#yet i keep on going michael jackson with it in my writing

[funkytrashsuperstructure]

yall ever repeatedly and accidentally misgender your own ocs

[deonn-jaelle]

break of dawn pt. 2

“i don’t want the sun to shine i wanna make love”

“i don’t know what im gon’ do i cant stop lovin’ you”

summary

you and your husband have busy schedules and haven’t seen each other in far too long. you crave his touch (and his dick) more and more as the days apart go on. when it finally comes time to go on a date after so long, you bring out a scandalous piece of clothing to make sure you both get a happy ending by the end of the night……or the beginning of the next day.

warnings❗️: LOTS OF SMUT

word count: 2,983

paring: aurélien x chef reader (black fem reader) (reader understands french)

note: hi everyone! i hope you enjoyed part one. if you haven’t read it please do. i had A TIME writing this yall, and it’s real spicy. it’s kinda long too so grab a snack. constructive criticism is always welcome and of course, enjoy!

———————————————————————

10:00pm

your date with your husband was filled with lots of talking, laughing, longing touches on each others legs under the table and the most intense eye contact. although you said you want to “talk to” your husband, and you did really miss talking to him you found yourself in your thoughts thinking of every single position he would put you in tonight. how many kisses it would take for you to beg for him. how his thick, heavy dick felt on your tongue. and his slight curve. you loved how his dick curved inside of you hitting spots you didn’t even know were there. the taste of the skin on his neck. his firm hands holding you lovingly, yet possessively as he took you from behind. the fact that you’re also ovulating makes everything so much harder for you.

does he know i’m ovulating? he must because there’s no way he’s been teasing me like this all night.

just as you thought that aurélien squeezes your thigh that rests on his own, leans in and whispers to you “i hope the baby we make tonight looks just like you”. you almost spit out your wine. “how the hell do you know i’m ovulating?” you say whisper yelling in confusion. he grabs your chin between his to fingers and makes you look at him in the eyes. his lips inch closer to yours, almost touching as you lift your head a bit to try and kiss him before slightly pulling back and says “J'ai hâte de t'enlever ces vêtements sexy” (i can’t wait to take these clothes off of you sexy). he slowly moves up you thigh. you instinctively part your legs a little for him showing your neediness for him. his pinky ever so gently grazes over you covered clit making you bite your lip in order to keep quiet so the other people at the restaurant don’t hear you. “behave aurélien. please. i can’t take the teasing anymore. i need you right now.” you say pleadingly, grabbing his shirt. looking at you with a half amused half serious face, chuckling a bit he says “oh i thought you just wanted to talk baby?” removing his hand from your underwear and leaning back into his chair. you rolled your eyes putting his hand back on your stocking covered knee. “i did….i still do but..we have four days to talk i need you to fuck me right now”. he looks at you with slightly wide eyes and raising his eyebrows. “okay okay, relax. i’ll give you what you want but roll your eyes again and this night will end a lot differently” he says stern and assertive. you obey “yes sir” smiling shyly not wanting to risk him not making you cum tonight.

10:30pm

the car ride home was almost quiet. just the sound of your husband kissing your hand and saying “missed you so much” and “i love you, ma femme” (my wife). it felt like he was driving at two miles an hour. you were going crazy in that car, anxiously waiting for him to pull into the driveway.

______________________________________

11 o’clock

the second the door closed behind you aurélien attaches his lips to yours in a soft loving kiss which contrasted the feeling you both had in your lower regions. his hands slowly and softly roam your body. feeling down your ribs, your waist, your hips and finally your ass. he squeezes softly. “i love you so much mrs.tchouameni” and says with the most heartfelt look in his eyes making your heart swell. “i love you too mr.tchouameni” you say genuinely smiling, showing your dimples. he turns you around and begins to zip down your dress. his knuckles softly grazing over your back making you lean back into him. his hands find your hips and he pushes his hips into yours making you feel his growing erection. the two of you start walking slowly to your shared bedroom and he says to you from behind “you feel what you do to me” making you moan “everyday while i was away all i could think about was how beautiful you look taking my dick baby” he kisses your sweet spot, right under you ear causing another string of breathy moans out of you “Et comme tes jolis gémissements sonnent bien. juste pour moi” (and how good your pretty moans sound. just for me) pushing his hips against yours once more. “yes baby, only for you. fuck” whispering a curse at the end and arching your back making your ass push against him more.

your were so caught in the feeling of auréliens large hands on your hips and his warm bulge pressing into your ass that you didn’t even realize you had finally made it to the bedroom. you stand in front of the bed watching your husband pull off your shoes, touching over you sheer black knee high stockings, then your dress, showing the black lacey lingerie set he bought you months ago. he licks his bottom lip, salivating at how sexy you look in front of him.

Merde. C'est la plus belle femme que j'aie jamais vue. (damn. she’s the most beautiful woman i have ever seen)

he thinks. admiring you in all your glory. his hands explore your body touching your breasts. softly squeezing them. his hands travel down to the waistband of your panties just feeling the soft fabric on his hands. at this point your knees are weak and your heart is beating fast in anticipation. your panties are soaked to say the least. you can feel your wetness threatening to leak down your legs any second now.

he’s going too slow go me

you think to yourself

11:30pm

you grab his shirt and start to undo the buttons. “take it off” you say sharply, given a surprised look by your husband. “please” you say smiling. and he does. your mouth immediately goes to his chest, kissing and licking anything you can get your tongue on. you travel up to his neck, kissing, biting, and licking. your hands are holding tightly on to his pants wanting to rip them off. he moans “baby slow down, i always take care of you don’t i?” he says looking down at you “yes you do but you’ve been teasing me all night and i missed you so much. i just want you inside me. and-“ he cuts you off with a passionate needy kiss, grabbing your hand and making you feel his dick. “you want this dick baby? go ahead and take it” he says sitting on the bed. you waste no time taking off his pants and underwear. you get on your knees in front of him and take his thick length into your hands. massaging up and down his shaft. you moan at the sight of how hard he his for you. you lick long stipes up his dick before you finally take the sticky tip into your mouth. he groans loudly and rests his hand in your braids as you begin to suck and bob your head up and down. “ Tu suces si bien cette bite bébé. tellement bien. (you suck this dick so good baby. so good.) you moan on his dick at the sound of him praising you in his native language. he grips your braids and slightly, pulls you back as he starts to feel his release creeping up on him “not yet mon sucre, i’m cumming inside you tonight. come here” (my sugar). he lays down and montions you to sit on his face. you climb up his body and hover when you get to where he wants you. he kisses your inner thighs sweetly looking up at you.

“look at me”

you do.

“i want you to listen okay?”

“yes baby”

“i’m going to take my time with you. cherish every sound, every shake, and squeeze. i’m going to make love to you, until i see the sun peak through the curtains. and i want you to let me love how i want. no rushing. just me and you”

a short silence fell among you.

“okay….okay. i trust you aurél”

until sun rise? yeah i’m definitely not walking tomorrow you think

“Tu ne quitteras pas cette pièce tant que je ne saurai pas que j'ai mis un bébé en toi (you’re not leaving this room until i know i put a baby in you)”

11:45pm

you were about to laugh but were cut off by aurélien swiftly pulling your panties to the side and softly sucking your clit. “fuck” you moaned. his hands gripped your thighs firmly making sure you didn’t move. he sucked and licked every inch of your heat always keeping his eyes on yours. he let go of one thigh putting two fingers into you flicking them harshly against your gspot. “yes just like that baby” you moan shakily. he does as he’s told and continues to eat you like youre his very last meal. “are you gonna cum for me?” he says still finger fucking you “y-yes yes i’m gonna cum” you cry out loudly. he reattaches his mouth to your clit and sucks harder making you cry out his name loud enough for the neighbors to hear you “aurélien!!!! yeeeeeeeesss”. you shook and squeezed his head with your thighs. he continued to suck you making you let out a high pitched whine “baby wait i-it’s too much”. he doesn’t stop. you know why. he wants you to squirt for him.

11:57pm

he sucks harder, removing his fingers from you to hold you tighter to his mouth. “ooohhhh fuuuckkk” you whine unbelievably loud as you let out a hot, wet squirt all over his face and chest. and he takes it all, drinking you up as if he was dehydrated. you thought he was gonna stop there……but he didn’t.

what the hell? is he trying to give me a heart attack?

“aurél what are you doing” you half moan half scream as you try your best to catch your breath. “i wanna taste you again” he says against you. “i want you to cum on my tongue again baby” giving his attention back to your glistening vagina.

oh my god this fool is pussy drunk. i can’t feel my legs.

you thought.

12:05am

you didn’t say a word because you knew there was no stopping him. instead you braced yourself for the earth shattering orgasm you felt already building up inside you. he reached one hand up to play with your nipples, giving you extra stimulation. he puts his tongue inside you exploring your insides. “oh my god baby fuck i’m cumming againnnnnn” you yell out gripping his hair to try ground yourself as tears fall from your eyes. your vision leaves you and your ears ring as your second orgasm ripped through every nerve in your body.

your husband sits up so that youre straddling his brick hard dick as he holds you close, leaving kisses on your collar bones as you come back down to earth. “you still there baby?” you hum in response because you don’t know words at this point.

it’s only 12:11am and i’m already worn out. i need his dick inside me. you thought.

J'espère qu'elle est prête. Je dois rattraper le temps perdu. Je suis sur le point de la baiser si bien (i hope she’s ready. i need to make up for lost time. im about to fuck her so good.) he thought.

you both sit there for a couple of minutes

12:22am

you began to rock your hips against his dick, spreading your arousal all over his shaft, making him moan and kiss you letting you tastes yourself. you share a long passionate kiss as you get yourself off on his dick from the outside. “are you ready for me mon sucre?” “yes. please fuck me now.” you say kissing his jaw, tasting your left over liquids. without skipping a beat he flips you over so that he is on top of you and lines himself up with your plush, dripping entrance. you wrap you legs around his hips forcing him to push his tip in a little causing you both to gasp. he puts his weight on his arms and he slowly pushes into you. his lips caught between his teeth and his face in your neck smelling your perfume. “you smell so good baby”. you moan in response. you feel him stretching you out more and more. pushing deeper and deeper hitting your cervix. you feel like you’re spilt open. you squeeze around him a few times trying to get used to the feeling of him after so long. “mmm you’re so big. your dick feels so fucking good inside me baby. i missed this so much mmm” you say into his ear holding onto him closely. “i love this pussy bébé” he responds.

12:36am

he begins to speed up his thrusts, keeping them long to make sure you feel every single inch he has. the sounds of your skin connecting with his, his panting and moaning in your ears and the lewd squelching of your vagina sucking his dick in are sounds you’ve never been more happy to hear. “fuck you make me so wet aurélien” “ you fuck me so good ah”. the sound of you praising him makes him fuck you harder. he can’t get enough of it . you notice and keep talking “i love it when you fuck me hard like this. keep going, just like that” he grabs one of your stocking covered legs, puts it over his shoulder and puts his body weight on it to make sure you stay open. you feel him deeper making you gasp for air and claw at this bicep. your husband puts his hand around your neck and adds a light amount of pressure, making sure he doesn’t hurt you. the feeling of his cold wedding ring against your hot skin makes you hum and arch up to him.”look at me” your eyes go from watching him pound in and out of you to meet his, filled with pure lust “you love your husband’s dick right bébé”. you say nothing. you can’t form a sentence because you’re too focused on the creeping feeling of your third orgasm. you moan trying your best to answer him. he doesn’t like that and squeezes your neck a little bit tighter, slowing his strokes, making you whine. “answer me and i’ll let you cum” you try and try but nothing come out. he keeps his pace and put his lips back on your neck. he snakes his hand down and begins to rub your clit gently. “i know you can do it pretty girl”………………..“fuck yes y-yes i love my husband’s dick. i love it i love it so much.” you moan out. “mmmm good girl”.

12:57am

satisfied he speeds up again but this time at a speed you’re not even sure how you’re able to take. he assaults your clit, loving how you squeeze around him. he twitches inside you coming so close to his release. “cum with me. i wanna feel you cum when i do. cum for me baby” he says slamming into you. “uuugghhhh oh my god yesss fuck” “ooohhhhh yes baby” you both say in unison. you both cum together. he spills his hot white seed into you covering every inch of you pussy. scratching and biting each other. shaking and squeezing each other tight. he pulls out of you slowly. he rolled off of you, laying on your side and pulls your head on his chest. you can hear his heart pounding, yours doing the same. he gently caressed your back and kissed your head.

you both laid there in silence enjoying the post orgasm bliss.

1:15am

“i missed this” he says finally breaking the silence. “me too. you make me so happy” “not happier than you make me” he says touching your braids and kissing your forehead. you chuckle, kissing his chest. “my fingers can’t do what you can. i was never satisfied while you were away”. he began to grow hard again at the thought of you with your fingers inside your pussy trying to fuck yourself as good as he does. you felt his hardness growing on you stomach. “neither was i. even when i watched the videos of us it wasn’t the same as having you under me” he says softly, making you squeeze around nothing as you feel the excess cum drips out of you. feeling aroused again and slightly sore from the force of your man’s thrusting you gaze over at the clock on your nightstand. “you know….its only 1:23 and i don’t think im pregnant yet” “so what do you want to do about that mon sucre?” you straddle him, put your lips up to his ear and began to stroke his dick with your hand “i want you to take the rest of my clothes off” refering to the stockings and lingerie you still had on “and let me ride you until my knees give out” “mmmmm that’s sound like a good plan” he smiles kissing you “mmm and i heard backshots are good for making twins” “oh you want twins?” “mhm” “well let me give my wife twins” he says seductively as he pushes himself inside you.

i hope he’s excited for four more days and nights of fucking like this because i don’t stop ovulating until after he leaves. you think to yourself as you began to bounce on him slowly.

J'espère qu'elle sait que je vais la baiser comme ça tous les soirs jusqu'à ce que je parte (i hope she knows im gonna fuck her like this every night until i leave). he thinks at the same time gripping your hips and slightly speeding up his thrusts.

and thats the end!! i hope you all enjoyed. i’ll probably write again soon so we’ll see what i come up with next. i can’t bring myself to write anything short. i’m just too into the details so sorry if you don’t like long fics. anyway, please like, comment and repost. love yall🤍

[wellbelesbian]

Six Sentence Sunday

hello! i know i'm early, but i really wanted to share today!

for all i said it was finished, i've ended up going back to my shoulder to shoulder sequel and adding to it. i realise i haven't shared the title of it yet, should i, or should i keep it a secret? i'll give a spoiler: it's a lyric from a song i've already shared on a previous wip post.

a bit of a dark moment today, i had to work my way up to this scene as it was difficult to write. it's Baz's POV.

“Ags,” I say, though it makes my chest ache to choke out even that one syllable. Her face comes into view as she leans over me, tears running down her face in rivulets and dripping onto my own. I try to speak with my eyes: it’s not like that anymore, we’re the victims here, we need them. I get it, I really do, a distrust of the police runs deep in me too, like a seam of coal under the earth. Barbed words at pride, harassment outside of clubs, Jamie taking a riot shield to the face. Even now, I cross the street whenever I see a PC.

i'll be posting an even darker part of this scene on wednesday, so stay tuned, but the song choice may give some things away:

and again, i'll be posting this for @carryonthroughtheages in november, so now is a great time to catch up/make start on the original (plus the other companion piece i wrote for it about Keris) if you haven't yet!

i have to say, i'm proud of it. it's the longest fic i've ever written (though small compared to a lot of the things i read, at 38k) and i really enjoyed writing it, and this addition. maybe one day i'll write an original queer story set around the strikes, but i have two other half-written novels i need to finish first.

tags: @forabeatofadrum @j-nipper-95 @artsyunderstudy @that-disabled-princess @prettygoododds @confused-bi-queer @imagineacoolusername @ic3-que3n @aristocratic-otter @larkral @hushed-chorus @ivelovedhimthroughworse @shemakesmeforget @fatalfangirl @ebbpettier @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @cutestkilla @youarenevertooold @alexalexinii @shrekgogurt @bookish-bogwitch @thewholelemon @supercutedinosaurs @shutup-andletme-go @theearlgreymage @ileadacharmedlife @alleycat0306 @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @comesitintheclover @noblecorgi @roomwithanopenfire @blackberrysummerblog @orange-peony and @run-for-chamo-miles

[bloodsappho]

These crosses all over my body

Remind me of who I used to be

And Christ forgive these bones I’m hiding

From noone successfully

Wrestling with God, secrets that can’t be hidden, flesh and bone. Themes established from the very outset. Of course we wonder what are these crosses, these secrets. As we will hear, violence haunts the protagonist. She is abused, she fights back, she kills. So are the crosses decorative sigils, testaments of faith worn around the neck and fingers? Are they cuts and bruises and batterings? Are they deep, inner wounds, bleeding out silently? Are they self inflicted cuts, scored with a razor into her wrists and thighs?

Self-inflicted razor wounds go much deeper than the pop-psych logic of “self-harm”. Particularly prevalent amongst young women, they attest to a body-mind that wants to open, to bleed, to have its own limits annihilated in a rush of pleasure and pain. Mortification of the flesh is particularly common in Christian culture, self-inflicted punishment for sinful thought and deed, attributed especially to women.

Camille Paglia:

“The artist makes art not to save mankind but to save himself. Every benevolent comment by an artist is a fog to cover his tracks, the bloody trail of his assault against reality and others.”

Later

“Art advances by self-mutilation of the artist.”

Hemingway claims “to write is easy, you just sit down and bleed”. Bowie claims “to be an artist is a ridiculous thing. It makes much more sense to earn money, look after your family. I don’t know why anyone would do it.” Self experience attests to artists sitting in frozen cold apartments, unable to eat properly, following a voice that nobody else can here. Addicts and artists often go hand in hand.

“These crosses all over our bodies”, the stacked wounds and traumas of war against the everyday. The great mistake of Amero-boomerist art criticism to assume that such wounds and traumas are the fault of oppressive power structures themselves. Such power structures exist to keep violent nature in a straightjacket, a state of affairs that the artist simply cannot abide by. The only advice that can ever be given to someone who is thinking about becoming an artist is “Give up now”, because the path of crucifixion is not something that can be chosen or rationally debated.

Many cultures and esoteric paths offer Gods of ecstasy and vision who undergo violent metamorphoses and stand at the crossroads of life and death: Jesus, Dionysus, Shiva and Osiris just a few. Of course the Christ myth is an evolution of the Dionysus myth, but the Christian Universalist reading comes out of Jewish linguistic totalitarianism which wants to banish the erotics of masks, idols and personas. The multiplicity and polymorphism, not to mention the perversity, of the various robes of the dying God is anathema to the priest line that wants to establish strict loyalty and sexual submission.

Judaism today has evolved to be a champion of the erotics of the eye, with many of the great figures of Hollywood Jewish artists trained in Romanticism and Expressionism who fled central Europe when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. It is in fundamentalist Islam where we see the nightmare of Abrahamic totalitarianism most clearly, with women wrapped in rags and virgin girls offered as the heavenly reward for total submission to God.

Michael Jackson, one of the most influential and biggest selling artists of all time. One hardly ever hears his name mentioned save in scorn, and yet his traces are everywhere — the songs and dances of every popstar of the last 20 years are unmistakenly scorred by his influence. Jackson is frightening because he is, we might say, trans-everything. Massively androgynous, morphing from black to white, physically and musically, adult and child, his career is a violent and unceasing metamorphosis. He was under the knife as much as under the camera, a vanguard of celebrity plastic surgery taken to extremes, to many an angel and to many others a satanic freakshow.

The artist, condemned to create beauty at the monstrous intersections of life.

[tsarisfanfiction]

A Single Drachma

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rated: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship Characters: Michael, Clarisse, Chris Alone. Injured. Hunted. Michael doesn't know where he is, but he knows he's running out of time, and he's only got one shot at calling for help. He's got to make it count. I'm a bit late posting it here because rl, but this was a fic written for @pod-together and my podficcer partner for the event was once again the amazing @stereden, who I also worked with for this event last year and once again had an absolute blast with! I pushed the boat out rather further this year in terms of length (there is actually a lot more to this story planned, but it became unrealistic to podfic... that being said I am still hoping to finish writing it at some point, for all that this does currently work as a stand-alone). We both had a lot more free time this year, and we definitely made sure we used it! I've lost count of how many times I've listened to Stereden's various takes on the podfic but it's been so much fun to work with her on this again this year! I was in a massive Michael&Clarisse mood when the event first started, and Stereden is a fantastic enabler who was more than willing to let them be the focus of the plot for our project, so here we are, and I hope you all enjoyed reading and listening to this as much as I did creating it! You can find the podfic to listen to here (go, listen to it! It’s amazing!)

After so long in darkness, the light of the sun was blinding.  Michael’s tolerance for bright lights had always been higher than most, just like his siblings, but as he staggered out onto the street, limping heavily and doing his utmost to ignore the various signals of this fucking hurts different parts of his body were sending to his brain in discordant harmony, his eyes narrowed into a blurry squint.  He stumbled, biting back a curse as his leg protested loudly at the bulk of his weight being forced onto it, and raised a dirty, shaking hand to shade his watering eyes from the worst of the glare.

Where was he?

With a wince he couldn’t hold back, he limped a few steps forwards, impatiently waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, until he almost collided with a wall.  Knocking his shoulder - the less-bad one, the one that was only bruised and not taunting him with fears of dislocation - against it, he awkwardly shuffled until he was leaning heavily against the painted brickwork, shifting his weight until it was off of his right leg.

It still had the audacity to fucking hurt, and Michael could feel his left leg trembling from the strain, less injured but no less exhausted than the rest of his body, but there was nothing he could do about it except lean harder on his shoulder, shoving as much of his weight as possible onto the building.

He needed to keep moving; he knew that.  His arm stung, his newest injury still bleeding sluggishly.  Michael could hear the slow yet steady drip, drip, drip of the liquid onto the ground.  He’d run out of useable fabric to tear into makeshift bandages a while back - his clothes were in tatters, and stained with so many things he didn’t want to think about that using them to wrap an open wound was probably begging for a dose of tetanus, as though he needed any more problems on top of everything he had already.

Leaning against the building was the most relief he’d had in days, though, and Michael was at loathe to give it up.  He glanced towards the sun again, still blindingly bright and near-impossible to look at.  Hi, Dad, he thought, his mental tone somewhere between bitterness and despair.  Apollo hadn’t contacted him for a long time, not since the night before they left for Manhattan, and Michael missed his father’s dream visits.  He didn’t understand why they’d stopped - he’d feared, for a while, that Apollo had fallen to Typhon , that despite the lack of Kronos stomping around suggesting that they’d won the war his father had been lost for good.

Deep down, he still feared that - despite the freak saying things to the contrary - because if it wasn’t true, if Apollo hadn’t been destroyed, then that meant his father had been ignoring all of his pleas for help.

Apollo had been answering him reliably since he was a small kid, before he’d even realised the guy he dreamed about frequently was real and his father.  There was no good reason for him to have stopped.

And yet he had.

Where the fuck are you, Dad? he thought at the sun.  And where the fuck am I?

He lowered his hand, squinting against the bright light of the sun as it inflicted a fresh assault on his eyeballs, and took stock of his surroundings.

It was some sort of side street.  Not enclosed enough to be an alley but no major thoroughfare - Michael could see a busier street, if he squinted against the shadows and too-bright sun hard enough, running perpendicular to the end of the street he was in.  People passed through with purpose, none of them batting an eyelid at a messy, injured demigod leaning against the painted bricks and no doubt leaving some crimson stains behind.  Was that the Mist at work, or was he somewhere where no-one even noticed bleeding teens?

Michael didn’t really care.  Both options were far better than where he’d been, where he was running from.

He needed to keep moving, no matter how much his body protested, but first he needed a plan.  Running blindly wouldn’t help; he hadn’t shaken his pursuers despite his best efforts so far, and he wasn’t naive enough to hope he’d shaken them now, either.  But now that he was out, he had a chance.

His hand tightened its grip around his precious prize, the one small shard of hope that had crossed his path amongst the pain and fear.  Firm edges pressed into his palm in a way that would be almost painful, if his body’s resting pain threshold wasn’t currently up around ten out of ten, a reassurance that he hadn’t lost it, hadn’t dropped it as he ran.

Michael had no weapons.  He had no way to fight off his pursuers, no way to make them stop following him for good.  Hand-to-hand had been out of the question even before the injuries started stacking up; he’d never done well enough in that during training to treat it as anything other than a last, desperate, resort.  Here, where defeat meant getting dragged back to the freak, it was even lower on his list of non-existent options than normal.

But what he did have was one, single golden drachma.  A stroke of luck amongst everything else, because drachma meant communication, and communication meant help.  He could call Chiron, ask the old centaur to send someone his way, and warn him about the freak while he was at it.

Once he knew where he was.

He only had one drachma, one chance to make a call.  He had to make it count.

It didn’t take Michael long to come up with a plan, if it could even be called that.  Step one, find out where he was.  Step two, find a rainbow and make the call.

Don’t get caught in the process.

He’d lingered too long.  He knew he had.  With a groan he forced his body upright again, biting back a scream as his right leg buckled and almost collapsed, and shoved himself away from the wall.  The movement pushed him into a run, one leg in front of the other with no pause to think, for all that they both threatened to crumple beneath him as he staggered forwards, each step sending a bolt of pain up his right leg.

Michael stumbled his way towards the busier street.  He didn’t know if it was a major enough street to have helpful signs like “welcome to”, but it was the best shot he had at finding where he was.

Several times, he almost fell, barely catching himself on the building walls, but he made it to the larger street without picking up any more injuries.

It didn’t have a “welcome to” sign, or any other defining characteristics that might have at least given Michael a clue.   Cars drove past him without a second look, not that Michael intended on getting in one, anyway.  It would be infinitely easier than walking, but the freak had a lot of influence.  Michael couldn’t trust anyone not to be part of his many, many circles.  Until he made contact with Chiron, he couldn’t risk talking to anyone.

The street ran east and west, as straight as an arrow, and Michael barely even had to think before he was turning east, glancing up at the sun as he did so and sending yet another silent and rushed prayer his father’s way.

Apollo had guided him to safety before.  Why couldn’t he do it again?

Passing mortals paid him no more attention on the major street than they had on the side street.  Michael still didn't know if that was due to the Mist concealing the various injuries and blood dripping from hastily wrapped (and in some cases unwrapped) wounds, or if they really just didn't care in this place. Not that the why actually mattered; at least no-one was stopping him.

It was only going to be a matter of time before they found him again, and Michael needed to have figured out where he was and called Chiron by then. If they caught up to him here, he didn’t stand a chance.

The thought spurred his protesting body on, legs screaming and lungs hauling in as much air as they could stand. There had to be some sign, somewhere, to tell him where he was. A café name, roadsigns, billboards. Something.

He reached an intersection just as the lights turned green for the cars. A glance behind him didn’t show any obvious pursuit but Michael couldn’t risk it. He dashed forwards, dodging honking vehicles, and felt his leg buckle halfway across, but he snarled and pushed on, refusing to let it surrender to the break just yet.

Not until he was safe.

It was probably more luck than skill that got him across without being knocked down by a irate driver, but Michael didn't pause when his feet met the sidewalk once more, leaving the cacophony of chaos behind him as he kept running.  His lungs were starting to burn; no demigod endurance could keep going forever, and Michael had been fleeing for days, weeks, he didn’t even know.  He’d long since lost track of time.

There were more than a few near-misses with crashing into mortals on the street, his legs not quite up for intense manoeuvrability and reliant mostly on other people getting out of his way, and more side streets crossed - more than one involving a game of chicken with cars and the accompanying soundtrack of blaring horns and swearing drivers - but Michael didn’t let himself stop.  Couldn’t stop.

Where was he?

His eyes scanned the streets as he ran, desperately searching for any sign, a familiar name to latch onto, but his dyslexia kept jumbling anything that might be helpful and he didn’t dare stop long enough to decipher it.  He couldn’t hear any pursuit yet, but he knew with a certainty deep inside his bones that they’d come.  If he hadn’t lost them in there, he wouldn’t lose them here.

Another intersection - complete with more cars and horns, and Michael almost collapsing in the middle of the asphalt as his leg buckled alarmingly - and the buildings sharply receded on the other side of the street, leaving a large lawned area with a broad paved path leading directly up to an impressive building.  People milled about, sitting on the edge of the cacti-infested planter that ran up the middle of the path, signifying it as a public place, and Michael made a snap decision.

It was the first thing he’d seen that seemed like it could tell him where he was, and further down the street he could see a fountain.

He clutched the drachma tighter, certain it had to be leaving jagged red marks in his skin, and ploughed across the street, his run disintegrating into more of a rapid limp as he dragged himself towards the building.  There were words emblazoned above what was clearly the entrance, and flapping banners covering the outside of the second floor windows, more images than words.

When he drew to a stop outside, chest tight with pain and almost all his weight on his left leg, which trembled frantically as it desperately tried to bear it, he blinked at the large words, willing them to arrange themselves in a way that made sense.

AZRINOA STATE MEUSUM

No, that wasn’t right.

Arizona State Museum.

Arizona.

Michael had never been to Arizona before in his life, but the state name triggered an immediate memory of crackling spears and loud, abrasive words.

Clarisse.

He’d had a lot of time to think, while the freak had him.  Time to get angry at the daughter of Ares, time to shout and curse her existence, to blame her for the battle going wrong, for the hellhounds tearing Nathan apart, for the shockwave that had sent half his siblings cascading off the shaking bridge-

But then time to go hollow, time to remember that the Ares cabin was never going to be stationed with the Apollo cabin, that the deaths wouldn’t have been prevented.

Time to realise that it wasn’t Clarisse’s fault.  That in the grand scheme of things, their argument had been petty and inconsequential.

Gods, but the Fates had a sense of humour, dropping him in Arizona, of all places.

Michael didn’t know which city held the state museum, if it was Phoenix or Tucson or somewhere else entirely, but… Clarisse would know.

Clarisse, for all that they’d never got on, had always been a strong leader.  She might hate him, might have told him she hoped he died (and he almost had and that still stung, a little), but she was prepared for trouble and Michael had never seen her without at least two visible weapons on her.

Hades, he’d been on the receiving end of them a few times, when their arguments got too heated.  Lee, and Emily before him, had always told him off whenever he landed in the infirmary again after a fight with her.

The drachma felt heavy in his hand.

Michael turned away from the museum and pushed his body to start moving again, a walk that turned into a jog until he dragged it into a full run again, leg screaming in agony but something almost like hope starting to bloom in his chest.

He just had to reach the fountain.  The Arizonian sun blazed down above him; there had to be a rainbow shimmering in the droplets somewhere, and then he could call for help.

The back of his neck prickled as his staggered run took him out of the museum grounds and back onto the street, and the blooming hope stuttered before it had much of a chance to grow.  He threw a glance down the street, back the way he’d come, even as he pressed forwards towards the fountain, glistening in the sunlight.  No sign of pursuit, but that didn’t mean anything.  Michael hadn’t survived this long by not listening to his instincts, and the sudden tenseness at the top of his spine told him he had to run.

So he ran.

Jagged agony shot up his broken leg as he pushed it further, stumbling but refusing to fall even when tears of pain started leaking from the corners of his eyes and his breathing took on a whine of desperation that rang in his ears.

He almost crashed into the edge of the fountain, hands reaching forwards to brace himself against it and absorbing the impact.  The drachma in his hand dug in deeply enough Michael wouldn’t have been surprised if it had drawn blood, but he’d take that a thousand times over dropping it now, so close to being able to use it.

Exposed and with no cover, if he lost it and the cry for help it afforded him now, it would be over for him.

Dashing away the tears of pain with the back of his hand, and wincing as the salt stung open scratches, he glared at the fountain, desperately searching for the glimmer of colour that had to be there, somewhere.  The sun and the falling droplets of water were present, he just had to find -

There.

It was halfway around the fountain from where he’d stopped, and he clawed his way around the edge, leaning heavily on the white stone rim and letting his right leg abandon his weight.  His left leg, and the arm he was bracing himself with, both trembled angrily, but Michael wouldn’t fall here.  Not now.

The rainbow shimmered in front of him and he forced his fingers to unfurl from their death grip around the drachma, streaked red with angry lines where the coin had imprinted almost every detail onto his palm.

“Oh, Goddess, accept my offering,” he mumbled.  His voice rasped in his ears after however many days it had been since he’d last had a reason to talk out loud, hoarse in his throat - maybe he should’ve taken a drink from the fountain first, but there wasn’t time for that - but hopefully the words came out clearly enough for Iris to understand.  He tossed the drachma into the rainbow with a shaking hand.

“Clarisse La Rue.”

Fuck.

He hadn’t planned on calling Clarisse.

Even if he was in her home state, Chiron would know where things like the state museum was, and crucially, the centaur had never told him to die .

But the drachma was gone, the only one he had, and he’d said the name now.  He dashed more tears - pain, frustration - away and stared at the rainbow, waiting for the call to go through and knowing he wasn’t at all prepared to talk to Clarisse, but that he had to.

Nothing happened.

The rainbow shimmered, glistening in a way that didn’t quite seem natural, and Michael stared at it in horror.

“C’mon,” he muttered, glancing back the way he’d come.  Still no signs of pursuit, but his instincts were screaming at him.  “C’mon, connect, why aren’t you fucking connecting?”

The rainbow pulsed lightly, as though it was still waiting for something, and realisation crashed over Michael.

“Fuck.”  He hadn’t said where Clarisse was - where was Clarisse?  He didn’t know, didn’t know if she was even still alive, let alone if she was at camp or if she’d left camp now, or...  “Fuck.  I don’t-  Where the fuck is Clarisse?  Iris- fuck- Lady Iris, please.”  His hand clenched into a fist as he leaned forwards and rested almost the entirety of his weight on the rim of the fountain.  Breathing was supposed to be easier than that but the air kept getting caught in his throat and distantly he realised he was panicking, sensing his hope slipping away from one slip of the tongue.  “Clarisse La Rue at… fuck, I don’t know.  Camp Half-Blood?”

His right leg buckled and he clamped his mouth shut against the cry of pain as broken bone fragments slipped against each other.  More tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he turned his head, wiping them away frantically in the dirty remains of the fabric on his shoulder.

When he looked back up, Clarisse La Rue was staring at him out of the centre of the rainbow, eyes wide in shock.

She looked older than when he’d last seen her, hair semi-neatly chopped around her cheeks and small scars he didn’t remember peppering across her face.  She was bigger, too, always broad-shouldered but now easily twice his width, and Michael was pretty sure she was even taller.

“Clarisse,” he rasped, too relieved to even care how frantic he sounded.  “Help. ”

“Michael?” she asked.  “You’re dead.”

The bark of laughter that erupted from his mouth wasn’t humorous in the slightest.  Fuck, camp thought him dead?  It made sense, explained why no-one had ever come looking, but-

Fuck.

“Not fucking quite,” he replied hoarsely.  The back of his neck tingled again and he glanced back the way he’d come.  Still no sign, but that didn’t make him feel any safer.  “Not yet.”

Her brown eyes sharpened, narrowing from wide-eyed shock to the assessing daughter of Ares Michael had seen so many times before.  “What happened to you?” she demanded.  “And why are you calling me?”

“Fuck if I know.”  He looked around again, and caught sight of movement in the distance.  Movement that didn’t seem natural for mortals going about their day.  “Fuck.  I’m in Arizona, don’t know where the fuck except the state museum’s just down this road and if I don’t find somewhere safe to hide - or at least some fucking weapons to fight back with - now I’m fucking dead for real.”

“I know where you are,” Clarisse said.  Michael saw her glance away from the IM for a moment, then nod firmly, a familiar stubbornness settling into her expression.  “There’s a big building behind the fountain.”  He looked up and nodded.  “That’s the state university.  Get around the back of it then follow the boulevard east through the campus.  Once you’re out of the campus, keep following the street east for six blocks, then go left, then get to the park on the right.  There’s an unused building in the far corner; mortals think it’s locked but it’s not.  It’s one of my safehouses.  You’ll find weapons there.”

Through the college campus and then another six blocks.  Michael’s leg throbbed in protest but he set his jaw and nodded.  He could do that.

He had to do that.

“Thanks,” he rasped, glancing back again.  The shapes were clearer, bulky individuals that clearly hadn’t figured out exactly where he was yet but were searching.  “Fuck.  Gotta go.”

He slashed an arm through the rainbow, cutting off Clarisse’s “Mi-”, and pushed himself away from the fountain.

Time to run.

Michael knew that his leg shouldn’t be able to keep moving, let alone running.  A mortal could never have managed it, and he was pretty certain most demigods couldn’t, either.  Being the son of Apollo had its perks, but that didn’t stop it sending vicious stabs of pain up through his body with every step, reminding him loudly and furiously that son of Apollo or not, he wasn’t doing it any favours and sooner or later it was going to run out of endurance.

Oblivious college students didn’t even seem to blink as he ran past them, adrenaline flooding his body and pushing him further, further, faster.  Fear of being caught and the hope of safety ahead of him worked in tandem to urge him on, slamming away the pain with extreme prejudice and forcing his legs, both the broken one and the merely exhausted one, to keep going, one foot in front of the other and jarring with every step.  The campus stretched out before him, seeming impossibly long, and in the back of his mind a small voice despaired that he’d never make it.

He told the voice to shut the fuck up and kept going.

The sun beat down as he ran, sweat joining with blood to leave a trail behind that he was painfully aware of but could do nothing about.  All he could do was hope that he had enough of a headstart to outrun them to Clarisse’s safehouse.  And that Clarisse would think to tell Chiron, because fuck, he’d forgotten to tell her to.

The first sounds of active pursuit reached his ears as he passed a set of tennis courts near the end of the campus, lungs burning, chest heaving, legs screaming, and he glanced over his shoulder to see students being pushed out of the way by larger, armed and dangerous, figures.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

His body had nothing left to give but Michael wasn’t going to let it surrender.  Not now, not when he finally had a chance to get away.  He ignored the voice in his head that said that a safehouse wasn’t much good if they saw him go into it, and that he didn’t stand a chance in combat even if he did get his hands on weapons, because it didn’t matter how true it was, it was still all he had.

He accelerated again, finding speed he didn’t know he was capable of even with two intact legs and not on the cusp of exhaustion, and bolted across the last few yards of the campus, hurtling across the street without stopping and forcing cars to swerve to avoid hitting him, and kept going.

One block.

Behind him, more car horns sounded and drivers started shouting.  Something sounded like it hit something hard.

Two blocks.

Something went crunch and the shouting abruptly stopped.

Three blocks.

Michael’s lungs were on fire.  He couldn’t even feel his legs any more, which definitely wasn’t a good thing.

Four blocks.

Fresh shouting started up, low and guttural and undoubtedly aimed at him.

Five blocks.

His lungs transitioned from on fire to non-operational, each breath a constricting choke as he ploughed on.

Six blocks.

Michael skidded around the corner, crossing the intersection to more irate cars and almost toppled over at the change of direction.  He caught himself on a wall and all but bounced off of it, lurching down the sidewalk and knowing it was too much to ask that his pursuers hadn’t seen him make the turn but part of him begging whichever gods might be listening that they’d missed it anyway.

The park on the right, Clarisse had said, and Michael almost stumbled over his own feet as he caught sight of greenery after a moment of desperate running.

A javelin sailed past him, missing only because his leg buckled and listed him to one side for a heartbeat, and Michael’s stomach leapt up into his throat.  Not now, not now he was so close.

He threw himself into the greenery the moment it opened up, using the shrubbery for what little cover it could give him, but it was barely moments before he heard the leaves get brushed aside behind him.  Guttural cursing in a language Michael didn’t know but had got used to hearing was far too close as he frantically scanned the far side of the park for the building Clarisse had mentioned.

Where was it where was it where was it where the fuck was it-

There!

On the far side of the park, sheltered by trees on multiple sides, was a building that looked old and rundown.  Chains and padlocks wrapped around the door, but as Michael focused on it, they shimmered and fell away.

He hadn’t known Clarisse could manipulate the Mist that well, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He didn’t have time to complain.

There was still half the park to cross and he wasn’t going to make it unless he found another burst of speed from Hades-knew-where.  He choked on more air, willing his legs to go faster, but he still couldn’t feel them, not even the pain from the break, and he definitely wasn’t speeding up.

If anything, he was slowing down.

Fuck no.  He wasn’t going to get caught, not here.  Not now .  He leaned forwards, desperate for just a little more speed, and felt something snag his feet.

He landed on his front hard enough to see stars, every part of his body compressing in a way that made him feel sick, or perhaps that was the knowledge that he’d never get up and away in time.  It didn’t stop him trying, pushing himself upright on arms that were shaking almost too much to bear his weight, one shoulder screaming as it reminded him it probably wasn’t in its fucking socket, determined to fucking crawl if he had to.

Electricity crackled.

“Back off!” a female voice roared , footsteps running towards him from where he’d been trying to get to.  Michael’s first thought was that he must have hit his head when he fell, because that was Clarisse’s voice.

He dragged his head up just in time to see a figure jump over him, barely an instant before there was the clash of weapons behind him.

Rolling over was marginally easier than trying to stand up.  It brought with it a reprise of pain from his broken leg that jolted back into awareness so quickly he barely choked down a cry, but more importantly gave him a front row seat to Clarisse La Rue in nothing but jeans and a t-shirt wielding a familiar electric spear with a vengeance against the freak’s employees as they found themselves on the back foot, clearly not expecting to face anything more than a desperate, injured demigod they’d already run into the ground.

A skilled daughter of Ares with a weapon gifted to her by the god of war himself was not a desperate, injured and run into the ground demigod.

Michael had seen the Germani fight before, when the freak wanted entertainment.  They were skilled and powerful, far more so than most demigods - but Clarisse was not most demigods, and had surprise on her side.

He pulled himself backwards with trembling hands, away from the fight, until his back hit something solid.  A panicked glance upwards revealed that it was the trunk of a tree - not a rogue Germani trying to get around Clarisse - and Michael reached up with his less-bad arm for a low-hanging branch to haul himself to his feet with, much to the protest of his entire body.

If one of the Germani did get around Clarisse, he refused to be vulnerable on the ground.  He could still run to the safehouse if he had to, leg be damned .

For the moment, he let the trunk of the tree take most of his weight, keeping his right leg off the ground and gripping the trunk with white knuckles to stay upright while he watched Clarisse fight.

She’d always been an impressive fighter, but the demigod in front of him here was a whole different class to the one he remembered from before Manhattan.  The IM hadn’t deceived him - she was slightly taller and muscular since he’d last seen her - but there was a confidence to her that felt different, almost more natural.

Or maybe he was just so relieved to be saved that his mind had entered delirium.  That was certainly possible.

Whatever it was, Clarisse clearly needed no help in finishing up the fight, her spear whirling around and dispatching the startled Germani in a typically child-of-Ares display of aggression, until the last one disintegrated into dust.

Michael was not ready for Clarisse to turn and face him, towering over him the way she always had done and racking him over with narrowed brown eyes.  There were some bleeding scratches on her front, and a rather more considerably bleeding gash on one arm, but she didn’t seem to notice them as she stepped towards him.  Instinctively, Michael straightened, his weight automatically transferring back to both his legs, and provoking another blinding protest from the right one.

“Clarisse,” he croaked.

“What happened to you?” she demanded, voice sharp and unyielding.  “You died in Manhattan.”

“The fuck I did,” he protested.  “Some fucking emperor-god-wannabe fished me out the river and dragged me off.”  At least, that was what he’d gathered after the fact.  He didn’t remember anything between the bridge collapsing and waking up in the freak’s floating villa, which had taken far too fucking long to escape from.

He didn’t expect Clarisse to believe him, though.  It sounded fantastical, he knew it did, wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t lived it himself.  But it was the truth.

To his surprise, Clarisse’s gaze sharpened.  “Emperor-god?” she demanded, and there was something in her tone that made Michael’s default defensive snap back falter briefly, because it sounded like she did, somehow, believe him.

Still, “that’s what I fucking said,” he retorted after a few seconds, the familiarity of arguing an unlooked-for comfort washing over him even though he didn’t want to argue, still needed Clarisse’s help badly.  “Freak said he was one of the Roman bastards despite the fact they’ve been dead for fucking millennia.  Called himself Caligula.”

The soft shit that slipped out of Clarisse’s mouth seemed like a reflex, and Michael blinked as she set the butt of her spear on the ground.  “Let’s move,” she said, glancing around.  “We can talk once we’re somewhere more secure.”

That, Michael agreed with, and he took a step away from the trunk.

His body did not agree.

Enough, said his leg, at the same time adrenaline drained away, leaving his head lighter than air.

He crumpled.

“Shit!”  Large, warm hands caught his shoulders in a grip of iron.  “Michael!”

Michael snarled weakly and tried to get his leg under him again.  “I’m fine,” he insisted, knowing it was a lie.  He wasn’t fine, but he hadn’t hit his limit yet - he refused.  He dragged his head up to meet Clarisse’s searching gaze.

She snorted.  “Pull the other one, Yew.”

To his surprise, she sank down in front of him, and by the time his brain realised what was going on he was slumped over her shoulders, pinned in place by an arm around his leg and hand clamped around his wrist.

“The fuck, La Rue?” he yelped as she grabbed her spear with the hand not holding him in place and straightened up.  “I can fucking walk!”

“This is faster,” she said.  “Instead of slowing us down, keep an eye out for more of Caligula’s people.”

Michael tried to be offended, but as she broke into an even jog, he had to at least privately concede the point.  The movement jostled his broken leg, thankfully not the one she was using to hold him in place, and he fought back whimpers, but after so long running under his own steam, it was a relief not to have to, anymore.

Even though it meant a fireman carry from Clarisse.

It was easier to let his head hang than try to hold it up, and his matted hair made a curtain that was difficult to see through, but Michael had no desire to be ambushed by more Germani - more of Caligula’s people, and he was starting to wonder how much Clarisse knew about the freak, how she knew anything about him in the first place.  He squinted past his hair, watching the park behind them as Clarisse jogged forwards, and then the street as she passed the safehouse without pausing.

“Where’re we going?” he asked, watching the building get smaller for a moment before flicking his attention back to the street.

“My apartment,” Clarisse said shortly.  “It’s more secure than that.”

Clarisse’s apartment?   “Your mom’s place?”

She snorted.  “No.  My apartment.  You just ran through my college campus.”

It hadn’t occurred to Michael that Clarisse would be in college, now.  Fuck, they were the same age; if she was in college, then if it wasn’t for the freak, he probably would be, too - if he’d ever decided what the Hades he wanted to do.

“Huh,” was the only noise he could summon in response, followed by another muffled whine as his broken leg jarred again.  Fuck, he missed the pain numbing properties of adrenaline.  Clarisse’s grip on his wrist shifted, and he realised that she’d heard it.  She didn’t mention it, though, just kept up with the jog as though he didn’t weigh a thing.

In his current state, he probably didn’t as far as she was concerned.

Wherever Clarisse lived, it felt a long way away.  Maybe it was because she wasn’t running in a flat-out sprint, but the journey seemed to take forever.  More than once, Michael found his eyes starting to slide shut, exhaustion fighting for dominance, and forced them open again, unwilling to risk missing a threat.

Nothing attacked them.  Michael could feel the tension in Clarisse’s shoulders rising the longer they went without being attacked, but she drew to a halt outside an apartment building unchallenged.

“Still awake?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Good.”  She turned around, looking back the way they’d come for herself and giving Michael a clearer view of the building, complete with the flight of stairs they were no doubt about to go up.  Seemingly satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything, she then turned back and continued towards what was clearly her apartment door.

Michael’s leg did not approve of the stairs.  Clarisse went slower than he expected, the rise and fall of her body minimal, but still his leg complained and more than one hiss forced its way past gritted teeth on the ascent.  Her grip on his wrist tightened, but she still said nothing.  Michael appreciated it.

Eventually, they came to a stop outside a plain door, indistinguishable from the rest of the apartment doors.  Michael wasn’t sure how Clarisse was planning on opening it with her spear in one hand while the other kept hold of him, but he wasn’t expecting for her to call, “it’s him.”

The door was yanked open so fast, Michael half-expected it to fly off the hinges.

“Michael?”

He forced his head to raise, his hair falling mostly out of his face so that he could see over Clarisse’s shoulder.

“Chris,” he rasped, not liking the way the son of Hermes was looking at him in horror.  “Take it you two are still together, then?”

“Yeah,” Clarisse confirmed as she walked past her boyfriend, who shut the door behind them.  At the click of the catch falling into place, Michael let his head sag again.  “Down you go.”

Michael didn’t manage to brace himself before spilling out of Clarisse’s grip, but he didn’t have to as he was gently laid on a throw-covered couch, his limbs limp and boneless as he sank into the fabric.

It felt heavenly.

“Gods,” Chris breathed, kneeling on the floor next to him, dark eyes surveying him from head to toe.  Michael heard the quiet click of a catch opening and his eyes flitted to look at the floor, where Chris had a large plastic box cracked open on the rug.  “Eat.”  A small square of ambrosia was held up in front of him.  Michael forced a shaking hand to take it from him and slipped it into his mouth, instantly feeling the relief that came from eating the godly food.

Hades, how long had it been since he’d last had ambrosia?  The freak certainly hadn’t ever given him any.

He let his arm fall heavily back onto the couch as he savoured the taste.

“Let me treat your wounds,” Chris insisted.  He was already pulling on gloves, and Michael eyed him in surprise.  The son of Hermes huffed.  “I know I’m not an Apollo kid, but my dad is still a patron of medicine, even if he’s not strictly a god of it.  I might not be able to instantly heal you but I can make sure you don’t die of sepsis.”

It wasn’t like Michael could do much more for his own wounds than he had already; he healed fast but not instantly.

“Fine,” he agreed, and Chris broke into a relieved look.  Clarisse shifted her weight.

“I’ll make sure the perimeter is secure,” she said, grabbing a small vial of nectar and taking a sip from it.

“Could you grab Michael something clean to wear before you go?” Chris asked her.  Michael felt him gently take hold of one of his arms, then hissed as he gently dabbed at the exposed cut with antiseptic.  “These clothes are filthy.”

“Fuck you,” Michael muttered, well aware that he was right.  They weren’t clothes he was attached to - the freak had got rid of his clothes after Manhattan and replaced them with some sort of sailor’s outfit, which Michael had had no hesitation about tearing up for makeshift bandages.

He was still furious about the loss of his camp necklace, though.

Clarisse headed further into the apartment without another word as Chris wiped down the skin around the gash before peeling away one of Michael’s makeshift bandaging attempts and getting to work treating the wound underneath it.

“You know I’m right,” Chris replied.  “Those rags need cutting off, anyway.”

Michael bristled.  “I can-”

“I know a broken leg when I see one,” Chris overrode him.  “I don’t even want to think about how much damage you’ve done to it running around - or how the Hades you managed to run around on that - but it won’t thank you for moving it again.”

Clarisse returned before Michael could come up with a retort, dropping a bundle of fabric over the back of the couch.  “I’m securing the perimeter now,” she said.

“Be careful,” Chris replied, and Michael watched as she stalked out the front door, shutting it with a loud click behind her.  “Okay, let’s get these rags out of the way.”

Chris’ hands were gentle as they tended to each cut, scrape, gash or worse.  It wasn’t the same as one of his siblings, but it was enough to make Michael feel halfway human again, if completely helpless.

“I’d run you a bath now but I think you’d fall asleep in it,” the son of Hermes told him as he probed gently at the probably-dislocated shoulder.  As much as Michael hated to admit it, the older demigod was once again right; he was well aware of the exhaustion doggedly gnawing away at him now that the adrenaline had faded away.  “I’ll do that later.”  He frowned at Michael’s shoulder.  “This, on the other hand, I’ve got to deal with now.”

One good thing about the encroaching exhaustion was that Michael’s muscles couldn’t tense up too much, even if they wanted to.  He grit his teeth as Chris carefully manipulated his arm into extending, before slowly starting to rotate it.  The earlier ambrosia was not enough to completely muffle the sensation of the joint grinding back into its socket; some whimpers slipped out past his clenched jaw.  Like Clarisse earlier, Chris had the tact to not mention it.

Even worse than the dislocated shoulder, predictably, was the broken leg.  That was by far the worst part of the treatment as Chris gently poked and prodded at it before resetting the bone.  The ambrosia was no more effective as a painkiller for his leg than it had been for his shoulder, and Michael couldn’t help a short, high-pitched shout as it shifted back into position - thankfully also passing unacknowledged by the son of Hermes.

“No walking on it,” Chris said firmly as he fitted a splint to keep it in place.  Michael grumbled a string of curses under his breath as it was secured.  “It - and the rest of you - needs rest.”  It was obvious that he wanted to ask about what had happened to Michael, much in the same way Clarisse had, but to Michael’s relief, he wasn’t actually broaching the subject.

Then again, Chris knew a lot about traumatic experiences.

Once all his wounds were treated properly, Michael pulled on the spare clothes Clarisse had dug out for him, begrudgingly accepting Chris’ help.  Unsurprisingly, they were all far too big for him - Clarisse was easily twice his size, now, and Chris might have been rather lither than his girlfriend, but he was far taller than Michael.  The only advantage was that it meant they were easy to pull on over the various bandages and even leg splint, which didn’t negate Michael feeling like he was swimming in fabric.

“I’ll get you something that fits better soon,” Chris apologised as Michael flaked back down again, finding the couch far more comfortable than it had any right to be.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

The apartment door opened and Clarisse strode back in, bolting it behind her and propping her spear up beside it.  “Secure,” she reported, heading for them.  “Done with the first aid?”

“Done,” Chris confirmed.  “He won’t be walking on that leg any time soon, but otherwise it’s mostly exhaustion.”

Clarisse sat down on the rug; with Michael laying down on the couch, their heads were at similar heights.  “So what happened after Caligula grabbed you?” she demanded.  Chris’ sharp intake of breath at the name told Michael that they definitely knew something about the freak.  “That was nearly two years ago.”

Michael grimaced.

“Couldn’t get out,” he admitted, glossing over the gloating, the leering Germani and the self-important big-eared pandos, to say nothing of the fucking horse and the freak himself.  They’d found his attempts amusing.  The freak had even dared him to get out, promising him that he couldn’t.

The freak had said a lot of things, and Michael still couldn’t shake the shivers at the promise that he would be the new sun god.  It was delusional - it had to be, Apollo was the sun god and wouldn’t be usurped by some fucking wannabe - but the freak had always sounded deadly serious when he’d said it, like he fully believed he would .  He’d said Michael would help him, too.

Michael’s attempts to escape had always got more frantic whenever he heard that gloat.

He didn’t say any of that, didn’t think he could if he tried.  Neither Clarisse or Chris pressed him for details.

“Had a fucking boat villa.  Never let the thing near land.”  He’d managed to get on one of the boarding boats, once.  Mortal security guards had spotted him and dragged him back, citing some nonsense about the boss’ son not being allowed to leave.  “Took for fucking ever to get off.”

Eventually, one day, the guards had been distracted by something.  Michael still didn’t know what, but it had been enough for him to finally slip past them, onto land for the first time in eighteen fucking months, and run for it.

It almost hadn’t been enough, he’d almost been caught, but a door he’d run through had ended up in tunnels and more tunnels and more and more and more fucking tunnels with monsters with claws and teeth and other appendages they shouldn’t be allowed to fucking have that wanted a piece of demigod flesh and-

“Michael, breathe.”

A hand rested on the couch, not touching him but enough to catch his attention.  His eyes snapped to it, then followed the arm up to a shoulder and up again until he was looking at Chris’ face.  The older demigod’s brow was furrowed in concern, and Michael realised he was breathing too fast, air not actually reaching his lungs.

Fuck.

Michael closed his eyes, only to be assaulted by memories of being tracked, hunted, and snapped them open again, focusing instead on Chris’ face as he tried to wrench his breathing under control.

“Don’t push yourself,” Chris told him gently as air started to reach his lungs again.  “It’s okay if you can’t talk about it.”  Michael glanced at Clarisse, still sat on the rug behind her boyfriend but frowning, face all twisted up.

“No,” he said, hating how thin his voice sounded.  “I- fuck.”  If it was anyone else, he’d take the invitation to stop talking, because they wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t get it.  But these two…

“Fucking Labyrinth.”

Chris’ face paled, and Clarisse moved, putting her hand on the son of Hermes’ shoulder.  Her knuckles were white.

“It got me away,” Michael admitted, because it had; without its twists and turns and traps absolutely everywhere the freak’s men would have caught up to him within a day.

He didn’t know how many days he’d been running through the fucking thing before it finally spat him out in Arizona.

“But- fuck .”  He’d never been in the fucking thing before, but he’d seen what it had done to Chris, how pale and shaken Annabeth had been when she re-emerged alone after her quest.  Had seen the monsters spill out of it into camp, had seen Lee’s head smashed open-

The fucking thing was supposed to be destroyed.  Why was it back?

He could’ve done without experiencing the inside of the fucking living nightmare for himself.

“You made it,” Chris told him, voice shaky but assuring.  “You made it out, Michael.”

“You’re safe,” Clarisse added, tone firm and leaving no room for debate.  Michael looked at her, remembering too many arguments and disagreements and threats from the daughter of Ares but seeing only pure sincerity and stubbornness there now.  “Those shitheads won’t get you, and you’re never going in there again.”

Michael swallowed around a lump in his throat.  “Yeah,” he agreed, voice shaking just as much as Chris’.  “Yeah.”

He was out.  He was safe.

The knowledge settled over him, heavy and warm as it finally sank in, and with it came a looming darkness his battered, aching and exhausted body finally stopped fighting and instead welcomed with open arms.

potentially tbc...

[giggly-squiggily]

hello!!! So I finally wrote a fanfic of Muzan being ticklish from that one headcannon I sent in a while ago. Here it is!

The Day Douma Found Out

Summary: Muzan summoned Douma for a private meeting, but things take a new turn when Douma gets a bit hands on (SFW)

Warnings: Not Canon, Swearing

Enjoy! ⭐️

His patience was already running thin. “Douma, you have failed to bring me the blue spider lily. Again.” Muzan spoke calmly, despite his harsh words. “Master Muzan~” Douma spoke from-the floor…”I’m so sorry…I’ve failed you yet again!~Oh what shall I do to repay you? Shall I chop off an arm? Gouge out my own eyeballs-“ “I have no need for your useless eyeballs.” Muzan cut him off quickly. “What I Need is for you to finally show some usefulness around here.” “Oh Lord Muzan~” Douma practically sang. “What would you like me to do!~Anything you wish for me to complete and it’ll be done~” Douma crawled over to Muzan, gripping onto the back of his shirt. “What shall I do for you?~” Muzan growled lowly. “You can start by-“ He stopped, turning his head away. “Hm? I can start by what Master  Muzan?~” Douma cooed, smiling brightly. “Y-you can start by-letting go..and standing up.” Muzan growled out-but, was that a stutter? “As you wish, Lord Muzan~” Douma released Muzan’s shirt and stood up swiftly. But he was curious-why had Muzan acted like that? He ran back through his actions-grabbing the back of his shirt, talking, and-wait. Douma stared over at Muzan, and a slow, shit-eating grin appeared on his face. “Why Master Muzan~” Douma slowly moved to stand right behind him. “Did you get a new shirt? This one seems different from your last shirt~” He reached up and slowly dragged his hand down Muzan’s back, not letting his nails quite touch him. “D-douma-get your claws off of me-“ Muzan growled out, his voice just slightly shaking. “But Lord Muzan~” Douma cut him off. “My claws aren’t even on you~if my nails were on you, it would be much different~Here, like this…~” Douma switched and instead dragged his claws down Muzan’s spine, shocked at the girlish squeal manlysqueak that Muzan let out and the snort that practically flew out of his mouth. And-holy shit-the blushthat immediately came to Muzan’s cheeks. Before he could process what happened. Muzan had whipped around and slashed his hand off. “Never. That-NEVER happened, got it?” This time Muzan spoke angrily, genuinely threatening him. Douma stood shocked for a moment before a wide, once again shit-eating grin appeared on his face. “Oh Lord Muzan~I wouldn’t dream of it~but…in case my mouth slips, to keep me silent how about we test where else you’re tic-“ Before he could finish, Douma’s head was sliced off. “No. And don’t-don’t say that word…” Douma couldn’t see it, but he imagined Muzan’s cheeks were lightly flushed pink. He couldn’t be more wrong-Muzan’s face was a flaming red bright enough to rival the tips of Rengoku’s hair.

The End! I Hope you enjoyed!

KJERKEKJKJREJRJ OH SNAP!!! (It's been a hot minute since I've got this my bad friend akljaejkrjkejr) WOW! I really enjoyed this, friend! I'm not much of a Muzan person, but the idea of Michael Jackson Muzan having a ticklish back is so real to me? Not many are bold enough to try, but Douma's willing to risk it all!

A small writing tip; formatting makes it easier to read your work, so spacing out the paragraphs in your fics helps the eye catch all the words vs a block of text- if that makes sense! Besides that, I really enjoyed your work!

Thank you for sharing, friend! :3 (I especially loved the way you wrote Douma- it was DELIGHTFUL!)

[itzchrissydoesstuff]

🍞Umbrella👑

A Silly Trinity (Breadwinners & Michael Jackson) fanfic

Synopsis: The sillies take a walk around Michael’s home in Neverland Ranch. At one point, Buhdeuce starts wondering why Michael carries an umbrella with him all the time, so he asks him about it. In an instant, it leads to a sad, yet heart warming moment between the three of them.

Content warning(s): TINY bit of angst, but mostly fluff and comfort ✨ (also, mention of tabloid TRASH 😤)

A/N: Hi, guys! So, ngl… I was a little emotional writing this, but it was so worth it. I was also a little nervous to drop this bc it’s not everyday I write angst. But I hope you guys enjoy and uh… make sure you grab some tissues just in case. Anyways, BUCKLE UP!! (Pls don’t take it seriously 😭)

——————————————————

*Neverland Ranch*

It was a warm afternoon and the sillies were out on a walk through Michael’s home of Neverland. The sun was shining, birds were singing, the air was fresh, not even a cloud in the sky. As the trio walked down the path, pretty much all they did along the way was tell funny stories and jokes.

"And that's how Buhdeuce confused a whole tire for a donut." SwaySway concluded his flashback.

"I'll never understand how you two function." Michael chuckled, shaking his head. "But I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Aw shucks!" Buhdeuce blushed below SwaySway and Michael.

"No, really." Michael spoke up again. "You guys always always find new, random ways to keep me on my feet."

“Well, when you’re hanging with us, you can pretty much expect the unexpected.” SwaySway chimed in.

As the trio chuckled and continued their walk, out of nowhere, a sudden gust of wind blew through them. Taken by surprise, Michael flinched, causing him to lose grip of the umbrella he was carrying. SwaySway turned around to quickly notice the umbrella tumbling the other direction of the path.

“Michael! Your umbrella’s getting away!” He pointed to it.

Without another second to waste, Michael sprinted after the umbrella. It wasn’t long before the wind finally subsided, the umbrella settling on the side of the grass. When Michael finally reached his umbrella, stopping to catch his breath for a moment before picking it back up and taking a look to see if it had broke or anything. As Michael sprinted back to the ducks, he gave them the relieving update.

“I got it! Not even a scratch.” He positioned his umbrella back on his shoulder.

“Well, that’s a relief! Now, shall we continue?” SwaySway smiled.

The trio resumed their walk down the path. However, Buhdeuce looked up at Michael and his umbrella, a curious look on his face. A few minutes back into walking, Buhdeuce finally looked up at Michael again and spoke.

“Hey, Michael?” Buhdeuce began.

“Yeah, Deucer?” Michael answered, raising an eyebrow.

“Why do you always carry that umbrella around with you? Especially when it’s not raining or super hot?”

Michael took a quick moment to let Buhdeuce’s question sink in.

“Basically… I have a skin condition that prevents me to go out in the sun freely.” Michael responded. “So, I have to carry this umbrella around at all times when I’m outside so I don’t end up damaging my skin.”

"Ooooh! That's why! I figured, but I just thought I'd ask because..." Buhdeuce paused for moment, looking a bit worried.

Michael looked back at Buhdeuce. "Because what, Buhdeuce?" He seemed concerned. SwaySway looked to Buhdeuce as well, both of them wondering what else Buhdeuce was thinking.

"W-well... adding on about your skin condition, I've... seen some stuff that you weren't proud of how you used to look." Buhdeuce tried to sound as non offensive as possible. He didn't intend to hurt Michael's feelings, he was just curious and wanted to hear Michael's perspective before jumping to conclusions.

Michael suddenly stopped walking. "I see..."

He took a deep breathe and sat down on the grass, his head hanging low a little. The ducks followed him. Sway sitting next to Michael on one side, Deucer sitting on the other.

"What's wrong, Mike?" SwaySway asked, putting his arm behind Michael.

"Michael? Did I hurt your feelings?" Buhdeuce panicked a little, worried that he offended Michael. "I'm so so sorry! I didn't mean it."

"No, Buhdeuce." Michael reassured him. "It's not your fault, I promise. I'm just sensitive about what the media writes about me. I wish people just tried to understand me more instead of just making these absurd rumors and jokes."

The ducks looked closely at Michael's face and noticed his eyes were watering a bit. Without a moment to waste, they both reached out to hug him. giving him as much support and comfort they could.

"Hey, don't cry, Michael. It's not your fault people, including the media, are this big of featherlickers." Buhdeuce assured Michael.

"Yeah! While we can't imagine how troubling this is for you to go through, it's not fair that you're constantly antagonized for something you can't help." SwaySway chimed in as well. "Besides, no matter what others may say about you, we've got your back!"

"Yep yep! We know the truth and we're not afraid to defend you. You're still the Michael we know and love and we wouldn't have it any other way."

That last sentence had done it for Michael. A few tears streamed down his face, but they weren't from sorrow, but from happiness.

"Th-thanks, you guys..." Michael smiled, extending his arms and hugging Sway and Deucer, the ducks still holding him this entire time. "I don't know what I'd do without you two."

"It's the yeast we could do, bap." SwaySway grinned. "Like I said earlier. When hanging with us, expect the unexpected."

"Yeahh boyyy!!" Buhdeuce shouted as he bounced up.

Michael burst into laughter from Buhdeuce's sudden small outburst. Then he realized that there's still lots of the path to be covered. "So... shall we continue?"

"We shall!" The ducks agreed in unison. And with that, the three of them stood up from the grass. Michael repositioned his umbrella back behind him and the trio continued to walk down the path.

"Hey, Michael..." SwaySway began.

"Yeah, SwaySway?" Michael replied.

"Wasn't there one time you said you wanted to do a tabloid burning? I think we should do that sometime."

Michael chuckled. "I'm pretty sure I did say that. That sounds great, especially for the next time we go camping or something"

"Yeah!! BURN THE TABLOIDS!!!" Buhdeuce yelled out. Michael and SwaySway burst out laughing. All of their laughter continued through the path. Even when misery and despair cross paths with these sillies, they always manage to pick each other back up, allowing the silliness go on for ages.

————————————————————————

Written by ChrissyDoesStuff

‼️DO NOT STEAL‼️

i feel like i coulda done better with this, but this is my first time writing angst, so cut me some slack 😭 anyways, hope you enjoyed it! love yaaaaaaa!!! 💕✨

[hazzabeeforlou]

Im a trained singer that doesn’t practice anymore but most definitely knows what she’s talking about. Yet idk where you’re getting at with Louis being off key when I’ve seen him live and he didn’t have a single out of tune or noticeably pitchy moment ?? He’s no Michael Jackson, but his pitch control is exactly what I’d expect from a decently good singer. Very accurate to the studio recordings with some purposeful changes and my only negative note was that he ran out of breath during the one WAOYF line. Which sure I think it’s fair to criticize his smoking like it’s a horrid habit and keeps him from being great, but it’s just weird that u say all that but then say you never went to his concert like ok don’t go 😭. But at least don’t write like you have been it’s really disingenuous for like no reason.

If he was truly having pitch issues to the even near the scale that he did one direction every article review would write about it for sure. No one would makes excuses for lack of growth, especially not new fans or concert reviewers that have no loyalty to him.

Glad it wasn’t pitchy when you saw him! I tune 47 strings to A 442 almost every single day so maybe I’m just more sensitive :) Literally was just my own live performance critique, if it wasn’t true for you, amazing

[virtie333]

Fannish Year Review - 2023

thanks for the tag @agent-troi and @randomfoggytiger

1. your main fandom of the year: Star Wars, as it has been since 2015 (and other various stretches before that). Oscar Isaac was a close second.

2. have u watched a film this year: I don't think I've watched many new movies, to be honest. The new GotG movie was the only 2023 one. There are several I really want to see, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes for one. Barbie, too.

3. your favorite book this year: I actually just started reading novels again this year, but for now I've only been reading Justine Davis' Cutter's Code series, because I fell behind and instead of just starting where I left off, I started from the beginning again. I think the one she's writing now will be the last in the series and that will make me very sad. It's been a 10 year journey.

4. your favorite album or song this year: I started collecting the greatest hits of some of my fave 80s artists this year, so I'll consider all of them my faves: Bryan Adams, Howard Jones, Michael Jackson, Alabama, Prince...

5. your favorite tv shows this year: Ahsoka was amazing, despite straying a bit from our beloved Rebels. I keep going back to Moon Knight, even if it's from last year.

6. your favorite tumblr community this year: I've really become absorbed by the Oscar Isaac fandom, especially the writing side. I still don't feel like I belong, but they keep inviting me in and are so lovely, I can't refuse.

7. your best new fandom discovery of the year: Stranger Things. Everyone that knows me kept telling me I'd like it, and it was always on my watch list, but I finally got to it this year. I'm only on S3, so no spoilers! I also feel like I've been reintroduced to the X-Files fandom. I was there almost in the beginning and have never stopped loving it, (although I'm not going to lie: I was disappointed with S9 and 10), but with so many new fans here on Tumblr, I'm finding that old feeling is coming back.

8. your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: The severe decline of my ship, Damerey. I was a 'late bloomer' to the on-line side of that ship, and as such have yet to be tired of it. Not sure I ever will be. (Am I tired of Han and Leia? Nope. Mulder and Scully? Absolutely not) There are still some amazing writers out there and some amazing stories that I have hopes will be finished someday, but it's become a very quiet ship. I am so thankful for the wonderful readers I have that are helping me to keep it alive!

9. your tv/movie boyfriend and/or girlfriend of the year: Poe Dameron. Duh.

10. your biggest squee moment of the year: The news that Daisy has signed on for a new Rey movie. I'm bound to be disappointed in my hopes for a Damerey mention (or even a Jedistormpilot mention! Disney would never!), but I'm still going to enjoy the hell out of my favorite Jedi!

No pressure tags: @jewelsrulz, @marieziffer, @diplomaticprincess, @soft-girl-musings, @campingwiththecharmings, @nkp1981, @juneknight, @toracainz, @my-secret-shame, @waywaychuck, @curiouswildi, @seleneisrising, @closerundone, @omgbarbiegurl

[juvinadelgreko]

so much (for) stardust

thought vomit

Love From The Other Side

I loved this when it came out and I love it now.

lyrics: this city always hangs a little bit lonely on me, loose, like a kid playing pretend in his father's suit. I'll never go, I just want to be invited, oh. you feel like an impostor. You need to be here, but you don't want to be. You just need that invite.

you were the sunshine of my lifetime, what would you trade the pain for? I'm not sure. and every lover's got a little dagger in their hand. Love fucking hurts. and what would you train the pain for? nothing. because it's what comes with love. give up what you love, before it does you in. But you can't!

Heartbreak Feels So Good

Is there a word for bad miracles? You get what you want, sometimes, but at what cost?

It was an uphill battle, but they didn't know, but they didn't know, we were gonna use the roads as a ramp to take off. that's the classic Pete Wentz lyricism I live for!

We'll cry later or cry now...we can dance the tears away, emancipate ourselves! Look, everyone's gonna be sad at some point, you just have to decide how and when to feel it.

Hold Me Like A Grudge

the BASS GROOVE OK PETE I hear you. I didn't know we were getting a disco record but go off kings

also Patrick was totally channeling his inner Michael Jackson for that one I just know it

favorite lyrics: I'm just a cherub riding comets through the night sky, screaming at the stars like night lights, and I love my life, love my life. and Hold me, hold me like a grudge, this world is always spinning and I can't keep up. we are so much better at holding on to pain and anger than we are to joy. in a world that moves this fast, that hits. I guess somehow we made it back with a few dreams of ours still intact, I am a diamond on the inside, just add the pressure. Know it's inside me, but I got no map, to my own treasure. I feel personally attacked by this one. I figured by now, I would have got it together. no fuckin shit pete.

Fake Out

That feeling of "if I acknowledge, touch it, or speak it into existence, that will give it the ability to be broken. so I just won't."

Favorite lyrics: do you laugh about me whenever I leave? or do just need more therapy?

It's that feeling of knowing exactly what you want, and knowing how to get it, but being so terrified of having something to lose. I don't know how, but sometimes I feel like Pete knows my entire life story when he writes shit like this. I've never met this man, he has no idea I exist, and yet the stuff he writes is the best possible articulation of everything I've ever felt. It's magical.

PATRICK'S VOCALS. TOP FUCKING NOTCH.

Heaven, Iowa

"I can't let go of this thing, because I'll lose it, but if I don't let go, I'll choke it to death. So I'm just not gonna grab it in the first place, but wait, I did, and it's a shit show, but that's...ok?"

Lyrics: save your breath, half your life you've been hooked on death. Like, yes, I am crushed under the fear of dying without making an impact on the world. thank you for asking. I will never ask you for anything except to dream sweet of me. that's just beautiful.

So Good Right Now

"I love you, so fuck it"

Patrick has really reached his full form as a vocalist and it's fucking awesome. He has poppy fills, roaring choruses, the softer side...it's a treat for the ears. When he cries, In all of my wildest dreams they just end up with you and me! UGH PATRICK YES

It's giving Walking On Sunshine in the best way.

Favorite lyrics: I've got love in my heart, so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey!

The Pink Seashell

uh, ok, fuck. um. let's unpack this.

The shell's empty, there's no meaning to any of this...so I take pleasure in the details.

It's a reminder we all need right now and it made me cry.

KEY FUCKIN CHANGE

I Am My Own Muse

the POWER OF PATRICK holY VOICE

he's such an underrated singer ffs the RANGE

Lyrics: So let's twist the knife again like we did last summer...i'm just trying to keep it together but it gets a little harder when it never gets better.

Like, why would I bother continuing to work forward if it only causes me more pain than what I'm trying to escape? It's so easy to forget what you're working for when it inches further and further away. You just wanna throw it all away, like a bad luck charm, and start over.

Flu Game

This feels like a Disney villain's "I want" song and it fucks severely

Lyrics: I've got all this love i've got to keep to myself, all this effort to make it look effortless. Like, you can't ever be too emotional! You can't let anyone see! YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT! I carved out place in this world for two, but it's empty without you. Like you work so hard to make a life with the one you love that you lose them in the process and UGH HOW does PETE READ MY MIND. One day every candle's gotta run out of wax, one day no one will remember me when they look back. I can't stop, can't stop, till we catch all your ears though, somewhere between Mike Tyson and Van Gogh god that's such a clever way to phrase the crippling fear of being insignificant. "somewhere between Mike Tyson and Van Gogh" that's such a fucking Pete line good god

Baby Annihilation

THE RETURN OF PETE'S MONOLOGUING I AM LIVING

Time is luck and I wish ours overlapped more or for longer god that made me fucking sob. But you know what they say, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself. You can't stay, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT. but fuck that! nothing matters! be happy!

Like I said, this man reaches right into the most aching parts of me and gives them a voice and I don't know how he does it.

The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)

"where did the time go and when the fuck did everything get real?"

lyrics: I miss the way that I felt nothing, nothing, na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na or whatever the fuck

Those na-na-na's tickle my brain just right man holy shit

Suddenly I grew up and I don't know when but goddamit everything is real now and it hurts so i just wanna scream NA NA NA NA

What A Time To Be Alive

This is the one about how Constant Access to Everything has completely fucked our brains

everything is lit, except my serotonin. Because you get all this shit slung at you in the news and it winds you up emotionally in every way except the good one! So now you're cracking up!

lyrics: they say I should try meditation but I don't want to be alone with my own thoughts, it never felt that much like medication, I just want to be your cherry on top. the neurodivergent in me feels very seen by this lyric so thank you. like i just want to be good but I cannot!!!

When, when, when I said 'leave me alone' this isn't quite what I meant, I got the quarantine blues, bad news, what's left? so it seems the vulture's getting too full to fly. Like I just wanted a moment of peace not a full scale meltdown of society!

So Much (For) Stardust

I feel like something that's been stretched out over and over again, until I'm creased and I'm about to break down the middle, split me right down the middle, right, right, right, down the middle.

So much for stardust, we thought we had it all, thought we had it all. only to realize that none of it really matters. So we have to decide what does, and that's fucking hard.

Ache it till you make it...BUT WHEN DO YOU MAKE IT???

Like a sledgehammer to a disco ball...we were a hammer to the statue of David

Ok ok but the contrast there: when a disco ball shatters, it's pretty. When you shatter the statue of David, you're destroying something legendary, a standard of perfection. We only want to allow the forms of destruction that are harmless and beautiful. Not the ones we need.

Shit, man. Thought we had it all. But it turns out that we have to decide what it is. and that's fucking hard.

also, HORNS!

I've loved this band for going on a decade, and I don't know how they manage to keep writing albums that are perfectly in line with where I'm at in life when I need them most. It's incredible and I'll never get tired of it. god bless them.

[steeleumbra]

From my substack: Music...

Originally uploaded to substack Nov 19, 2024

I’m sitting in my bedroom at my desktop, listening to my media player on shuffle. Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ just finished, and ‘Baby One More Time’ by Britney Spears just started.

I played with my cat earlier to the song ‘Shake Your Groove Thing’, by Peaches and Herb. He is now trying to sleep in the middle of my bed. And he can have it. It’s 10:57pm, and it already feels like it’s going to be another sleepless night for me.

I’m not sure if I’m just killing time pissing around on the computer, or actually trying to think of something to do. But I also guess it doesn’t ultimately matter. If I strapped wings to my arms, drew a smiley face on my bare ass, and jumped off the roof trying to catch a headwind to Alaska from Lewiston, Maine, I don’t think that would matter much either. Not anymore than my ass possibly seeing a pic of itself smiling on someone’s cctv feed on a future true hauntings special; or whatever my spirit is, still floating around in the earthly ether long enough to see images of the body of a moron, found two feet from the base of my building flashing on the 5 o’clock news with wings tied to his arms and lines on his ass that might be a face, or a recipe for shortbread he must have wrote after putting the wings on. It would only be a two story fall, but at that point one could hope for either result, I guess.

“Why do I write like I’m from somewhere in the UK,” he asks himself but also writes out, for some unknown cosmic reason. I’m an ex-central New Yorker living in Maine.

It’s those damned immigrant-British TV shows, I tell you! Someone should have taken the remote away from me when Keeping Up Appearances and Benny Hill came on. Most fucking definitely when Benny Hill came on. I was way too gods damned, fucking young to be watching that adult shite.

Did you ever notice that he was never undressed enough. Not for my little gay but straight-masking ass. No, he wasn’t that good looking. But I grew up watching the Skipper’s bulge on Gilligan’s Island. Bears have always been my thing, I guess.

Still—fucking late night cable television and lack of responsible adult supervision; regardless of the fact that my undiagnosed autistic and ADHD insomnia made me stay awake later than any adult I knew.

Anyway….

‘Make My Heart Go’, Gloria Estefan. Playing now. It played ‘Wepo’ by her about an hour ago. That’s a fun song to ugly dance to. Most of these songs are fun to ugly dance to. And most of my dances are ugly. That’s why I called the playlist Dance Mix. It isn’t, technically, dance music. I think only three or four of the songs, out of the dozens I’ve added, would actually be played in a club somewhere. But they give my legs and 49 and a half year old hips something to move to while my hands do dishes. I don’t want my limbs to be jealous of each other. Especially my legs. 3:37am, petty vengeance charlie horses are some of the worst I’ve ever had. Granted, I have no proof that revenge is the reason for the pain. But I have better sense than to tempt that kind of fate.

‘Poker Face’. Lady Gaga. This one was fucking huge when it hit the airwaves. It seems like such a long time ago, but it hasn’t even been a full decade yet. It’s not like ‘Joyride’ by Roxette, which came out in 1990, nor ‘Call Me’ by Blonde in 1980. Those I could argue should feel sort of old, now. And I didn’t get here until ‘75, myself, so I can’t actually claim to have been here for the original runs of anything from as far back as 1970. But I’ve heard a lot of music from then…and before. And I’ve pretty much liked it all.

Except that fucking ‘Mairzy Doats’ one. I can’t be arsed to look up who performed it, nor care, but it’s from the ‘40s. It’s slightly more absolutely annoying than ‘Baby Shark’ to me, so it wins my most hated song award—which I don’t have one of to give. Mostly because I’ll be fucked by a bullet train on cross country skis if I invest in an award for a song I hate but can’t get out of my head.

I would invest in an award—a good award—for ‘The Song That Doesn't End’, though, because I don’t mind making some deep valley head spaces for that. Sherry Lewis did it using her Lamb Chop voice for an album. Though, I didn’t hear it until it was on her PBS children’s show in the ‘90s. Yes, I was too old to be watching it. But I’m also autistic, which is both a reality and the excuse I will use anytime I’m questioned about my music and video tastes that seem too juvenile. It also doesn’t hurt that I like ventriloquists. For the most part. Some should drown trying to drink water and talk at the same time. But I’ll keep my lips sealed and my hand firmly out of a puppet’s ass about who, other than to say it isn’t Dunham—but don’t push it.

All this to say…not a hell of a lot. I didn’t really expect to write this much. But I just had some chocolate yogurt with generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch for—well, the fucking crunch, I guess—and some coffee since insomnia already sent a telegram letting me know it’s on that bullet train tonight headed for my ass, so the caffeine won’t make a difference. And it is now 11:28pm, and my cat is still driving my bed through patches of ethereal catnip and tuna trees. And I just wanted a place where I don’t have to strive to be relevant in a world where I never have been. Where I don’t have to bust my ass, sans smiley face, trying to think of something that makes me believe that I’m important enough for the world to give a shit about. I just want to be me, streams of consciousness or not, without the responsibility of having to mask just to make small talk, nor somehow build from scratch the motivation to be impressive in an old t-shirt from Walmart, a pair of boxer briefs that were, at some point in years past, probably also from Walmart, and using one of the coffee cups I bought from Dollar Tree because I’m really fucking poor, but that I wouldn’t trade for a hundred bucks each. Come back with two hundred each, and I’ll negotiate.

That’s a lie. I’m autistic. We don’t negotiate. We wait for you to imply something, take it literally, say something unknowingly inappropriate, and watch you walk away wondering why you don’t want to buy from us anymore.

C’est la vie.

*Image credit - Me. It’s my cat. Not taken at a time that reflects the content of the text, but I’m not taking a low light image at night with an Android. Besides, I like how this one turned out.

[Tumblr reposting note: Although the image isnt' watermarked, it does have a hidden signature]

[jodilin65]

MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2005 Tomorrow should be a good day for Paula, despite the shitty weather they’ve been having there. She should get her package.

I wonder if I’ll hear from Tina. It would be kind of rude and ungrateful to not at least get a ‘thank you’ note, but if I don’t, I don’t.

Later…

I check every now and then to satisfy my curiosity as to what’s going on with Mary’s case, but there are never any new updates that I can find. I know our justice system is fucked up and that things tend to move awfully slow when it comes to the courts, but I can’t believe she’s still sitting in jail with apparently nothing going on! I couldn’t even find any upcoming court dates mentioned. Maybe the vibe I had of her getting out in the fall of this year was way off. Maybe she’ll sit in jail waiting forever for this case to close!

It seems we’ve traded places, Bev and I. Now she’s the one out more. I just haven’t had any place to go, or better yet, any money. So broke. Always, always broke! Where will we be in a year from now?

Poor.

In 2 years from now?

Poor.

In 5 years?

Poor.

In 20?

Poor. Always poor.

It’s funny how much I’ve gained in the time I’ve been out of jail, despite how much I’ve lost as well, and what with how broke we always are. I sure got a lot of MP3s, dolls and other things since then, even if I ended up not liking some of the dolls. And look how much my writing has improved since then.

We managed to get through all of January without the animals next door, but I’m sure they’ll be back sometime during our remaining 89 days here.

I’ll miss some things about the duplex itself. The bedroom’s so much better for daytime sleeping than the Maricopa one was. On sunny days it’s darker than the Maricopa one was on its gloomiest days.

Tom sent for a brochure on Redding, yet it didn’t tell us much about living there. It was basically a tourist brochure for the rich. We certainly could never afford to rent a houseboat on a lake at a resort.

Since I’m 100% sure I’m not going to lose any more weight, unless I miraculously get the willpower to deal with the never-ending hunger, I’m not going to chart my weight on a daily basis, just weekly. And it’ll be to maintain my weight only since I can’t lose. I just try to look at the bright side of keeping the weight. Sure I’d look better if I lost it and rocking would be easier and my clothes would fit better, but with the extra weight, it may make handling the doll easier, even if she’s still years away. It should also help when the next Tami of Valleyhead or Bonny of Woodside Terrace or Barbara of Norwich or Nancy of jail goes to threaten me. I’m not holding back no matter how much of a hold they may have on me, let alone weight, height, strength and experience. Even if I was sure to be beaten to a bloody pulp, the point will be that I stood up for myself and up to them as well.

I realized something that made me wish my hair was completely gray, as funny as that may sound. If it were gray, I’d have a wider variety of color selections to dye it with. Right now I’d have to bleach and strip it to get it blond or even a light golden brown, though I doubt I’d want to have my hair those colors. I could redden it easier and even do some far-out colors like pink, purple and blue if it were lighter to begin with.

As much as I thoroughly believe Michael Jackson is as guilty of child molestation as charged, I don’t see why they even bother to drag the little pedophile into court. The rich, black male is sure to get off, not just because he is a rich, male and black, but because of the riot, they’d certainly have on their hands if he didn’t. Blacks are such sore losers, though they shouldn’t give in to their immature tantrums just because they can’t handle it when a famous black person is made to pay for their crime. We’ve got to take a stand against them and show them they can’t always get their way. Nobody always gets their way, and why they ever thought they should be any different, beats me.

To keep my fragrances special and so as not to get too used to any of them, I’ve paired them up. I’ll rotate between two scents each day, and right now I have 24. Today’s Patchouli and Sugar Plum day. Tomorrow will be Hazelnut and Gingerbread.

People sure do jump the gun on the holidays here. Valentine’s Day is two weeks away yet they already have these Valentine’s theme music stations on Yahoo.

Later…

I did hear back from Tina, after all, though all I got was a 5-dollar bill. No note or anything else. That’s cool, though, as money is more needed than notes. I didn’t specifically ask for money, but I mentioned that the incense normally sells for $1 and the burner for $4. I’d have added a ‘thank you’ note and been generous enough to send $10 for postage and just for remembering and taking the time to send it, but any bit we can get helps.

Tom says there may not have been a note because she may’ve not wanted the incense and therefore, she grudgingly paid for it. No, she wanted it. If there’s anything personal that prevented her from enclosing a note, it’s that she didn’t make $650 off of us.

I decided to end my pairs game because I get sick of having the same two scents going all day and I get to missing the other scents. I’d rather just burn what I’m in the mood to burn until that scent runs out.

Bob said the Bump & Grind oil came in today, but his supplier missed the White Shoulders. Figures, huh? If I’d ordered any other scent; that’s the one they’d have missed. Due to an awesome thing I learned about SOS, I asked Bob if the White Shoulders was made from the exact same oil as the incense oil, which I thought was way off. If it is, I asked that he substitute it for Hugo Boss or Patchouli, which costs the same. Whatever body oil he sends, I told him he could hold it till he has everything in stock.

What I learned from SOS is that there are two different grades of oil yet they cost the same - manufacturers and cosmetics. With the cosmetic, it’s not only good for burners but as body oil, too! I’m definitely determined to switch from sticks to oils due to the residue the sticks leave. My monitor looks like it did when I smoked.

I’ve been doing regular checks on Redding’s temperatures. It seems like it may be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer which makes me fear it may be noisy. If we can get some space and some trees between the neighbors, a little noise may be worth it because I’m already sick to death of winter. Winters here may not be like back east, but they’re bad enough. So as long as every yard doesn’t have a dog left outside to bark 24/7, and the driveway closest to ours doesn’t have a basketball hoop, it may be an ideal place to go. There’d be more job opportunities for Tom, too.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 2005 If I were doing this diet to lose weight, yesterday’s setback would’ve had me pissed enough to up my determination, and today’s setback would have me totally discouraged. I’m back to 126. Typical diet, after all. It works at first, then stops.

I slept with just the sound machine and an earplug because I was sick of having the draft on me from the fan. I’ll have to have it on tomorrow, though, in case the animals come. I should be going to sleep around the same time they’d come, if they come, although it’s easier to fall asleep to noise than to fall asleep first and then have it get noisy. It’s not that it’d be “noisy.” Just bangy and vibrant like sonic booms.

I sleep shitty half the time when I’m on nights because the city stress wakes me up constantly. When I sleep at night, though, I sleep better. It’s still a million times quieter here than anyplace I lived in as an adult in Phoenix or back East.

I just hope to hell we can find a place in a neutral zone. One that isn’t so far out and that won’t have the sounds of hunters and sonic booms, but that doesn’t have neighboring houses so damn close. I also hope there are more trees to block sounds and give us added privacy, and that if we do go to a warmer climate, dogs aren’t left outside to bark 24/7 like in Phoenix. I don’t know if they do that everywhere it’s warmer, or if it’s just a Western custom.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2005 Another weekend in the city has just about arrived, and so has the stress that goes with it. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since leaving Phoenix is to never think you’ve escaped something for good! The stress may be nothing compared to other places, but still, it’s there, nonetheless. I almost wish those animals had come last Sunday so that I could know I probably wouldn’t have to worry about them for a while, but now I’m left to anticipate what shit this Sunday may bring. Oh well, I’ll just keep reminding myself that there are only 13 more Sundays left here.

She left just before Tom left for work this morning. I wonder where she could’ve gone so early.

We’re done with Netflix and Webshots. I’m hoping Tom will be able to hack the 2 out of 4 daily premium pictures from Webshots, though I doubt it. I’d think they’d be pretty hacker-safe about that, but we’ll see. I doubt I’ll return to these things if we ever have more money because you know how I hate to have to keep starting over. I hate the part-time, sometimes-I-can, sometimes-I-can’t routine I’ve been on for so many years now. I want to either just do something regularly or not do it at all.

Tom heard at work that Walmart, which is expanding into a supercenter, is about to hire 300 people, so he’s thinking of applying there. If he could get hired there, we’d get a 10% discount on groceries and other merchandise, and he could transfer to another Walmart Supercenter in another state/town if they had an opening, because they’re everywhere. The pay’s shitty, but they do get raises and it should be more than what he’s making now (he’ll never get a raise where he is now). A coworker’s wife said she’s only been there two months and they’ve already raised her to $8.40 an hour.

Despite the not-so-good pay, I don’t know if God would allow Tom to work there what with how convenient it would be. We’d both almost certainly have insurance too, including dental.

I’m 125, which I first hit almost 3 weeks ago, so now I’m virtually certain that I won’t lose any more weight. I could if I starved myself even more, but I don’t want to. At least this diet saves money and keeps me from gaining.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005 I spoke to Paula last night and let her know her package is on its way. While we’ve had no snow and have been in the 40s and 50s, she’s got 15” of snow and single-digit temps! Some parts of Massachusetts have 3’ of snow.

Not surprisingly, his cheater program doesn’t look like it’s going to help him win $10 a day at the game site. As I reminded him, we wouldn’t be cursed financially if we were meant to be able to do things like win money that often. The point of this is to keep us down in life and make sure we always struggle. I don’t know what’s doing this to us or why. Everyone else in our families was meant to have money, so why are we the black sheep in that department? Because we are in so many other departments as well? Well, I don’t know why we’re destined to scrape pennies, but there’s no point in getting upset over it. It’s always been this way and it always will be.

I’m also sure my publishing vibe is bullshit, too. I mean, it has to be, doesn’t it? Why would God let me do something as extraordinary as publishing a book, even if it means we still stay broke? I guess the answer is simple. I may not want to be a writer like I once wanted to be other things, but I like to write, so why would He let me do something I like and want to do other than for fun? I just don’t see Him letting me publish a book, although He did let me get pictures published, and well, I don’t know, but maybe getting something published isn’t that extraordinary. I don’t know the odds. I guess it’d be somewhat special, though certainly not as special as winning a Grammy or an Oscar. I just don’t see how one could make money with gay characters with all the bigots in this world, so maybe He would allow it after all. I think that’s why He allowed me to get my pictures published; because He knew I wouldn’t profit from it. So, if I have nothing to gain, I just may succeed.

I learned yet another fucked up religious belief from Tom when I commented on how those that hate gays tie them into religion, unlike blacks. He told me that they too, were entwined in twisted beliefs. Back when they were slaves, certain religious people said it was okay to enslave them because they weren’t really human but were in fact monkeys. As much as I hate the damn things, even I have to admit that one’s pretty fucked up, yet it’s funny, too. A lot of them do have monkey-like facial features.

I went to the Arizona Republic’s site to see if anything was printed pertaining to my e-mail. Not surprisingly there wasn’t. I wouldn’t have cared if there was, I was just curious. All I found connected to my name was one small paragraph from when I was in custody, and sure enough, and not at all surprisingly, that one little paragraph was riddled with lies. The sick bitch said I hung a teddy bear by a noose from her clothesline, that she spent as much time as possible away from the house, and that she was pregnant when we had to live with her and her sick associates. Again, I had the great misfortune of seeing her often enough to know she was never pregnant while living there. I got a kick out of the ax bullshit she threw in, though, saying she slept with an ax by her bed. What? Her big man couldn’t protect her from someone smaller than she was? Then again, I was only shorter, but not lighter. The bitch was druggie-thin, so I was no doubt the heavier one. Still… an ax? My, my, Joely, aren’t we a little drama queen? I know it was all for show, though. She was never afraid of me. The only thing she was right on about in court was when she said she was lucky to be alive. She got that one right! I still don’t know why I didn’t stick it to her when I had her on our property. I still would’ve gone to jail, but it would’ve been for a worthy cause in that case.

Anyway, I did toss an old teddy bear over the wall I no longer wanted, but I’d never have had the guts to go into the yard for fear of being shot to death. Then again, the Mexicans would’ve shot us faster than the blacks because that’s just the kind of people they were. I wasn’t kidding or exaggerating when I said they’d literally die for me. They’d die for anyone or anything, for that matter, if that’s what it took to get their way. They don’t come much more defiant than those little shits. Anyway, the noose-hanging was just the black bum’s own throw-in for dramatics, as the roof-hopping was my own add-in in the journals I sent.

As for her spending as much time as possible away from the house – I suppose that’s why I’d always bitch about her being there 24/7, because she was out as much as possible, right? Well, the truth is that it was only in the last few months that she was gone during the day, but that was only because she finally started working.

I would also bet everything I have that she didn’t lose the house. Her time was no doubt up because they were beginning to set time limits at that time. Since the 90s, you haven’t been able to stay on welfare for decades like you used to be able to. Some people would have one child after another just to stay on it, but now they’ll only pay for so many for so long, then “you’re the parents, so you foot the bill,” is their attitude, which I thoroughly agree with. I thought it was about time they cracked down on the lazy mother-fuckers. Either way, there’s no way even the nicest, most peaceful person would have gone out that quietly the day she moved, had we been the ones to cause her to be evicted. The Mexicans may’ve ended up evicted, but she did not.

Later…

I’m back to thinking I’m not going to lose any more weight. I’ve been 125 pounds for the last two days, and when I first hit 125, it was 16 days ago. Oh well. Going hungry still saves money.

I split my 24 bags of incense in half. I plan to rotate every other day between my sweets, spices and musks, and my fruits, flowers and perfumes.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2005 I was surprised to wake at 123 pounds! I did not expect that. Every time I think I’m not going to lose anymore, I do, so now I’m back to not being sure how low I’ll go.

Tom’s got a new game plan in mind. Instead of playing for set dollar amounts each day, he’s going to play for 2 hours on weekdays and 5 hours on weekends. That’ll be 20 hours a week, the part-time job we need to supplement us. He still thinks he can win around $10 a day.

I called Paula to let her know her incense and CDs would be mailed out tomorrow or the next day. I also enclosed some designer envelopes for her as well as a couple of dull colognes and a bottle of nail polish. Plus, I’m sending her a light bulb ring and a bit of watermelon oil so she can see if she too, wants to switch from sticks to avoid the residue buildup. I let her know I’d send a fragrance list from the New York site for her to choose from and to send me money for whatever she wants and I’ll get it for her when I go to do a trial order for myself in 2-3 months.

Not surprisingly, I found more botches on the incense I just got. My Butter Rum is Butter Rum and so is my Cranberry, and I’m almost sure the Cotton Candy is, too. Also, the Jasmine smelled a bit off, yet when I sniffed the bag, it clearly smelled of Jasmine. The Fruit was way off, and when I sniffed the bag, it smelled Lemony. They obviously can’t handle big incense orders, so even though he says he got a new kid helping him, I should buy more oils from them and fewer sticks. I want to convert over to oil anyway. They don’t manufacture their oil, so maybe they won’t fuck up as much as opposed to when they have to dip/package sticks.

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2005 Tom’s trying for today’s $10 on the game site. That’s what we’d like to start with; $10 a day. Without this cheater thing he wrote, there’d be no way. If this works out, though, then that’ll be his additional part-time job.

I can relate to how he said he wanted to brag to everyone and anyone about how he came up with this brilliant program, yet the only one he could tell was me. He was adamant about me writing about it at first, but then he said it’d be okay since it’s not illegal. The worst that could happen to him if he were caught would be that he’d get kicked off the site and not paid any of the money he won.

Where I can relate is that if I ever did get a book published, I’d want to rub a copy in both our family’s faces, and maybe even send a copy to Andy and Miss Priss, yet I know we wouldn’t tell anyone other than Bob and Paula. Impressing the others and showing off to them isn’t worth the cost of the postage it’d take to send the copies anyway.

Later…

I’m both excited and delighted to say that after waiting exactly one month, the incense is here! Not without a catch, though, as usual. One of the two body oils is out of stock and so is the incense oil I ordered. Also, they left out my bags. This is no biggie, though, compared to if I find that any of these dipped sticks aren’t what they’re supposed to be, but so far so good.

Bob said he’d send the stuff to me next week. I guess my box was packed, then repacked, and they forgot to stick the bags back in.

What’s funny is that he can’t find my money order which he acknowledged both on the phone and in the e-mail had arrived. He said his daughter cleans up after him and she may’ve put it someplace. Serves him right for making me wait this long! Anyway, Tom will give him its ID number if he has to. These people are so damn disorganized! What kind of fool leaves payments lying around to get misplaced? Don’t they have some sort of box for these things?

I’m impressed with how well the oil burns in the light bulb rings. Just half an eyedropper of oil, and the place smelled heavily of chocolate for about as long as in incense stick burns, maybe longer. It only smoked a teeny tiny bit, too. The only drawback to the oil rings is that I can’t use them when I don’t want lights on.

He gave me two extra 20-packs. One was an extra pack of Cotton Candy which is good. It actually sort of reminds me of butter rum, believe it or not. And also a pack of the famous Frankincense. I don’t really care for that one, so I sent it to Paula. Both she and Tina will be in for a pleasant surprise. Especially Tina, since she’s not expecting it.

The flat-rate mailing boxes I requested arrived, too. The mailman left them by the door, knocked, then took off. I’m going to miss getting packages this easily, though I’m not going to be getting many for a long, long time to come. Not just to save money, but because I’m sick of having to work so hard to get them! It sort of takes the fun out of shopping when you have to fight for your purchases, though I still may give that other place a try and get just $20 worth of sticks.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 23, 2005 No animals today, so that’s good. Maybe God’s just waiting to send them over on a day when he knows I’ll be up to having to figure out where we’re going to go for 7 hours while they bounce off the walls, floor and ceiling. There’s no way I can see her having them over and ordering them to sit still. You can’t tell little kids to sit still any more than you can tell a rattlesnake to rid itself of its venom. Not without traumatizing them into a catatonic state with threats of death for running rather than walking.

It seems the worst of winter may be over, judging by the variety of birds there suddenly is. So unlike Massachusetts, though I’m sure it won’t feel very summery for a while yet. Good, we still have 98 days to go here.

I have this cavity that acts up every now and then, but then I do my spells and it’s okay for a while. Although Tom’s a bit more sure he can win us a couple of hundred extra bucks a month, I want to put off filling it till after we get moved so it doesn’t jeopardize the move.

It also appears that my spell stopped his cold from setting in, too. A cold made another play for me in my sleep, but again I fought it off. Let’s put it this way – we’d both be feeling pretty lousy right now if I didn’t have the powers I have!

I hope we can find an old dumpy house no one wants to rent that’s cheaper than this. If it’ll only be for a few years, I won’t care if it’s small, old and rundown. I guess it’ll depend on how much land is around it. Just as long as there are some space and some trees for privacy. I also hope it’s where we stay till we buy a house. I may be anxious to get the hell out of here, but I’m still sick of all the damn moving we do, too!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 2005 I was laughing when I read that Massachusetts is 30 degrees colder than we are right now, and expecting a monster snowstorm. Yup, winters here are mild compared to even the easiest winters there.

Bev was out again till dusk. I know she’s not visiting Romeo who’s laid up with a broken leg somewhere because he came by last night. I just hope this place isn’t hit with 7 hours of sonic boom-type vibrations tomorrow!

I awoke at 126. That’s a 2-pound setback, so I have to really watch it for the next couple of days. My goal is to hit 123 by the end of the month.

The good news is that my incense was finally shipped out on Friday. Now all I have to do is hope they sent everything I ordered. If whatever extra thing he threw in isn’t good, I’ll just send it to Paula. I just hope I don’t have to be available to sign for it because I should be asleep when it comes on Monday or Tuesday.

Tom’s written a program to aid him with the online games. We’re hoping this will earn us an additional few hundred a month, but we’re afraid to get our hopes up. It’s just that we’ve struggled so much of our lives that I can’t see why we’d suddenly stop. The hard part is that he’s got to come up with a program that’s not too obvious and that they can block with their own software they may have set up to detect aids.

As for me, I thought that once we had a PO Box somewhere again, I’d post a notice on the bulletin board for people to send me $5 per question, and as a psychic, I’d send them their answers via postal mail or email. This way, if some trigger-happy psycho doesn’t like any answers I may give, they won’t know where to find me. I hope I can do something because my books can’t make us shit. Even if I got 5 books published right now, you’re talking just a few bucks a year in sales because not many people buy these kinds of books, and I’m not a big-name author.

He found a dollar bill in the driveway the other day. At least the occasional trash that blows in here is worth something unlike the millions of pieces of trash we’d get in Maricopa!

He said he felt a slight cold starting, so I did a spell on him. I hope it works!

Why couldn’t they come up with these flavored cigarettes before I quit smoking? They’ve got all kinds of them coming out now, and of course you also got all kinds of people protesting them. I can’t imagine how you could “flavorize” smoke, but then again, you can add fragrance to it so why not taste?

FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2005 It’s currently 21º here, 3º in Springfield, and 69º in Maricopa. It’s going to be 81º in Maricopa come Sunday. God, I miss that! I mean, I don’t miss the huge electric bills, struggling to regulate the AC, sweating my ass off even when I’m sitting still, but I’m sick of being cold! I’m so glad we’ll be moving when the weather warms up, cuz as much as I miss summer, I’d hate to have it warm up here. Never know what trouble it may bring outdoors if it did.

Bev was out for at least 3 hours that we know of. I’d say that kid was born. She’s never been out that long and after dark, so I’m getting rather nervous about the upcoming weekend. Damn! I did not come here to be stressing out all over again about what neighbors may do! Oh well, whatever she does, it can’t be for more than 100 days now, then all I have to do is hope we can get a house that doesn’t include the neighbors’ barking dogs or a car stereo. If they did have a stereo, though, I’d like to think they couldn’t pull right up alongside our house with it, or sit with it blasting while they tossed hoops. I just know that someone in the household will be home all the time, they’ll probably have little kids who are outside a lot, so I’m hoping we’ll have more privacy than we did in Maricopa since we couldn’t possibly have that much distance.

I had to laugh to myself when I thought of how we came here to build a home on the mountain. Instead, we may very well move to California and I may publish a book this year (I have vibes that my second submission will make it). Now that’s pretty far out.

I also laughed when I thought of how Mary had contacted me to help her get her book published, yet all I could do for her was type up what she wrote. Instead, it just may be the other way around, since she’s the one who really inspired me to improve my writing and to write more elaborate stories.

Tom was right when he pointed out how we seem to fail when we set out to do something with some grand goal in mind. Getting my stories published was the last thing on my mind when I started them. I still can’t say for sure that I ever will get any published, but I think I stand a pretty good chance. The vibes I got from Barb weren’t just that she hoped I’d submit something publishable, but more like she expected me to.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2005 Amazingly, Bev’s been gone since Tom got in from work, which was right around when I got up and still is. I’ve never known her to be out after dark. My guess is that she’s at her kid’s house. I hope that’s where she is because it’s about time she went to them rather than them going to her, cuz when they do, we’re the ones that have to deal with it, though I’m sure they’ll still visit occasionally. Most people aren’t going to forbid their grandkids from visiting just because they bother the neighbors.

I just realized another not-so-good possibility. Her daughter-in-law could be having the baby tonight, in which case she and her son may want to pawn the other kids off on her because they’ll have their hands full enough with a newborn. Why do other people’s kids always have to butt into my life? With my shit luck, her daughter-in-law has no mother for them to go to, so with just one granny to sic them on, we’re the ones that’ll have to put up with their shit.

It’s getting more and more obvious, at least to me, that Bob’s just stringing me along with no plans to ship my order. I don’t think he ever processed it. I don’t know if he’s just so overwhelmed that he’s deliberately losing customers while he’s too greedy to hire help, or what, but here’s my plan. If I still haven’t heard from him by Monday, I’ll email him informing him that he has one week to either send me my order or give me my money back. If in a week he hasn’t delivered either, I’ll trash and bash him in his testimonials every day. Hopefully, he’ll get so sick of that that he’ll finally cave in and send something. There’s no way I can trust this other incense place. I’m just too cursed with mail orders, and the more it’s something I like/want, the more I have to fight for it. It’s just too damn hard to get shit through the mail, so I give up.

I hit 124 pounds today. If things continue as they have been, I just may keep losing after all. I may be 115 when we move, from what I calculated.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2005 Romeo’s visiting now. I still don’t think he’s living there, though, because the truck is hardly ever there. Why would you move in with someone and leave your vehicle elsewhere most of the time? How would he get to work, assuming he does work? He may very well be on disability himself, though I’ve never seen his truck here during regular business hours. It’s just that I remember all too well how hard it is for those on Disability to attract those with jobs. However, a guy probably wouldn’t mind a woman on Disability as much as another woman would.

The guy across the street yelled for Tom to come help him lift an air compressor out of his trunk the other day, but they didn’t chat or anything.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2005 If I could’ve read future excerpts back before the mid-90s, this one would’ve had me laughing: A cold tried to set in the night before last. It took me a while to fight it, but between my spells, incense burning, and chicken pot pie, it never got worse than a scratchy throat. I don’t know how I do what I do. I just concentrate really hard on what I want (or don’t want), though sometimes it takes a few tries.

Here’s another classic example of how not having my own kids hasn’t necessarily spared me from having to deal with other people’s kids getting in the way of my life, plans and peace. On Sunday, Bob told me he worked on my order a little, then he got pulled away by his daughter who was celebrating her 10th birthday. Supposedly, it’s to be shipped out tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

I took my first duplex nap and slept for a few hours this evening. Perhaps that’s because cramps woke me up after not much more than 4 hours of sleep this morning. Again I don’t know what it is with the 4th hour of my sleep being so vulnerable. Did I smother someone in their sleep in a previous life after they’d been asleep for 4 hours, or what? I may be asleep when he gets in from work if I can’t get to sleep till late in the morning, but I’ll wake up to a nice surprise in the freezer if I do – a mud pie blizzard from DQ! Yes, it’s my day off tomorrow, and I’m also virtually certain that my weight won’t drop below 125 pounds. Oh well. For years I couldn’t get under 127 so maybe someday I’ll get under 125, but probably not anytime too soon. I still intend to keep up the diet, though, cuz it does a good job of saving money.

I do not look forward to this Sunday, knowing it could very well be a circus next door. The question is, will I be awake before the earthquakes begin, or will the animals wake me up? I did not come here just to be woken up by other people’s kids or grandkids!!!

MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 2005 I got a response back from PDP. I hope she’ll find my current story more “fleshed out and expanded on” as she put it. I think it’s much better than the one she read, but we’ll see. I don’t know if I’ll rework the one I submitted only because it’s easier to start from scratch than to rework a manuscript, but we’ll see. It’s definitely longer. Still, I appreciate the feedback, even if she made a typo at the end of her review. We were kind of expecting a form letter or to be completely blown off.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2005 Although I don’t expect them to get it till Monday, I went ahead and sent the publishers a message regarding any decisions made about my manuscript. Whether or not I hear from them will depend on just how professional they are. If they blow me off, then they were never all that professional to begin with.

If Bob blows me off and I don’t get the incense by Friday, I’ll just go ahead and send Paula what I’ve got, along with her CDs. Then I’ll have to fight to get the money back, and never, never, get anything through the mail again.

Meanwhile, I was able to go online and order free mailing boxes from the PO. They say they’ll be here in 10-14 days. It’d be nice if they kept their word because that way he wouldn’t have to stand in line at the local PO.

If I do get my incense, then I’ll stick to my plan of trying that other incense place next month. I’m sure they’ll start off reliable, then slowly slack off like Bob and Jeff did. Things always seem like they’re going to work out at first, but then they slide downhill. Neighbors start off quiet, then they get noisy. Diets start off effective, then they stop working. Melatonin starts off keeping me on a schedule, then it’s worthless. People’s service starts off okay, then it gets horrible.

No animals next door today, but the damn things will probably be there next Sunday.

My weight is at 126 pounds. I don’t know if I’ll get lower than 125-126. My guess is no, I won’t.

The temperature’s climbing back up which makes it much more comfortable at night. It’d cost us a fortune to heat it so that we’d be comfortable in here when it’s around 0º. It’s going to be in the upper 50s in about a week.

The Arizona Republic has so far honored my request not to be contacted regarding my email, though I’m not terribly surprised about that one. They probably never even read it, having long since decided that I was the perpetrator in this case, and if they did it would have only been to see if I threatened the sickos so they could try to hunt me down and come after me.

Tom sprayed mildew killer to try to kill all the damn mildew that’s around the windows, and although that was hours ago, I can still smell the shit. It reminds me of Monkey-Faced Maria in jail who was so obsessed with bleaching everything she could!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2005 I thought it was time to do something I’ve been thinking of doing ever since I got off probation and that’s to email the Arizona Republic with the truth about what happened with the sickos we used to live with. I’m not going to tell Tom just yet because I know that’d make him extremely paranoid. Even I was a little nervous at first, knowing they could alter my email, etc., but then I remembered my vow to not let this incident keep me from speaking my mind. I did it because I felt I finally had to “fight back” even if it’s in a pathetic sort of way. It isn’t to make anyone believe me or side with me or to gain anything. I can’t kill them, I can’t sue them, but I could finally speak out without being attacked or used as people’s source of entertainment, and so I did. I will place a copy of the email at the end of this entry.

I called Bob again and he says that by next week they should be all caught up, he got my money order today, and will email me to let me know the current status of my order. Meanwhile, I’m sure it hasn’t been shipped yet.

I also called Paula and told her to start looking for her package after the 24th. She’s been kind enough not to call me so she doesn’t take up my minutes, and I assured her I’d make it a point to call her once a month. The gay guy got a 1-year restraining order on her, she’s still in touch with psycho Miguel, and her married black pig still comes around every now and then.

Last night was utterly freezing here at -7º! Bev hasn’t hung clothes out back for a while now.

I was so sick of being so cold in my sleep that I cut my comforter in half, making the part I’d cover myself with a little wider, and put the other part under my sheet to act as a padded mattress pad. I had two hours of sewing to do, but it was worth it.

My letter to the Arizona Republic:

My name is Jodi S and while I doubt this letter will be read since it’s not exactly going to say what the media would like to hear, I’ll give it a try anyway. I had turned down an interview with you folks in March of ’01 from Estrella jail because I didn’t want to be your source of entertainment, after being terribly slandered by a couple of news people who insisted they were to remain neutral and weren’t out to attack me, though you went and bashed me anyway, even though I never did read the article.

So why am I writing this? Oh, I guess it’s just because I have to get the truth out, even if no one ever cares enough to read this, much less investigate my claims.

I’m the one who was convicted of stalking Joely N on 10/30/00. The reason I’ve chosen to wait so long to write this is so that no one thinks I wrote it simply to try to get a break on my sentence since my sentence has been done and over with since 4/30/03. I don’t even reside in Arizona anymore. My husband and I were forced to run after the countless threats we received from both Miss N and the arresting officer involved, Jerry O, her personal friend. I guess the reason for the threats was that they were angry that my probation got cut 6 months early, aside from the fact that these are seriously disturbed individuals. Because of this, I am not going to disclose my location.

Let me cut to the chase and then I’ll expand on what I have to say. They said I was convicted of writing and sending N a threatening letter, but in reality, I was convicted because I am Jewish (something N has personally told me she despises) and because I launched a city complaint against her when she was on section 8 and living next to us in Phoenix for constant noise and trashing our yard. I did not know this right away, but she and Jerry O have been long-time buddies.

We moved to Maricopa because we were tired of being continually harassed and badgered by these people for no reason whatsoever. Loud stereos would come and go at all hours of the day and night, screaming and yelling were a constant occurrence, trash would be tossed over into our yard, and so on and so forth. Every time we’d call the police, they’d tell us they couldn’t be there 24/7 to monitor the situation and that they’d probably start up as soon as they left, and they did. The police also told me to keep a log of their activities. I did this in my journal. This is what the state called “stalking.” Well, let me assure you, we couldn’t have helped but know their every move if we tried because N, her boyfriend Michael, her friends and family, went out of their way to make sure we knew of their every move and this was just a few feet from our place. Their driveway ran alongside one wall of our house and we’d hear them out there slamming car doors as loud as they could, laughing about it, calling out, taunting us. I was becoming quite frightened of them. After all, there were just 2 of us and lots of them. I even heard N once yell out, “Call the police again and I’ll personally skin your white Jewish ass!” This was along with prank phone calls and notes slipped in our mailbox slot that I am so, so sorry I never saved. I thought I was being the so-called bigger person by ignoring these things and so I threw them away.

When repeated complaints to quiet down directly to them failed to work, we wrote a letter to the city. This was never about their color. This was about them being loud, rude and obnoxious. They themselves turned it into a racial issue, and never once did I make any threats to them in my journals. The closest thing I may’ve said to a threat was, “I wish they’d drop dead over there,” or “I sometimes want to go over and strangle them for all the noise,” but I never once wrote any direct threats to them or their kids.

She said in court that she had to move twice because of me yet I never knew where she moved to. That’s why I sent the journals to the old address; so they could be forwarded. (I’m sure O coaxed her into saying this) Then they said I picked on the next family which was Hispanic, but they weren’t Hispanic. They were as white as I am. When I called N and asked if she’d gotten the letter, “the letter” meant the manila envelope I’d sent her containing the journals.

That’s where Det. O comes in. We had just moved into our Maricopa home when he so rudely stormed into my house, scaring the living daylights out of me, with a ton of other cops. It was like a swat team! I was like, all this for a 105-pound, 5’ person? Then I was dragged into Phoenix to be asked questions that I could’ve been asked right there in my home. This was when I was framed, though I didn’t realize it at the time. O thrust a threatening letter into my hand that I had never seen before. It was very threatening and filled with racial slurs. I told him I knew nothing of the letter, though I did send some journal excerpts as a way of “speaking my mind” in a non-violent way that was exercising my right to freedom of speech. What I didn’t know then is that O typed the letter up himself, then thrust it into my hands to get my fingerprints on it. I also have every reason to believe he altered many of the journals as well.

Words cannot describe the sheer frustration of being set up by your own perpetrators while the media has done nothing but glorify these people. Words also couldn’t describe the frustration of knowing I can never prove the letter was a frame. I have been humiliated beyond belief. The police have ignored the threats made against us. They just didn’t want to hear it or believe it. It always makes the news when non-whites are discriminated against, but when a white person is discriminated against, you never hear about it.

The corruption doesn’t end here, I’m afraid, so please bear with me a little longer if by some chance you are still reading this.

Paul K was my public defender. I thought I just may have someone on my side at last, someone I could trust, but boy was I wrong! He withheld valuable information from me that could’ve prevented me from receiving the ludicrous sentence I received, and didn’t show me additional “evidence” till minutes before sentencing. I don’t even remember what this was because he flashed it really quickly and then shoved it away in a file folder. When I asked to see it clearly, he refused. My husband and I tried to take action against him, but the Bar Association refused to even listen to us. Meanwhile, I was led to believe I was being charged with the journals, not the letter. I was also assured – no promised – that if I pled guilty, I would receive no more than a year’s probation. I still didn’t think I deserved that much for sending what was a handful of pages of journal excerpts, but I truly believed at the time that I had no way out. K was great at manipulating people who didn’t know a thing about the law and the system. And why should I have known anything? After all, the worst I’d ever done back in my native state of Massachusetts was make prank phone calls that I got a slap on the wrist for. However, I would come to learn an awful lot too late right around this time, along with the fact that N and O were friends and maybe even more than friends by the way they carried on out in the hallway before we could enter the courtroom. Oh, it was quite a show, I assure you!

And then there was the DA and Judge. When Paul told me the DA was seeking a 6-month sentence, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it! Who in their right mind would seek that kind of a sentence for something that was written on paper? After all, I never harmed these people, never forced them to read the journals. They could’ve simply trashed them and moved on, but not these vengeful, vindictive people. This was when I started to realize much to my horror that I may never be allowed to move on and get these people out of my life forever. And what kind of judge could hand down such an insane sentence? Even if it was the so-called “law,” well, what if the law came down and said you had to throw your children off a bridge? Would you do it? I should hope not! I should hope at that point you’d do the right thing which the judge failed to do that day. Even if I’d been 100% guilty as charged, no one – no one – should do 6 months in jail, plus 2 years of probation that would amount to thousands of dollars, for a letter!

I thoroughly regret pleading guilty and that I cannot prove the guilt of those involved, protect others from becoming potential victims of these hateful people, and sue them silly. So my next hope is that N and O, who are obviously obsessed with me, never find me. There’s no saying what they would do if they did and let me set the record straight – the only “victims” in this case were me and my husband! Another thing that’s truly frustrating is knowing that no one’s ever questioned them. Never once has these people’s credibility been questioned. I mean, certainly I can’t be the only one they’ve picked on. I’m sure that if one probed deep enough, they’d find others they’ve victimized that they believed crossed them and that O used his authority against. This man is nothing but a very angry person hiding behind a badge that he uses as a weapon against those he dislikes or that his friend/lover N has a personal vendetta against. I don’t know if they’re all white like me, but I’m sure you’d find a common denominator if you looked hard enough – Joely N and Jerry O.

I do not wish to be contacted regarding this letter. Sadly, I know these people will never be questioned, or investigated, and that justice will never be done in this case. I just wanted to correct the tall tales they’ve spun along with the media and God knows who else, and speak the truth without being attacked for once, or assumed to be out for personal gain.

Later…

Got a Bob letter today. His lungs are so bad that he says he may not make it out of there. I never thought he would, truthfully. I always figured he’d either kill himself or get shanked by some sicko.

The Bob in Idaho is still stringing me along. He emailed saying, “We never received the order so we couldn’t find it,” yet he just named off a few things on my order list the other day that he said he’d check on to see if they were in stock. Now I have no clue whatsoever when my order will be shipped, but I do know that I’m done with them for good. I’d really like to find a place I can buy my supplies from in person!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2005 We decided to get a microwave this weekend and put my new pillows on hold till next weekend in light of the $150 electric bill we just got. That’s nothing compared to the Arizona bills, but still a hell of a lot for us, considering what he makes here.

We did more research on Redding and were surprised to see how much warmer it is there than here. It’s barely two hours away yet its temperatures are more comparable to Arizona than here! It rains more there, though it rains more everywhere than in Arizona. Well, I’m pretty sick of the cold and snow already. My only concern would be that it may be too noisy being a warmer climate, but we’ll see. We still don’t even know that we’re going to make it down there this year. It’ll all depend on what he finds for jobs.

Tom got an idea for a book he wants us both to write together about a PI who looks for a missing person with computers being involved. It’s sort of sci-fi. I told him I didn’t know if I could do that because I’m not a sci-fi writer. I’ll give it a try, though it seems like it’d be like me trying to sing opera. I’ve still got so many book ideas of my own, and who knows when No Escape will be done?

It’s been exactly 6 weeks since I submitted my manuscript to PDP, so I hope to hear from them soon. If February rolls around with still no word from them, I’ll email them.

Of course I haven’t heard a damn thing from Bob saying that my package has been shipped. Why oh why do I always have to fight to get things??? Why can’t I just order something and get it???

The sleep curse was on again this morning. A single loud bang woke me up that seemed too loud to be any of the neighbors, so I’m thinking it may’ve come from the street. I heard another single loud bang about 10 minutes later. Since I doubt it was any of the neighbors, unless Bev hurled a chair at the dividing wall or they slammed doors with all their strength on the other side, no midnight snowballs will be hurled at their bedroom windows, though I think mom and daughter are wide awake at that hour.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2005 Just 110 more days to go here. If Romeo’s now living with Bev, hopefully he won’t dig the idea of a bunch of little kids visiting, but I’m sure they’ll visit again soon enough. Better yet, I wish she’d start hanging out at his place more and more, though I don’t want her to move before we do because we may get something worse over there if she did.

I wasn’t kidding, though, when I said no more complaints against the bass if she were to start up again. I’ve got an advantage here that I didn’t have with the sickos that I’m going to take advantage of and that’s that I can give back what I get. Not being attached to the sickos, it wasn’t easy to “pay back the noise.” Also, they were so damn noisy that my noise wouldn’t have mattered. Here, though, the only thing I couldn’t do is wake her up if she woke me up because I’d have to wake Tom up in order to do that. Meanwhile, I’ll just give back any bass she gives me, though all’s been quiet since complaint number two.

I was shocked to awake at 125 pounds. That’s a 4-pound drop in 8 days!

We got a little more snow, but haven’t gotten over half a foot yet. According to these online charts, the first week of January was as cold as it gets here, though it’s still going to be a few months before it warms up. I just hope it isn’t too nice to invite all kinds of chaos outside these bedroom windows before we leave!

Got a nice view out the kitchen window yesterday when a couple of deer decided to come digging through the snow for some apples. I even managed to get some decent pictures. I was amazed at how easily and gracefully they hopped over the fence. It was almost as if they floated over it and they were nearly soundless when they touched ground. They’re pretty brave too, because I went out back and watched them for a few minutes and they didn’t mind.

When Tom got in from work, he told me there were 3 of them watching him leave for work that morning. They were between our driveway and the side of the neighboring duplex.

I spoke with Bob yesterday who said things were in shambles when he returned from a vacation in Mexico. He said Jeff’s a good guy, but he’s lousy with management. He also says he’ll have my order shipped today or tomorrow, though he doesn’t know if the two body oils I want are in stock. Either way, we sent off the payment today, so maybe they’ll cross paths. If all goes well, I can mail Paula’s incense and CDs out on Monday.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 2005 Romeo’s next door now shoveling Bev’s driveway, but his truck isn’t present. He was over for a few minutes yesterday. I hope my complaints about the music won’t spark them into other annoyances, like slamming doors, for instance. I’ve heard that front door more often, though it’s so far from where I sleep, it’d never wake me up. It just seems to be human nature, though, for people to act up in other ways when they’ve been complained about. That’s what the freeloaders did, always making a point to slam their car doors as loud as they could.

At least today ought to be animal-free, so we’ve got 15 more Sundays to hope we can dodge the animals, though I know they’ll be here a few times before we leave. There are 3 Sundays left in the month as it is, so one of those ought to include them.

The old man across the street came knocking yesterday. We figured he wanted to plow our driveway for a small fee, but we just ignored him.

If I don’t hear from Bob or Jeff come Monday, I’m going to tell them to forget my order. I’m also not going to play any more mail games with anyone else, so I’ll probably forget about trying incense from that other place and just get us a small microwave and me a new pillow. Mine’s just about mashed flat. I think I’ve had it since back east if I didn’t get it when I first moved to Arizona.

Later…

It looks like I’ve bottomed out at 126 pounds, though I’ll continue to do this diet for two days at a time with a day off in between to save money.

Last night I slept pretty shittily. That’s because I had to sleep on pieces of foam because this bed leaked just like the last one did! It fucking figures, though I’m surprised it took so long. Why is it always our stuff that breaks? Meanwhile, none of the stuff in here that we don’t own has broken in any way. At least I caught this leak while I was awake, rather than awakened to find I’d sunk like I did in the RV. I was lying in it reading when I realized it was getting softer awfully fast. By placing it in the tub, Tom was able to locate the leak by pushing on it. The leak would then cause the water to bubble. The odd thing about it is that the leak is in the area where my pillow is and once we examined it, it was clearly a puncture made by a sharp object and not wear and tear of the bed itself. But I don’t have anything that could do that. I don’t lie on the bed with things in my pockets, nor do I have sharp objects on me. The sharpest thing we could come up with was the metal clasp around my elastic hair tie, but even that seemed too small and just not sharp enough to go through a sheet and a wool blanket folded in half.

We tried to patch it with a piece of semi-rubbery backing from a mouse pad and some rubber cement, but that wouldn’t seal it enough. We had Tom sleep on it because I figured I’d always be waking up, paranoid about sinking. I was shocked to find it stayed up all night, though it did lose a lot of air. I was like, I nearly broke my back while this thing stayed up! Despite sleeping on 4 pieces of foam, I was still quite uncomfortable. I guess it’s because I’m a little heavy. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable if I were the 100 pounds I used to be, but since that’s not going to happen, we got a new bed today. Fortunately, it came with a repair kit because we forgot to get one and these cheap pieces of shit are obviously always going to spring leaks.

Next week we’re going to get a microwave and me a new head pillow as well as a new body pillow.

It wasn’t overly cold out there, but it was all slushy with patches of water and ice and just totally yucky. Dreary looking, too. Tom’s still finding this fun, though, and even enjoyed shoveling the driveway. He’s insane, I told him.

Again someone knocked on the door. Some woman with a little kid that was probably looking for hand-outs. They just don’t leave you alone in the city!

I wonder if I’ll hear from the publisher this coming week. The 6 weeks are almost up. I’d rather them tell me they’re rejecting my manuscript than just blow me off without a word, but a lot of people do that.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2005 And now I’m 126 pounds. Yes, I just may’ve concocted a damn good diet here. The question is, if I did, how much do I want to lose right now? We don’t exactly have the money for me to get new clothes should I start falling out of the ones I’ve got. I should set a limit of 115-120. Then again, I still have my doubts about any diet causing me significant weight loss at my age and with my slow metabolism, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Not eating makes you cold, so by the time I get to where I’m a few hours away from my one big meal, I’m freezing!

The roads are snowy and icy, so we’re not going out today. Instead, Tom got us treats yesterday when he did the grocery shopping, including incense, figuring that this is how it’d be today. That’s the one thing I hate about snowy climates; unlike in Arizona, the weather can prevent you from going out. As much as I hate this shit, it just may keep the little animals from coming to stomp around next door this Sunday. Next Sunday, however, they probably will be there.

Tom got us our first snow shovel yesterday. I had swatted out a path with the broom before he got in, but additional snowfall filled it back in.

China is one stupid country. They have a one-child-only policy due to their huge population. Recently they made it illegal to have sex-selective abortions because the gender ratio was getting thrown off (the sexists over there prefer boys), but it’s like – duh! If they let them keep aborting girls and throwing the ratio off even more, then that’d help curb their overpopulation problem! They say boys are so popular because they’re seen as able to keep the family line going, and I’m like – hello! You need a woman to do that, too. A man can’t carry children all by himself. That’s just 95% of the population for you, though - plain old stupid.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 2005 We got a few inches of snow out there. The old man in the house across the street is now riding his little snowplow, plowing not only his driveway but the nearby sidewalks as well.

I’m still doing the diet where I don’t eat till the end of my day. I’m back to 127 pounds. That’s about as low as I usually go. If anything, this diet will save money and keep me from going over 130 pounds.

Next month I’m going to try a few of that new site’s 100-packs, but only a few. This is because if their incense sticks are bad, their oil is bad. If the oils are good, however, I’ll probably buy them by the pound rather than the ounce because then I’ll get more for my money.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 2005 I decided to go 24 hours without eating two days in a row, then eat normally. So twice a week I’ll eat normally. I ate normally yesterday which bumped me back up a pound to 128. It’s just that to do it day after day is too hard.

I discovered another incense site that looks promising. Maybe even more promising than IG. There’s no minimum and shipping is free on orders over $100. They have over 1000 scents! Also, I have the option of getting just an ounce of oil for around 2-3 bucks if I want to try a particular scent. They have bags, though they don’t have rings. They also don’t have about 20 of my favorites, but that’s ok. They may be worth it with scents like Caramel Pecan, Candy Corn, Chocolate Chip, Cookies & Cream, Cookie Dough, Mochaccino, Pink Lace, etc. IG doesn’t have these scents. Speaking of them, I still haven’t heard from them which makes me think they’re blowing me off for some reason if something hasn’t come up to prevent them from getting my email.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2005 Here’s a quick update and then I’m going to take the day off to watch the 3 movies we got yesterday. Every writer needs a break, even me. I might not even work out today.

I was laughing at Tom because he’s still the same 216 pounds he was to begin with while I’m down to 127. Here’s where I doubt I’ll lose much more, though.

Yesterday was easier than the first day, and except for Saturday when we go out for treats, I plan to do this as often as I can where I go about 24 hours without eating, then I have a filling meal. It’s easier than having 6 small things to eat throughout the day because then I never get full. At least this way I have some satisfaction to look forward to at the end of my day.

I did some rearranging yesterday for a few reasons. For one, I didn’t want it to look too homey so I packed some more things. I want it to look like we’re moving on soon enough. I also made it so that Blondie can come in here, though I still have to supervise him because of all the wires. Lastly, it was something to do to take my mind off of food.

At around 3:00 yesterday, Beverly started in with the music, and I said to myself, no way. I don’t care how much time we’ve got left here. I’m not listening to her thumping bass anymore! So I went over there for what I promised myself would be one last time. I say one last time because if this doesn’t curb her bass, nothing will, and if it doesn’t, she’ll be hearing from MY bass. Then she’ll see that yes, it can be heard easily, and she should know this. After all, the hypocrite complained about the people who were here before us doing the exact same thing she is.

So anyway, I knocked on her back door and she seemed surprised to know I could hear her bass, though she said she’d turn it down and she did. I took this as an opportunity to ask what the banging was all about a few Sundays ago and she said it was her grandkids.

Damn, everything’s come back to haunt us! Everything but dogs so far. Everything we tried to run from is back – noisy kids, music, banging, people, bills, etc. There’s just no escaping them!

Anyway, she explained to me that she had her grandkids over to watch a DVD and you know how little kids can be, etc. Yes, I do know. That’s why I decided I was glad not to be able to have any.

In the end, I don’t think she’ll be any quieter (though she’s still just about the quietest neighbor I’ve ever had) and I can’t stop her from having her grandkids visit, so I’ll just have to live with whatever she gives me over the next 116 days, then she’ll be just a memory. I can see where blasting music in here and little kids running around would have driven her crazy and this is why I think she should know better. She’s just one of those who care only when she’s bothered and not when she’s doing the bothering, but we’ll see how things go. If she does act up, I’ll just give her a taste of her own medicine like I said before which is what she’s likely to get when we move. Most people do like to crank up their stereos, and most people, like the people who were here before us, don’t give a shit who they’re bothering. So if she’s here in May, she’ll more than likely be sorry we left.

I now strongly vibe that we won’t be going to the coast of Oregon. Also, last night I could swear I dreamt of Redding! Is this a sign? Tom says it’ll all depend on the job situation. If he can get a good-paying and secure job here, we’re not going to throw away a golden opportunity and throw away good money that we so desperately need. If he can’t get anything more than other minimum-wage jobs, then we’ll probably leave the area. My logic says we will leave the area too, because you usually have to slowly work your way up in a job and climb the ladder to the bigger pay. Most people don’t get good money to start off with.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2005 Tom was up to $35 on the game site but had a losing streak last night that threw him down to $19. At least he’s still got some money left to try to build back up with.

Anyway, yesterday was a very hungry day for us both, though we achieved our 24-hour fasting goal. At the end of my day, I had a can of ravioli. I was so hungry that I didn’t think it’d make a difference, but it did. I felt quite a bit better, actually, so I decided to do this at least till Saturday when we plan to go out for blizzards at DQ and to Jan’s for a couple of bucks of incense since it could still be a while before I get my order. There’s going to be a 2-day delay as it is since I’m going to have to send them a money order unless they know and trust me enough to ship it first. I sent an email yesterday asking if they had any idea when my order would be shipped, but haven’t gotten a response yet. This isn’t like them, so I hope it’s only because they were overwhelmed with more mail to respond to after the holiday.

Yesterday I ended up having about 700 calories between the ravioli and coffee, and knocking a pound off of me. I usually fluctuate between 127-130 and am currently 128. If I could just get my weight down, then I could move on to the next problem; how to keep it down. Well, I’m going to at least try to hold out again today till the late afternoon. Then I’ll stuff myself with a few baked potatoes, so at least I have that to look forward to. The 3 small meals and 3 small snacks did nothing to fill me up, leaving me always hungry. I did 3 half-hour workouts, but that was too hard on my knees so I think I’ll do just 1-2 today and try to keep busy with my writing, singing and reading, then hopefully we’ll get some DVDs today. Two were due yesterday and one’s due today. This next month will be our last month of DVDs and Webshots. Anything to keep my mind off my growling, protesting stomach!

MONDAY, JANUARY 3, 2005 Well, we got through a peaceful weekend without any shit from Bev or anyone else. All we hear during the daytime is a bunch of birds in back eating seeds from old rotten apples that have fallen off the trees.

We were talking about how fasting for one day every now and then is actually a healthy thing because it gives your digestive tract a break. So we decided to both give it a try today to save money. For someone who’s always hungry, I’m doing okay, but I’m only 6 hours into my day. The closer I get to the end of my day, the harder it gets.

Tom sent a letter to Miss Perfect letting her know we’re broke and won’t be able to write for a while, and I was like, why would you waste a 37¢ stamp on the bitch? She and the queen couldn’t care less. He said he thought I wanted them to feel guilty. First of all, they don’t. Secondly, I’d rather them send us a grand than feel anything, but since that’s not going to happen, I see no point in even communicating or acknowledging these selfish assholes. However, I didn’t think they’d send extra money for Christmas, even if it was a piddly amount, and it’s his family, so if he wants to keep things going with them, he’s entitled to do so. He said he played up our situation big time, not that it isn’t bad enough. I mean, hey, we are about a grand in debt, after all. I know beyond a doubt now that we’re not ever meant to have money, but the question is, are we destined to just not have much extra money? Or to struggle like this throughout the remainder of our lives? He thinks they’ll send us something, though I doubt it, even though I didn’t expect more than the usual for Christmas cash-wise. It’s not their problem so why should they care?

SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 2005 Klamath Falls, OR Age 39

How glad I am to see the New Year has arrived! I’m amazed at just how relieved I am that it’s finally here. I don’t know if this year will cure our problems, but again, it can’t be as bad as last year was. Except for my birthday and the first time we did the Maricopa swap meet, I can’t think of one good day in 2004! At least Tom didn’t get laid off. Also, it would only cost a fortune to sign me on for insurance, not just him.

I took a shower a while ago and was surprised to find mom and daughter’s place pitch dark when I went to crack the window to let the steam out.

I slept well because I had both the fan and sound machine going. Shortly after I got up, though, I heard a few firecrackers.

If all goes well, we should have 120 days left here and 17 more Sundays for Bev to possibly go banging on.

Because I slept through the time when the annual “psychic window” is normally wide open, I didn’t get much. Just this:

There could be something wrong with one of the back tires on the truck.

We may climb out of debt sometime in March, though we’ll still be broke and probably will be 90% of the time throughout our lives.

Miss Perfect may develop a mild case of cancer at the end of the year or early next year.

Tom’s next job will be in a much bigger building and it may also be computer-related and pay $8.50 an hour.

I may win a medal for Scuttle’s picture.

In an unknown state, we’ll rent a small 2-bedroom house with small rooms and no evil 4s in its numbers. (hopefully in May!)

The house was built in the 50s or 60s, probably late 50s and has white and red exterior colors.

We’ll rent the house till the queen dies in early 2009, leaving us 20 grand to buy a 1600-square-foot manufactured house and Kaori.

The RealDoll people sent me a catalog which I got yesterday. I’ll send it to Paula so she can see what they’re like.

I was shocked to read that a new California law is going to give gay couples benefits and a lot of the same rights straight married couples have. I was shocked because so many people seem to hate gays.

With the Fred Meyer gift certificate, Tom got a new ink refill kit to give our printers at least black ink. That way I can print letters to Bob and Paula, and if he wants to print any résumés for any potential new jobs, he can.

He also got a new wire for my music computer to stop that one channel from going in and out like it started to back down in Arizona.

Later…

Tom just got up and informed me that Bev blasted her music for an hour last night. He said it was annoying enough to be heard in the living room, but that I probably wouldn’t have heard it in the bedroom.

Yeah, I’m not surprised. She’ll probably do it more and more often too, till I complain again. You gotta keep on people to keep them quiet, just like how we had to send periodic city letters to remind the freeloaders to shut up. Tom thinks she only did this because it was New Year’s Eve, but I know human nature when it comes to these kinds of things. You complain, they’re quiet for a while. Then they start acting up again after a while. You complain again, they’re quiet for a while again, and so on and so forth. I swear, though, if I hear any music coming from over there, I’m going to blast my own music for a good hour or two each day that I’m up while he’s at work. If she says anything to me, I’ll just tell her, well, you went back to blasting your own music, so I didn’t think it’d bother you. You want me to stop, YOU stop. However, I’m not going back to the old bullshit of submitting periodic complaints that don’t do me much good. In fact, I’ll be damned if I’ll play that game again.

Like with all the neighbors I’ve had over the past 12 years, I just wish she’d go somewhere for a change! She’s home more than I am. Same with on the other side.

Tom said there were lots of firecrackers going off at midnight. I’m surprised I slept through it all.

Still, I hate being sent back in time like this and having to deal with the neighbor stress all over again!!! I’m going to be so pissed if we can’t get out of here in May!

Later…

Tom and I just discussed a bright idea he came up with that’ll pretty much guarantee our May escape. It really takes a lot of stress off me, too! It doesn’t stop me from stressing over what people around here may do for the next 120 days, but at least I no longer have to worry and wonder if we’ll make it out of here or not.

Tom said I may be inconvenienced because I’ll have to go without Webshots and DVD rentals for a while, and I was like, that’s what you call an inconvenience? Spending 180 days in jail; that’s being inconvenienced. I can always get whatever pictures and DVDs I missed later on. The only thing is that we may have to send Bob a money order for the incense if he can’t get the money for it. I’m sure there will be some sort of problem and delay with it. You know I can’t ever just get something. They know me, though, so I’m sure we can get around whatever problems may arise.

The number one thing, as we both agree, is getting out of here and into a house we can comfortably live in for a few years. If it has to still be in Oregon, oh well. Eureka will wait for us. Whether it ends up being somewhere in Oregon or Redding, California, we’re all for staying in the colder climates till we go to a retirement community. Outdoors, the colder climates just aren’t as noisy as the warmer ones are. The climate doesn’t matter in a retirement community because there would never be any freeloading assholes there to destroy everyone’s peace.

I just hope this is the year we can finally stop starting over! I’m sooo sick of building up just to be torn down and set back, having to give up this, give up that. We didn’t come here for this shit!

I told Tom that while I don’t vibe any upcoming problems with Bev that are any more serious than the annoyances we’ve already had on account of her, we both know it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I think that the next time he sees Pam that he should mention that she’s been noisy. I think he should do it in a casual way and not a complaining way, and make a point of stressing that it hasn’t been that often (unless things change between now and then) and that she’s a nice lady. This way, if there is any trouble ahead that I’m not seeing, they’ll already know she’s been noisy in the past. It just may help us in the end cuz you never do know. They say it’s best to have things documented or at least mentioned and remember, I picked up a noise curse in ’92 and we’re not dealing with a full deck of cards here. She’s not on permanent disability for being fat and ugly. I understand that music and banging go hand in hand with being attached to someone else, but if it does escalate, Pam won’t be so surprised to hear about it if she already knows she gets noisy. What I’m not going to do, however, is go back to the periodic complaints to the source’s face that don’t do me much good, but maybe give me only temporary peace. Instead, if it does escalate I just won’t worry about my own music and noise for the next 119 days. Still, no matter what she has in store for us, I think it’s best to get it mentioned, though I don’t know if he’ll want to. He may be afraid to do so for whatever paranoid reason he may have, and again, he’s always been hesitant to speak out against a neighbor. He’s an Arizonan, and as I learned the hard way, you don’t do that. But this is Oregon, so I hope he will bring it up.

I realized that her working a regular job may not keep her from any future banging sprees or concerts. This is because she only does this in the evenings or on weekends. Working second shift would eliminate evening concerts unless she decided to bump those up to earlier hours, though we’d still have the weekends and those periodic Sunday banging sprees to have to listen to.

I already decided to make our final days here less than pleasant for her. I’m going to stick to my promise of giving what I get, and therefore, once we’ve given our notice and are safe from anything happening to us, she’ll have a few annoyances of her own to have to deal with.

[hanzi83]

Just a A Bunch of Randomness

I just felt like writing and whenever I feel like writing and just go off with what is in my head, which then makes me think if I am running a little thin because there is a chance I will probably end up repeating shit, that shit always fucking happens but I did a mini rant on the podcast about it and believe it or not, a surprise to no one, it was not really well thought out, not saying this shit will be any fucking better but my process is now to maybe structure it best I can, so I can then repeat this shit on the podcast again, just in case someone new tunes in and didn’t hear the rant before but they will hear a “better version” but I am always intrigued by the marketing and exploitation these storylines are going in, I know even referring to “real life” stuff that causes nonstop discourse and culture war arguing, as a storyline gets people to roll their eyes and make their cute little remarks. But I can take something like Phil Jackson, now I don’t know shit about basketball, but if I think I can put the elements together properly, the specific artform or sport doesn’t really matter because I look at the overall patterns of different public figures and speaking out and how other forms of racism can exist but we only point out the really transparent. To me this this Phil Jackson feels like a try hard way to privet to the new right wing approval, because in the 2010s, more people would call you out for racist shit and it would be an agreed upon the surface wise to put it on blast but it is like they took the implosion in 2020 of racial unrest to look so scary to people who think they are apolitical, who might not understand the overall picture of why that exists, and now in this decade, it feels like anyone pointing out racism, especially when it happens to be black people, it now is getting severe pushback where it feels like the early 2000’s again, that era felt like it was pushing back to any complaints about racism, when in the 90’s it felt like there was more social consciousness on some level, now every delegation that has a bit of power in the system to represent for their community might have had to do their own propaganda that doesn’t age well in current era, or by theory, because people want the ignorant shit back in all regards, just look at all the culture wars and discourse.  Racism is so layered and orchestrated on a higher level, people can only recognize it in certain ways, surface level, you will make it seem like Phil Jackson is just some regular person who made a “fair” statement about how people don’t like politics in their sports, when politics has always existed in sports, when Michael Jordan never wanted to tell you his political affiliation, it is like the money you make is designed for you to keep your opinions limited, so when someone does kind of go off on a racist system, they look insane to the masses who recognize racism in one way. When I was a kid, I never knew what systemic and all that shit was and viewed it as “If someone says something racist, bigoted or ignorant, then you say it back” and even though people currently on social media show footage and speeches of wokeness back then, they assume that shit was well received back then by the masses. Yet when one major storyline comes out about someone who did some really racist rant, that would be called out and it would give me, a dumbed down piece of shit, the impression that things can’t be racist because we as a society already deemed the obvious example racist or bigoted, so the other normalized shit is not an issue, which is why the discourse at times will be about rebooted use of slurs, the words are horrible and always have been horrible, but if you consume entertainment, especially edge lord shit, you wouldn’t think it is as a big deal because if you view shit in an entertainment lens, then people excusing and sophisticating why so and so can use the word, you would then take them at their word, it is like each clique and faction in the system has different people from different backgrounds to excuse ignorance which the makes people who are influenced by this shit, that they have to say that kind of shit to be approved by the comedy gods. This is part of why people can always fall for more racist shit without realizing it, we think we are better than our past, but in current day we are probably falling for racist and bigoted remarks and antics, we are constantly susceptible to this shit, I could even normalize a new layered racist tactic, and you would not even think it really is racist, I am not sure if I should do it or not, because people can then isolate that and when they want to weaponize it. I wanted to use it for a comedy bit, but chances of that happening as the world ends, I might as well try it in blog form, I might do it but I don’t know where this blog will go, so maybe it happens, if you haven’t noticed it, chances are it didn’t happen, but the way I dissect this Phil Jackson dude is someone who has a racist past of making comments, the fact that the league is mostly black and the countless many people he coached or played with, someone like him is not just some ignorant dumb down guy, it chooses to now be this way because people think people in the public figure world don’t know about how the game is run systemically, but we have to dumb shit down and it feels like another obvious pivot to correlate your past actions and comments with a new freshness to the act, because while the most vile trauma porn and nonstop tragedy is taking place, the entertainment institutions have to use their public figures to declare what side they are on, so when Phil says that he doesn’t care about politics, he doesn’t care about politics that is going against the people he probably does business with but if more of the status quo conservative shit is normalized, he would have no issue with it, but he will look like a hero for this statement since that kind of attitude is being amplified more  and more and they make it the side of racial justice look like this terrorist organization but not the people who line their pockets off the backs of people from marginalized communities and because these players are rich, they can’t say shit because they make a lot of money from this system, so even if you have money, you still can’t voice your opinion 100 percent, because the ones who are wealthy can get funded people online to destroy people for speaking out, and because cogs in the system can do it now to some degree, people think because corporations have BLM and Rainbow flags, it means anyone saying the basic shit to counter the racism, is now part of the agenda, and the funded online accounts who will praise Phil Jackson are the ones who are being based with all of this, this is why when people from different delegations who represent for different communities voice any opinion on the racial discourse, and they don’t bring the larger stuff up are in no position to be the arbiters of truth, and you should never listen to them. If you were with me until that part, congratulations you passed the test, but if you were agreeing with even that little last part, you just fell for another layer of ignorance where I went on this blog rant about the racist shit, then proceeded to tell you what people you should listen to and reduced a section of voices to not being completely honest. Even if my point has some validity to it, I am in no position to tell people how they should address it, but it is so easy to sneak shit in like that while someone, because even if people from different delegations can’t explain everything, it doesn’t mean they are completely being dishonest about their intentions, because the stuff that “discredits” them it is designed so you don’t take their opinions seriously once they discredit one thing and once they discredit one thing people stop caring about all the messages being said. I don’t know how I did with executing it because I really don’t know how people reacted. I didn’t know if I even did it properly because that part may have discredited the blog completely, because I can’t say I put a complete effort into doing it, but once I already promoted I was gonna do it and then hinted I would back off, I expected people to then expect I wouldn’t end up doing it until maybe toward the end but then I did it rather quickly. This was not the main topic but I see a lot of public figures not even put effort into the racist talking points, if you saw Bill Maher’s show last week, it doesn’t even sound like he is genuinely concerned about shit and it feels forced like he is reading off a script, like he obviously was told to bring up Chicago multiple of times, and he did even when it was not even relevant to the convos, then he eased himself into the race science argument a bit, then constantly claiming no one else is talking about Chicago, this is why people like Tucker Carlson can look like they are talking about shit no one else is talking about, if people funded online can keep claiming no one is talking about it because people on MSM are not talking about it, I wouldn’t know since I don’t watch MSM and get my news from online, in fact the only time MSM is brought up is when people online are dunking on the obvious shit, they rather think they are in the right because they are too busy finding the funniest angle of the entire situation. 

When it comes to the Tucker situation and because I like to think of myself as more of a conspiracy analyst more so than a theorist is because I recognize patterns and how stuff that would’ve been revolutionary back 15 years ago now feels like the standard establishment sports entertainment, meaning that legacy media is officially dying while still making lots of money but it feels by hook or by crook, we will have other alt media spaces who could’ve been funded by the establishment to be seen as more genuine. These people don’t operate in the same way regular people deal with shit, but they advertise these lawsuits which then become its own kayfabed storyline that will have results which help facilitate why future movements being made will happen, so even if I can’t understand all of this Dominion shit, because I am too stupid to know the specifics, but it is clear people are not playing by the rules on a transparent level, even the people who hate Tucker actually think it is an own on people for pointing out Tucker doesn’t like Trump etc, when that actually is helping them get saved for their new grift because if they had to lie and this was gonna happen, it still gives the impression Tucker really does hate him so you still lower his guard that he might not be bad at his core but the most dangerous shit he can do is persuade his audience to believe some of the fucked up shit. When you have other people in the media lie over and over and it never gets called out, and the amount of compilations made of democratic people talking about how easy it is to hack the voting machines etc, and because the MSM doesn’t acknowledge it, it makes it easier for the people online who are apolitical to then think that other MSM outlets are the ones lying and because one is being held in such vitriolic discourse, it makes people then side with people who they think is getting picked on. The bad faith neoliberals are helping push people more to the right because we define the discourse by the celeb who said some shit. Like if Jimmy Kimmel makes a statement like “I hope all the unvaccinated die” and I don’t believe he is a real left guy, then the right wing can use his generalization as the left wanting people who are unvaccinated to die, because then people who are on the left might agree with Kimmel on other shit he says like him doing a tearful promo about health care or him calling out Trump for his bullshit. But even with Tucker getting fired and let go, the irony in his last bit he did was about some cat food or some shit, like everything has to be set up for comedy and it is like they know how to market this shit, it doesn’t matter if Tucker is fired, he will be in the discourse, his name will catch online traction, he will then get support for his new endeavor and the reason why some people on the left are upset about Tucker getting fired because now when they go on his new platform, chances are you will see the likes of Jimmy Dore or Glenn Greenwald go on OAN and Newsmax and still hold onto whatever credibility they have to pretend they are not right wingers because their main talking point is gone where they claim to go on Fox to talk about anti war shit, while sucking the tip of Putin’s dick. If someone like AOC can’t even take a shit without Jimmy Dore kicking in the door to inspect it, why don’t these same people ever call out Tucker’s past, there are good people out there that have the long list of resume of what Tucker has done or said, it is too much to keep up with but people think it is the 1990’s where the MSM has this super credibility. People actually believe because the establishment is promoting Ukraine etc, that they actually want you to support it, since other suspect neocon and other billionaire funded people are pushing back against it and it would’ve meant something 10 years ago, but now you can claim the establishment doesn’t want their viewpoint even though they are on shows that push pro war narratives, like you saying you are anti war doesn’t mean shit, only reason why a lot of you grifters say it is because if people call you out, your cult can then pretend that people are calling out an anti war voice so I must be the fucking asshole. I said when Biden was gonna be elected, nothing on the surface will actually get better because in my personal opinion they figured out how to make Trump look like the lesser of 2 evils in 2 election cycles now. So people think by pointing out democrats not having primary debates is that they are scared and that helps the right wing have more talking points even though what is being done on the surface is by design, because everything is designed to implode but the right leaning types seem like they are more truthful in some regard even though they are bad faith actors who are trying to normalize their new form of fascism, so if I know shit is supposed to implode then all of this shit is filler until we get there, and anything truthful the establishment types have said about other bad faith actors has been right on the rose despite them not being credible because they have their own baggage,  it feels like a lot of the people who Bernie co-opted and let get shine have become some of the worst people who have normalized their own form of propaganda where it is aligning more with what neocons back then did when the Iraq war happened, even by having this firing happen symbolically on the 20 year anniversary of Phil Donahue being fired for being against the Iraq war and now comparing it to the Tucker situation, but this is how propagandists these supposed “left” people are, and whenever public figures get fired and there is a storyline behind it, it is done by design to fuck up the message in the future. OAN and Newsmax were having top notch guests from their ilk about this man being fired and I am supposed to think the establishment is scared of Tucker, if they were, he wouldn’t have been able to get as much traction as he did for the last decade, they wouldn’t have so many people on their programs and podcasts talking about this. It feels like a promotion of the new endeavor, and these people think these right wing people actually hate each other when this is gonna lead to a new grift and a new wave, because while I am not sad to see Tucker getting some consequences, I also realize if we get overboard with it, when he gets a better gig or he still profits somehow, it will give the Glenn Greenwalds of the world to boast about how there are more people who listen to Rogan as an own to MSM, but then at the same time he is admitting more people listen to these right wingers, so how exactly are these people not considered MSM, and you can’t say that it isn’t MSM, because a podcast getting the type of guests he gets, he isn’t some roided up pothead talking about the times he got stoned with a giraffe in Parts Unknown. In my personal opinion, much like a lot of shit in this blog these people have more importance and have helped manufacture consent. 

I compare shit to the wrestling shit because it feels that political agenda is seeping into that fandom and when you know the funded accounts are politically motivated now, it makes these fandoms seem more dangerous on another level, when we are told not to take this shit seriously but I never seen so much try hard shit from that fandom to think they are calling out MSM (WWE) and automatically siding with people who have left that sector but they then normalize other propaganda, they don’t care about cancel culture until it happens to their favorite and they ignore other elements of people getting fucked over. They will compile a list of shit people have said that is problematic about certain people but then don’t point out that their favorite messiah has also partook in the same propaganda, where they have rehabbed the image of Ultimate Warrior, or they used to pretend Charles Manson was some innocent misunderstood person, like I know the feds probably helped out with what Charles Manson did, but back then the conspiracy would do simplistic shit by going “MSM lied about the entirety of this so that automatically means the person getting vilified is completely innocent” The same way people get behind these new right wing “I tell it like it is” types, they are now doing the same shit to make CM Punk look like he is the ultimate victim, they hyped up this reboot of WCW vs WWE war and then had nothing productive to say about Punk going to meet up with WWE, and keep in mind, I think most shit in the industry has been a work where they are initiated but CM Punk got to be the one who got people behind him for the shit WWE did to him with the staph infection shit, when WWE has probably done that to others, the fact that Punk gets to be the guy who gets to get the spoils off his fraternity and systemic initiation is what bothers me, I root for the guy and do want him back, he is one of my favorites but I don’t have to pretend this guy is some genuine person who blew up randomly, and now that there is another promotion for him to be the top of, he has now essentially become John Cena. Maybe by design since everyone has to turn heel in real life? People will act like WWE having a new title to protect Reigns since he is not getting beat yet is sad but isn’t having 2 shitty title reigns in AEW to facilitate a worked shoot, while watering down the product and sabotaging talent only for this due to be the savior also just as much kind of sad? I am just saying if this is designed to make money, maybe the right shills were not chosen to be the ones to hype this up, because they had to ensure this would always be in the discourse, but now that Punk went back to WWE and let’s be real, when he signed with Backstage FS1 show, you don’t think WWE had a say in that, only way to gimmick it is by saying Fox wanted him and it had nothing to do with WWE and I don’t believe that, it feels like this just confirms that these companies are all connected and I know there will be other shit that will be explained to justify why he did it, but to me it deflects these companies are aligned more so than we realize while the shills on both ends have been facilitating this reboot of a war. People also think one of the narratives that will come up is that he did this to promote that he can be friendly with people he had problems with but the Elite won’t make amends with him, now we gotta pretend there are legal measures of why that is not possible, and I am not saying it doesn’t “officially” exist but things that officially exist can still be orchestrated, people assume a work can only have a payoff in the program, not that there won’t be social currency revolving around people who get into the discourse, people think shit has to always play out in the ring when literally everything in the entertainment world is up for sale. If it can be profited off of, then they will do it. The reason why I bring up this Punk shit though is because it feels like a lot of other public figures out there, they all have these blind followers where their hero can never do any wrong. It feels like all the shit I have seen seeped into the political world. Since entertainment and entertainers have ties to right wing fundamentalism. Jesse Ventura recently did an interview talking about how the wrestling world helped him in the political world and he might not go super in detail about the matter, but it is probably one of the truer things he has said, but when people like him say some truthful shit, people use what discredited them as a reason not to believe anything he ever says but this is actually spot on, at least in my perspective. I am not saying I have all the answers but when other thought leaders get more pissed off with getting asked questions, it just shows me maybe some people are not built for it or is it because they can’t break away from their script to answer in a genuine way.  In fact you can’t even look up shit on web browsers because it is all from the corporate media and you kind of have to seek out alternate shit, you can’t really find the truth 100 percent. It is why I stopped even giving a shit about what certain figures say because even if there is truth, they twist it into a new form of right wing shit and only ever mention the democrats as people causing all of this shit, people who claimed to be left helped normalize Tulsi Gabbard and since the trans issue has broken everyone’s brains, people don’t mind that she is trying to justify why not giving trans people healthcare under concern but they never worry about other issues that affect women. They worry about athletes but none of them are concerned with what Christine Mboma is going through, but they will continue this tirade to being anti trans and because most people, regular people, not people in the system who have advanced knowledge, but if regular people are not as aware about the issues, they hear this fear mongering you are gonna help manufacture more consent for anything they deem “woke”. Like Bill Maher went on a tirade on his show how other liberals in Hollywood are worried about being canceled by people on twitter, I barely believe these people give this much of a fuck, but it also shows that people who Bill Maher has been hanging out are trying to pivot to the right because if that meeting was genuine, all of the pirates involved would know cancel culture has been a right wing psyop, but they need to make it seem like they were forced to join that side, and it is like they have their continuous talking points that they have to bring up, the fact that someone like Bill Maher will act like no one is addressing Chicago is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard him, then easing yourself into the race science shit like I pointed out earlier, and then get offended if people push back that it is just his opinion when he is sophisticating his racism even more, and there is no one to really counter him, the ones that do end up being more to this new right. You think people like TYT would be a good match to counter Bill Maher because they would now try to appease those people by saying the left is getting out of control, they already dumb down their villains, they are not “establishment” but then they still limit narratives, like people of that ilk know where the world is heading and you act like the right wing trajectory controlling the entire game know how to book baby faces in storylines, it is like in pro wrestling, the better characters are the heels and people will gravitate towards that, but people are limiting that, they make it seem like no one can call out democrats at all because they constantly need this narrative of that all the bad things being done is because of the “left” when the shit that goes down helps facilitate more right wing shit. Again don’t take my word for it because these are just random thoughts from a dumbed down guy that the system apparently agreed upon that was not to be taken seriously. I am just going off by what you have built for me. But I have never seen so many “smart” people who are respected dumb down narratives continuously while dunking on other obvious villains so you can do a shitty impression of them because apparently everyone has to be funny. And that is why I will continue to beat shit into the ground about sports entertaining our way into fascism, because that is what seemingly is going down and now we are using entertainers to be the be all end all of all of this shit. I used to be so dumbed down that I couldn’t tell you the political alignment of the entertainment I consume, but now that I can see the methods and elements, I feel I can see everyone’s trajectory and I don’t know if there is anyone good out there, I feel extra defensive of getting behind anyone to root for because it seems like everyone and everything ends up becoming evil, and it is constant disappointment, like if you are in the right wing they have more genuine people to their side that is helping their side feel more comfortable even if they think they have “woken” up to the MSM and Establishment’s “woke agenda” and it doesn’t feel like there is anything that will ever give me hope for this planet.

[iluffyouxo]

𝟘𝟜:𝟘𝟜; starstarstar || michael jackson

Music — Michael Jackson x black, female oc

To me he is magnificent, nobody else compared. To me he is the embodiment of purity and the innocence adults tried desperately to hide—however tragic it may seem to others. In my eyes he can do little to no wrong; we all make mistakes, don’t we?

These thoughts that linger in my mind always become most prominent late at night while I’m trying to go to sleep or working on a project for him. And I always end up writing them in my journal, just as I am today, for safe keeping, for hiding my feelings amongst these blue lines of secrets. Where I can fully admit to myself that I am, indeed, in love with Michael.

But, I certainly am not the first to come to this realization…and I certainly won’t be the last. And that truth hurts most of all.

I close my notebook with a long sigh and rest my head on my arms. Reading over my words caused a rough pang in my chest and I immediately wanted to stop writing. “Isn’t this too much?”

These feelings were too bothersome.

—

“Axelle, I need your help, do you think you can come over today?” His voice was sweet and coated in calming raindrops, causing a shiver to run up my spine. “Yeah, what d’you need help with?”

“Choreography…and maybe a song or two,” he hummed thoughtfully. I nod to myself. “I can do that, I’ll see you in a bit.”

A wave of disappointment overtakes me as I hang up the phone. I don’t know what I expected, or why I keep getting my hopes up every time I answer his calls. He’s completely oblivious and I’m turning into a wreck over something I have yet to tell him—more less show him. I groan, “Erugh—he’s so annoying.”

Sitting up from my comfortable position on my reading chair, I stretch and get ready for the longest drive I’ve ever taken, the drive to Neverland.

—

“Let’s add a few more steps to the beginning and I think it’ll be finished, yeah?” I breathe out hunched over and looking at Michael through the mirror.

He gives a tight nod as he gasps out his own raspy breaths. His umber eyes meet mine in the mirror and he smiles slightly. “Do you wanna stay for dinner?” I grin. “In other words, you want me to cook, huh?”

“I like your fried chicken,” Michael laughs guiltily, “Sue me.”

I finally came to a stand with a half-hearted chuckle and shake of my head. “Fine, but I’m staying the night.”

“That’s fine by me,” he shrugs, “I wouldn’t let you drive this late anyways.”

My heart skips a beat at that. He meant nothing by it; we’re just close friends, Axelle, remember that.

“It’s dangerous out there for women.” He only cemented that fact.

—

I inhale a deep breath, stretching my arms behind my back, as I balance myself on a fallen tree and glance up at the sky.

Due to Neverland being hundreds of acres long the sky was breathtakingly beautiful. The night was starless but the moon seemed to shine brighter than the sun because of that. It was large and white and brought a soothing to me that I couldn’t quite comprehend. I smile.

I couldn’t help but to be reminded of Michael.

It was rather late, though, I hadn’t bothered to check the time before I had waltzed out of the house, it was definitely some time past midnight.

It had been hard to sleep—clad in one of his collared shirts—and I had decided to get up and go for a walk to clear my head.

My feelings were still quite foreign to me, and some times felt like somebody else’s unrequited love, but once my heart starts spiraling and my brain pounding with emotion, I’m reminded of the fact that this love is mine. And no one else’s. And, yet, I’m still not the only one to come to that conclusion.

A fierce gust of wind whips past as if to agree with my thoughts. I sigh, “How bothersome.”

“What’s bothersome?”

I quickly turn around with wide eyes to be met with Michael’s tired expression. “What’re you doing out here Axelle?” He mumbles wearily. I rub at my neck awkwardly, “I, uh, couldn’t sleep.” He raises a brow at me—emphasizing his disbelief—hopping onto the log and standing next to me. “Axelle…you walked an hour away from the house, I drove here on one of my go carts,” he deadpanned.

“Huh?” I blink stupidly. “An hour!” Michael nods slowly. “I guess I must’ve been too deep in thought to notice.”

We stood there for a moment after that, basking in each other’s presence. And, just then, a few stars casted their glow from behind darkened clouds and shadowed canopies. “So…what were you thinking about?” He asked the question as if he knew the answer, and that tone gave me all the more reason to respond vaguely. “Uh, y’know, life.”

He glances at me, a disheartened look etched on his tan features, “That’s it? Just life? Nothing else?” I stare at him. “What else did you want me to say?”

He shakes his head. “Never mind, forget I said anything; let’s head back before you catch a cold.”

Slightly hesitant to leave the beauty of night I follow after Michael who trudged towards the go cart a few feet away. What was that all about? I ponder as I sit down next to him in the passenger seat. “Ready?” I nod, “Yeah…”

—

The wind was quite playful later on that morning, dark clouds dotting the azure blue sky here and there. And the scent of sweet rain loitered in the air. “It’s going to storm soon,” I murmur to myself.

I exhale a heavy breath and close my eyes, enjoying the cool breeze and greying weather.

“You’re up early.”

I smile at the words that sounded behind me. “We got back at four last night…I never went back to sleep. It was truly bothersome.”

Michael hands me a large cup filled to the brim with iced coffee (a bottle of orange juice preoccupied his left hand). “I couldn’t sleep either.”

I grinned against the cup’s edge. “By the way, how’d you find me last night?”

“I was out there to enjoy the night myself when I saw you,” he runs a hand through his curls with a short giggle, “You scared me half to death, y’know.”

I chuckle. “Sorry…I’m sure it was funny, though.” I sip at my coffee, crush gnawing in my chest. I am completely hopeless, aren’t I?

—

Michael sat a little ways away from me, a distant and concentrated gleam in his eye as he scribbled down on the paper in front of him. There were loads of papers covered with lyrics or musical notes scattered about the table. He hummed a small tune quietly to himself.

I hum along with him as I write my own set of notes.

After a while he slouches back against his seat, satisfaction etched on his features. “That sounded nice.” I nod, glancing up at him, “I wrote some of it down.”

“You already know I can’t read that.”

I grin, “Then, aren’t you glad I’m here to help?”

His smile is wide as he replies, “Of course I am! I’m extremely grateful for you, Axelle.”

My heart skips a beat again. “And I’m grateful for you, Michael.”

More than you know. And more than I dare to tell you.

—

Some times I find myself caught in a situation like this. Where he catches me looking at him intently and we now found ourselves staring at each other for minutes—eons—on end. I was always the one to look away. But, this time, for the very first time, he blinks the trance away and turns back towards the food on his plate.

It was evening time once again. Heavy rain pattered on the roof and danced on the window pane.

The two of us had been eating in silence for the last ten minutes. I was beginning to become anxious. Did he have something to say? Did he want me to leave? With how hard it was storming I doubt that a possibility. Then, what could it be? How bothersome.

“Do you, uh—“ I look up at him as he stammers out a question, “—do you wanna watch a movie after dinner?”

I raise an eyebrow at that. “You don’t wanna keep working? The song’s almost done.” Michael shakes his head, “No, I just wanna spend some time with you…that’s not work related.”

“Aww,” I grin, “Well, how could I say no to my dear friend? What movie did you have in mind? Peter Pan?” He smiles back. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. Let’s have some ice cream, too.”

—

“I like you.”

The confession was abrupt and rushed and almost made me drop my ice cream.

I turn away from the children flying across London on the tv as a loud crash of thunder roared across the sky outside. My eyes are wide as I stare at his awkward expression. “You what?”

His teeth nip at his bottom lip, averting his nervous gaze to the movie, and I could see him shiver as my stare continued. “Ummm…I like you.”

I blink. “Huh—well, this is rather easy. I thought I would be the one to confess in a few years at your wedding to some random lady that I’d glare at every time I saw her.”

“What…?” Michael sends me a weird look. I shake my head with a light chuckle. “Never mind. That doesn’t matter because I like you, too.”

His smile is large and bright and beautiful. “I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say that.”

“I thought I hid my feelings quite well,” I huff. He shrugs, “You did, I actually had no idea how you felt but, I wanted to take a chance.” I smile back and lean in close. “I’m glad you did. I can finally do this now.” Before he could question what I meant my lips brush against his for the briefest of moments. But, it was enough to determine that his lips were, indeed, the softest and he does, in fact, taste the sweetest.

“Mmmm…I think I might get addicted to kissing you Michael.” Michael’s laugh is loud as he throws his head back in amusement. “That’s fine by me.”

“Good ‘cause I’m about to do it again.”

To me he is perfect, nobody else will do. And as of today, my best friend is finally mine.

[monstax-info]

211206 [MONSTAX_JH] Talk Tok Update

낙

안녕? 나 허니야 몬베베❤️새벽에 또 글을쓰게 되넹 짐싸느라.. 늦었어 ㅠ 일단 이번활동 다 최고였어! 늘 최고였지만 또 최고였어 아니 평생 최고일거야.내가 싸인회에서 얘기했던 말이 있는데 우리 몬베베의 사랑을 이제야 정말 뼛속으로 느낀다고. 데뷔때는 그리고 연습생일때는 음악만 잘하면 또 무대만 잘하면 된다고 생각했다? 근데 그것도 중요하고 기본중 그게 가장 기본이지만 난 가수이잖아 가수는 과연 어떠한 가수가 멋진가수일까 내 롤모델 마이클잭슨처럼 모든걸 다 잘하고 겸손한 아티스트도 좋지만 말야 진정 날 사랑해주는 우리팬들 몬베베를 위해서 성대나가도록 목이 안좋아도 찢어지게 소리를 내는것,춤이 격해 호흡이 가빠서 어지러워도 정신을 차리는것,허벅지가 부셔질거같지만 끝까지 서있는것. 그리고 내가 가진 모든 재능을 주는것. 마음을 함께하는것. 온힘을 다해 사랑하는것. 그게 진정한 가수가 아닐까 생각이 들어. 7년 연습하면서 진짜 포기하고싶었던 날.어머니에게 용돈이 받기싫고 혼자의 힘으로 일어서려고 이악물었던 날. 무시받았던 날. 그런 날들과 우리에게 참 되려고 하면 무너지고 되려고하면 무너지고 우린 안되나보다. 그랬던 날 그런 모든 날들이 견고하고 단단한 우리를 만들었고 날 만들었어.

2년 8개월 만에 1위를 하고 7년만에 타이틀곡을 만들고 난 이럴수록 더욱 마음이 낮아질수밖에 없어 더욱 고개를 높이기보다 최대한 낮추고 꿈은 높게 꿀거거든.

잠못자면서 그래도 해보겠다는 우리 멤버들의 강한 눈빛들이 얼마나 멋지던지. 그래 이거야 이게 팀이고 이게 지금의 몬스타엑스를 만든거야. 그 마음을 모두 만들어준건 단 세글자 몬.베.베 이들이 우릴 만들었고 날 만들었어. 그래서 행복해. 눈앞에서 공연은 아직 못하지만 그러한 나날들을 난 상상하면서 곡을 만들고 또 만들고 또 만들었어. 상을 손으로 꼭쥐었을때 우리 몬베베가 만져봤으면 얼마나 좋을까 생각이 들더라. 앞으로도 더욱 몬베베에게 나의 마음을 잘 전달하고 매번 좋을순 없겠지만 최선을 다할거야 곡을 만드는것도 모든것들 다 말이야. 항상 생각하고 항상 뱉었던 말이 있어 내 삶의 낙을 뭘까 왜 난 매번 바쁠까 왜 난 매번 어려울까 근데 이제 그 정답을 찾은듯해 몬베베가 나의 삶의 낙이야. 진심으로 사랑하고 애정하고 좋아해.

미국 잘 다녀올게. 사랑한다 몬베베❤️

joy

hello/how are you? it's Honey monbebes❤️ I'm writing late because I was packing.. it's lateㅠ firstly, these promotions were the best! it's always been the best, but this was the best again. no it was the bestest of my life. there's something I said at fansign, and that is I now really feel Monbebes' love in my bones. When I debuted and during trainees days, I thought, do I just need to do well in music and performance? But of course that's important as well, it's the most basic thing, but well I'm a singer. I wonder what makes a singer cool? Like, my role model is Michael Jackson. I think artists who can do everything and are humble are good but for our monbebes who truly loves me, I tear my vocal chords even if not in the best condition, I come to my sense and dance so intensively even if I have short breath and feel dizzy, I stand till the end even if my thighs are about to break down. And I give out all the talents I have. And we share our hearts. And I do my best to love you. I think this is what being a singer is about. The day I wanted to give up after 7 years of practice. The day I didn't want my mom to give me money anymore and I gathered all my strength and worked hard to stand up by myself. The day I was ignored. Those day plus the days we tried to be most sincere and collapsed, tried again and collapsed again we thought maybe we really couldn't do it. Those days, all of them, made me strong and solid.

After winning first place (on Music Bank) in 2 years and 8 months and making my first title track after 7 years, the more I do the more I can't help but feel like getting more and more humble ("heart getting lower") and rather than raising my head, I'll lower it too as much as possible and dream as high as I can.

How cool were the members' strong gaze who, even though they couldn't sleep, still wanted to try. Yes, that's it, this is the team and this is what made the Monsta X we are now. What made us feel this way, it's only three syllables: "mon.be.be." you made us, you made me. So, I'm happy. We can't perform in front of you yet but I keep imagining those days and made and made songs thinking about that moment to come. When I held tight those awards tightly in my hands, I thought "how nice it would be if monbebes could touch this too". In the future as well, I'll bring my heart to monbebes more and more and, even if I can't be good every time, I'll keep doing my best, making songs and in everything as well. There's always something I think about and said "what's my joy in life? why am I always busy? why is it always so hard for me?" but I think I found the right answer to those questions now, and that is "Monbebe is my joy in life". I sincerely love you, truly love you and like you.

I'll go and come back from the US safely. Love you monbebe

translation by monstax-info

[tsarisfanfiction]

Braids: Chapter 2

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Michael Yew, Apollo Cabin I know it's a fluff fic but we do have some grumpy Michael in this one, which brings in the Michael Yew Swears A Lot tag from AO3! I have a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! Character ages this chapter: Michael - 11 Laura - 17 <<Chapter 1

2) Laura

Michael was bored.  Most of the cabin were in the woods for Capture the Flag, which was a game Michael was determined to take part in one day, but so far had been banned for being “too small”, which was bullshit, in his opinion.  He could still fight!

Emily had been firm, though.  “It’s for your own safety,” she’d told him.  “I’m sure you’ll be able to join in next summer.”

She’d said the same fucking thing last year.  If she said it again next year, Michael was going to shoot her.  Sometimes Emily was fine, but then sometimes she could be a real bitch.  He’d tried to sneak in anyway, but his bow had disappeared and Emily had caught him and directed him away.

Chiron had offered to let him watch with him, but if Michael couldn’t join then he wasn’t going to fucking watch everyone else having a good time without him, so he had stormed into the cabin to sulk.

Sulking didn’t stop boredom, though.  Michael had clambered up to his bunk, because that was his space and no-one ever came up there, but there was nothing to do.  His fingers itched to at least fletch an arrow if he couldn’t shoot, but that was yet another fucking thing he wasn’t allowed to do without godsdamned supervision.

They ended up in his hair instead, tugging it out of its ponytail.  It was finally long enough to tie up without looking stupid and even when he was mad at his cabin mates, the feel of his hair on the back of his neck and brushing his shoulders made him relax, a little.  This felt right.

He’d braided Ceri’s hair a few times, now, but they still looked awful and Michael didn’t like that.  Ceri had made it very clear that she didn’t mind – she never took the braids out until bedtime, no matter how much it unravelled – but Michael did because braids weren’t supposed to be difficult but he hadn’t really got the hang of them yet.

His fingers ran through his hair again, and he realised that with everyone else not there, he could practice without anyone judging him.

He knew his attempts at Ceri’s hair were judged, even though no-one ever said anything bad about them.

Immediately, Michael realised one problem: braiding his own hair was completely different to braiding someone else’s.  He had to hold his wrists in weird positions to reach the back of his head, and he couldn’t keep the three sections apart.  Whichever strands he had hanging loose kept getting tangled up with other sections, and he’d start picking up the wrong hair and turning his hair into a total knot rather than a braid.

“Fucking piece of shit,” he snarled at it as his fingers got caught up and his first attempt to retrieve them ended with his fingers completely snarled up in hair.  “Fuck.”

He was so busy swearing at the wannabe braid that he missed the cabin door opening.

“Michael?  Are you in here?”

“Fuck off!” he retorted instantly, not even registering who it was.  “Go play your stupid game.”

His half-sister – he wasn’t sure which one without looking, but it was one of the summer campers, because he knew the year-rounders’ voices immediately now – didn’t do as she was told.  Without anyone else in the cabin, her footsteps were loud against the floor and Michael tensed as the sound came to a stop by his bunk.

“What if I’d rather keep you company?” she asked, and he reluctantly looked over the edge of his bunk to see who was bothering him.  Dark brown hair and pointy cheek bones belonged to Laura, one of the older girls in the cabin.

“I don’t want company,” he snapped back, which was only a lie because he wanted to be with the rest of the cabin in the forest.  He didn’t want a babysitter.

The top of her head ducked down, and Michael lost track of her.  “Okay,” she said from below him – fuck, was she on the empty bunk underneath his?  “I’ll be here if you change your mind.”  There was the sound of a page turning and Michael realised she had picked up a book from who-fucking-know-where.

Whatever.

Michael tugged at his hands again, extracting his fingers from the snare he’d made of his own hair, and he swore again because now his hair was a fucking mess and his brush was on top of his dresser, which meant he had to leave his bunk to get at it.

Fucking damn it.

Grumpily, he threw himself down the ladder far enough to lean across to grab the brush, sticking the handle in his mouth as he clambered back up again.

“You might find it easier to do a smaller braid,” Laura said suddenly and he jumped, almost losing his grip on the latter.  “Ceri has a lot of hair and it’s quite a handful, but you don’t have to do it all at once.”

Michael glared through the rungs of his ladder at where she was laying on the bottom bunk, not even looking away from her book.

“So fucking what?” he demanded, and then she moved, putting a bookmark between the pages and sitting up.

“Let me show you what I mean?” she asked, but her hand was headed for his hair and fuck no, Michael hadn’t let anyone touch his fucking hair in a year and that wasn’t changing now.  He scurried out of reach.

“Fuck off.”

She backed off straight away, her hand changing target and going for her own hair instead.  “Okay,” she said, “how about I show you using my hair?”

As she spoke, she took a small part of her hair near her face and started twisting it into a skinny braid.  Michael couldn’t follow what her fingers were doing, or why they she wasn’t dropping one of the sections constantly.  She finished the whole braid without saying anything else, and it was fucking neat.

“How the fuck did you do that?” he demanded.  She patted the bunk next to her.

“I’ll show you,” she said.  “We’ll use my hair, don’t worry.”

Wary, but curious, Michael slunk back down his ladder and swung himself onto the bunk.  She unravelled the braid she’d just done, then held out the same section of hair to him.  He took it silently.

“Split it into three, the same way you do with Ceri’s hair,” Laura told him.  Michael did, finding how thin each section was weird.  Laura’s hair was a lot sleeker than Ceri’s, too.  He held them the same way, with one section in each hand and the middle one hanging loose.

He flinched when Laura’s hands came up and hovered near his, not quite touching but fucking close.  “Let me show you how to hold it?” she asked.  “You might struggle with how much hair Ceri has, but for braids like these, there’s a way to do it that means you don’t keep dropping any hair.”

Michael hesitated, but he wanted to know.  “Fine,” he said shortly, and watched Laura’s hands closely as they came in contact with his.  Gently, she shifted his fingers until one of the sections of hair was held between his pointer and middle finger, while another was held between his thumb and finger on the same hand.

It felt fucking weird.

She made his other hand also hold the third section between his fingers.  “This way, you have your thumb and finger free to grab the hair,” she explained, placing her hands over his and demonstrating.  He copied her, and found himself taking one of the strands from his other hand.  “Now you can cross them over like this.”

It was an awkward twist, but Michael was stubborn and determined.  Laura guided him into shifting his grip on the one section left in that hand, and then they did the same thing in the reverse.

Slowly, they made their way down the braid.  It still didn’t look that neat, bulky and messy at the top where he’d started, but by the time they reached the end of her hair, it was starting to look a bit like an actual braid.

Laura let him look at it for a moment, before running her fingers through it and getting rid of it.  Michael’s chest ached a little, but then he blinked when she handed the section back to him again.

“Practice makes perfect,” she told him.  “Do you want me to guide you through this one again, or try by yourself?”

Michael split it back into sections and tried to remember how to hold them all at once.  It took him a couple of attempts, but he managed to get them awkwardly positioned between his fingers again.  He didn’t answer Laura, instead launching straight into his second attempt at the braid.

Within a couple of twists, it was a mass of knots.  “Fuck.”

Laura swooped in and rescued her hair, undoing Michael’s awful braiding attempt.  She gave it back to him again, though.  “I’ll guide you again,” she suggested, and he grumbled but agreed.

She stopped guiding him halfway through their third attempt, and Michael focused hard on making sure he got it right.

It went a bit messier, but it was some of the best braiding he’d ever done.

Laura didn’t destroy that one.  Instead, she grabbed another section of hair, a bit further back on her head, and offered that to him again.  “Try this one by yourself,” she suggested.

Michael fumbled the first few twists, but found the rhythm after that.  He was slow, but the braid was looking like an actual fucking braid, and he was proud of that.

By the time Capture the Flag was over and their siblings came back, Laura’s hair was full of small, occasionally wonky, braids, and Michael had almost forgotten that he was upset at being forced to sit the game out.

Chapter 3>