll sign off.

until next time, fuck everything

[darkestwolfx]

Endangered

So this is a work related post for once! I know some of you are aware of my travels and work etc, but I that not all of you are. If you have the time to read this (what I think) is quite important post, then please do, and I’ll fill in some blanks about me for you.

So, little background:

I always wanted to be an author as a child, and I still have time to write my own works now (as well as FF). But I knew that was something which could take time and that I should probably have a job bringing in money whilst I worked on those projects. But I wasn’t content with just getting any job, even if it might be something like stacking shelves which would give me a lot of time to write.

Instead, I left school at 16 and did an apprenticeship in animal care for a year, before I was offered to start early on a degree in Animal Behavior and Welfare (2014-2017). After this I was returned to my original apprenticeship placement for the summer. I spent January-April 2018 travelling around Europe whilst doing an additional degree in Animal Conversation until July 2018. When I finished this, due to my past experience in animal care and with my two degrees, I was lucky enough to get the chance to disappear off halfway around the world.

I spent January 2019-January 2020 out in the Rainforest studying native wildlife and how they are reacting to the changes to their homes. I had my 22nd birthday out there and everyone was so lovely to me! They know how to throw parties that side of the world that is for sure. And I was also there for the big forest fire season reported.

Many people still think I’m too young to be in my field, and often think of this as a reason to ignore what my experiences have taught me. Out in the Amazon, I did a lot of listening, yes to many older than I, but also sometimes to children who had so much wisdom and thoughts about what they were seeing. You are never too young to make a difference, or to have beliefs, or to have valid experiences for others to listen and learn from - to anyone who doesn’t express their views for fear of this, my advise is to speak.

I now work with a small team (although since we’re based around the world, it’s more like work from home with lots of communication) and I’m currently writing a paper on Endangered Animals and the consequences of human actions upon the planet.

I know the current situation with a certain virus is stopping people from working etc (I had two part time jobs to substitute the fact that I usually work from home with very little pay - yeah, a lot of animal conservation is voluntary!) and so I know money is short for people and I understand that.

But all I’m asking is whilst people are self-isolating or maybe working from home, to think about what you’re using. If you don’t need the lights on, don’t put them on. If you have your computer on, you possibly don’t need the TV on in the background. If you have a radio plugged in in your kitchen (or any plugged in appliances), turn it off if you leave the room - you can turn it back on when you go in again. If you use your laptop, unplug it when it is fully charged. Batteries on these things last better if we don’t leave them on a constant charge (same for mobile phones) - it’s easy to plug them back in when the power gets low.

These are all little things you can do which make the slightest differences. I’m not saying don’t use the things we have invented to make life easier, I’m just asking for consideration.

If anyone does have any spare money, or is thinking about donating to a different/new charity at any point, then please consider something like the WWF or any other charities (big or small) who worked with protecting wildlife and their habitats.

We are giving rise to so many mutations in animals through pollution [and nuclear weapons, but hey, that one will take some time], some which they shouldn’t and possibly wouldn’t be going through without us, and harming the welfare of many others. For instance, in 2016 they discovered the first centipede that could swim and survive in water - when there’s been a long standing trick to drown centipedes that enter your house.

The paper I am currently writing is looking keenly into Polar Bears, Arctic Wolves, Dolphins, and Pandas - all of which are endangered and if we don’t change our impact on the world, they will disappear entirely.

If anyone would like anymore inspiration to help protect our planet, when I started by apprenticeship at 16, I met a red panda called Bongo and my love for the species really began here. He’d been living in the UK for a while due to two reasons: one, was poaching - their hides were a huge trade even only five years ago. The second, and the most important one, was land degradation - this means their habitat diminishing due to environmental factors and human factors - making it no longer safe for him as his home was increasingly shrinking in size. The plan was to release Bongo back into his home environment, because work was going on in the community to raise awareness and make safe zones. Unfortunately, we lost Bongo in the summer of 2018 with chances of him returning home still slim due to continued impact of global warming etc.

Animals do not deserve us to cost them their lives and happiness just because we do not speak the same languages, doesn’t mean we don’t have to share the same planet!

This virus doesn’t (so far to our knowledge) affect animals, but in the time we are all stuck at home, we will have a drastic impact. It’s not always the big things which we can tackle, but we can do little things; the littlest being like that of flicking switches.

Human history is full of bloodshed and violence - let’s not add killing off wonderful, varied species to our list of ‘great historical events’.

Look after yourselves at this tricky time, and keep yourselves safe, but maybe once a day, think about these guys too; because everyone loves looking at pictures of them, and if we’re not careful, that could be all they are.

#makeadifference

Together, we can do something. Without thinking, we’ll achieve nothing.

[echocardiogram]

I feel like an asshole for doing this, but I’ve seen posts like this every year and I’ve never thought poorly of the poster and I could really use a smile, so here it goes: 

I won’t be getting any Christmas presents this year. It’s been a really long time since I’ve gotten any presents for anything. And I would really, really love to have something to open this year. So I put together a wishlist on Amazon. There are some really small, affordable items. It would mean the world to me to know someone cares and was thinking about me this holiday season. 

I don’t share personal issues and events very often, but I figure if I’m asking a bunch of strangers for Christmas presents, I owe you guys some sort of an explanation. So I’ve provided a bit of a backstory below. Believe it or not, that’s the short version. 

Like I said, I feel like a jerk for asking this, but I just could really use some kindness right now. If you decide to send me something, please, please, please include your name/username so I can thank you (or an address I can send a thank you note to!). If you can’t or don’t want to buy a stranger a gift that’s totally fine, thanks for reading all of this. 

Happy Holidays to everyone! We all deserve to have a happy and fun season. 

In early December of 2017, my mother had a health scare. We thought she’d had a heart attack (or similar issue) while she had a horrible cold. Her doctor ordered some tests and they came back with the notes that her heart looked fine, but there was a mass in her lung. It took forever to get her into a specialist. But by the end of January of 2018, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. 

At the time, my mom was married to the man she’d been with since I was 4. But the cancer diagnosis did something horrible to him and he stopped interacting with my mother. There were some really awful events that took place between February and May which lead my mother to file for divorce in June. 

Simultaneously (February-June 2018), my mom went through her first round of chemotherapy and radiation. It was awful. The chemo medication they gave her was really strong. It had to be. But it left her completely bed-bound. She could barely keep food down, which led to rapid weight loss and dehydration. On top of that, due to where the tumors were, the radiation burnt her esophagus and stomach. All of this hospitalized her in April. She was only in for a week, thankfully. But it was easily the worst week of my life. 

Because of how her husband acted, all of her care fell on me. And it’s continued to be my responsibility. 

When her treatment wrapped up in June of 2018 her doctors had been really optimistic that she wouldn’t need any more treatment. And her 3-month scan in September seemed to support that. It took months for her to gain her strength and stamina back, but by the end of September she was back to work and things were returning to normal. 

In the final days of 2018, my mother had her next set of 3-month scans. They showed that not only were the masses in her lungs growing again but this time an MRI showed that it had spread to her brain. I have never been so thankful for a scan. The MRI was supposed to be a yearly scan, and she had had one in September, but I just had this feeling that she needed to have one in December and I threw a fit on the phone with her doctor until she agreed to order it. 

She started full brain radiation in late December 2018 and wrapped it up on January 4, 2019. What a horrible way to ring in the new year. Full brain radiation has the potential for quite a few permanent side effects. For my mom, these side effects manifested as forgetfulness, trouble expressing herself, and changes in mood and behavior. Her doctors have her on a medication that’s supposed to minimize these side effects, but they’ll never completely go away. 

Once the brain radiation ended, she began her second round of chemotherapy  This time the chemo medication was different, and luckily, much gentler on her. She still lost some weight, but she wasn’t completely bed-bound. This round ended in early May of 2019 and her doctors immediately started her on immunotherapy. She goes every three weeks. It’s much easier on her, but she’s still exhausted in the days following her treatment. 

This year, her September 3-month scan showed that cancer in her brain was still active in a few spots. She had gamma knife radiation (basically, pinpoint radiation) in October. She just had her December scans yesterday. We’ll get the results next week. I’m terrified. I always am. 

To make matters worse, my mom was fired from her job this September (on my birthday, no less). Luckily, she was able to find a new one within 2 weeks, but her health care was through her work. We were able to COBRA her insurance, but it’s over $400 a month. We were barely making ends meet before she was fired, now it’s even more difficult. We have additional debt from the divorce and the cost of buying and setting up a new home (things like dishes and beds and a stove). 

We’re in a much better place now. We’re in a home where we feel safe (we weren’t last year, her ex got really abusive). My mom is working again. (She’s one of those people who go crazy when they’re not working. She doesn’t know how to be idle.) But there isn’t any money for anything extra. 

I work as much as I can, but I have a chronic pain condition that severely limits how much I can do. And there are still times when I have to be home to take care of my mother. The immunotherapy she’s on is usually very tolerable, but there have been some treatments that have left her unable to leave her bed for 3-4 days (this last one was really hard on her).  

I have been squirreling away change and single dollar bills for the past three months so I can buy my mother something for Christmas, but she’s already told me that I shouldn’t be getting her anything and she won’t be getting me anything because we don’t have the money. I have to dip into the money I’ve put away for her present to buy bread today. Things are just...really tight. 

Through all of this, there hasn’t been time or money to spend on me. And I’m not upset about that. I’m not mad or annoyed that I haven’t gotten anything for my birthday(s) or Christmas(s). Hell, my mother still being alive is the best gift she could give me. I’ve just hit a point mentally and emotionally where I need something good or kind for me. I didn’t have many friends before my mother’s diagnosis, but when I started taking care of her full-time in 2018, the ones that I did have drifted away. And as much as I have aunts and uncles and cousins, we’ve never been the gift-giving kind of family. 

The list I made is ridiculously long. But there are a lot of small, inexpensive items on it. I also added a couple of things for my pets and my mom. In case you’d like to make their holidays a little brighter. If you can and want to send something, I would really appreciate it. If you can’t or don’t want to, I totally understand. This time of year is so difficult for so many families. I know I’m not in need in the same way others are. There are plenty of people who need help with food or presents for their children. But I thought I’d ask anyway. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. 

Christmas List

[twisted-suburban-paradise]

I hate to post a vent/rant post because of the way I used to rant and rave about bullshit on here when I was still using. So if you don’t want to see a post like that from me you might wanna just scroll past this.

I kinda just need to blow off some steam or something because I honestly can’t fucking stand myself right now. I’ve been making more of an effort than I have in a long time and making so much progress on myself in the past six or so months. I’ve cut out pot, alcohol, kratom, and all other substances aside from nicotine (I swear to god, that’s the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now) I’m coming up on six months of sobriety and I’ve gotten way better at expressing myself in a healthy way and my friendships have improved because of it, especially with the guys in my band.

Recently I saw a friend who I hadn’t seen since I made the decision to get sober and he told me I looked noticeably better. A couple other friends told me the same thing about a month prior when I saw them, both of which I hadn’t seen since my first week of sobriety.

On top of all of this I’ve cut back on my calorie intake and started exercising regularly again. I’ve lost weight and I have a lot more energy and drive than I did when I was still using.

Now for the not so great part...

I’ve got this problem I’ve been carrying with me for a LONG fucking time (10+ years). It’s something I’ve never spoken to anyone about until I realized how problematic it actually was to my mental health and stability and sought out professional help with it. (I highly doubt anyone’s curious about this but just in case please don’t ask. Especially if I know you IRL. It’s the most agonizing shit and believe me, you’re better off not knowing anything) I wish I had sooner. Throughout my teens I thought it was something that would go away as I got older but looking back that was a really naive way to deal with this. I would just shove it into the back of my mind and put off dealing with it. I’ve been going to counseling about this for like, 4 or so months and it is, honestly, helping a lot. The process of getting rid of this problem is just dreadful though, and I want to see results with this faster. This problem I’ve kept silent has made me really resentful towards so many different things to the point where I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to ever see things that I’ve grown to despise the way I used to again. Or at least without this incredibly hateful lens I see them through now.

One more thing and I promise I’ll end this nonsensical post.

I turn 23 on Sunday, and I’m still lost as hell in terms of where to go with my life. I wasted so much time with substances from age 18 up until about 6 months ago that I’m still working these deadbeat fucking jobs and living paycheck to paycheck. I had a bunch of money saved up back in December, more than I have in a couple years but the holiday season really put me under and I’m back to the paycheck to paycheck thing. I fucking hate the restaurant industry and I’m dying to get out of it. I interviewed at a clothing store last week, but I’m still waiting to hear from them. It would be a HUGE relief to be able to finally quit that dogshit fucking restaurant I’ve worked at since last April and work two retail jobs for a while. (I’ve got a weekend gig at a feed store, but it’s just a once a week thing) this being said though, I don’t know if I’ll be able to work in retail forever either but I mean, at least it’s not fast food. FUCK

Okay, I guess I’ll end it there. Sorry for all that. Hope you’re having a better day than me

Here’s the pics, the first one is from last July, second one I took this past Wednesday. It’s not much really, but even I can see improvement

[platypanthewriter]

Peaches

Harringrove April prompt day 10, Peaches 

Summer in Indiana is depressing, particularly when Billy runs into Steve Harrington eating a ripe peach.

The first time it really felt like summer in Hawkins was when Billy walked out of the grocery store, and Steve Harrington was sloped against his car, eating a peach.  The juice was dripping off his chin, running down his elbows, and the neck and chest of his t-shirt was wet and transparent.  His lips were pink and shiny with juice, and he bared his teeth, a little, to grab the skin and tear it off before biting in again.  

When he finished, he licked his fingers with a gross slurping noise, grinning at the girl standing next to him—she rolled her eyes—and dug another peach out of his bag.  He hummed happily as he chomped down.

 Indiana had heat, but it didn’t have summer, not like Billy wanted.  It wasn’t that he liked the tourists in California, but he’d woken the first morning after school let out in Indiana and stuck his head out the window, and for the first summer of his life, couldn’t smell the sea. 

He hadn’t even bothered to bring his surfboards, when his dad had said they were moving—his friends had come and grabbed them, already talking about where they’d go “break them in.”  

“Might as well throw my old one out,” Nicole had said, running her thumb appeciatively down the edge, and Billy had cleared his throat, growling.

“Hey, I’m coming back, asshole—” he’d hissed.  “As soon as I get enough money—”

“Oh, right, right, she’d said, nodding, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off the board.

“Later, dude,” Scott had said, turning to leave, and Billy couldn’t help blurting out, “That’s it?!  Jesus, thanks, guys, have a nice life.”

“What?” Eric laughed.  “Thought you just said ‘I’m coming baaaack,’ right?”  His imitation of Billy’s voice was meant to be grating, and everyone laughed.

 Billy’d walked out of Bradley’s Big Buy in mid-June with beer and cigarettes into wet heat that felt like a sauna, and there was Steve Harrington eating peaches, and his friends—some of his little hangers-on, Max’s age, but also like six people Billy remembered from parties, and they had raft paddles tied to Steve’s car.  Steve was eating peaches and laughing, like he was still the fucking King of Hawkins High.  

Billy guessed he was, really, since after all Billy’s efforts, there they all were, hanging around laughing with Steve.  

 Billy had listened to Tommy Hagen’s stories about growing up with Steve Harrington and snarled, “Loyal to your king, huh.” 

Tommy had laughed, his gaze wandering to find Steve in the crowd.  “I mean, I wouldn’t die for him,” Tommy said, then leaned in, grinning.  “Kill for him, maybe.”

“This isn’t the army,” Billy snorted.  “The hell do you mean, die for him.”

Tommy’d just laughed.  He wasn’t there, though, gathered around, laughing with the dude he’d kill for.  Billy thought probably Steve Harrington was popular enough to hold grudges—to allow people to be his friends—and whatever Tommy’d done, he was out.  

It probably wasn’t near as bad as that night Billy’d showed up at the Byers’.

 The peaches were so juicy, and Billy licked his lips, wanting to taste them, sweet and fresh.  Unbruised.  

He’d saved up, at first, to go home, to ditch Indifuckingana and just drive until he hit the fucking ocean, but his sarcastic postcards had gone unanswered, and when he called his mom, he got the answering machine.  Nobody called back.  He wondered whether he’d bruised something there too—maybe they’d been glad he left.  Fucking Billy Hargrove, they probably said, tossing his postcards in the trash.

He’d laid on his bed that morning, breathing the June air—rain, and the smell of mown lawns—and the sounds of the weather channel out every window on the street, because Indiana got goddamn tornadoes, even though tornadoes were an obvious sign of a place humans should not live.  

It had been sticky-hot already, at eight in the morning, and he longed for the cool air off the Pacific, instead of this...America’s armpit season, where the air felt too thick to breathe, and everything was damp, all the time, including him.  Max had taken to leaning in her window at night, her sweaty hand against the cool glass, her eyes half-lidded in misery.  Billy’d started soaking a towel, wringing it out, and draping it over himself as he tried to pass out, and his bed was starting to smell like mildewed sweat.  

 The peaches looked cool, and sweet, and perfect.  Harrington chewed with his mouth open, grossing the kids out, and licked his teeth with a smirk.  Billy clutched harder at his pack of cigarettes, and his six-pack of room-temperature beer, and wanted.

 His shift wasn’t for a few hours.  He’d gotten a job at the pool—at least he could shower 90 times a day, and it felt a little more like summer, surrounded by people in swimsuits, even if the water was chlorinated, sad and still in a cement pit, and surrounded by a fence—probably to keep out the hordes of people who wanted to drown themselves every Indiana summer.  

 At the moment, standing in already-damp jeans, his hair limp with sweat, even the pool sounded suffocatingly hot as he watched Steve Harrington and his peaches.  Steve was in ratty old shorts—his thighs showed through the holes, and the curve of his ass—and a tight t-shirt so worn it was nearly transparent, moreso with the juice dripping down the front.  It clung to the muscles of his chest and biceps, and Billy swallowed.  His throat was dry.  

One of the kids was going on about the best spots to put rafts in the river, as Steve licked from his elbow to his wrist.  

Billy’d heard about the whitewater rafting, of course—at least it sounded summery—but it wasn’t like surfing.  You couldn’t do it alone, it sounded like, and he wasn’t gonna take Max, or, worse, go on a family guided trip with his dad and Susan.

Steve Harrington And Friends were heading to the beach, Billy thought with envy—even if it wasn’t a real beach, with water stretching to the horizon, rivers had beaches of sorts.  They were gonna go numb to their knees, stepping into the water, splashing each other, probably, like actual children.  Shivering in the Indiana summer.  Billy imagined Steve’s shirt soaked.

“The hell d’you want?” Steve said, taking a slow bite of peach.  Juice ran down the side of its soft skin and between Harrington’s fingers, and Billy realized he’d been standing there for a while, staring at the peach juice gleaming on Harrington’s arm after he wiped his mouth.  

Billy went to spit out something fittingly insulting, and his lungs wouldn’t work, thinking about summer, and the flavor of peaches in Steve Harrington’s mouth.  “Lemme come,” he rasped.

“What,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows, and Billy sighed, figuring he was in for it anyway, and if Billy Hargrove’s words never worked on anybody, it wasn’t because he never tried.  

“Take me along.  You can shove me off the raft,” he blurted, grimacing.  “As many times as you want.  In the rapids.”

Steve’s raised eyebrows had turned sly, and he was starting to grin.  “Don’t you have a job?”

“I’ve covered for Heather enough times,” Billy said, watching Steve lick his lips, and lean around to slap the side of his car. 

“Max,” he yelled.  “Whaddaya think?”

King Steve Harrington deferred to Billy’s little sister, apparently, and Billy set his jaw, watching her walk around the side of Steve’s car.  She crossed her arms and looked at the boyfriend Billy’d seen lurking around—the kid he’d tried to beat up—who stared calmly at Billy.

He thought of the coffee can he’d been stuffing cash into, for the drive home.  “I’ll get all the food for the trip,” he said, playing his last card.  “For everybody.”

“...and we can push him off in the rapids?” the kid asked Steve, who nodded, grinning.  He and Max whispered, and then nodded.

“Welcome aboard,” Steve said, between sucking his fingers.  Billy stepped across the parking lot towards him automatically, and nearly got hit by a car.  He trotted over, ignoring the driver’s honk.  Steve laughed, shaking his head, and offered the hand not covered in peach juice to shake, with the grin of someone plotting evil, and Billy swallowed again, and barely managed not grabbing Steve’s other hand, to lick the shine of peach juice off his skin.  

He thought about leaning in to run his tongue up Steve’s neck, tasting salt and summer.

The other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done

[gremlinsae]

My Story + Current Situation

I don't know how to begin this post. To be honest, what I'm about to tell y'all may not help me out in any way other than giving me an outlet to vent. Fair warning, this is going to be a long post and I may ramble a bit but I'll add a tldr; at the end. 

Sigh.

Let me start from the beginning.

My name is Stacey. I turn 25 years old on April 24th, 2019.

My story begins when I was 19 years old - a freshman at my local university. I was finishing up my first year of my undergraduate program in Biology, aiming to get a Masters or PhD in Genetics. I had many accomplishments; I was awarded a scholarship because of my GPA, a group project I was a part of won 1st place in a writing competition because our independent research paper was the best, and I was just living life and working on my future. I had to take the bus everywhere, I was moving around a lot, and I was working out regularly at my university's gym. One day, as I'm walking to the bus stop, it felt like my right hip popped out of place and then slammed back in. 

At the time, it was a minor inconvenience. It hurt, yes, but it mostly just left me sore and it went away with some rest so I didn't think much about it. 

I started questioning it more when it happened again over summer break. I was at a friend's house playing D&D when I felt an acute grinding sensation in my right hip joint as I stood up to get me a soda. This time, the pain was significantly worse - sharp and it took longer to go away. I started thinking that I was developing arthritis as my dad also got it young. 

It took a while to happen again...but when it did, it got to a point where I couldn't ignore it at all.

I had picked up a seasonal job at Macy's. My first day on the sale's floor was Thanksgiving night going into Black Friday. We were understaffed and it was hell, but I made it through my shift which ended at 2:00 AM. A co-worker came to me and asked if I could pick up her shift the following morning and I took it because I wanted to work. On Black Friday, I started feeling that grinding sensation in my hip again but I worked through it - blowing it off as simple arthritis. I believed rest would help.

That following Saturday, I had another 8 hour shift but this time it was in juniors which was the busiest area. I was moving around a lot, had to bend over to pick things up off the floor, and I'm not even going to get into the mess left in the dressing rooms. Towards the end of my shift, I was limping. The grinding sensation only got worse and suddenly my hip was locked up. I could barely move and when I did I experienced sharp intense pain. I left an hour early because I could no longer do my job. I thought maybe I just picked up too many hours, so I decided to take the rest of the weekend to rest.

But the pain didn't go away with rest. I was in pain for 2 weeks straight, hardly able to walk, before I finally went to see a doctor. I limped my way to the university health center and scheduled an appointment. The lady who saw me performed a simple hip exam. I wasn't able to walk much, so she mostly checked my hip flexion. Off the bat, I knew that I had lost some range of motion as we could barely bring my knee to my chest without pain. The fun part happened as she was guiding my leg back down.

My femoral head caught on my hip bone. It was audible, and yes it hurt.

She had a look of shock as she said, "You are way too young for this." 

I was prescribed diclofenac for the inflammation and cyclobenzaprine (flexeril) to relax my muscles and help me sleep through the pain. That same night, my mom took me to the ER and I had a x-ray done on my hip. The radiologist said that there was a slight chance I had femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) (in layman's terms: the bones are misshapen) on both hips, but would need more imaging to truly determine a diagnosis. I was prescribed hydrocodone (vicodin) for about a week to try and manage the pain until I could get insurance and see a specialist. 

That's where the fun part started.

Since I turned 19 that year, I was no longer covered under CHIPS Medicaid. I applied again, but was told that I do not qualify because I didn't have any children.

Yeah...you read that right. The state of Texas does not extend benefits to anyone over 19 without children. 

My only choice was a county program that helps low income people get medications and treatment so they can get back to work. I wasn't able to apply until months later (a combination of not having my own transportation, busy schedules, and my mom trying to convince me that I would be denied.)

I was 20 years old when I finally found a doctor (we'll call him Dr. D) that could help me figure out what was going on in my hip joint. He took it seriously - performed another hip exam and ordered several lab tests. We checked everything under the sun: cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, etc. He got me on physical therapy, changed out my diclofenac to meloxicam (mobic), ordered me an MRI, and referred me to an orthopedic specialist to determine how we needed to move forward.

The MRI I had was without contrast. The result was greater trochanter bursitis, or inflammation of the bursa which are sacs filled with synovial fluid that help cushion joint movement. 

When I saw the specialist in November of 2014, the chronic bursitis was the sign that something was definitely wrong with my hip. I was only 20 years old with no traumatic injury. Chronic bursitis is not common in someone that young, so he ordered me an MRI with contrast so that they could have better imaging of my joint. My husband's grandparents paid the $932 to get it done in December and it was honestly one of the worst things I had ever gone through. When they injected the dye into my hip, the numbing agent didn't work and it hit a nerve HARD and my entire body convulsed. They injected more of the numbing agent, but that also didn't work so again my entire body convulsed as they tried to get the dye in. The third time worked because they decided to give me a stronger numbing agent...but it messed my hip up. I walked funny for three days.

When I finally saw the specialist again about the results (several months later because of an issue with scheduling), not only did I have bursitis but they also confirmed that I had cam type FAI (layman's terms: the deformity is on the femoral head) and a 9mm labral tear. 

Since the condition was causing joint damage, the answer was surgery.

I was sent back to my primary care physician's office, but unfortunately Dr. D wasn't available so I saw a different doctor. (This may seem irrelevant, but it is actually very important.) I told her EXACTLY what the specialist told me, which was that I needed to get sent to San Antonio or Galveston in order to get treatment. 

The referral was denied.

I was assigned a new doctor. We'll call him Dr. S. He told me about the denial when I had asked about it during an appointment for a different issue. I remember crying because I had no idea what to do. I was only 21 years old - I didn't know how to navigate the medical system! Plus, I was very very broke. I won't go into too much detail, but I was forced to move out of my parent's because my dad is irresponsible and I was put in a massive amount of credit card debt because my own mother stole my identity and I ended up having to pay the bill for it because my mom was diagnosed with cancer and couldn't work anymore. 

(This is only surface level by the way. The last 5-6 years have been absolute hell.)

That summer I was working two jobs. I had a GoFundMe page and I was just trying to save up enough money to possibly get me on an insurance plan to cover the surgery. I came home every night limping and crying, my husband having to half carry me and help me get into a hot bath just to try and bring the pain down enough so that I could do it all again the next day. School was rough as well and my grades were dropping.

I was destroying my body so much that it got to a point where I could no longer do my job as a sale's associate at Macy's. My managers were amazing and they did everything they could to help accommodate me, but it got to a point where I was unable to finish shifts due to pain and I was calling out often. I was running low on my attendance credits and I didn't want to be fired for absenteeism. 

I go back to see Dr. S and I tell him I really need something, anything. What I was doing wasn't getting me anywhere and my condition was getting worse due to the progressive joint damage. He didn't really know what to do...saying things like "I can' believe they denied you - the whole point of the program is to help people get their treatment and yet they're denying you." I told him I had heard something about an orthopedic program at one of the hospitals in network and he put in a request for me to see one of their surgeons. 

I never got a response.

At the time, I really couldn't pursue the issue - I changed from a sale's associate to a wedding gift registry advisor at Macy's. It was a desk job which really helped keep my hip under control, but the problem was that my hours were reduced and I had no way of picking up more like I did with my previous position. I was having to donate plasma so often just to have food money that I actually have a permanent scar on my left arm.

I loved that job, but it barely paid the bills. I took a semester off of school so I could focus on working and babysitting my nephew due to a family emergency. Thankfully my in-laws paid me. Even though it was something I would have done for free, it really helped out.

But then Macy's had a huge company layoff in January 2017...and I was affected. The position I had was being removed from my local store, so I was without a job. My depression took a big hit and it almost ruined my relationship with my husband. I wasn't taking care of myself, I wasn't doing my responsibilities that were required for my unemployment benefits and my insurance, and I basically became extremely dependent on my husband to a point that our relationship became unhealthy. It took a while to get me out of that rut. I started applying for jobs and I ended up getting hired by Aflac around the end of April, but I had to get my driver's license before I could be officially on board.

I understand that the above may not seem relevant, but...that summer was when things got even worse.

I wasn't able to get my license in time to take the position, but that was only a part of the issue. In July, I was helping my husband's business at a convention when I had one of the worst flares I've ever had. I had twisted the wrong way, causing my femur to catch on my hip bone, and I ended up on the floor in fetal position.

At best, the pain felt like I was being stabbed with an ice pick. At worst, it felt like every tiny movement I made was splintering my hip bone. The splintering sensation I had felt before, but not to this degree. My hip was locked and it felt like I was stuck in a vice. On the pain scale, I was around a 9. It was unbearable. I ended up in the ER where the only thing they could do was give me a shot and a prescription for Tylenol 3 (acetaminophen + codeine) to help me get through it...

Neither the shot or the medicine worked. While my hip was unlocked, I was still experiencing sharp pain that was so deep in my hip bone that none of the medications touched it.

It hurt...it hurt intensely and consistently. 

It got to a point where I had to borrow flexeril and tramadolfrom someone while I was trying to renew my insurance. Yes, I'm aware that this is illegal - but I was out of flexeril and the meloxicam wasn't working so we were trying to get me through the MULTIPLE flares I was having even when I didn't do anything to aggravate my hip. The end of 2017 was exhausting for multiple reasons.

Once I got back on the county program, I had an appointment scheduled with a new doctor (we'll call her Dr. P) because Dr. S was no longer working in network. 

The week of my appointment...was really rough. We had to put our dog down at 2 years old because he had severe chylothorax and we didn't have the money or the means to seek treatment (plus it was so severe that seeking treatment could have killed him.) A few days later, Hurricane Harvey hit and my area was badly affected. My appointment had to be rescheduled. 

I saw several different doctors in the following months because Dr. P never had an opening available. I ended up needing a wheelchair to get around because my standing/walking limit was drastically reduced. I'm lucky to be able to stand for 10-15 minutes now compared to the 1.5 - 2 hours it used to be. I tried to apply for medicaid again, but was denied and advised to try and apply for disability. I didn't have enough credits to apply through social security so I found an attorney and just gave it a shot. However, I got a rejection letter for representation due to the information that they received from my doctor's office.

I start questioning things at this point. What did they tell the disability attorney? We knew I needed surgery and that my condition was getting worse. What could my doctor have told the attorney that resulted in a denial?

I didn't see Dr. P until May of 2018 and apparently, she had no record of my diagnosis and my need for surgery. The only imaging she could find on file was my very first MRI (without contrast) and so she was under the impression that the only issue was mild inflammation in my right hip. 

I was pissed.

I ended up having to redo the entire process. I see the very same specialist again and he didn't remember me. I had to get another MRI done and he requested an x-ray right before my appointment, but he never went over the results with me. He basically told me I need to "put up with it" and ordered me a fluoroscopy guided injection. 

I get the injection in October and literally minutes afterward I start crying because of how overwhelmed I was at no longer being in pain. To give y'all an idea, chronic pain isn't always intense pain 24/7. For me, it feels like my hip is constantly bruised. I usually hover around a 2-3 on the pain scale and the more I move the higher it gets. IT IS EXHAUSTING. To finally feel "normal" again was so overwhelming for me that I was a sobbing mess as we walked back to the car. 

That week I was so happy. My mental health immediately improved. I was able to walk around, go up and down stairs, even go on a camping trip with my ecology class and go hiking! All these things that I wanted to do I could finally do again with only minimal and MANAGEABLE pain. I still took it easy, but I was finally able to enjoy my life again.

...

The following Monday, a week after the injection, I woke up in severe pain. I had felt the familiar twinge the night before, resulting in an anxiety attack because of the fear my hip pain was returning...and unfortunately my fear came true. The injection normally lasts a few months...for me, it lasted one week. 

I go see the specialist for the follow up appointment regarding the injection. He seemed kind of confused, saying things like "At least now we know the problem is your hip." I was beyond frustrated because WE KNEW FOR YEARS THE PROBLEM WAS MY HIP. He wasn't listening to me! He even asked me if he had talked about surgery the last time I saw him and I told him YES. So to wrap up the appointment, he gives me a half-assed hip exam and requests that my PCP put in a referral for orthopedic surgery...again. My depression hits its lowest point. I even contemplated suicide and had to start therapy. Overall, I was not in a good place.

I don't hear anything about the referral for months so I call and they tell me there are no orthopedic surgeons at the moment. So I make another appointment but this time I see a different doctor that we will call Dr. I because she was the one who put in the request for the referral. She was amazing! She listened to me, didn't interrupt me, and she worked to make sure we got details regarding any hold ups so I wasn't left in the dark. She even performed a standard hip exam on me to measure how bad my hip got. Anyway, she finds out that yes - everyone with the clinic card does not currently have an orthopedic surgeon because the contract with the previous one ended and was not being renewed. She encouraged me to keep calling, at least once at month, to check on the status of their hiring. 

My first call was in February of 2019 and not only was I told that there still wasn't any orthopedic surgeons...the county had also decided to no longer cover hip surgery as of this year. 

I was LIVID.

I made an appointment with Dr. P and was seen literally the next day because I was DONE. We gathered all the info we could to prove to them that I had been seeking treatment for years. She listened and she took me seriously. She put in a new referral that aimed to get me a one time approval, ordered physical therapy, and referred me back to the specialist so we could get this done. She also prescribed me gabapentin to help me out with some of the nerve pain I was experiencing because as of the end of 2018, my hip pain was causing issues with my knee. As of 2019, my ankle and foot started being affected as well. She theorized it was due to nerve damage and so she put a note on my referral for it to get done ASAP.

Which brings us to the present. I went to physical therapy and it caused me to flare up...repeatedly. I ended up having to resign from my job (that I only had for a month) because my absences were atrocious and I was constantly having to update my accommodations just so we can attempt to have my absenteeism reduced. (In the end, I had to chose between voluntarily resigning and be eligible for rehire in 30 days or risk being terminated and not being eligible for 3 years.) My last physical therapy appointment was Friday, April 12th because during my exercises my femur caught on my hip bone and caused a severe flare. The physical therapist put a stop on my therapy until after I saw the specialist because it was only causing me more trauma. 

Today, April 17th, I saw the specialist and we finally figured out why I never received the treatment I needed. To reiterate, we are on year 5since I first got on the county aid and started seeking help from them.

It turns out, all of my referrals were done incorrectly.

I was being referred to the local orthopedic department which can not do the procedure I need. On top of that, the specialist was trying to order me an arthroscopy for DIAGNOSTIC purposes - not an arthroscopic surgery. Somewhere in the mix there was massive miscommunication and things were not being documented correctly. My PCPs had no idea how to handle my case so it ended up being mishandled entirely.

Essentially, the specialist brought in someone from an internal department and they are now taking over my case because this is grounds for a class action law suit and they want to avoid that at all costs. She explained to me where the block happened and that they were no longer going through my primary care physician for referrals because it would risk continued miscommunication.

They admitted that the fault was on them. I understand why this happened because the hospital I go through is in a major transitional phase and they've been tearing down the trauma center and relocating, building new clinics, updating, etc. I even told her and the specialist that I am not mad at any one person, that I do understand - but they have to understand that I was a victim of this. I experienced YEARS of suffering that affected my physical and mental health, my education, and my ability to work. My condition has devolved to a point it never should have and it may have permanent life altering repercussions. My surgery may go from a simple fix to needing a replacement which would result in at least 2 more replacements later on in my life since they do have an expiration date and I am only 24 going on 25.

TLDR; because of the transitional state my hospital is in plus the fact that I was jumping between multiple doctors, there was miscommunication regarding the treatment for my FAI and it led to my referrals being done incorrectly...and I suffered for it. I am now waiting on a referral that will send me up to San Antonio where they will be taking arthroscopic images of my hip joint so that we can further determine how to proceed with treatment. I may pursue legal action, but ultimately I just want something done so I can get on with my life.

⬇️

So why am I posting all of this information here?

Because of the fact that I am now out of a job again, plus everything that I had explained above, I am opening up EMERGENCY commissions. We have bills to pay and we also need to be able to pay for this trip to San Antonio and unfortunately, my husband (who is currently employed by my previous employer, go figure) is not making enough to keep us afloat. We are in the red and will not make it through May at this point so we are already working on selling some extra stuff and getting ready to make some major sacrifices. 

I mostly write Victuuri but am willing to discuss other pairings. If you have any questions regarding what I will or will not write, just shoot me a message on twitter and we can discuss it. 

Commissions will be pay what you want - no minimum. I'll literally take anything at this point. I know my writing can be a bit inconsistent so I don't feel right setting a price. Here's the link to my ko-fi page.

All I ask is to please understand if the commission takes a while to get out. I have real life things to take care of and sometimes my medicine makes it hard for me to stare at my computer screen. Just trust that I will get it done. 

I'm currently working on a piece for hentipie. I'm hoping to have it out this weekend so prepare to see that soon! It won't be posted here due to the rating though, so you'll have to look for it on AO3.

Anyway, for those of you who took the time to read this ridiculous chunk of text, thank you. If you can't help me out financially that is perfectly fine. I know and understand the struggle so don't feel bad by my sob story. I just needed to get this out.

Talk to y'all again soon! <3

-Sae

[shurisneakers]

espresso [4]

Summary: In which your best friend’s brother begins to set you up on dates when you mention that you haven’t been in a relationship in years, but things don’t go as expected.

Warning: swearing, dating, anger issues

A/N: this is my entry for the beautiful @bithors writing challenge!

hey hey big shoutout to @samingtonwilson because every time she betas this and sends me the revised copy im like!!!! a QUEEN!!!! holy shit!!!

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous part- Part 3 || Espresso Masterlist

“No. Fucking. Way.”

“Yes fucking way! Ain’t she beautiful?” Bucky beamed, running his hands gingerly over the door of his new ride. An old muscle car, a sleek black with a few scratches and dents, but proudly glinting in the moonlight.

You let out a low whistle, glancing up at Bucky as you crouched beside the car for a better look. “Gorgeous. She got a name?”

“I was debatin’ Grace, but now I’m thinkin’ she’s more of an April. What do you think?”

You would have teased him, but this was genuinely the happiest you’d seen him in a long time. Alight eyes were crinkled at the corners and his grin was one of the largest you’d ever seen, and heck, you wondered why he couldn’t be like this more often.

“Shits, that’s perfect.”

You sent him a pair of finger-guns when he opened the door for you and he rolled his eyes in feigned exasperation, smile still stretched over his lips.

In an empty threat, he replied, “Say shit one more time in plural and you’re walking there on your own.”

“Well, God forbid a girl has funs,” you joked only to be met with a groan of annoyance. “Oh, calm down.”

Once in the car, you immediately went to set your feet on the dashboard, legs crossed at the ankle, but received a deadly glare. You slowly lowered your feet, never breaking eye contact with him even as your features twisted in playful fear.

As you tugged your seatbelt on, you asked, “When’d you get her?”

“Two days ago. Couldn’t afford the payments on the other one. Sold it to some frat guys ages ago and took whatever was left after payin’ off the bank to get this one.” He sighed contentedly as he turned the key in the ignition so the engine roared to life. “DMV shit got delayed. She’s probably, like, a third-hand vehicle and needs the upholstery totally ripped up and replaced– but I think she’s pretty great.”

With a soft sound of disagreement, you shook your head. “She’s a ten out of ten, no need for anything. I’m happy for you.”

You tucked your hands behind your head, leaning back into the worn out leather seats which had turned soft over years of use, and a soft sigh of comfort left your lips to prove your point.

“How are your classes going?” he asked after a moment, still smiling softly at your previous statement.

“Getting fingered by Wolverine would be less painful,” you replied casually so Bucky choked and coughed on an inhale. You laughed quietly. “How’s engineering going?”

The indicator made a clicking noise you thought must have sounded less out of tune years ago as he took a left turn. “Shitty. Fuckin’ hate it.”

Eyebrows furrowed, you tilted your head with an agape mouth. “Shitty? Two days ago it was the shit, you said you loved it, that you elected to major in it.”

He gave you a tight-lipped smile and half a shrug and, immediately, you knew something was wrong. While you and Bucky didn’t often discuss your respective career choices and plans for the future, each time you did manage a conversation adjacent, he’d mentioned it was something he’d wanted to do– hell, had he not mentioned it, the number of shitty jokes and puns he made in its reference would have convinced you alone.

“Didn’t want to at first. But Becca advertised wanting to go into journalism all throughout high school and it’s not– it’s not a traditionally lucrative job, at least for the first few years.” He shrugged again, this time in a bit of insecurity, nervousness, but his eyes remained trained on the road. “Figured one of us should be able to embrace that nontraditional job so I picked up something more secure. Something secure because things at home are, you know…”

He had trailed off, but you knew what he meant. Money was a sensitive topic for both, Rebecca and Bucky and, although they could never be ashamed of their family, their pride kept them from asking for help from you despite your continued offering.

“Anyway, she ended up choosing poli-sci for law school for the same reason, so that was pretty ironic,” he grinned and you could see it didn’t reach his eyes, maybe hurting his cheeks as much as it hurt you just to see it.

You remained silent and your teeth wreaked havoc on your lower lip as he continued, “Can’t do anything about it now, though. But, if I could, I’d change my choices in an instant.”

Toying with your fingers in your lap, you asked, “What would you major in instead?”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of stupid really–“

“Didn’t you wanna write?” you added softly, eliciting a look of surprise from him.

He glanced at you quickly. “How’d you know?”

“You were always writing in high school. I saw you with your little notebook every lunch, Bucky,” you laughed, images of an acne-covered Bucky with shoulder-length hair bent over a tiny journal, scribbling for the life of him.

He groaned in embarrassment, a light pink dusting over his cheeks. “I can’t believe you noticed that, Christ. The emo phase was strong.”

“Well, if it helps, I think you’d be a kick-ass writer. I’d be first in line to buy your book. Wouldn’t even sell it on eBay after getting you to sign it.”

He fell silent at that, choosing to bite his lip in place of a response. You’d begun to wonder if you’d said something wrong when he whispered, “Thanks, Mario.”

You didn’t say much more, only turning to look out the window. It wasn’t too long before you heard him chuckle to himself but before you could ask him what he was laughing about, he spoke up, “This is so sad. Alexa, play Despacito.”

You snorted. Fuckin’ dork.

Bucky was leaned against the door of his car as he waited with you until your date for the evening arrived, keeping you engrossed in the utterly ridiculous nonsense you both spoke about.

“I’m just saying, if you made coffee with Gatorade and injected it into your bloodstream, you’re basically God. Like, who the fuck would need heroin then?” you tried explaining for the fifth time, unable to keep the smile off your face. You had your arms crossed over your chest in an effort to keep yourself warm whilst Bucky’s hands were shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants.

“Gatorade is for cowards, we use only Red Bull in this holy house– it actually does something. How about if you mixed vodka, ground espresso beans, and protein powder, then snorted it–”

You clicked your tongue. “Intravenous is more effective–”

“Didn’t realize the offer of a date included you, James.”

In a bit of a laborious task, you looked away from Bucky to the guy who came to a stop before you. Dark hair gelled back and darkness which wasn’t hidden by his glasses surrounding deep hazel eyes, he wore a simple black sweater over a pale blue t-shirt. “But I’m not complaining. Love me some three-way action.”

“Tony,” Bucky sighed, smiling nonetheless. “This is–“

“Mario? I figured.” Tony flashed a quick smile at you.

Immediately you could hear loud sniggering from beside you, making you spin to face him in annoyance. “You have got to stop doing that! What the fuck?” you exclaimed, punching a laughing Bucky on the shoulder as he feebly tried to defend himself.

“My name’s Y/N, not Mario,” you stated to clear the confusion, rolling your eyes at Bucky who burst out laughing again, clearly showing no remorse.

He looked from his watch to you, not fazed by your exchange with Bucky. “Ah, I see. Well, shall we get going? Game’s about to start.”

“See ya later, Mario. Have a good time, guys.” Bucky ruffled your hair as you tried to swat his hand away, taking a step towards Tony as he looked at you with a small smile on his face. “I’ll be on the other side of the court if you need me.”

“D’you want to get some food during halftime or before the first quarter?” Tony asked once Bucky waved a goodbye and jogged to join his friends.

“Halftime sounds good, I think the game’s about to start,” you answered, sending him a half smile.

He only nodded and adjusted his glasses, beckoning for you to join him.

You both made small talk and it turned out he wasn’t nearly half as bad as Peter. He rarely spoke of himself and only mentioned he would be looking for a sustainable source of energy in the future, something about wanting to lessen the environmental burden of current energy dependencies.

It started out well enough, the both of you commenting on the players who you knew. You waved at Sam from your place on the bleachers and he shot you a wink in response

“Sam’s starting tonight and it’s against the Gotham Jokers. S’why Bucky and everyone else is here,” you explained, leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knees.

“Wilson? Number seven? He’s your friend?” Tony asked, squinting at the ball as it was tossed into the air, soon taken by one of the Jokers.

You didn’t bother sparing him a glance as you watched Sam quickly steal the ball back and passing it to Rhodey. “Yeah. Why d’you sound so surprised?”

“Think he’s a bit overrated, that’s all,” Tony mumbled, making you reel back and stare at him disbelievingly. “Got the whole school worshipping the ground he walks on.”

“Captain of the team, MVP last season. He got scholarships to three different prestigious universities, too,” you recited, jumping to your feet as Sam made a shot from the three point line, the ball going in effortlessly with a swish. You looked over your shoulder to raise an eyebrow at Tony, “Still think he’s overrated?”

He only shrugged. “Guess not.”

The next few minutes flew by quickly, Tony progressively getting more invested in the game as it went on. He occasionally let out a cheer when you did, but other than that, he was more observant than anything.

But just as the Jokers were about to pass the ball, Tony jumped to his feet with a scowl, “Double dribble! Double fucking dribble! He stopped! What the fuck, why isn’t anyone calling that out?”

“Tony, he didn’t hold it. There was no double dribble,” you urged as the people surrounding you turned to glare at you both.

“Jesus fuck, this entire crowd is ignorant. Uneducated,” he stated angrily, sitting down in a huff.

You patted him on the back in attempted consolation, but he only ignored you, continuing to glower ahead.

Everything was fine and dandy until the Jokers’ defense pushed one of your team’s players when the referee wasn’t watching. In Tony’s defense, everybody reacted loudly to that. But no one had the passion Tony had when he leapt up like a fucking Jack in the Box, fists thrown in the air. “What the fuck!?” he screamed to no one in particular.

“Yeah, what the fuck!?” you echoed, cupping your hands around your mouth.

“You fucking blind ass, stupid piece of shit, punkass bitch!” he raged, pupils dilated and eyebrows furrowed.

“Okay, never mind.” You promptly sat down, trying to pull Tony with you but he shook you off fervently. You thought he resembled the fucking Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons.

“That was a foul! Why don’t you use your fucking whistle, you trick ass little bitch?! Try blowing something other than your own dick for once!” he screamed at the referee, shaking his arms around wildly.

“Jesus Christ,” you whispered, putting your head in your hands as he ranted on and on for another ten seconds before finally sitting down, cursing steadily to himself.

When your team made an effortless basket, you prayed it would calm Tony down. And to some extent it did work and he kept quiet until the first quarter was up, only rolling his eyes when people turned to look at him.

Ignoring them from that moment on, he tilted his head as he watched Sam send a wink to a girl who only rolled her eyes playfully in response. “Who’s that?”

“Sam.”

“I know that’s Sam, I’m asking who the girl is.”

“Sam’s girlfriend, Sam,” you replied as you laughed at his expression of confusion.

“Sam has a girlfriend… named Sam?” You nodded as he sighed, smiling despite himself. “Fuck, what would their couple name be?”

“Well, they’re Sam and Sam. Or as I like to call them,” you dropped your voice as he raised an amused eyebrow, “Sam.”

“That’s so fucking creative, how did you ever think of that name?” he asked, a smile on his face that made him look ten times less stressed than he’d been mere moments ago.

You actually didn’t mind Tony at that moment. You might have even considered him to be fun.

That was until the next quarter started and the referee called a foul on Sam for apparently no reason and Tony was back on his feet, face red like one of those ugly Angry Birds. He then started in a shrieking voice, “Oh, so now you want to blow that whistle, you piece of utter shi–“

Tony gave you a ride back to your apartment after the game which had ended much later than you thought it would. You knew Bucky had left after the third quarter when he sent you a text saying he needed to get up early for his shift, but he asked you to call him when you got home safe.

You wondered if he was still awake but, as you’d promised, you called him the moment you crossed the building threshold.

“Hello?” his rasped in an infinitely exhausted voice– you instantly regretted calling him.

“Hey, fuck, sorry. I didn’t think you’d be asleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, get some rest,” you said hurriedly, guilt seeping through your words.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he paused and you could hear him yawn despite the muffling over the line. “Is everything fine, baby?”

“Yeah everything’s– wait, what did you just call me?” you asked as you bit your tongue and your eyebrows shot up in surprise.

The silence you were met with was quickly followed by a string of curses, presumably since he perceived what he’d said. His voice was clearer as he replied, “Shit. Sorry, Mario. It just slipped out. I’m, like, half dead. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Just called to talk about the king of anger paralysis, clone of Charlie Sheen, Tasmanian Devil embodiment–”

Bucky cut you off with a sigh. “Tony?”

“Oh, yes. Wanna hear all about my super great time with dear Squidward or should I save it for tomorrow?” you asked as you jogged up the stairs to your apartment.

You could hear rustling on the other end before he yawned once again, saying lightly, “I’m ready. Go on for as long as you want.”

“It all started when he called the referee a ‘fucking blind ass, stupid piece of shit, punkass bitch.’”

Bucky sighed. “Oh, shits.”

PART 5

TAGLISTS ARE CLOSED

[thebrownblog]

Different Seasons: Two Years in Quebec

Well, once again it’s been a while (I won’t even pretend at the end of this entry that the next one will be soon, it’ll be some time in 2021 if I follow the average posting frequency). What’s up folks? What could I possibly be here to talk about today? Probably the one thing that distuingishes and defines my life, the fact I moved thousands of miles from home to a place that seems to be frozen half the year, and doesn’t have English as a first language…and then decided not to move on again, stubbornly at times.

Before starting this, I just read back through my previous post from October 2017. “A hundred thousand changes, everything’s the same” sums it up nicely. It was clearly written by a younger, more enthusiastic version of myself who was still on a high from just arriving, and hadn’t yet experienced 2 brutal winters. I’d say I’ve probably matured and grown more in 2 years here than in the previous 5, however difficult Paris was. The foundations were laid by the Parisian struggle, but it’s definitely Quebec that’s put a few hairs on my chest. 

This is a very seasonal existence, and there’s no way around it. The euphoric highs of summer and the beauty of autumn juxtaposed with the looooong slog that is winter. The euphoria of being out on the road all the time seeing beautiful place after beautiful place vs being stuck at home because of the gloomy and sometimes dangerous conditions (I will NEVER forget for as long as I live, how close I came to death in a sudden snowstorm in Maine last October, when visibility suddenly dropped to about 20cm in front of the car on a winding mountain road with moose out and about at night). I’d go so far as to actually call it a bi-polar existence over the course of a year, a life of extremes for sure. Am I capable of growing old in conditions like these? Probably not, but I’m not ready to give it up yet, and if I ever do I’m not sure it would be to go back to England anyway. Who knows?

However, I loved it here at the beginning, and I still do today. Why? Same reasons, by and large. Open space, open road (weather permitting). My own slightly bizarre version of the American Dream probably (Well, it IS just 25 minutes away). Ever since I was a kid, I was going to end up on this continent somehow. I always wanted to go to the USA. Why? Most likely being a big reader and film fan. Everything I loved reading and watching was always set in America. America to me was not and still is not defined by who is president at the time, and what crazy sh*t is happening politically. It’s more of a concept. To me it represents vast open space where you can go anywhere, and become anything you want as long as you have the will and the fortitude to make it happen (if the American Dream is dead I certainly never got the memo, and don’t really want want to either). In the end I ended up close enough, AND with a humane healthcare system.

What else do I love about here? The fact I feel like I actually have a chance in life. You can still work hard here in a ‘regular’ job here for a few years, save up and buy a house. This is completely dead where I come from, the idea of home ownership for me one day in London is a sick joke, and Paris was no better. I recently just moved into my own place for the first time, and actually have a spare bedroom…and it all costs less than a box room with barely enough space to swing a cat in in London. These things would have mattered less to me at 21, but now rapidly approaching 30 (yikes!) they matter more and more. Quality of life now matters a lot more to me than a place being hip and vibrant, and I have it much better here.

Some people understand completely, and others think I’m crazy, but that’s okay, crazy’s always worked for me.

I think to really understand me on this, you have to understand that I’m not attached to where I come from whatsoever. I miss my family a lot, and it’s painful at times, especially knowing my little sisters are growing up seeing me twice a year, but the place itself I could happily never see again. When you understand this, you can better comprehend how I’ve lasted this long already without the end being in sight yet.

Another big question is how someone from London feels more at home out in the sticks, and I think there’s two valid answers to this question. One is that I was completely and utterly burnt out with big city life after my negative experiences in my last years in London, and then the backbreaking experience in Paris in which I couldn’t even see just how miserable I’d become until I left. I clearly just wanted peace, affordability, a slower pace of life, and no more f*cking public transport!

The second is connected to childhood and Sweden. I grew up in London but I would always go to visit my grandparents a few times a year in Sweden, where they lived in the countryside. It was always a magical place for me, and everything that’s come out of me here (love of peace and quiet, nature, and nature photography etc) all actually started over there when I was much younger, but came out with a vengeance in Quebec. Funny how nearly everything about us all is programmed by our childhoods one way or another, whether we see it or not. 

It is also my theory that people always crave the opposite of what they grow up with: those that grow up in the country want the bright lights of a big city, and those that grow up in cities often want a slower pace after a while.

Ironically, my life has also been busier living in a small place than it ever had been before. I came to learn quickly that doing nothing in these weather conditions is not an option unless you want to find yourself fat and depressed in a hurry. There ARE things to do here, you just have to find them yourself, the internet isn’t going to tell you much. Aside from private tutoring, I’ve kept busy in a wide range of eccentric ways. I’ve joined a rugby team, a football (’soccer’ to all you North American lunatics) team, played a lot of badminton, and got myself more seriously involved in photography. You’ll notice a lack of winter sports, which is a shame I know, but sadly I know myself and know I was born with two left feet. I don’t want to risk injuring myself in a way that would keep me from driving for any period of time as I’d lose all of my income. You drive or you die out here. A train?? What the hell is that???

So, what’s really changed for me since the post I made near the beginning of the experience? The biggest thing is probably integrating. I couldn’t understand a word anyone said to me here for the first 2 months. I spoke French well enough already after a year in France, but the dialect and accent here is so different it was often basically worthless. Nowadays I communicate just fine, and have integrated into the community. It’s been a new social experience for me being known pretty much everywhere I go. That’s what happens when you work at schools in a small place and you have something about you that is unique (a Brit who actually speaks the language and lives here…yeah, there aren’t many….). 

It’s very different from the anonymity of a big city, and like all things has its pros and cons (sometimes you just want to go into a shop and buy something without being recognised by a current or former student), but mainly pro. Community spirit is a good thing that’s been pretty much lost in larger places. There’s definitely a kindness and willingness to help here that is more prevalent than anywhere else I’ve lived previously. Some of the families I private tutor for seem to have adopted me as one of their own!

Another big change was getting a new 2-year VISA in April which allows me to have any job, my first one was very restrictive, and made it tough to earn decent money at times. After getting it, I finished the year by supply teaching for a few months which was great experience, and certainly an adventure in itself as I ended up subbing for just about every subject on the curriculum. Obviously with the exception of English classes, this meant I had to do it in French all the time. If subbing for Maths, Science, and French isn’t a testament to how far I’ve come with the language from not being able to understand anything at all during the first two months here, I don’t know what is! However I drew the line at doing dictation in French one time, and put Netflix on instead, there are limits!

VISAs, VISAs, VISAs….well I’ve got myself started now. There’s been a constant stress from the moment I decided to stay on in October 2017. With the VISA I currently have, and the year I’m entitled to with my Swedish passport, I could fairly easily stay here until April 2022. However, I’m really tired of temporary solutions, and all the admin and costs that go into obtaining each one. I want to become a permanent resident, which is a more daunting and complex beast. When I come back from my trip home in early September all my energy will be put into finding a full-time job. You can’t get permanent residency without one. Whatever subbing and tutoring pay me is irrelevant because neither count as full-time, and I can’t go and study anything without swapping my working VISA for a restrictive study one (the headache never ends you see).

In many ways this next phase of the journey is going to be the acid test in terms of where I will end up. I will walk away from the teaching world temporarily or permanently if I need to, in order to find a full-time gig and get my residency. However, the job will have to involve my being an anglophone who speaks French to a high level. This is my advantage in this town, and the card I will always look to play in the employment game. If it can’t help me here like I’ve always thought it could, I would have to look elsewhere in the province eventually, and if there was still nothing cooking, I would have to ask myself the question for the first time about whether I would prefer to live amongst other anglophones in Canada, all opportunities being equal. 

These are all ultimately questions for another day though. What’s certain is I have a good chunk of time left, and in that time I will continue to travel around Canada and the USA as much as I can within my means. I often feel like a born nomad, and I love nothing better than hitting the road and seeing new places. That’s my pleasure in life, and long may it continue. Everything else will work out how it’s supposed to, it always does.

Tomorrow’s flight back to England finally signals the end of the beginning in this long, meandering, and very seasonal story.

TL;DR:

Winter is too long and I need a full-time job to become a permanent resident, but I still like it here, and people are nice.