Hexing, evil eye and everything harms

So, I recently got hexed and talked about it, and I think this is a great time for me to talk about what hexes are and how to protect yourself from them, as a continuation of my two protection posts.

First, what is baneful magic ?

In the dictionary :

Baneful : Causing harm, ruin, or death; harmful. Portending harm; ominous. Having poisonous qualities; deadly; destructive; injurious; noxious; pernicious.

Usually, what people call baneful is actually super relative to culture, religions and individual practice. it can includes : hexes/curses/jinxes, love spells, domination spells, blood magic, binding, banishing etc. There is a lot of rhetoric from different people that try to keep people away from these spells. For example the rule of Three, which states that everything you put out comes back three times, is a Wiccan religious belief that is in no way applicable to all witches. Some people's views of "karma" or other "universal justice" ideas. I am personally of the opinion that, if your guide and your moral compass agree, there is nothing wrong with giving universal justice a little boost with a bit of a reasonably measured hex. But as a general thing, it should take place in an informed, cultivated practice and not just a "i'm mad at my ex so i'm gonna pick this random tiktok spell i saw and write his name on it". No. That is the best way to get yourself in trouble.

What is a hex ?

A hex is, at its core, someone sending negative or unwanted energy your way. We can commonly see a few types of hexes:

The Evil Eye, the most common, easiest one, that everyone probably got at one point in their life. At its core, the Evil Eye is about people wishing ill intent on you from seeing you succeed. As an example, I made eye contact with someone that was jealous of me while i was on stage and i almost tripped on a floor that had no reason to make me trip. It is usually considered to be easy solved by not showing your achievements you know are jealous, basic cleansing, throwing salt over your shoulder, using a talisman etc. I'm pretty sure most if every culture has a concept of evil eye so look into what you resonate with best (in the limits of what is open to you).

The Jinx: it's almost the cute version of an hex ? It's like causing a bit of a bad luck, like missing the bus, breaking your phone screen, missing an appointment etc. it tends to not last very long, a few hours or so.

The hex: it is both a general term and what people tend to do. It's the " can't keep one up with a new gf", "have constant bad breath", "flat tire", "might lose your job" one. it can wildly vary in intensity depending on your current protection, how close the target and practionner are and the nature of the spell. The Curse: This is when shit goes DOWN DOWN. Generational trauma typa shit, illnesses might pop up typa shit, divorce typa shit. To this day, I have never seen anyone being truly cursed. Usually the energy ends up being transformed into lessons for the descendants or the target after a while, and its goal it to point out specific toxic behaviors or issues rather than just cause chaos.

How to cast a hex ?

I am pretty sure i answered a ask about this once, my goal here is not exactly to give a recipe for all hexes but at least guidelines so you know how to start and where to look. Hexes, just like all spells, are about creating an energy and sending it. In this particular case, it is about creating "mud" and throwing it at someone. Here is the thing: you cannot throw mud without getting your hands dirty. How dirty your hands get depend on what you are throwing, if you are taking precautions and how much you are cleaning after. I know it gets told time and time again, but don't do a hex as your first spell if you dont have a good handle yet on protection and cleansing spells. The reason why they are recommended for beginners is because they are easy, don't typically explode in your face easily, and they are diverse, therefore allowing you to test out what you vibe with and don't. Also, they teach you necessary skills. Otherwise, it works as any other spell. If you do it with leeway for the universe (and you take precautions and cleanse) the cost for you will probably be energy, headache etc. If your goal is to specifically make a certain situation happen for someone, it will require a sacrifice on your part, that you may not have control over. I am currently being coached and taught about spellwork, so in a few months I might revisit this post and explain things differently and add more info.

How to know you have been hexed ?

If bad shit starts happening out of nowhere, it might be worth asking the question.

Here is a list of things I have experienced or have seen people experience from being hexed:

nightmares

sleep paralysis

bad luck

fire alarms going of at specific hours

people being unusually mean or intolerant to you

getting weird or scary visions (VISIONS, not hallucinations, if you are not intuitive this does not apply, if this is not already in your belief system this does not apply)

stuff falling, breaking, not working, getting lost etc

having difficulty reading, channeling

feeling blockages

getting sick, nauseous, getting a migraine, getting a crisis of an already existing illness

getting into arguments

protections and wards acting weird

pets acting weird

The thing is, any number of those things can happen for a hundred reasons that are not even remotely spiritual. If there is another possible explanation, check it first. I promise you it is a lot more likely than someone hexing you.

Okay, so now i know i got hexed what do i do ?

Congrats you got hexed.

Start by not panicking.

Even though it sounds scary, it is probably a lot easier to get rid of it than you think. You can start by checking my protection 101 and protection 102. Cleanse deeply yourself, your room and your spirit and add some protections. Once it is done, if you still feel negative energy around, you can try cleansing one more time, or it may mean your guides are inviting you to look into yourself and heal some parts of yourself that the hex brought out.

After you got hexed

This is the official point where you can start throwing hands with the person that sent you the spell. No, i'm kidding. Okay, maybe not. But yeah, it is a point where you restore your protections and can pat yourself on the back for succeeding at getting rid of an hex. Good job!

10/9/23

Winter makes me so depressed. It gets to 4pm and it’s already dark and I feel like that there’s no day left. I’m so tired and sore constantly too. The cold this year has made my arthritis symptoms the worst they’ve ever been. At least this time I’m seeing a doctor who takes me seriously.

I’ve been trying to read again. I used to love it as a kid. I don’t know when it happened but I stopped being able to hold my attention like I used to and I couldn’t read books for ages. Last week I was out and thought I’d look in qbd quickly, partly because I’d been thinking about my job application that I put in a few days earlier for there, but also because I’ve liked the idea of reading again recently. Well I got a book, The call of the wild, and I read it all that afternoon. It was short only 90 pages or so but I was happy with myself for doing it. It wasn’t a super happy or exciting book but I sat there and read it on the bus and then on the couch and then outside with my gf and I didn’t let myself move to my phone for faster gratification. Since then I’ve bought two more books and I hope to read them soon, though I feel like I’m more of someone who likes to think they read rather than one who actually does. I mean I’ve just read one book lol I’m not back into it yet I just want to be.

The same is true with bass. I’m scared that it’s not me anymore, it’s something I want to be me and I say that it is but there’s no evidence for that. I haven’t been playing. We went out for my friends birthday to a gig and it made me so happy. I haven’t been going to gigs because it’s too fucking cold by the time they end and I have to bus home but maybe I should get a better jacket and tough it out because it made me excited about music again.

I wrote in an old journal that a new jacket is like a new identity or a new perspective and I feel like I need that! I’m feeling so stuck and miserable. The things I identify with make me feel like a fraud. I have pieces of things that I know theoretically I love and are parts of me but I never actually participate in those things. Right now I’m just a sad dude who wishes he was in a band and played bass but can’t get himself to do anything about it. I’m going to need to do something about it if I want to go to school for it next year. I’ve got less than 6 months now. I failed last year and put it off but I don’t want to put off this anymore. It’s too important to me.

Next week I’ll be one year on testosterone but I feel so depressed about how little I feel has changed. My voice has changed but not enough to satisfy me. I sound masculine but if I speak in a room of other guys I will always have the highest voice. Maybe I do need to do voice training. My friend starts t a few days after I’m one year on and I’m terrified he’ll transition so much “better” than me. He keeps saying he hopes his voice will change all the way. That it won’t just go half the way. I don’t know if he’s aware that he’s hurting my feelings but he really is. I don’t want to think I’d be so awful as to be jealous of him but I’m scared that it’ll be too much for me. Maybe it’s been my dose? The gp seems to think I’ve changed enough but I can’t help but compare myself to others. Hopefully it’ll get better. My before and after photos are almost the exact same. Maybe it’s because I’m young.

I’ve been thinking about what it would be like if we moved to Melbourne. There would be so many gigs to go to and so many cool people to meet and gf could do so many art things. It could be great. Right now it would only happen after school next year, so probably this time next year. We’d live near my aunt and I’d work in a coffee shop or a bar and do music the rest of the time. Gf would make her art and do art shows and we’d have good friends and feel comfortable.It’s a nice dream.

I think this week I’ll try and read Maurice. At least start it. I really liked to movie when I was younger. And I’ll go look for that new jacket.

Revenge is sweet so~

@heathenjin

For a while now I’ve been writing a su x gf crossover and I want to see what people think/ maybe get some help writing it. I’m new here so idk how this works but here it is

Steven applies for a job at the mystery shack. Under special skills he wrote “various superpowers“. Not too long after Steven got the job, dipper finds Steven’s application and sees where he wrote various superpowers. He asks them about it and he offers to show them off him and Mabel. So they go out into the woods for Steven to show off his powers. Before that, he explained how he was half gem half human, which dipper follows up with a bazillion questions. Steven did his best to answer all of them. After that, he started showing off his powers. First he showed them the basic stuff such as a bubble. Mable thought the bubble was cool so the asked if she could be in a giant hamster ball, and Steven said yes, so she ran around in a hamster ball for a while. Once she finally stopped. He showed them how the bubble could have spikes and be shaped like a crystal formation. It was very small so it didn’t damage anything, but still just a

My s cool. After that, he shows them his shield. Mable wanted to ride it like a toboggan down the hill. Next, he showed the hexagons he could make and control, so they ended up making a little statue of a mermaid. The mermaid got him thinking about water, which got him thinking about cat fingers. He asked them if they could go back to the shack for a bit, them not realizing what he was about to do. Once they got inside, Steven got a glass of water, then asked what they thought about cats. Dipper was kinda iffy, but mable was all excited, so he said “watch this.” Dipper could not be more confused. Steven’s finger was a cat and mable was going to explode with excitement. After Mabel finally calmed down and Steven put away his cats fingers, they went on the roof ledge to chill. Steven was talking about how much fun he was having while walking backwards towards the edge. Dipper told him to be careful, but he said not to worry and kept walking. He was almost at the edge and both twins were scared he was gonna fall.

Steven stepped off the edge and the twins raced to see if he was ok. Before they got to the edge, Steven shot up into to the air and started flying around. Dipper was ghost white. Mable shouted “oooooo, can I try?”

When the end of the day came, Steven got to stay at the mystery shack since he didn’t have any family in town. It was a long day of impressing the twins, but before they went to bed, Steven warned them. He warned them that he may do some weird things in his sleep, so they set up a set of cameras in the guest room to see what he meant. Then they went to bed. Some time in the middle of the night, Steven woke up in the mindscape, but this time there were 2 doors leading to each of the twins dreams. He opened one door to find a land made of rainbow and cupcakes. He decided to take a better look. Somewhere beyond the candy waterfalls, he found Mabel. Steven decided to stay and talk for a while, even staying for the tea party with sentient stuffed animals. After a little while, Steven decided to leave. After he found his way out, he started walking towards dippers dream. But when he opened the door, he was surprised. Rather than a dream, he opened it to see a giant dipper floating there. He knew exactly what was going to happen, because it had happened before with lars. He yelled “dipper, I’m sorryyyyyyyyy!” Then woke up the next morning in dippers bed right next to Mabel. He was about to tell her that he wasn’t dipper, but then he decided to play a little joke on her. He said good morning to her, but when she turned around the joke was immediately over. Turns out this time when he took over dipper, his eyes turned into diamond eyes. Mable jumped back and shouted “who are you and what have you done with dipper?!” Steven realized she was catching on, so he said “what do you mean?” Mable quickly said “your eyes??” So he went over to the mirror and looked, immediately knowing what she meant. So he said “you got me, I’m not dipper, I’m Steven.” What shocked Steven was rather than freaking out, Mable just said “again? What is with dipper and getting possessed? First a demon posses him, then we switch bodies, now this?” Then Steven explained what was going on, they went to Steven’s room to wake him up. When they walked in, Steven was glowing. Then he said “this is what I meant by weird stuff. The glowing, the possession, me being in your dream.” “Wait, that was you in my dream?” “Yeah, but we should wake me up ok wow that’s a weird sentance. Anyway, I don’t really know where dipper is, but he would probably like to be awake now.” So they woke Steven up, dipper’s body collapsed, then sprung up screaming “AAAAAAAAHHHhwwwwwhat just happened?!?” “I may or may not have just possessed you? I have a question, then you can ask me all the questions you want. Where were you?” “I-I don’t know.

Steven noticed that Mabel was sad, so he asked why. She said “I haven’t found a single guy to flirt with this summer and I’m kinda bummed about it.” “I got an idea. What’s your favorite type of plant?” “It’s hard to say, but I choose... all of them!” Steven thought to himself “kinda expected that” then said “how bout this, pick a plant you would date, I know is a weird question, but-” “a watermelon” “a watermelon? Why?” “Because,” she said, “they’re big enough you can hug. If it was a rose plant it would have too many thorns. I love roses, but they’re not the best for hugs.” “Ok. Be back soon, just gotta go do something.” About an hour later, Steven comes back and says “ok, close your eyes and follow me.” “I love surprises!” She exclaimed. After a bit of walking and a lot of bumping into things, steven says “Aaaannd, open them!”

After that dipper started with more question. Steven went to answer them, but then he remembered something, when gems fuse, anything one of them wants the other to know, they will know.

The twins and Steven were watching tv when the last episode of ducktective came on. By the time the show ended, the twins were very disappointed and so was Steven, just not as much.

Steven shows them a picture at the end of when he thought he was (and became) a monster. He even shows the twins a horn on his head hidden by his hair, kinda like the uncorrupted Quartz’s have.

Sorry if the text is all weird. The spaces means there is something missing and these pieces aren’t in order, but this is what I have. Feel free to reblog and or draw this, but however you go about sharing this, can you give me some credit somehow?

Dear future dork,

Wow I can really tell that is going to be so cringy. Oh well. It is I, your 17th year old self on our birthday 🥳🥳 (immediate existential dread) adressing you, our 18 year old self (why I am I this cringy)...

Anyways how you doing???

Yes I am going to write this like those letters they made write every year

Well I hope you are doing great. I can imagine with the whole turning 18 makes you want to dive into a hole and never see the light of day (honestly I'm the same way and I barely 17 😑)

I guess I will keep it short since you've probably have other things to do like college applications, etc (wow what an adult being responsible 👏👏👏)

I guess just a little snapshot of today, I am currently starting a DBQ for AP U.S History (which I am hoping we got a 5 in that exam) and I am completly exhausted from the two finals I had today (wow and on our birthday, how ashphobic). Tomorrow we are repeating the usual shit of being too tired to function yet still going to school and just doing the same things (hopefully that changed for you) and I have a GSA volunteering thing for the BRC tomorrow as well (also how is that going, I hope that it is doing just as well as it's doing now). I honestly really don't know what else to put other than I'm holding out for break (just 3 more days) (also hopefully you are having even more interesting days).

I guess I should probably end this now. But first... Look at this good boi 🙀

Also I know for sure you are worrying about being accepted into college. Like fuck I'm just getting nervous writing about it now, I can only imagine what you are feeling and even though you will probably ignore this advice, take a deep breath, drink some water bc I know that you are not drinking water, and remember that even if you do not get accepted at Princeton or Lehigh, you will go wherever you are meant to, and treat yourself today (I know you are going to be doing hw like how I am doing but its our bday so stop. Do as I say, not as I do)

(Also don't mind me just going to a corner and just 🤮 for the cheesiness)

But I do hope you keep this mind and I hope your mental health is better my depressive episodes seem to have no end 🙃 and I hope you are keeping your promise of having the courage to exist (thanks Dan for that). Also I'm really hope you have gf bc we are lonely and single as fuck

Anyways goodbye dork (and don't forget to write the one for our 19 year old self or else I'll chase you with a chancla)

✌ (immediate face palm)

.....before I pass out for the night, I think I should probably post a life update here.

Basically this past week my home life has almost completely deteriorated. Mom found out monday evening that I was looking for apartments to try and get out of this abusive hellhole of a house and she reacted extremely badly. It was the first time she had ever yelled at me that loud, and was the first time we had a loud argument, and it was pretty much a screaming match from her yelling and me trying to say anything.

Since then she's grown increasingly cold and hostile to me all week. if I'm not at work or out researching apartment stuff with my girlfriend I try to stay in my room as much as possible in order to avoid her as she's been saying worse and worse things as the week went on. Dad on the other hand has gone from obnoxiously loud asshole to disturbingly quiet and soft spoken. It's honestly kinda terrifying.

Both of my younger sisters (17/19) are in full agreement with my mom that I shouldn't be trying to leave because I don't have any life experience and am a retarded autistic idiot without any common sense and won't make it out in the real world.

I spent friday night at my grandma's (as my girlfriend currently lives on her upstairs floor) , and mom was incredibly pissed off over it as I didn't ask for her explicit permission. I'm 22. I turn 23 this upcoming Sunday.

.... honestly I packed for that as soon as I got home from work and yeeted over there and passed out in a depression nap until the gf got back from her work.

Saturday night mom was drinking and she took my benny card so I wasn't able to order new glasses frames with it saying that if I want to be an adult then I have to pay for everything like an adult. She then also said/threatened that she was strongly wanting to take me off the medical insurance 3 years early. That's at least not her choice as it's through dad and his work. She also told me to go start getting boxes and start packing because she didn't want to see any of my messes or shit anymore.

......at this point I'm strongly considering packing my duffle bag with a shitton of clothes and yeeting over to grandma's to crash while the gf and I apartment hunt. (We technically have until August for that as grandma is moving and thus the gf has to be out before then). Grandma's perfectly fine with it but doesn't have much room for my stuff so I was able to get permission from my aunt today about storing my stuff in her basement during all this as mom is extremely fucking petty and I don't trust her not to break/sell/donate anything I leave behind.

.....due to all of this my anxiety symptoms have been flaring up really nasty all weekend and I'm constantly shaking no matter how much water I try to hydrate with. Depression is also hitting hard at the moment, I had to restrain the urges to completely break down crying or to hurl myself at the wall or through the windows out into traffic at work pretty much the whole length of my weekend shifts. ...I felt a bit better today but it's still something concerning. I have my meds followup tomorrow evening so I'll be able to talk to the doctor about those happenings as I'm not sure if that's just my conditions flaring up or if it was a med side effect or both.

.....in addition to this I still haven't heard back from the place I applied to for a full time position. Friday was stated to be the absolutely earliest I would hear back from them, and they're completely closed on weekends (plus mon was a holiday so also closed) so the next day I could hear back is Tuesday/Wednesday. I did spot them an email and phone message inquiring about the status of my application/process at least, to be safe. I really hope I get this position so I can quit this barely 10-hours a week 10 bucks an hour job for a full time 16 bucks an hour job that actually has insurance and thus another step towards stability in moving out of here.

.......I'm so tired.

Henry’s Birthday Weekend - Friday Night - His Mistress

Warning: 18+ sex toy play/mentions of cheating/marital conflict/mature language & themes. Please read at your own discretion.

Note: Hi! What started as a fun little idea has turned into something much longer than expected (surprise, surprise). I feel like Henry’s birthday deserves to span an entire weekend and be full of unexpected surprises and sexiness. So here it is... Friday Night.

Read more Henry x Mistress imagines here > Masterpost

You fiddled with the shoulder straps of the bra, making sure they didn’t cut into your skin. The oxblood lace didn’t cover much, but that was the point. The garter belt around your waist matched the red of the bra, although you wouldn’t see the finished product until you clipped the garter straps to a pair of stockings. Those were waiting behind the purchase counter.

Satisfied with the set you chose, you slid the lock from the door and peered out with a smile in hopes Henry was paying attention. He looked up from his phone and gasped like you had strutted out nude.

“Babe! I told you, I don’t want to see it yet!” Henry covered his eyes with his free hand.

“Okay, okay,” you withdrew into the change room, locking the door behind you. “I think this is the one.”

“Great. We’ll pack it up and take it home.”

Henry held your hand with his right and the bag from the lingerie shop in his left as he escorted you to his car. He opened the door for you, waited until you sat down, shut the door and circled to place your purchase in the trunk. Before sticking the key in the ignition, he reached between his legs under the seat and pulled out a small box wrapped in pink paper.

You instantly glared at him.

“Henry! It’s your birthday, not mine!” You berated.

He smirked and passed you the box. “It’s a gift for me.”

“Then why are you passing it over?”

“Well, because... It’s also a gift for you. But mostly for me.”

When you woke up that morning, you got the feeling Henry’s version of a birthday celebration would have a lot to do with giving you gifts. The lingerie was one thing. He could justify that it was for him, but the pink box confused you. Until you ripped open the crepe paper wrapping, you glowered at the item in your hand. Then you turned over the box, and it all made sense.

Henry’s smirk developed into a beam he couldn’t reel back. He adjusted in his seat, slicked back his hair and played with the knot of his tie as a distraction.

“Wow. This is—okay, I can see how this is sort of a gift for you.” You held up the box and giggled.

It was a palm-sized vibrator in cotton candy blue with a flat side and an insightful diagram on the back of the package. Henry pulled out his cell phone and waggled it.

“I can control it with my phone.”

“I see that,” you sang.

“You’ll wear it for dinner. Along with the set and those heels I bought you last week?”

His uncertain tone propped your eyebrow. “Oh, I will, will I?”

His large hand slid up your knee and ruched up the fabric of your pencil skirt to squeeze your thigh. “Yes, you will.”

All ambiguity in his voice melted away, and the expression left on his face was one of sternness. When Henry bucked up, straightened his tie and asserted himself, he passed well for threatening. It reminded you of the way he carried himself at work and how his subordinates took him as seriously as a bomb set to explode. It was his birthday, after all.

“Yes, sir,” you agreed.

“Good girl.”

Out of nowhere, Henry decided it best to drop you off at home to get ready for the night. Before he left, he instructed you again to wash up like he meant to eat off your skin, wear your new lingerie set under your outfit and stash the vibrator between your legs. Then, after a long kiss goodbye, he gave you a wink and left you to stew in the excitement.

You laid out the night’s outfit, showered, shaved, and prepared for an evening of secret naughtiness, humming as you went. The vibrator rested in its package on the foot of your seldom-used bed. It called out for inspection as you towelled off from your shower. You plucked it from the packing foam and caressed the smooth finish with your thumb.

There was a button on the vibrator and a small, oval-shaped magnet to help lock it into place. Before you touched the raised nub to turn it on, your work phone rang. It skittered across your vanity table with each vibration until you picked it up, scowling at the screen as though it had slapped you.

Mary Deaver calling

Whenever Henry ignored work calls or forwarded them away, it redirected them to your work phone. It was standard practice, and you were used to receiving client calls during odd hours, but Mary’s name gave you a dreadful empty-gutted sensation. For a moment, you considered ignoring the call, but that would be unprofessional. You had to keep a cool head and answer the call just like you would for any other person.

“Good afternoon, Henry Deaver’s office.”

Mary chuckled from the other end. “It’s funny how he has you answering the phone as though you’re in the office.”

“I beg your pardon, Ms. Deaver?”

“Oh, so you know who I am?”

You bit down on the inside of your cheek. “Mm-hmm. Caller display, ma’am.”

“Henry isn’t in the office. Where is he?” She asked.

You glanced over at your bed, covered with gifts from Mary’s soon-to-be ex-husband. It filled the hollowness in your gut with a warm trickle of satisfaction that rose and rose until your chest was alight with amusement.

“Usually, I’d be able to answer that question for you, ma’am, but today is Henry’s birthday, and he’s out of the office.”

“I know it’s his birthday, you twit. I’m his wife.”

“Hmm. Well, I’m sorry, Ms. Deaver, but Henry has taken the day off. I think I heard him mention golfing.”

“It’s Missus Deaver. And I’ve called his buddies. He’s nowhere to be found.”

“I’m sorry, Mary. I’m under strict instructions not to bug Mr. Deaver today.”

Her scoff grated your eardrum. You held the phone from your face, glaring at it as though spit had come flying through the earpiece.

“I want his girlfriend’s number.”

“Mary—”

“Give it to me. I know he has one, so don’t play dumb. He told me.”

You sighed, mock-patience dragging out your breath until she stopped talking. “I can’t give you any information about my boss’s personal life. Please, Mary, I’m just trying to do my job.”

“I don’t want to get angry, girl, but you’re not making it easy. Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s cheating on me, and everyone is allowing it to happen! They’re all patting him on the back and running circles for him. Would you think a fellow woman would recognize this and come to my defence? No!”

All you needed was another repeat of Mary’s hailstorm of insults, and the thin strand holding you back from screaming would snap. You listened as she droned on about women helping women, but she was pandering to the wrongest ear possible.

“Mary,” you cut her off. “You’re separated. You’re both locked in a divorce settlement. I can’t treat you like his wife when I know that’s not true.”

The line went quiet. Then, a bubbling of laughter popped against your face. “You know... I was going to make it easy for him, but not anymore.”

“Miss—”

The line hacked off, and you stood in the middle of your bedroom, staring at the black screen of your phone. With a heavy sigh, you opened a new message to Henry and told him about the call you had received. He replied within seconds.

She’s called me twenty times. I think I should just answer. She probably wants to wish me a happy birthday.

The last thing Mary said to you before hanging up fastened on the edge of your lips. Did you want to ruin Henry’s entire day by relaying her cryptic threat? On any other day, you would have told him the unabridged truth, but not on his birthday. Not after the wonderful morning and before the evening’s promises took flight.

She was angry as hell and asked for your GF’s phone number.

Awkward.

Very much so. I gotta say, Henry... I’ll be thrilled when she gets it through her head that you’re no longer husband and wife.

Why? What did she say?

She just demands information on you. I told her you said not to let anybody bother you and that you MIGHT be golfing.

That’s good. And I know, baby. I’m sorry. All I can do is work through this as fast as I can.

I know.

After the call, you didn’t feel sexy and titillated as you had after your shower. But you couldn’t let it cut holes in the night’s plans. You had to suck it up, breathe deeply, and remind yourself that divorce proceedings were a long and stressful process, and you had jumped aboard of your own free will. You signed up for this.

When Henry pulled up to collect you, the incident was long from your mind. You’d taken a couple of hours to reset, dress and figure out the most comfortable spot to hide the vibrator in your panties. At first, the toy felt too foreign for comfort, like a pad that had no business lining your underwear. But the longer you spent with it pressed against your most sensitive spot, and the more you thought about how much fun Henry would have teasing you, the more you disregarded its existence.

Until you got in Henry’s car, and he pulled up the phone application, you forgot about the object stowed away in your undergarments.

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“Making sure it works before we head out,” Henry replied.

He pressed a button, and a fine buzz tickled to life. You clenched your legs together, eyes round and wide as Henry giggled and asked, “is it working?”

“Yep,” you peeped. “She workin’.”

Dark amusement moulded a leer so devastating on his face, and you wanted to forget the dinner and go back to the condo to have sex instead. Henry couldn’t stifle his entertainment.

“Okay, I’ll turn it off,” he said, and then nudged the cursor up, increasing the intensity.

“Henry!”

“How’s that feel, baby? You like that?”

“Stop, stop, stop, stop.” You clutched the edges of your seat.

Henry relinquished, turning the toy off and pocketing his phone. “Oh, my God. This will be so fun.”

Your boyfriend had been correct. The night was full of teasing and low whispers detailing what he wanted to do to you after he got you back home. At the dinner table, you sat with your fingers gliding up and down the stem of a wine glass, awaiting the buzz to startle you.

After the waiter took your menus away, Henry casually reached into his pocket and set his phone in his lap where he could navigate in secret. The vibrator hummed to life, and you flinched, causing the wine in your glasses to tip back and forth. The rumble between your legs heightened, then dissipated, only to peak again and again and again. Up and down, low to high, back and forth until you shot him a playful, accusatory look.

“I can’t believe I... I agreed to this. Um. Oh... Oh, Christ. Henry.”

He anchored his cheek to his propped fist, his other hand under the table playing with the app. To on-lookers, it would appear Henry was staring lovingly into your eyes from across the table which was normal behaviour for him, but his trigger thumb was happily teasing you from afar.

“How about we keep it on low for a while? You think you can handle that?” He asked.

“Maybe,” you breathed out.

As promised, Henry lowered the strength to the first level. Yet, even that setting shook your core with devilish waves.

You lifted the wineglass to your lips and calmly took a sip, though you were anything but calm. The sensation dug into you, culling forth wetness that absorbed into the gusset of your new panties. It was time to start playing back.

“Wow, I don’t think anything has ever made me this wet before. Honestly, I feel like I’m sitting in a puddle.”

Henry masked his intrigue with a snort and a long sip of wine. “Is that so?”

“I’m not kidding, Henry. It’s like the Falls down there. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything with you after if you... If you—”

That same darkness from before overrode his face, a rare expression that unsettled your emotions. Henry leaned over the table to stroke the back of your palm. “Who said you have a choice?”

You flashed your teeth. Henry was playing a rather lewd game by firing off a warning shot. Tonight was about what he wanted, and not what you doled him. It’s what he wanted for his birthday; to be the big, bad man with the power. But there was no way you could resist rocking the boat.

“Henry, please. The sommelier is coming right this way. You have to—”

“Let him come,” Henry shrugged.

He reclined—a cool, calculated smile on his face, pupils dilated.

The tinkle of piano keys mixed with the low murmur of guests was enough to muffle the sound of the vibrator, but only just. If you pressed down on the chair, the toy would hum louder and garner attention. You had to clench your thighs to stifle the noise. Henry knew you struggled and took his time discussing the night’s wine choice with the sommelier. The man was enthusiastic about Henry’s assessment and played favourites with your table.

Talk of cherry notes, oak and nuts were a poor distraction. You cared not for the history of the region the grapes yielded from nor the casual brushing from one topic to another, unrelated one. The man had to leave, and Henry wouldn’t allow it.

The purring between your legs felt more like a hiss after long. Pressure built up in your groin, and you were unsure if you had to pee or if you were on the brink of a powerful orgasm. Whatever the sensation, you pushed your chair out, nodding at the two men.

“Excuse me. I have to use the washroom.”

Henry’s mouth snapped shut as he watched you leave your seat and walk toward the restrooms. When you were out of sight, you let your expression slacken. By the time you entered the lady’s room, the vibration had stopped. You halted, waited for a second and scoffed when the toy stirred again.

You waited a minute in the restroom, washed your hands and picked the lint off your outfit as you composed yourself.

In your rush to return to your roguish boyfriend, you pushed open the door and clipped a man’s shoulder. He recoiled in the hall, whipping you an offended scowl before his eyes took you in. You recognized the man, but couldn’t place him in your memory. You forgot about the toy going haywire in your underwear and went pale.

“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” The man asked.

A prickle of alcohol from his mouth tainted your airways, and you realized the man you’d hit with the door was one of Henry’s colleagues. A man named Frank, whom you hoped you would never have to see again.

“Yeah, I do know you! You’re from the hotel.”

“Um, no. I don’t—I don’t work there.”

“But you did!” Frank exclaimed. “I couldn’t forget your face.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“What’s a little server girl from the Southside doing up in my neighbourhood?”

You backed away, shrugging, and chuckling your nerves down. “Just on a date. Sorry, I should go.”

Then you turned and shot off to your table. Henry spotted the worried look on your face and waited for you to sit down before asking questions.

“You okay?” He asked.

“Mm-hmm, yep. Oh, except that Frank guy you work with is here, and he saw me in the hall.”

Henry’s chin wrinkled, the faint dimple glimmering as he drew in his eyebrows. “Frank? Frank, who?”

“I don’t know. Could you please stop the thing now?”

It was too late. Frank spotted Henry from across the dining room. “Henry goddamn Deaver, is that you?”

Frank’s voice carried over the music, earning several queer looks and murmurs. You tapped the table frantically with your finger as the man lumbered forward into the eye of the dining room.

“Henry, please. Henry. Now. Turn it off. Please,” you hissed.

He fidgeted with his phone, turning up the strength by accident in his haste. You made a face like swallowing a shot of lemon juice. The rumble gyrated and continued to do so until the very moment Frank bumped into your table. It ceased, and you let out a frustrated breath, covering your face with one hand to mask your identity.

“Hang on just one hot minute now. Southside, you’re not on a date! You’re trying to shake me like last time. And Deaver! What the hell are you doing out this late? Isn’t it past your bedtime? Won’t Mary wring your neck?”

Then it was Henry’s turn to hide his face. “Frank, would you lower your voice? The whole restaurant is looking this way.”

Frank’s brow knit together while he tried to fit the pieces together. He stared at you, then at Henry, then back at you. The lopsided grin between his red cheeks flattened.

“What’s going on, Deaver?”

“I’m having dinner. It’s my birthday.”

Frank thumbed at you. “This your side-piece?”

You, mortified, let Henry handle the reigns of the conversation. Without a comment, you downed your wine in one large gulp in hopes the alcohol might wash away your embarrassment.

“No. This is my whole piece. I’d introduce you, but you’ve already met.”

“No shit, you’re banging the cutie from the coffee shop now? What about Mary?”

Henry’s cheeks, already pink from wine, then turned red. “We’re divorced.”

“What!”

More eyes locked on your table as you sank into your chair and wondered if it would be rude to fill your wine glass up to the brim. Henry turned his pursed lips out, rubbed four fingers across his forehead and sighed. “Frank, good Lord, can’t you be quieter? Do you have a megaphone stuck in your throat?”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Deaver? I swear we just saw each other, and you were happily shackled.”

“This,” Henry remarked. “This is why I didn’t tell you. Because I don’t need attention and public humiliation.”

“Frank!” A woman’s voice, equally voluminous as Frank’s cut through the tension.

Frank’s face drooped, all zeal rushing away. The woman beckoning him motioned him along with an impatient wave of her hand. It was his wife, you presumed, and she had her coat on.

“Fuck me, Deaver. You got life sorted, don’tcha? Hot little girly-friend, no more ring. When the hell are we getting together to celebrate?”

“I’ll have my assistant call you,” Henry said.

Frank waved his club-like hand, missing your face by a bare inch. You recoiled in your seat and blinked a few times to showcase your concern.

“Bullshit, Deaver. I’ve heard that one before. Come on. We gotta get together and go to the titty-bar or something. You’re single now!”

Your boyfriend opened his mouth, but no words tumbled out. Instead, he chuckled while shaking his head and motioned at you.

“Frank, I just told you I’m not single.”

The large man swung his eyes at you. He scanned you up and down, smirked and tapped the table with one hairy knuckle. “You’d let this old boy go with his friend to the rippers, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

You stared at Henry now, daggering him with sarcasm and a fake smile. “Oh, yeah! Henry can go to the strip club with you, Frank. I’m sure he’d love that.”

Henry covered his face with both hands. “I’ll call you Frank, but it looks like your wife wants to leave.”

“I’ll be waiting for that call, Deaver. And if you don’t... The phone goes both ways. I won’t let up until you say yes!”

“Okay, Frank. Have a good night.”

Frank placed his mit on your shoulder and squeezed you. “And you too, honey. I hope to see you again very soon.”

There were too many things you wanted to say at once. Henry fiddled with his apologies but came up speechless. He spread out his hands in a tabletop version of a shrug, snickering to himself at the absurdity of what had just happened. You wanted to be angry, but your mouth quirked, and soon, you were laughing.

“Want me to pen you in a date with Frank? I’m not well-versed on what adult entertainment establishments exist around here, but I can do a little research, and—”

“Please, stop. That was so, SO embarrassing.”

“Yeah? Try having a vibrator on your junk going ballistic while bumping into that hurricane of a man!”

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Henry muttered.

“What wasn’t a good idea?” You asked.

“I don’t know. I—hold on.”

Henry fished his phone from his pocket. Was Frank already calling him? He squinted at the screen and scrolled his thumb up twice before clicking something.

“What is it?” You inquired.

The vibrator whirred to life. Your back snapped straight as a blissful smile poured over Henry’s face. His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth. The edge of the table made a good spot to hold on to while he played with the settings on his cell phone.

“No, I take it back. This was the best idea I’ve ever had.”

hi ! i was wondering if you'd be willing to write a joe x black! gf overshot where he helps her on wash day ?

Hello! Absolutely! Full disclosure, I am Very White™ so I had to ask my friends who are POC their process for wash day (Hi J and T!) so, this is their process but I tried my best to make it applicable to as many people as possible! 

I hope you love it! 

WARNING: Mentions of sex below the cut and soft fluffy boyfriend!Joe 

Sunday's were always the laziest day in their apartment.  

It was their day to spend together, maybe meal prep (and by meal prep she'd mainly get in Joe's way as he cooked way more pasta than two people could consume in a week) catch up on some Netflix, have sex and generally, just enjoy being in each others company with no set plans. 

Joe has just snuggled into the couch. Comfiest hoodie and sweatpants on, he propped his feet up on the coffee table in front of the sofa, flexing his feet as he sighed contentedly.  

His head whipped up at the sound of (Y/N)'s footsteps coming closer. He started to smile but it faded as she came trudging into the living room. Head hanging down, shoulders hunched forward, even the spirals that Joe loved so much were looking dejected. He chuckled as she forlornly draped her form over Joe's body, heaving a sigh so loud that it made the flames of the candle Joe had lit, dance wildly. 

"Someone's a Grumpy Gus." 

The only response he received was a disgruntled "harrumph".  

Tugging on one of her curls, watching it spring back, he cooed, "C'mon, use your words." 

Heaving a sigh, she flipped her body over so she could stare up into Joe's eyes. "It's...god I don't even want to say it because then that makes it more real." Joe snickered but quickly tamped it down when he saw her glare at him. 

"Sorry, activating my sympathy gene...now."

"Where was that two seconds ago?" 

"Listen, sometimes it takes a while to warm up." 

"It's Wash Day, Joe." 

Joe stilled at those words. He could practically hear the capital letters that accompanied the words Wash Day. 

Snuggling her face deeper into the well-worn fibers of the red sweatshirt Joe wore way more than should be acceptable for a man, she inhaled the comforting scent of deodorant and the lingering scent of pancakes. 

Without thinking, she opened her mouth and her next question fell out in a whisper, "Will you...will you help me?" 

Joe felt his throat close up at her request. He knew Wash Day was always something (Y/N) complained about and he felt bad when he'd walk past the bathroom, hearing her cursing as she worked to detangle her coils. It was silly, but he missed her during those hours when she was preoccupied in the bathroom. 

So, to hear her ask him to help, it felt like he was being invited to share in something special with her and he was honored. 

"Of course I will, baby." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes closed and she pressed her head more forcefully into his lips. 

"Thank you, Joey." 

"I'm glad you asked. But we should probably get started now or else we won't be done till three in the morning."

Her hand flew up to make contact with his chest. 

Grabbing it, he pressed a kiss to her palm and stared down at her, "You know I'm right, (Y/N)." 

"I know, doesn't mean I have to like it." She grumbled as she swung her legs off the couch, letting her feet hit the floor with a thud. The eyes of the corgi's that were on her socks stared up at her, mocking. 

Feeling Joe's arms wrap around her waist, he pushed her hair off her neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the curve of her spine, causing her to shiver. She could practically feel the smile growing across his lips as he pulled back. 

Yelping at the smack he landed on her ass, she scurried into the bathroom, Joe laughing as he ambled along behind her. 

Flipping the bathroom light on, she crouched down, pulling out the basket of hair products, clips and hair ties she'd need for the arduous process ahead of them. Joe whistled, "That's everything we're using today?" 

Wordlessly, she stood up and dramatically flung the shower curtain back, spreading her arms wide like Vanna White presenting the shampoo, conditioners and pre-shampooing treatments that took up 85% of the shower real estate. 

Laughing at how wide Joe's eyes became as they flicked back and forth between the basket and the products lining the shower wall she stepped closer to him. "Now do you see why this is my least favorite part of the week?" 

Shaking his head, Joe stared into her eyes, "Yeah, but that's why I'm here," he pulled his sweatshirt over his head, stepping closer to her, enjoying the way her eyes widened and her throat bobbed as she took in his shirtless form, "to make it more fun." He whispered those last words in her ear and he enjoyed watching goosebumps erupt all across her shoulders.  

"Then let's make this really fun..." she drawled seductively as she pulled back, licking her lips. Joe's eyes lit up as he leaned forward only to pull back with a shout as she brandished two combs in front of her, "by detangling my hair. And if you do so without making me cry I promise I'll suck your dick." 

It was like one minute she had the comb in her hand and the next Joe had it in his hand and was instructing her to face the mirror. 

Laughing, she grabbed four clips from her basket and explained to Joe that first, they had to section her hair, get each section wet, work a pre-shampoo product through the sections, then they could detangle it and work her hair into twists. 

"Oh, that's not too bad." Joe scoffed as he gently divided her hair into two sections. 

"That's just the first step." 

Joe paused, eyes staring into the middle distance as he took this information in. 

"I know. I'm sorry, babe." 

"Hey, never apologize for stuff like this. Besides, we get to spend time together. In the shower," she giggled as he wiggled his eyebrows up and down, "and there's nothing better than spending time with you. No matter what we're doing." 

"Really? You mean that, Joey?" she bit her lip as she fiddled with her fingers, feeling bashful at the compliment. 

"Hey," she brought her eyes up to meet Joe's in the mirror, "we could be going to the fucking DMV and it'd be the same amount of fun as going to Disney."  

"We'd probably stand in line an equal amount of time." 

"True. Now. Show me the best way to do this." Joe asked, straightening up. His eyes were laser focused as she sectioned off one part of her hair. His eyes drinking in every movement of her hands as she deftly wet the section and combed the pre-shampoo treatment over her curls. He even mimicked her hands movements in the air as she showed him how to coil her hair into twists and secure it.

Nodding, he exhaled, "I think I got this, (Y/N)." 

Smiling, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, "I know you've got this. Just follow along with me."

As she slowed down her original demonstration, Joe's focus grew. She could tell because the tip of his tongue was poking out between his lips, his brow furrowed. 

"Hey! Joey! That looks great!" 

Stepping back, planting his hands on his hips, he titled his head to the side, "Yeah, it doesn't look half bad does it?" 

Spinning around, she threw her arms around his neck, catching him off guard with a deep kiss. Taking a step or two backward, he quickly regained his equilibrium by grasping her hips and pulling her closer to him.  

After a few seconds, they pulled apart. (Y/N) knew her chest was heaving but that was the effect Joe had on her. 

"This is more intimate to me than anything we've ever done." she confessed in a soft voice.

"Yeah? Why's that?" he whispered, pressing another featherlight kiss to her lips.

"Well, I guess because I figured most guys aren't interested in how girls do their hair," Joe tilted his head to the side, "but the fact that you took an interest and you care and took it seriously. Joe...that means more to me than you'll ever know and I love you for it."

Joe had felt his heart steadily grow with each word uttered. By the time the last word fell from her lips, he was sure (Y/N) could feel his his heart pressing against his rib cage, ready to burst through his chest. 

"I love you too, (Y/N). I'm-I'm really honored that you took the time to show me and let me help you. I-god, I'm just so lucky to have you in my life." 

Feeling like the tears building in her eyes might spill over if he said anything else, she kissed him, hard. Pulling back, she sniffed, "I'm lucky to have you in my life too. Now, I don't have to do this alone all the time." 

Rolling his eyes, he pinched her hips, making her squeal.

"Alright, smart ass. What's the next step?" 

"Now's the fun part, we have to get in the shower." She explained as she turned to twist the shower on. Turning back around she was met with a Joe who had his pants and underwear around his ankles, his cock already half-hard. 

Slapping a hand over her mouth to contain the laughter that threatened to fly out of her, Joe cocked an eyebrow, "What? We gotta shower, let's GO." Reaching for her he tugged at the hem of her shirt. In between bouts of laughter, she let Joe undress her. He took his time, pressing kisses down her legs as he helped her step out of her shorts and panties. Finally, they stood facing each other. Joe's eyes became hooded, "Goddamn (Y/N), you're so gorgeous, I-god." Overwhelmed by the praise, she avoided his gaze by moving to test the temperature of the water, after a few seconds, she looked over her shoulder at Joe.

Who was unabashedly staring at her ass. 

Smirking, she wiggled her hips back and forth, laughing at the effect it had on her boyfriend. 

"Why are you trying to kill me?" He whined, moving forward to smooth a hand over her curves.

Giggling, she reached her hand back to flick water in Joe's face, "Because it's fun." 

"Yeah, hilarious." Joe grumbled as he swiped a hand over his face, taking the hand she offered as he stepped into the shower with her. 

Feeling the water run down her body relaxed her muscles instantly. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back, relishing in the calm that washed over her. Joe's eyes were wide open, drinking in her form hungrily. 

After a few beats, she opened her eyes, meeting his, "Can you hand that to me?" she pointed at the shampoo bottle behind Joe. 

"I got it, baby. Turn around." 

"Are you sure?"

"I think I can handle shampoo, but let me know if there's anything in particular I need to know. I don't want to ruin our handiwork." 

Turning so her back was to Joe, she tilted her head back. Sighing as he gently massaged her scalp, working the shampoo into her hair. The scent of coconut permeating the warm air, Joe became mesmerized by the way the suds ran down her twists. 

"Turn around baby. Face me. Want to see that pretty face." Joe murmured as he traced a finger down her spine, enjoying how the way her body shuddered. 

"There's my beautiful girl," he smiled when she turned to face him, face lighting up with a smile to match his. 

Reaching a hand out, she laid it on his chest, feeling his heart beat underneath her palm, "Your heart's beating really fast, Joey." 

"What do you expect? I'm naked. In the shower. With the most radiant woman in the world who I somehow convinced to be my girlfriend. Sorry if I'm a little worked up." He scoffed. 

"There was no convincing, Joe. I was yours five minutes into our first date." Blinking up at him through her eyelashes, Joe almost fell to his knees at the intensity of the feelings that crashed through him. 

"So was I, darling." His voice huskier than normal. 

Letting her eyes flutter closed she inhaled shakily, "Our water bill is going to be astronomical this month if we don't hurry this process up." 

"It could be a thousand dollars and it would be so, so worth it." Joe breathed out as he pressed a kiss to her neck. 

Shaking her head, she stepped back, "It would, but also the last time we tried to get sexy in the shower, we both almost wound up in the hospital. So, hand me the conditioner and we can wrap this process up."

"No fun." 

"You just want to go to the hospital for a sex related injury so you can brag about it to Ben, Rami and Gwil, don't you?" 

"I'm just saying! It would really help me secure the position of 'coolest dude' in the group chat."

Rolling her eyes, she squirted conditioner into Joe's palm, "Well, we have time. Let's come up with a good story, I'll back you up." 

"You would do that for me?" Joe asked as he spread conditioner over each of her twists.

"Of course. We're a couple, Joe. We gotta have each others backs, especially when it comes to important stuff like this. Can't have Rami and Lucy outdoing us in terms of freakiest sex life, can we?" 

The water was running cold by the time they shut it off. Joe stepping out first and offering his hand to (Y/N) so she could step out carefully. 

Handing her the t-shirt she always used to dry her hair after a shower, ("Hey, this looks like the one shirt I was trying to find a few months ago." "Huh, weird how that happens. Can I dry my hair or what, Joe?") they were still trying to figure out what kind of injury would be best for this story they were crafting. 

"Well, it can't be like a broken bone or something involving a cast because then they'd ask for pictures of it and that would get tricky."

"Maybe a sprained ankle?" 

"You could just say your pride was wounded." His eyes grew soft as he stared at (Y/N). She had wrapped the shirt around her face, holding it together at her chin, staring up at him with extra wide eyes. 

"You're too good to me." 

"I know." She shrugged as she stepped around Joe to face the mirror once again. "Alright, you ready to learn how to do a bantu knot?"

Straightening up, Joe shot her a salute, "Yes, miss." 

Snorting, she walked Joe through how to get each twist into a bantu knot and how to secure it. Watching his dexterous fingers twist themselves into and around her hair made her stomach clench in both want and appreciation for how seriously he was taking this whole endeavor. 

"Annnnd....done!" Joe raised his arms in a flying V as she turned her head back and forth, inspecting their handiwork. 

"That's perfect. It's going to look great. Thank you so so much for your help, babe." She turned around to give Joe a hug.

Wrapping his arms around her form, he pulled her flush to him. Nestling her face into the crook of his neck she let out a content sigh.

Then her eyes flew open.

"Uh, Joe?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that...um...how long have you been hard?"

"Oh, thank you for asking. Pretty much since we got in the shower." 

Lifting her head up so her mouth was in line with his ear she murmured, "Well, do you want me to help you with that?" 

Grabbing her hand, he tugged her into their bedroom, her laughing ringing out through the apartment. 

~~~

As Joe made coffee the next morning while checking his email, he barely glanced up when she padded into the kitchen, offering him a soft "morning" as she grabbed two mugs from the cupboard.

"Morni-wow." he breathed out when he finally gave her his full attention. 

"What?" 

The morning light streaming through their kitchen window bounced off each ringlet, making them shine. As she wrapped her arms around Joe's middle, he buried his face into her hair, inhaling deeply. The scent of coconuts, her perfume and the coffee that was brewing was the best love potion he'd ever encountered. 

"You know, I always thought your hair was gorgeous, but after yesterday, it's even more gorgeous. Probably because I helped to make it this gorgeous." He joked as he gave her curls a gentle tug. 

"Have I thanked you enough for helping me yesterday, by the way?" 

"Well, you made sure I came twice last night so...I'd say we're pretty much even."

Disentangling from his embrace she giggled, pouring them both coffee. "Well, I guess I like our new Sunday tradition." 

Taking a sip, Joe cocked an eyebrow at her, indicating he was listening.

"Sunday is now officially Wash and Shower Sex Day." 

A dreamy look settled over Joe's face, "Yeah, that's a tradition I can get behind." 

Oh yeah, addendum to the other post from earlier because I went to bed after I found it, but yeah. I found the spot where it talks about it finally. But just annoyed because I think it was an issue with like textual clean up or my phone browser at the time screwing with me as I went back and forth to the translation notes that it probably wasn't as clearly input into my memory the first time around. I don't have ad blockers on my phone so when I was originally reading it I was having formatting issues that I think distracted my reading sometimes. I still managed to remember quite a lot of details in general for the plot, I think, but I remember it was frustrating to try to get to the end. Checking now on my desktop and the formatting issues are near nonexistent so it's easier to read and jog my memory that oh yeah I did read this part.

But also still annoyed that it's improperly cited on the wiki cuz ugh, that's not how you write a wiki. Proper chapter citations, yo. It is in 81 not 92. *facepalm* Still kind of wondering where that other part I read when I started this book was mentioned? Still haven't seen that at all.

I think also I remember I was a bit more concerned about the overall meaning of what the ending meant too than what Qinghua was saying. Like the way everything turned out in the book it was really sweet and all and I like Qingqiu and Binghe together, but I was and still am really concerned that they only really work as a couple in this book specifically because of the circumstances of the book. I can understand people IRL are repressed or don't think about their own sexuality and maybe discover it later or under the right circumstances, but at the same time the way things unfolded also gives me some concerns. It's more possible that someone who is straight might only think so because it's just the normal accepted type of relationship we see in our modern society so they don't question or explore it so they don't know, but at the same time, I'm also concerned because your sexuality doesn't just change because of one person either. IRL if someone is not into you, they're not into you. I'm a little worried as well that the relationship between the characters is also a little coercive. Like when we're talking about enthusiastic consent IRL it means for all partners and both people in a relationship should thoughtfully respect the other's boundaries and needs, and unfortunately, Binghe tends to not respect boundaries. It makes for good comedy and cuteness in a fictional work, but a lot of young people also read this book and it worries me a bit what some people might learn about relationships in that regard.

Like this maybe a separate thing, but like thinking about the consent in the relationship in this book reminds me of a Reddit post I saw where this one guy was asking for advice about a situation with his gf where his gf would only sleep with him if he put on Sasuke cosplay and she wore Naruto cosplay and basically they acted out her BL fantasy. And like he was very kind and onboard with her roleplay because he wanted her to be happy, but also like when he asked to maybe not do the cosplay, she would get upset and refuse to be intimate with him in any other way. And like, yeah, the situation is very funny, but because this is a real life couple you can see how when only one person bends to their partner's desires and needs, it can leave the other person feeling unheard and empty. As hilarious as it sounds, a lot of people were very sympathetic for the guy and feeling for him cuz like he was doing everything right and giving it a try for her and then also just approaching her maturely and trying to talk about his own comfort in that regard and she wasn't hearing him. So similar to how I feel bad and afraid for that guy, I actually feel kind of concerned and afraid for SY/Qingqiu a little. Like if both of them were my friend IRL, I would legit be worried that Binghe wasn't always listening to Qingqiu's needs. The relationship needs to be an equal give and take or at least balanced, but one side tends to take more and act more selfishly, and it's like, you only feel worried and want them to talk to each other more and grow because you want them to be able to last together.

Still kind of getting into the other books, but in comparison the other relationships in the other two books seem to be more positive and supportive. Like TGCF seems to be the most healthy and functional as an actual relationship.

Also a bit concerned that Airplane's original outline was a teacher x student relationship. Like we can argue it's okay for SY cuz he's not really Qingqiu, but that relationship being the original outline is also risque and that is NG at worst and a huge risk at best. Like it was viewed bad enough already that Qingqiu was written to eye Ning Yingying, it wouldn't be viewed any better if that part of the original outline was in it too. On the plus side the way SVSSS plays out Binghe is an adult already when the situation happens and it is at a more appropriate time, but the optics are pretty bad just because of like ideas of society that a master is like a parent and a disciple is like a child. It's also related to the titles and such that they call each other like shixiong, shidi, etc. They have family dynamics with each other so it's not great. It's not like there aren't some situations IRL where teacher and student become a couple, but in many circumstances it's highly inappropriate. The underage issue is the normal problem. But if they are grown and it is later when you are no longer their teacher I've seen some couples where it worked out, but it's a situation of consenting adults at least. Still a little concerned about the power imbalance dynamics. In IRL situations that's a big thing too. Other than age, one person being able to affect other parts of your life on a whim is a huge stressor on a relationship you don't need. I can kind of understand how it would have worked out in a positive if like Qingqiu had shown empathy for Binghe when they first met because their lives mirror each other's, but like a lot of the other things Qinghua added into the story like the extent of Qingqiu's traumas being played out as asshole behavior became huge barriers. Like I mentioned, with just his traumas it would be very difficult for him to be able to have even a deep friendship with other men, which is similar to how IRL people in real life don't have a chance to explore themselves because of various issues and stuff in society. But also Binghe being ultimately unhappy by just doing what the world thinks he should do and not what he wants on both an in-world level and a meta level. We don't get a whole lot on Shen Jiu, so I'm really curious how that would have actually worked on his end because he seemed really broken, but it's impossible to parse out what of the original plot we can imagine to remove to understand the original outline and how it would have happened. He was very alone and even though the pipa player called him a friend, it doesn't seem like he was able to have a close enough friend to talk with or confide in at all. But is that isolation part of the original outline or part of the PIDW plot?

Anyway, it's things like that that I think about all the time and that's why I end up going into dives into the wiki cuz I want to like think about something and want to check notes real quick to make sure I'm thinking about it right. But the wiki is unreliable. Like also there was one part where it says that the bad cultivation manual was only something the other disciples did to Binghe, but in SJ's POV chapter he literally says that he gave him the shitty one. The wiki also claimed that him pouring tea was also actually an application of medicine misunderstood, but I haven't found any evidence of that either and it's just stuff like that that send me into a rabbit hole that derail me from my original thoughts I'm trying to work out.

Have you ever tried to walk on a moving vehicle and fallen over?: I didn’t fall When was the last time you were a passenger in a car and sat in the back?: I always sit in the back

What is the longest your hair has ever been?: to my butt Who does the grocery shopping in your household?: we all do but me and dad most often What is the best thing you’ve ever bought at a thrift shop?: I bought so many things! Have you ever been pulled aside by security at the airport?: not applicable Do you watch The Simpsons regularly?: I don’t but I like this show anyway :) Did you ever go to summer camp when you were younger?: twice Do you know anyone who is fluent in a second tongue?: me Have you ever been pressured into doing drugs? Did you say yes or no?: I said no

When you were younger, did you have a swing set or a playhouse in your backyard? had a swing Do you burn incense? I heard it causes cancer :(

Does being in love make you nervous? yep Have you ever been so quiet that nobody noticed that you were there? from what I remember Did you ever stop having feelings for someone and then started having those feelings again for them? yeah Do you stay home when you are sick or do you still go out? stay home What’s your relationship with the person you last texted? we’re datinh Have you had more than 3 gfs at the same time? nooo Are you in a good mood right now? sigh... Have you kissed someone with braces? I have XD Who’s your favorite redhead? real, celeb or character?

How do you feel about being in the house alone? cool When was the last time you burnt your mouth from eating something too hot? it happens often as I don’t feel it being hot most of the time :( Do you prefer instrumental songs or ones with lyrics? lyrics Do you have any old friends who you still kinda speak to but it’s awkward? sigh...  When was the last time you used a quote from a movie in real life? today? Do you forget things easily? depends/some

Would/Do you like having brown eyes? maybe Do you spend a lot of time on the internet? too much Have you bought anyone a Christmas gift? not yet

What is one of your favorite compliments to recieve? compliments are awkward :x Do you compliment other random people? rarely What do you use Facebook for? texting mostly Do you love cartoons? some are nice Do you paint your own nails? I did

Describe your style in one word. comfy Describe your current personality in one or two words. complicated Are you afraid of child birth/pregnancy? it’s one of the reasons why I don’t want any kids What are you favorite bottoms to wear? leggings or pajama pants Do you like dresses? not really Do you eat cake with a spoon or a fork? tiny fork but spoon is fine as well What is your favorite sex position? ;) I'm not a fan of sex What color will you paint your nails next? black if any Are you afraid of ghosts/hauntings? kinda What is your favorite game to play with family/friends? board games and/or car racing games with dad What is your beer of choice? I don’t drink beer Do you like glitter? could say so Have you ever owned a Ouija board? hell no Do you like to text? it seems If you had to be an animal for Halloween, what would it be? bat, cat or wolf (eventually a raccoon but it’s not a Halloween related animal) Do you have more dry skin or oily skin? mixed

Name something that starts with the first letter of your first name. zoo Name something that starts with the first letter of your middle name? - And your lastname. chicken Would you spend 20 dollars on a candle? no way What is the goriest thing you’ve seen in real life? hmm... Twilight or Harry Potter? HP Would you rather be a vampire or a mermaid? vampire P.E or Math? Math or Science? dunno What do you do when someone is really rude to you in public? hard to tell Do you argue with your significant other a lot? we don’t argue  Have you ever had a really painful breakup? they were painful to me What do you like to write with? my hands lmfao Do you prefer to be pale or tan? Don’t say in between. pale What is your favorite thing about Christmas? decorations and gifts but also spending time with my parents Do you prefer white or black electronics? black A stranger comes up to you and gives you a big hug, what do you do? :o Do your eyes tear up when you’re nervous? might Apples or Bananas? apples Water or Milk? water Would you milk a cow given the chance? it’s weird Where do you shop for your underwear? I don’t have a fav place to do that

Do you feel more comfortable sleeping in your own bed or in a hotel bed? my own 

Do you prefer to travel by plane, car, or boat? car

Who is your favorite travel buddy? dad

What’s the best souvenir you have ever purchased? can’t choose

What’s your favorite book to read during a long ride? I don’t read while travelling

What’s the most entertaining story you have about getting lost? me and my father been talking so loud that someone on the street just stopped by and told us where the place we’re looking for is ^^”

What was the most expensive trip you have ever taken? ask my family

Which songs are on your travel playlist? whatever

Which travel blogs do you follow? none

Do you complain when you are bored, or look for something to do? I’m never bored so I don’t complain about it

Do other people’s complaints ever get on your nerves? some/depends

How did you develop your specific taste in music? can’t explain that 

If you drink coffee, how do you like it (with cream, black, etc)? I don’t drink coffee

Did your parents sign you up for things like piano lessons and ballet? no and now I’m a loser

What is your favorite children’s song? Kokoszeczka

Are you good at telling jokes? I am

Other than gas, what do you frequently purchase at a gas station? I don’t purchase anything there

Ten years ago, did you think that this was how the world would turn out? ...

Ever think you might be better off living in a different time period? yup

Do you walk regularly? not regularly but often

If you could have the answer to one question, what question would that be? personal

Do you like any bands from other countries? obvi, most of those I like aren’t from Poland, I don’t like polish music 

When was the last time you mailed a handwritten letter? years ago

Do you still receive Christmas cards? my mom does

Do you know anyone who is really hard to please? sadly

What gets you through the day? I wonder myself

If you found out your bf/gf was homosexual, how would you react? I know she is - elseway we wouldn’t date (ok, she could be bi, I know)

If you are homosexual, and you find out your bf/gf is straight, then what? we break up 

Have you ever sung karaoke? What songs? Was it fun? it was Ich troje song *embarassed*

Have you called anyone today? What did you talk about? not today

Do you drive around the neighborhood to look at lights around Xmas? I like to look but I don’t ride around just for that

Why are so many single people bitter on Valentine’s Day? because they’re lonely and because this day is fake 

What is one tradition you hate participating in? personal

Have you made a fool of yourself today? probably

When was the last time you did something for someone else? recently

Do you let other people choose the radio stations in your car? but I don’t have a car 

Would you say that you are an accepting and openminded person? am not

Have you ever been convinced to try something you didn’t want to do? I have been

When was the last time you cheated–at anything? last time I used motherlode in The sims 4 game?

When you are mad at someone, how do you show them? depends

When was the last time you felt you had a reality check? blergh

Have you ever felt out of touch with reality? dissociation, derealisation, depersonalisation etc.

Have you ever had a tooth pulled? not since I was a kid

How long do you you usually chew a stick of gum? didn’t check the timing

Was there any teacher that made life living hell for you? it wasn’t THAT bad but it wasn’t good 

How about any student(s)? I’ve been bullied if it’s what you’re asking me about - still could be much worse

When was the last time you felt overwhelmed? 24/7

Do you have any coffee mugs with funny pictures/sayings? Did I just rolled my eyes out loud 

Describe something strange that you own? where should I start...

Do you think graffiti is a valid form of artistic expression? I don’t approve of it when it vandalizes property

Are you afraid to walk places at night if you are alone? I’m a petite woman so...

What do you think of people who are shy? hard to keep contact with them

Have you ever gone through a time when you had no friends? How did you deal with it? not counting my family - last several years - I was ok with it as I’m a loner, homebody, introvert

What is something that shouldn’t bother you, but does anyway? fuck off!

Has any food ever made you sick to the point where you’d be afraid to try it again? that happened more than once already

Can you hear traffic right now? I don’t hear anything :3

Have you taken a painkiller today? no

Have you had a nap today? neither

Are you currently in a relationship? If so, do you think it will last? don’t feed my paranoia...

Do you have a hyphenate name or know anyone with one? (eg. Carter-Brown) my sister

Do you take your Christmas decorations down before or after New Years? after

Have you made a large purchase today? I didn’t buy anything today, it’s Sunday

Have you ever used a leaf blower? we don’t own one, we’re not rich

You see someone running around naked in the street. Your reaction? if it’s neighbor’s kid that’s no surprise

Has someone close to you died of murder? no one close to me but still a family member of some sort

Would you ever have sex with the last person you texted? done

Do you abbreviate when you text? that’s lazy of me, I know

Is anyone in the room on the phone right now? I’m playing a game

First of all I want to thank you for this beautiful and interesting blog you have. I can imagine you have many requests for dating you. How do you know which one is sincere with you and worthy?

Answering as Miss K8 Morgan, of K8Morgan.com 

Hello, and thank you very much for reading and enjoying this interesting blog of mine! :) And my Twitter, too! And thank you for giving me this opportunity to #dommesplain a few things to my kind followers and readers… 

But back to your question, out of the many requests for dating that I get, how do I know which one is sincere with me and worthy?

Well, it is a good question, but I would expand the categories in it further. How do I know those requests are 

sincere, 

realistic, 

acceptable, and 

worthy. 

For better understanding of the selection process, let’s take a closer look at each category individually, and examine them in detail, shall we?

1. Sincerity 

I have this saying, “no one is more sincere than a man firm in his delusions.” This is ever-so-applicable to each and every stranger from the Internet who has ever written to me with an inquiry to date me… And even to some guys making such inquiries after meeting me a few times, here and there. What can I say, I believe that all of them are most sincere in their desires to date me, or someone like me, or the “me” they imagine – and even more sincere in using their offer to date me as a means to avoid paying my session or social fees. Sincerity is not a problem here, Delusion – or lack of realism – is! 

2. Realism

So how do I know when somebody is being realistic? I suppose in the same way you, or anyone else would know. It just requires some common sense. For example, no realistic message has ever started with, or included, the following:

“Hello, Mistress, I am a real no-limits slave. I will do anything you want [except booking a session and actually paying me for my time] but I think pro dommes only do things for money, but I am looking for someone to dominate me for free as part of a FemaleLed relationship” To this particular kind of drivel you can also add things like “…but I am still a virgin”, “…but I am still married” “…but I have never seen a Mistress before” and a plethora of similar verbal identifiers. 

“… I have an excellent life, career and social circle here in the [insert any US city] and am able to provide you with a life in which you wouldn’t have to work.” This particular statement is more common than you think, and is ALWAYS US-based. Somehow they seem to believe that we, here in Europe, suffer greatly from our free health care, non-GM, locally grown wholesome food, the quaint culture and history of our countries, the public transport and rights to privacy protection. And it implies that because the author of it is so “overwhelmingly generous” – with his words – I am going to drop everything: my job, my family, my life, my friends, sell my cats to the Circus, and move to the US, to be his…mail-order pet-bride??? Someone with no job, no independence, no voting rights and with a precarious immigration status. To be bored to injuries, until death do us part? NO THANKS!   

“…I am not rich and do not have a fancy car, a palace for a house and travelling for me more often includes a backpack and a tent – I appreciate simple things in life…” Say no more, bro! I, myself, appreciate finer things in life, the finer the better, and the only way you would see me with a backpack in a national park is if some psycho has killed me, stuffed me into that backpack and is carrying me to bury me in a shallow grave there. I like fancy cars, I like rare timepieces, I enjoy luxury travel, fine dining, fine wine, fine arts… As a matter of fact, I unapologetically love all things fanciful and complicated, and am not looking to change that any time soon.

“…and I probably do not make enough to have you as a GF, but I thought I’d try anyway.” Mate, I wish you didn’t. I hear your pain, I myself do not have enough to buy me a Lamborghini Aventador S. Not even a stinky Murcielago… And every morning I wake up, and I come to terms with this harsh, cruel, unfair reality. But never once have I written to a dealership to try to get one anyway! Luckily, you can still book a session to enjoy me for a limited amount of time, and I can still go to the dealership and stare to my heart’s delight…

“…I do not believe in having to pay to date…” What are you doing writing to me, then??? You might as well try and tell me that you believe Jesus loves me, and that Earth is flat… Keep your beliefs to yourself, mate, no one here has asked to hear them – or I swear to Jesus that loves me I will bring out my pie chart again!

These are some of the most common examples of my dating wannabes, but that list is truly endless and ever-growing. But what would, then, a realistic approach entail? I would say a situational self-evaluation study: what you do, where you live, how much free time and disposable income you have, how much of it are you willing to spend on dating, if we live in different cities how often can you travel, and how often you’d need me to travel, what you’d ideally like to achieve with this relationship, when you’d like it to start, and whether you prefer it as a permanent or a fixed term contract. There, no rocket science, is it?

3. Acceptability

But what, then, would be the acceptable terms for me to favorably consider an offer? I think the main factors would have to be:

geographical compatibility, 

time strain, and 

relationship goals. 

It is not a secret that I am in my mid-30es, so I am old, lazy, and by now I have visited most places I had an interest in. I no longer get excited about having to take a trans-Atlantic flight to see someone for a date because “we are going to see DisneyWorld!!!!!”. I stopped being excited about it some…20 years ago. 

There are only two places in the US I am interested in, one is New England – in autumn or in winter, and another is Portland, OR in spring/summer. Part of my education took place in New England (I do not specify where for privacy reasons, so do not ask), and I have spent some time in Oregon in later years, too, both those are two places very dear to my heart. The rest of the US: seen, done, not much interest to revisit. And very little interest to return to live in the US at this point in my life. 

Same goes for SE Asia and Middle East. Would consider visiting, would not consider moving. Would not consider having to take 4 connecting flights to reach the final destination. Would not consider getting stoned to death for being your house guest. 

If frequent travel is required on my part, then it will have to be somewhere within a 3hr flight radius from Paris. I do have my pet peeve places, i.e. London. If you are someone who has tried to get me to come to London for a tour before, you’d be familiar with my “not enough money in the world to make me suffer through that indignity!” rant. I have lived there for too long, as one can tell, and I only visit when I absolutely must, as in, for legal obligations, deaths or weddings. I am somewhat more ok with Edinburgh.

I do have my “preferred” list, too! This year it features Stockholm (love that northern gem and the Swedish boys!), Zurich, Frankfurt, Vienna, Salzburg, Paris and most of France (once the strikes are over!), and I would love to discover Tunisia, Morocco and Israel (as I have heard very good things), but I am open to suggestions as long as there are direct flights. 

As for time restraints, then really anything above cumulative 2 weeks per month is unreasonable. I want my space, and I want my time. You should want yours! If you want to have an overly-attached live-in GF – look elsewhere. I am all for fun and intense time together inter-twinned with time dedicated solely to work. A “weekend relationship” would work very well for me, for example.

And when it comes to relationship goals, I understand that these change with time. And I think a relationship with me would be good for someone single, successful and busy with his own professional life, who wants to enjoy some time with kinky stimulating company without having to buy into societal pre-sets. However, if the end goal is to get married and have 3 kids – once again, I am not the Droid you are looking for.

I would say I am an ideal life companion for a social renegade and adventurer whose end goal is the same as his intermediate aspirations – joy, stimulating fun and absolution from boredom and trivia. I will be wasted on others… 

4. Worthiness of the Offer. 

And how, then, do I decide if the offer is worth it? Well, this subject is reminiscent of my earlier post, 15. Let Me Draw You A Pie Chart, and the arising Mathematical solutions. As with any relationship, I expect to be better off with it than without it. The offer will have to consider the amount of travel necessary, the cost of it, and the cost of my time. But overall, I would say, for a successful candidate with an interesting offer, the cost of weekend-dating me, per month, for 3 weekends, one of them long, would more or less be the cost of booking a long weekend Private Tour with me at my work rate. Which may seem like a steal and it is certainly a bargain in relative terms, but it is an eye-watering amount of money, for most people, and it is definitely not available to just anyone. 

As the matters stand, tomorrow will be the first time in a year that I have agreed to hear out an offer from an existing client, and I do not know whether or not we will be able to reach a consensus on terms. Alas, such is #DommeLife 

No one, under the penalty of the EU copyright laws, is allowed to use or reproduce my blog or individual posts, or even passages, in any way, shape or form, be it for Netflix series, Amazon books, or anything of the kind, regardless of the credit given. If you have any questions, you may contact me via K8Morgan.com

My experience growing up as an Artist (and trying to get a job)

Buckle up, it’s a long one.

I’ve never really thought about doing an actual written blog entry on here before as I’ve normally not really had much to say and prefer to talk about my work. But I thought it could be helpful to share my personal experiences of trying to get work post-university from the perspective of an illustrator/artist. This could be helpful to you if you’ve just graduated, are thinking of doing a course at uni or are currently freelance and are wondering how to get your first break in a full-time art job. Emphasis on could. 

So for those of you who’ve never met me (which is pretty much 99%+ of my followers), I’ve always drawn characters from games and comics etc. If I saw a character that blew my mind as a kid, I drew them. I had a big, lined, A4 notebook and drew in with biro pen. I drew in class when I wasn’t supposed to. I drew in my weekly planner for lessons (where you were supposed to write homework and deadlines etc) and then got into detentions because of them where I was even made to go through and cover them all up using paper and glue...Art at secondary school DID NOT help me. At all. A lot of schools don’t understand/recognise the games/comic/entertainment industry (or at least seemingly prestigious ones from the north where people make money by farming and/or settling into a mundane plane of conformative existence revolving around having kids way too early and peaking before you’re 25 before forever there after living in a bubble safely tucked away from the rest of the world and society). To be fair, schools have to cover a potentially very broad spectrum and kids don’t always know what’s best for them and where they want to end up. But sometimes kids DO know where they want to end up. To also be fair, my art teachers could see that fine art wasn’t my thing and that I was technically a good artist when it came to drawing, so they sort of gave me a lot of leeway when it came to work guidelines (one of my main teachers also looked and acted like Dean McCoppin from Iron Giant which was pretty much the best thing that could have happened there). 

Anyway, moving onto University. In the UK, 2011 was the year the university fees basically tripled...The work I did at that school didn’t really help me much when applying for places. No one I knew wanted to do anything similar. And there were no adults who had any idea what I needed to do to get to the places I wanted either. So I was on my own. Suffice to say I failed at getting onto a 3 year course (which I’ve always imagined was potentially due to increased demand just before the fees went up). The lecturer doing a portfolio review with me said I had “too many werewolves” and the less said about all of that the better. I think maybe there was two werewolves, done in the same style the point of which being that one was male and one was female and I’d tried to make that visually evident. However, I was offered a place on a 1 year Art and Design course (yay...). Ironically, the foundation course turned out to pretty much help me un-learn EVERYTHING that I had spent the last 7 years being told to do. Crazy right? It annoyed me that I had to spend an extra year there (though not from the social point of view and uni life) and straight after the course, I finally began a 3 year Illustration and Animation course. 

At 20 y/o (a year later than most) I started my 3 year course. I won’t say too much about the course itself as there’s a slight conflict of interest in regards to me potentially going back to lecture there soon. But in those 3 years, I gradually felt more and more comfortable to focus on producing work that I always felt I was supposed to be doing. Nothing great came out of my first year, the second year was arguably better/more professional and then finally in my third year I created a 26 page comic about monsters (which I drafted a good friend in to write the script for, bearing in mind he was on a course at the time too) which I called “Stubble” and it was the pinnacle of my artist achievements. It was a comic, but I had really developed these two characters from fairly in-cohesive and random creatures with rubber tire armour and boring shapes/silhouettes to these very much simplified, strange, stubble-y polar opposites of one another. So I figured that the ability to create characters and demonstrate that, would help get me into the games industry regardless, if I wanted to go that route. 

Then we had the end of year exhibition where we could showcase our final major projects. This got me noticed by a nearby toy design company in the area. It was exactly what I’d always hoped would happen, a job offer fresh out of university. They loved my work and I did a small-ish art test for them before being invited to a job interview that went really well. Their only major concern was my art style and whether I could adapt it appropriately for the sort of work they did. I was 23 y/o at the time, I was still no expert and hadn’t spent a whole lot of time doing product design on my non-product design based course (surprise surprise). I didn’t hear back from them for a while and because I’d never applied to salaried jobs before, I just thought it was the norm. I moved to London with my then gf and pretty much lost all motivation artistically when faced with the real world and trying to make ends meet in the most expensive part of the UK as a poor ass ex-student. Six months later, they got back to me. It was a no. They wanted to stress I was very much in the running along with 2 other applicants and choosing between the 3 of us had been the subject of much debate. So that sucked. And then not long after my long-term relationship fell apart which was a nice addition so I was back to square one at home with mummy and daddy and a seemingly useless degree. 

Thankfully, I had made some good friends who were still studying at my university and staying to live in the area afterwards to get work (they were all car designers). So at 24 y/o I pretty much begged them to let me move in with them so I could regain some independence and start again. I should probably mention that freelance work had been coming in post-uni in dribs and drabs. I was doing the work when I found it, but it was few and far between and not really helping me to create a uniform portfolio. I was applying to concept art and character art jobs where ever I could find them the whole time, despite really not having the portfolio to back them up because it was filled with irrelevant work such as cartoon cats I was doing for a legitimately crazy cat lady who was supposedly running a charity (but years later came to the conclusion she was more of an opportunist perpetually trying to reclaim her lost wealth and the life it had afforded her). I managed to end up working for Marvel and Lego which was weird. Though technically it wasn’t directly with either as the Marvel work was for a company who owned the rights to create licensed trading cards on Marvel’s behalf and the Lego job was outsourced to me through an agency that did media production and stuff for other companies. People always say to me “but the fact is you worked for Marvel and Lego”, and maybe it’s impostor syndrome speaking, but I don’t think they fully understand the way that kind of work...works (which is fine, but also perhaps trust the guy who’s been doing this for a living). I’d say I worked for Lego more legitimately than I did for Marvel.  

24/25 y/o and my confidence was taking a beating. I kept thinking how it was never meant to be this hard (getting a job). I’d been told by pretty much everyone I’d ever met, professional and otherwise, that I was talented and yet I wasn’t getting anywhere. Add to that the fact I was having to watch all my friends find work in their chosen fields easily and I’m honestly surprised I didn’t have/haven’t had a mental break down of some sort (especially after seeing how some people my age reacted to small periods of uncertainty). I DIGRESS, I started getting bolder with my applications and began sending them to places I thought were too good for me anyway and that would need me to be some sort of artistic veteran to even stand a chance at being considered. I’d mostly stuck to companies within the UK at this point, but I was having to move further afield because I’d exhausted what seemed to be every single games company the UK had to offer and felt like my work was more appropriate for what I deemed to be as bolder and more imaginative US companies. At the time, I was obsessed with League of Legends and had begun to learn about the company behind them, Riot Games. So I thought “fuck it” and I sent an application to their studio in Hong Kong despite being terrified by the prospect of moving there. And guess what?

They got back to me. 

Again, I don’t want to go into too much detail. But let’s just say I did another art test for this one. And then another. And then another. And then also another. I didn’t have a job, I was relying on my incredibly unreliable freelance work but pretty much prioritising the application process over everything else going on in my life. I was doing good work in my mind, quantity AND quality, the best of both worlds. I was pushing myself to get into a design frame of mind and applying my extensive knowledge of League of Legends to solve problems that I knew needed addressing in the best way I could. 

You can see where this is going. 

I didn’t get the job. I found out midday as I recall, which meant I had the whole day to wallow in self pity. But hey, I had a heap of new work for my portfolio. I was proud of it all for a few months at least and now I just feel like I have to include it in my portfolio because of how extensive it was and how much I threw myself at it. I realise now that quantity isn’t always the best thing. And I will never ever ever again draw that many iterations of a character in pencil with nice line work. It was a dumb way to work and it was slow as hell. You don’t focus on line work when you’re trying to develop ideas at an early stage, even if you’re trying to impress a big company. Part of the job is narrowing down ideas. But at the time I didn’t feel that it was my place to say what was and wasn’t good as I was trying to get in to a entry-level role and was expecting someone to make those decisions for me. I was the grunt, they were the overlord. Several months is a lot of time to exchange for a fairly simple lesson. Especially when you feel like you’re trying to play catch up in life and are now 2 years behind everyone else your age. But I’ve got to stress that I wasn’t an expert, I was still young and unlike most other people I knew, I literally had no one to advise me/ look to for tips. Which I think is something pretty much most artists go through at some point in their life seeing as we all end up pretty secluded. 

The thing is, I felt obligated to share the work I did from that application because it’s unfair to ask someone to invest so much (UNPAID) time and effort into something without letting them then use that to further their job hunt if you’re to turn them down. Art tests in general are unfair. Apply the idea of an unpaid test to most other areas of employment - marketing, banking (even bar tender jobs will pay you half the standard rate if they’re trailing you for the day) and people generally respond with something like “yeah I wouldn’t do something like that unless I was paid”. Because it comes across like you don’t respect yourself. And yet that is unfortunately the world we live in as artists. 

Moving on. Still 25 y/o going on 26, after posting pretty much all of that work on this very blog and whilst on holiday, I got an email from a guy called Ben saying he was from Riot Games and wondered if I wanted to collaborate on a comic together. I’d become accustomed to the word “collaborate” being synonymous with “free” so I was initially sceptical and didn’t think much of it. Instead turning my attention to the shrimps I was bbqing and jokingly telling my friends that some schmuck wanted to get free work out of me again. However, it began to become more real and eventually I understood that it was going to be a real job. Still freelance, but real. And for one of my favourite companies as well. I became one of 4 artists making web comics for Riot at the time and became pretty good friends with Ben. We made “Olaf Vs Everything” whilst the other horsemen of Ben’s apocalypse made “Crystal Quest”, “Academy Adventures” and “Punches and Plants” with him. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we had fun and did what we could with the limitations of the gig. Season 1 of the comic turned into season 2 and things seemed to be picking up. I was networking and making friends with like-minded artists across the world and suddenly didn’t feel so alone anymore.

I was super lucky to get invited to Riot’s HQ in L.A. along with a bunch of these other artists as part of Riot’s first Art Lab. It was a really crazy time in my life and didn’t quite feel real (sort of still doesn’t). I suddenly felt like I had something to back up my abilities to the friends and family around me and for once wasn’t a huge failure in my chosen field. It was a nice feeling and impostor syndrome definitely went away that week. 

That was over a year ago now, which is nuts. But I still know all these guys (and more). They’re a very talented bunch and for the most part, it seems like we’re all watching each other grow and actively try to get our dream jobs. Unlike the majority of artists I met at university, who seemed to only be in it for the qualification and have long since given up pursuing a career as artists. But don’t get me wrong, there were definitely some talented folks who made it work and some who really deserved to but I don’t think have done. Skip forward a bit and I actually started work as a part-time lecturer at my university in 2018, teaching the students taking the same course I did all those years ago. Working with the lecturer who 6/7 years prior had said my portfolio had too many werewolves in it (it’s some sort of running joke). It’s nice to see that they seem to be slightly more thirsty for knowledge than my year group was. The quality of their work is also a better I’d say. More diverse. And every single one of them has a drawing tablet in their first year (most of my year group didn’t get them until 2nd year, some never did). 

And now...

I spent the last few months actively sending out applications for concept art jobs again with my portfolio now containing my Artstation King Arthur competition entry in it (which has been helping me out more than I thought it would and you can see here: www.artstation.com/artwork/nQLePX). Side note - do an Artstation challenge if you can, they can be fun, push you and look great in your portfolio/cover letter. I found a job I really really really wanted that was nearby. It ticked all the boxes and almost seemed too good to be true. I did the procedural art test (unpaid of course) and had an interview. Everything felt good. Didn’t get the job. This time seemingly because of not being able to start immediately, despite the fact that all commitments I had had lined up for the next 2 months were completely cancellable. You can’t make this stuff up. So from now on, I will habitually write in capital letters on my cover letters “I CAN START IMMEDIATELY, I DON’T EVEN CARE IF I HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE STREETS IN BETWEEN WORK DAYS UNTIL I CAN FIND ACCOMMODATION, I’LL MAKE SURE I CLEAN MY TEETH BEFORE I COME IN AT THE VERY LEAST” as well as potentially screaming the word “IMMEEEEEDIATELYYYY” at any future interviewers upon hearing a “when can you start” related question. I would advise you to do the same. Well maybe not exactly the same, but y’know, just make sure they know you can start immediately. Bums in seats. Being able to start sooner = more important than being a good fit (sometimes anyway, so take that into consideration). 

I’ve mostly spent this past year realising that if I ever want to have a moderately “normal” life (aka having disposable income) then I had to give up doing comics in favour of concept art. I’d already felt that way for a long time, but this year I’ve actively avoided committing to big comic projects because they simply aren’t worth the time and effort in most cases. And to note, I did have a completely separate portfolio of comic page samples I sent out to publishers in an effort to up my game and I got absolutely no where. I’m not trying to dissuade any one else from succeeding where I’ve failed by any means. But you have to be prepared to fail a lot and if you can deal with that then by all means you should try. But for me, I really don’t like the prospect of taking a huge backwards step at this point in life, and by that I mean moving back home where it’s rent-free. Perseverance is an admirable trait. Persevering despite overwhelming odds. And though there is a very big difference between quitting and knowing when to quit, I think artists more so than any other profession don’t really know how to quit. Which is a pretty brave thing in most cases. Meanwhile, with each year that passes I feel like I can relate more and more to episodes of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa were all grown up and the major difference between the two career-wise. I love (ew grosss) my younger sister, don’t get me wrong (and don’t tell her) but she’s starting to make me look bad ahah. 

Next month I’m going to be doing a crash course at Escape Studios in London learning how to model/sculpt and animate a character of my own design in roughly 4 weeks. I’m hoping that broadening my skill set to 3D will increase my employability. It will at the very least mean I can eventually apply to character art jobs and stand a chance. However, after that course I am potentially going to look for part-time/full-time work in an unrelated field of work because I don’t really have a choice. 

I will keep looking for the concept art/ character art job out there that I know I’ll be good at. Because I’m in this for the long haul. And if you are as well, then I wish you the very best of luck and hope that something I’ve written here may help you out. 

Your hairy neighbourhood friend,

- Tom

Teacher’s Pet - Part Two.

request: Can i request a part 2 of teachers pet, where they get to the point in there relationship where they want to experiment in the bedroom or at least get started but everytime things get heated something or someone interrupts. Until the point y/n (and ellie) get really sexually frustrated, where y/n can't handle it anymore and basically has to spontaneously corner and jump her gf. Afterwards y/n turns back into her shy adorable self. Smut and fluff please.

notes: ...the flavor! I love this request & I’m sorry it took me so long to get to it. hope you’re still here! ;-)

warnings: well… smut, duh.

“So, do you wanna come by my room later?” you ask Ellie. You’d finally finished your required time as a student teacher, and now Emma taught strictly Advanced English while you taught standard English.

Ellie had never wanted to be normal so bad in her life. She liked the fact that AP English looked good on college applications, but she wished you’d tell her she needed to talk to you after class ‘about her grades’ so she could pin you to that desk and- “Hey, you’re not angry with me, are you? You’ve got a really dark look in your eye.” A really hot look, too.

“It’s called having brown eyes, doofus. Sure.”

“I’ll have to grade the essays from third period for some of the afternoon, they’re due in tomorrow, but you can do your homework while I do that and afterwards we can hang out and just do… Whatever,” you tell her, blushing a little and looking away in embarrassment.

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees, hoping she doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic. “Whatever.”

After fourth, fifth, and sixth period, Ellie makes her way to your room. You’re already working on grading, sitting on your bed with your laptop and notebook out, toying with a pen.

“Hey,” says Ellie, and you nearly bounce on the bed with how you jumped.

“Hey,” you reply. She closes the door behind her, afterwards tossing her bag by the door and getting out her math homework, a worksheet. Ellie takes off her boots before sitting on your bed with you. She’s using her binder for the same subject to bear down on and work. “How was your day?”

“It was okay,” Ellie responds dumbly, trying not to look at you. You’d unbuttoned your shirt significantly since the last time she’d seen you. You were usually more of a top button girl, but right now Ellie could almost see your bra and could definitely see your chest.

She still wanted more.

“Oh! Sorry, it was just getting kind of um… Tight, and hot.” You start to button your shirt up, avoiding her angry eyes.

“No!” Ellie blurts. You squeak, removing your fingers from the buttons and smiling a bit to yourself at her reaction.

“Okay…”

“Uh, do you wanna take a break from working on this uh… Stuff?” Ellie asks. She thought she could be patient, but it’s getting harder and harder.

“Take a break? We just started. Oh, wait, that look in your eye is back. You’re not getting too frustrated with the math work, are you? I can probably help,” you offer.

“I’m not- I’m not frustrated with the math work. I’m not frustrated at all. Well, maybe frustrated in one way,” she says. That look in her eye isn’t going away, and it makes you more and more breathless every time she catches your gaze.

“Huh?”

“For a genius, you really don’t seem to understand…I- I wanna- You- Me-” She sighs in frustration. “I want to- Making out. Sex.”

You feel heat rush to not only your face but every inch of your body, eyes widening. You hadn’t really thought about that stuff, more content to follow Ellie’s lead and focus more on your career as a teacher than sexual things, which means the two of you had only made out before now.

“Oh… Yeah, um, yeah, Let me just close this.” You close your laptop, moving it and your lapdesk off the bed. Ellie tosses her homework and binder aside, remaining on her knees as she moves towards you. You rise to your knees, and she positions her hands on your hips, allowing you to hold her face as the two of you kiss. After kissing your lips for a bit, she pulls away, looking into your eyes with that goddamn look of hers.

Lust, you realize.

“Oh, fucking god,” she practically moans upon noticing the look in your eyes. “You sure this is what you want?”

You nod, and she kisses you again.

“I love you so much,” she says, moving her lips from yours to your neck. You gasp softly, small, breathy moans erupting from your lips as you cling to her shoulders for balance.

“You sure you haven’t done anything like this before?” you ask, and she chuckles a bit.

“I’m sure. You’re just easy to please.”

“Rather cocky of you,” you note, like you’re not a blushing mess. Her blushing mess.

She kisses you again, on the lips, before parting to look down, her forehead pressed against your shoulder as she unbuttoned the rest of the buttons on your shirt.

“This okay?” she asks, and you nod. She looks up at you, deeply worried.

“Oh, I nodded. Yes. This is okay. More than okay.”

She goes back to smiling, sliding the shirt off your shoulders and kissing them next, loving the feeling of your soft skin against her lips. She throws the shirt over the side of the bed, and eventually her lips find their way to your collarbone, and then that sweet spot between your neck and shoulder. You let go of one of her shoulders to clamp a hand over your mouth.

“That good, huh? Let’s lay down.”

“You’re awfully suave,” you remark, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m the top, of course I am. Trust me, I’m freaking out just as much as you are on the inside,” she explains, and you smile gleefully, and she helps you recline on the bed, head on the pillow and legs parted for her. She takes your face in her hands, kissing your smiling lips before you reciprocate, the two of you kissing as passionately as before. Her hands wander down your body, pausing on your thigh. She stops kissing you again. “Can I...Y’know? Just through your clothes, I mean.”

“Yeah,” you pant. “Yeah.”

She resumes kissing you, now firmly cupping you. You rock into her hand, the pressure of her hand muffled only slightly by your dress pants and underwear.

You moan into her mouth, hands bunching up her tee shirt from where you grasped it on her back.

“You’re so perfect,” she breathes, kissing as much of you as her lips have access to, at the moment.

“Fuck, Ellie, I need-”

“Knock knock!” your (now ex-) best friend calls, opening the door. Ellie practically leaps off of you.

Knowing there’s no way you can get to your shirt in time and that Wade would never sexualize a minor, you wrap your arms around yourself to preserve your modesty. He closes the door behind him, and gasps.

“Holy shit! Sorry, kid, I’ll go! Nice.” He gives you a thumbs-up and starts to leave.

“Nope. Moment ruined. What do you need?”

“You better fucking need something,” Ellie adds.

“I do! I need your help with a mission! I forgot Vanessa’s birthday,” he explains. “I was honest, and she got really sad… So, I need help planning a surprise party so that it looks like I lied about forgetting!”

“Even I remembered!” you complain “I wrote on her Facebook wall and everything.” You can tell he’s giving you puppy dog eyes and you sigh. “Yeah, sure. You wanna come with, Ellie?”

“Nah, still got homework,” she grumbles.

“I’m sorry,” you quietly apologize.

She picks up your shirt, coming closer to you.

“I’m not annoyed with you, don’t worry. You’re a good friend, Y/N.” She drapes your shirt over your shoulders, whispering in your ear: “You can make it up to me later.”

You blush, sliding your arms through your sleeves quickly and buttoning the buttons up. You slip your pumps back on.

“Alright, let’s go!” you say in a squeaky tone, and Wade scoffs.

“Let’s,” Wade responds, and you follow him out the door. “So...Bestie, how are you? We haven’t talked in ages!”

“We are not besties, not anymore,” you tell him.

“You don’t mean that!” he argues.

“You’re right…” you admit, and he laughs. The two of you call a cab and enter, making small talk after having not seen each other in awhile.

“I just can’t believe that my little bird’s flown the nest. It feels like just yesterday you couldn’t even talk to her! Now you’re a teacher and the two of you are hooking up!”

“Dude, that was, like, four months ago. Meaning, like-”

“A third of a year ago!” he enthusiastically responds.

“Exactly.”

“Well, it feels like it was just yesterday because I never see you anymore, silly! You’re always busy with work, or Ellie, or you guys’ friends.”

“Hey, I’ll always make time for you, okay? You just gotta hit me up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know… Thanks, kid. Let’s go to Party City!”

After getting as many decorations as the two of you could, you arrive at Wade’s apartment and set up… But Vanessa catches you two in the act.

“Surprise!” You both cheer half-heartedly, she rifles through the nearest Party City bag, and finds the incriminating receipt.

“Nice try, Wade. But, at least you tried to make it up to me. I have other ideas of what you can do, though,” she flirts, and you groan.

“Seriously?” you ask him, and he laughs his ass off.

“I don’t get it,” Vanessa comments. You normally didn’t mind her and Wade’s PDA. You roll your eyes, and Wade explains.

“Well, when I arrived at the X-Mansion and roped the kid into my dastardly scheme, she might’ve been a little busy with something else. Someone else.”

“You bastard,” Vanessa jokes, smacking him on the arm lightly. “You’re off the hook, Y/N. I’m sure Wade and I can find something else to do with these decorations.”

“See you two around, I guess,” you say your farewells. “Happy birthday, V.”

When you make it home, it’s the early evening. Dinnertime.

You go inside, finding Ellie sitting alone, done with her food. Not too hungry, you grab a small snack and make your way over to her.

“Hey,” you say, and she looks up from her phone at you.

“Hi,” she replies. “How’d it go?”

“Vanessa didn’t buy it. But I’d be a lot later if she had, so… You win some, you lose some.”

“Mmhmm,” Ellie agrees. “So, should I stop by your dorm later, or do you wanna come by mine?”

“Ellie,” you quietly scold, and she scoffs.

“It’s not like anyone’s gonna know what we’re talking about,” she reassures you, and you sigh, reaching for her hand. She takes yours, holding it tightly.

“Let’s go to my room,” you tell her. “I gotta finish grading those papers, but I’d love the company.”

“Sounds good,” Ellie replies, going to put away her dishes while you toss the wrapper of your snack away. The two of you walk back to your dorm together, holding hands. You two enter, and you retrieve your laptop, lapdesk, and notebook from where you placed them earlier.

Ellie keeps her head on your lap, your lapdesk (funnily enough) placed on the bed in front of you while you work, one hand on the mouse and another stroking Ellie’s hair, lulling her into a haze of fantasy and comfort. As much as she enjoyed how gentle you were in comparison to her, she was so ready to feel those fingers tangle in her hair as you lost yourself in pleasure, desperate for more.

A few hours later, you’re done with grades and ready to complete your bedtime routine and then crash...But you realize you have other responsibilities. Your girlfriend now rests her head on your shoulder, having migrated there after you informed her you needed both hands to enter the grades into the system about an hour ago.

“El…” you tell her sleepily as you shut down your laptop and move your tools back to their respective places. “‘M all finished with grading.” You give her a kiss, just barely missing her lips. “We can finally…” You lose your train of thought, slumping into her shoulder.

She drags her black fingernails up and down your back, sending delightful chills through you.

“No, babe… You’re way too tired,” she tells you, and you whine in discontent.

“I’m sorry...”

“No, no... Don’t worry about that. You have responsibilities. I get that, and I’m willing to wait.”

“But I don’t wanna wait…” you tiredly complain.

She chuckles, glad you can’t see the feelings that are written all over her face. She knew she wanted it really badly, and she knew you were consenting enthusiastically before, but to know that you were really just as excited about her was flustering and relieving at the same time.

“Listen, I’ll go get ready for bed and come back. Just because we’re not sleeping together like that tonight doesn’t mean we can’t still bend the rules a little bit and sleep together in a more...friendly way.”

You sigh, disappointed, but nod into her, allowing her to pull away. You take off the clothes you wore that day, slipping on an over-sized flannel that Ellie loaned you when someone spilled a drink on your shirt and changing into cuter underwear. You wash your face and brush your teeth, afterwards brushing your hair to prevent knots. You hop into bed, plugging your phone in. Honestly, you feel a lot more awake after all this.

Ellie returns in a loose muscle top and those gray sweatpants she knows you like.

“You’re trying to kill me,” you groan, and she just shakes her head, ducking it so you can’t see the grin on her face. She climbs onto your bed, sliding under the covers with you.

“You’re a lot more awake,” she notes.

“Mhmm. Nighttime routine was pretty refreshing.” You snuggle her, one leg on top of hers, one underneath. You keep one arm curled in, the other on top of her torso, fingers tracing patterns all over her rib cage. She’s reclined, kind of sitting up but propped against enough pillows that it’s more like laying down. She puts her arms around your protectively, but her expression is one of piqued interest.

“You’re not wearing pants,” Ellie comments.

“I don’t normally wear pants to bed,” you remind her, mumbling into her midriff.

“You’re also wearing my flannel.”

“I wear your clothes all the time. Most of the school probably thinks we’ve already hooked up, at this point. And?”

“And…” She narrows her eyes at you. “I guess that’s all I got.”

You continue to stroke her torso with your fingers, thinking about just how easy it’d be to go a little lower and… You look up at her, biting your lip a little as you dance your fingertips just a bit lower.

“I knew you had something up your sleeve,” she says. “Are you sure you want to? I know certain levels of exhaustion can really fuck with your judgement just as bad as alcohol and stuff can. I just don’t want you to regret-”

“I’d never regret doing this with you,” you tell her. “Are you sure you want to?”

She nods, pulling your hips from the side of hers to directly on top, effectively causing you to straddle her. You look at her with wide eyes, her hands gripping your hips and her eyes giving you that same dark, lustful look as before. It looked just as good cast in the moonlight as it did in the sun.

“Come on, Y/N, you’re the genius here,” she taunts, and you hold her hands to your hips as you move one of your thighs to in between her legs, so that you also have a thigh between your legs instead of her whole lap. “There we go.”

“I’m sure you can figure out the rest,” you tease back, and her lip crash into yours, her thigh digging into you as she ruts against yours.

“Fuck,” she breathes against you, and you continue to ride her thigh as the two of you passionately kiss. Her lips slip down to your neck, and she nibbles, just enough to hurt in the most pleasurable way.

“Ellie,” you gasp as her thumbs dig deeper into your hips. “Like th-that, ah…”

One of her hands wanders up, massaging one of your breasts, and she occasionally unintentionally slips her thumb over your nipple through your shirt.

“Oh god,” you jolt, causing your thigh to push harder into her.

“Christ,” Ellie groans, removing her hands from one part of you, only to return them to another just as swiftly, thumbs smoothing across your jaw as she cradled your head, kissing you fast and hard as the two of you continued the pace of your hips.

“M-more,” you plead, and she flips you over, ready to give you focused friction by palming you though that absolutely perfect black lace underwear she’d only just now noticed you were wearing… Until the security alarm goes off. “Fuck…” you whine, and she almost wants to ignore the intruders, just to make you sound like that some more. But, her better judgement interferes, and she gets off of you.

You find a pair of loose PJ pants, sliding on some slippers and tossing Ellie a spare pair. The two of you exit the room, scurrying to the nearest station. Piotr, Kurt, Ororo, and Emma pretend not to notice that the closest emergency station to Ellie’s dorm is definitely not this one, and the six of you make your way along the designated security sweep for that station, eventually meeting the other groups in the common room.

“False alarm,” Logan calls. “Just a new student. She didn’t want to disturb anyone at this hour, so she thought she’d try to sneak in and just wait ‘til morning. No worries. Everyone can go back to bed now.”

You and Ellie go back to your dorm.

You yawn. “I think it’s a bit late now. I still have to teach tomorrow, even if it’s Friday and everyone’s going to be distracted by rumors about the newbie. I hope that’s not too disappointing.”

“I mostly just feel lucky that we got as far as we did, this time,” she tells you. “Don’t worry. Maybe tomorrow?”

You nod, the two of you returning to cuddling.

After a couple class periods, lunch rolls around. You and Ellie sit together, as usual.

“You know, if we eat fast enough…” You start, but a girl around your age, that you quickly infer is the new girl, approaches.

“Hey, can I sit with you guys? I’m new,” she requests.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you say, and she sits across from you. “So, you’re the bandit from last night,” you comment.

“I’m so embarrassed. I just didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

“Don’t worry, better you breaking in than-”

“Ellie!” you fuss, not wanting her to scare the girl.

“I’m Love,” she introduces herself.

“Y/N,” you reply.

“And I’m Ellie, like they said,” Ellie adds.

“Y/N? Like Y/N L/N? That must be confusing, sharing the same name as a teacher. I have them next period. Are they nice?”

“I’d say I’m pretty nice,” you reply, and Love turns dark red with embarrassment.

“Nah, don’t listen to them. They’re a cold-hearted bitch,” Ellie jokes, and you giggle, letting her kiss you on the cheek.

“I’m sorry, you guys just looked so young...Oh, that’s the worst! I’m sitting with teachers on my first day, that’s like social suicide. No offense.”

You laugh with her, but not at her. “No, don’t worry, we’re your age. Ellie’s a student, and I’m a teacher. My mutation makes me able to learn anything, so I got through school quickly. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as sitting with Mr. Howlett or Professor X. They’re the real nerds.”

“I heard that!” Logan calls across the cafeteria, his super-hearing making it so that he can hear you. The three of you laugh.

“Well, uh, today’s gonna be a pretty chill day in class, I need to have one-on-one conferences with everyone about their essays, and since you didn’t have that assignment, you can just read, or write, if that’s your thing.”

“I love writing!” Love exclaims. “I actually have a writing journal.”

“I was actually thinking about assigning one next school year,” you reply with the same amount of energy, loving to see students engaged in literacy.

“That would be so cool,” she agrees. “I love it.”

“Just don’t let Ms. Frost hear you,” Ellie remarks. “I don’t love it.”

“I can and will assign you detention, Miss Phimister. Don’t try me,” you joke, and she scoffs.

Lunchtime ends a bit earlier for you, and you give Ellie a quick hug before leaving her and Love.

You set up, making sure everything’s in order. You open the essays on Google Classroom in your laptop, ready to discuss grades with the students.

About five minutes later, a bell rings. A few minutes after that, students start to flood in, taking their unassigned assigned seats. Love takes the only empty seat in the class, one in the front row.

“Alright, like I said yesterday, we’ll be doing one-on-one conferences to discuss your essays today. All of you did pretty well, so keep up the good work! While you wait for your turn, you can read or write, alright? And make sure to give a warm welcome to your new classmate, Love.”

You return to your desk, calling the students up one at a time and discussing their work with them. Eventually, the class is over, and the students leave.

The next few classes progress the same way, and eventually, school’s over. You’re about to leave the classroom when Ellie enters, closing the door behind her. There’s that look in her eye again.

“Hi, darling,” you greet her nervously, noticing that look in her eyes is back.

She doesn’t respond, silently backing you into a wall.

“Do you want to…?” She finally asks, in a hushed tone.

You nod, and the two of you kiss, tentatively, at first. She deepens the kiss, and you keep a firm hold on the back of her neck with one hand, the other pressed into the small of her back. She gropes your chest through the tight turtleneck you’re wearing to hide the hickey she gave you yesterday.

“You look so good,” she tells you. “I couldn’t wait.”

“I couldn’t either, I could barely focus most of today,” you admit, both of you still talking quietly.

“Well, you hid it pretty damn well,” she commends you. “You should be rewarded.”

“Christ,” you breathe as she pulls your sweater off. She tongues the especially sensitive spot she left on your neck yesterday before exploring your chest with her mouth, kissing the smooth skin above and below your collarbones. You whine for more, but she just continues her pace.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Miss L/N?” Love asks from the other side, and the door opens slowly. Ellie kicks the sweater behind your desk, wrapping you in her jacket and standing in front of you so swiftly that it almost seems like it’s in one motion. You zip the jacket up. “Hey, sorry if you guys were talking… I, uh, just wanted to talk to you about extra credit. I don’t know if you’ve seen yet, but my English grade at my old school wasn’t so great, and I really wanna turn it around.”

“Sure! We can discuss extra credit options right now. We can meet up later, right, Ellie?”

The teasing glimmer in your eye nearly sends her over the edge.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. See you around, Love,” Ellie says, leaving the classroom.

“So, um…” You try to think of a good idea, but your mind is still a bit cloudy. “Well, your writing journal would be a good place to start. If you’d like, you could take any drafts you have for poems or short stories and finalize them, and then just share them with me on Google Docs. There should be some Chromebooks you can check out at the library in you don’t have a device to access Google on. I can add extra points to your test and quiz grades for each one you send me, depending on quality and effort. Does that sound fair, Love?”

“Yes, that’s perfect!” Love jumps for joy, embracing you tightly. “Thank you so much, Miss L/N. I won’t let you down, I promise.”

She practically skips out of the room and down the hallway. You close the door behind her and put your sweater back on, wearing Ellie’s jacket over it.

For about twenty minutes, you make sure the desks are in order and that the classroom is clean and organized, before turning off the light and leaving, taking your laptop bag with you.

You walk down the hallways, going to your dorm to drop off your laptop bag before making your way to Ellie’s dorm.

“Miss L/N! I perfected one of my poems, but it’s on paper still. Can I just give it to you now?” Love asks, her dorm must be close to Ellie’s.

“Oh, sure! I’ll read over it and let you know on Monday what I think.”

You take the piece of paper and tuck it into the pocket of Ellie’s jacket before proceeding to your girlfriend’s dorm. You close the door behind you.

“Hey, babe,” she greets you, sliding the jacket off of you immediately.

“Wait a minute, hon, Love gave me a poem and I stashed it in there.”

Ellie snickers, letting you take the slip of paper from the pocket.

“A poem, huh? That crush on you progressed quickly.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, come on. It’s obvious, she gives you the goo-goo eyes and everything already,” Ellie remarks.

“Really? Well, let’s just look at the poem,” you reply, skeptical. You unfold the paper, and Ellie looks over your shoulder, chin perched on it with her arms wrapped around your waist.

“Definitely a love poem,” Ellie comments, and you sigh.

“That doesn’t mean it’s about me, Ellie. Don’t worry. I’m all yours.”

“Yeah, you are,” she agrees, in a quiet tone because she’s rather close to your ear, and you shiver. “We should finish what we started earlier.”

“Which time?” you joke, and she chuckles.

“Don’t remind me.”

“We keep getting interrupted right as we’re about to f-” she interrupts your rebellion by kissing you, using the momentum of the kiss as a starting point for getting you into her bed.

She’s got you pinned down rather roughly, but her lips are gently grazing yours, as well as your jaw. You whimper in anticipation, and feel her smile against you when the fire alarm goes off.

Ellie swiftly gets off of you, before realizing: “It’s the third Friday of the month, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, this is definitely a drill. But it’d set a bad example if I didn’t go out, and there’s a faculty meeting directly after.”

She sighs, but nods, extending a hand. You take it, and she pulls you up off the bed. The two of you hold hands as you exit the building with everyone else.

About ten minutes later, the school is congratulated by Professor X and Jean Grey for another successful drill, and then dismissed.

“See you soon, El,” you tell her, making your way to Xavier’s office, along with everyone else, so that the faculty meeting can begin.

You mostly talk along, not paying full attention to the meeting. Most of what they were saying didn’t concern you much.

Eventually, the meeting is over, and it’s time for dinner.

As soon as you see Ellie in line, you know what you have to do. You take her by the hand and pull her along to your dorm. She chuckles a bit, catching on quickly. You slam the door behind you both and practically fling her onto the bed, tossing your shoes aside before straddling her, kissing her, practically devouring her lips with your own. You pull away to get true, full breaths of air, and she grabs your hips, grinding you down against her mound.

“Ellie,” you mewl, rocking your hips back and forth.

“Having fun, babe?” she asks cockily, and you decide that instead of bracing yourself against her shoulders, you’ll knead her chest instead as revenge. “Oh god, Y/N...” she groans, eyes fluttering shut as she leans into the touch.

“Is- Oh fuck, like that… Is it okay if I take your top off?”

“Let me,” Ellie requests, sitting up a bit before undoing the buttons of her flannel and tossing it aside. You take in her beauty, blushing a little but knowing that now’s not the time to be your usual self, shy and passive. Once it’s tossed aside, you kiss her again and she takes your sweater off, again. “God, can I be on top?”

“Y/N’ll do, and yes please.” You get off of her, and she moves so that you can lay down before mounting you, hands roaming every accessible inch of your skin before she toys with your bra strap.

“May I?” she asks, and you nod. She reaches underneath you and undoes the clasp, sliding the straps over your shoulders slowly before taking it the rest of the way off. “You’re perfect.”

She immediately puts her mouth over one of your nipples, toying with it with her tongue.

You moan, and she slides a hand over your crotch, feeling you up.

“God fucking damn it…” you whine, and she continues to worship your chest. You fidget against her, searching for more friction.

“Can I take- Can I take your pants off?” Ellie’s tone quickly hushes, as if it’s easier to say it quietly.

“Yeah, yeah, please…” you beg, and she unbuttons your pants, sliding them off of you.

“Finally, I get to see you again,” she jokes to your underwear, and you giggle is cut off when she very carefully kisses you through them. “Could I-”

“I’ll let you know if I don’t want you to do something,” you tell her stiffly, the anticipation leading up to this starting to drive you a bit mad.

“Alright. Same here,” she responds, sliding them off. She goes down on you, paying special attention to your clit as she excitedly tongues it, thighs over her shoulders and pressed between her bicep and her forearm. No escape.

You moan at the new sensation, letting her have her way with you. It’s fast, and wet, and you’re getting close already. Your hands find their way from the sheets to her hair, and you try not to push or pull too hard, but it just feels so fucking good and you want more, more, more…

She removes her mouth from you, and you whimper, shamefully desperate.

“Don’t worry, I just wanted to encourage you to keep using your hands like that, baby girl,” she tells you, returning to her duty. You push into her face as you continue to move her how you’d like, using her tongue.

“I- I’m so-” you breathe, her calling you baby girl not helping and definitely helping with your desperation, your desire. “Fuck, El, I’m close…”

She groans in satisfaction and you keep your fingers tightly tangled in her hair before you finally…

You gasp and moan, legs straightening and neck arching as you tip your head back and cry out in pleasure.

She pulls away from you, basking in the glory that is you post-orgasm, naked and breathless.

“Good job, babe,” she praises you.

“Could say the- Could say the, mm… Same for you. Mind if I finger you?” You ask, still in a bit of a haze.

“Not at all,” Ellie pretends to be nonchalant, but quickly lays down, shaking a bit in excitement. You unbutton her jeans and slide them down, tracing your fingers on her inner thighs to tease her. Ellie shivers, moaning softly.

After getting a good reaction from her from that action, you decide it’s time to finally put your mouth to good use on her, licking and sucking at her inner thigh. Ellie thrashes a bit, and you grab her thighs to keep them in place. She groans at the feeling of your fingernails digging into her.

A few minutes of this later, you decide to rub her through her underwear at the same time. She slides her own hand down, pushing it against yours.

You apply more pressure.

“Like that?” you ask softly, and she enjoys the angelic tone of your voice just as much as the feeling. You decide you’ve given her enough trouble and slide her underwear down. You stroke Ellie’s clit for a bit, before sliding your fingers down to her entrance to gather more moisture.

Once you feel she’s wet enough, you slide your fingers the rest of the way inside her and curl, hard.

“Oh my fucking god,” she nearly whines in enjoyment.

Your next step is to develop a rhythm of  rubbing and fucking, experimenting with different patterns to see what she enjoys most. You figure that out pretty quickly, and are able to do it without looking, so you slide up to her, kissing that perfect neck of hers while you finger-fuck her.

“Y/N, oh fuck, Y/N, Y/N, Y/N…” Ellie calls out for you in time with your motions, clinging to your shoulder blades. “I’m so fucking cl-” she cuts herself off with a long, deep moan, back arching into you. You withdraw your lips from her neck to watch her as she cums from your hard work.

She pants heavily, lips swollen and brown eyes looking black due to the combination of sunset and lust.

“Good girl,” she says, a hand on your cheek and a thumb toying with your bottom lip before she kisses you, deeply. Eventually your lips part. You both find your underwear and put it on, so you wouldn’t be caught completely naked if someone were to come in for some reason. You wear her flannel, as well.

“I’m not giving back this one, either,” you inform her cheekily, and she just snickers.

“Good. ‘Cause every time I look at you in it, I’ll remember this. I love you so much.”

“I love you so much, too,” you reply, and she rubs your back, sliding her fingers around with just enough pressure to unwind some of the tension that lives there. It soothes you to sleep, and she joins you in that state shortly after.

Hi! I noticed you have they/them as your pronouns and I was just curious (because same) how I should, when it’s safe - of course- and respectful to do so, correct people when they use the wrong pronouns and also tell new people about how to address me? It’s genuinely not something awful when I’m called she/her but when I’m close enough to people, i try to bring it up. Except my issue is I can hardly manage to correct someone when they mispronounce my actual name (accidentally)..ahh. I’m shy :(

hi! i’m sorry it took me so long to answer this ask b

i don’t actually have the most experience with correcting people when they use she/her for me; the only place where i exclusively use they pronouns is here, with my closest friends, and in definitively lgbtq+ spaces? but at this point All of my closest friends use either they/them, they/she, or he/him pronouns (side note: he/him wlw i would fight and die for you), so i have a bit of practice correcting pronouns for other people? 

that’s maybe the easiest way i can think of to correct pronouns-to have a person or two you’re closer with at school or work or in your family (depending on which contexts are applicable and which are safe for you!) support you by reminding other people of the right pronouns? me, my gf, and our best friend miles all work together, and miles exclusively uses they/them; they also has anxiety, so once they were ready to be out at work, we just started using they pronouns for them all the time, even in conversations with other folks. bc they weren’t always easily able to correct people! something we would do a lot is repeat back things people said that misgendered them, but with the right pronouns? so if someone said “yeah, is a really hard worker” i might say “yeah, they are” back? it’s sometimes a lot easier standing up for other people than yourself, at least in my experience.

that kinda pre-supposes you having trusted people who are good about pronouns, though! so. i think another good way to get people used to pronouns besides he and she is to use a friend as an example, if you have other friends who use they/them pronouns? like if the friend is okay with it you can discuss them or mention stories including them, and use they/them pronouns the whole time, or even be like “oh yeah, my friend so and so uses they/them pronouns bc they’re . that can kind of get people more used to they/them pronouns and give you a chance to feel out if a situation is fully safe to be out in? and you can start training people to do better with respecting your friend’s pronouns, first. (if you don’t have any other friends who use they/them feel free to send me a message sometime, b,or if that’s too scary you can just call me ur friend/use me as an example as a blogger or something!). it’s a bit easier to segway into “i also use they/them pronouns” if someone already has a frame of reference for what that means! 

another good thing that can push through awkwardness is to just be aggressively normal about things? like it’s maybe even a thing you could practice while alone or with a friend you’re already out to. but like being like “hi, i’m , my pronouns are they/them!” having a friend or friends that you’re out to helps with that kind of normalization, because you can have your friends introduce themselves with pronouns, too, if it’s an option. it can work in conversation if someone misgenders you, too- like if you’re there and someone says she or her or girl or woman in reference to you, just be like “i use they,not she” or them not her (i also love unit as a replacement for boy or girl and person works as a replacement for woman or man) in a casual normal way and if they start being all apologisey and focusing it on how baaaaAaAaAd they feel being like “you don’t have to draw attention to it by apologizing, just try to do better!” i know none of that is easy to do, at ALL, but if you’e able to practice it might help?

since starting work at my practicum, I’ve discovered that in a lot of nonprofits and more progressive business settings, people have started including their pronouns in email signatures, even cis folks, to try normalizing introducing introductions that include pronouns? idk if that’s applicable to you though!

something that helped me start to be braver when i was younger - and hear me out on this! - was pretending to be not myself? like, i did a lot of theater when i was younger, that’s part of where i got the idea for like.. “acting” in situations that weren’t necessarily theater? but i also did so with a fandom spin. like, i had to get blood drawn in my senior year and it super is not a thing i like at all? and at the time i was a huge s*pernatural fan, so was like “be brave like the w*nchesters be brave like the w*nchesters you can do this” and it actually helped. sometimes when i’m trying to get past the aggressive salespeople at the mall kiosks (they’ve gotten me before i bought a lotion) i try walking like the winter soldier from marvel movies and putting off “don’t fuck with me” vibes. i was starting to get anxious during the SATs writing section and was like “it’s okay be like hermione” and like.. i don’t necessarily do that with specific characters anymore in such a strong way? 

but i do still sometimes let myself lean into different versions of myself where i focus on a different trait or different version of who i am and let that be how the world sees me? at my practicum i work with a group of young lgbtq+ folks and i’m not gonna lie, i was super fucking anxious on my first day! but i leaned into my stage-manager-self and letting myself perform being confident and capable and sure of myself in a no-nonsense kind of way? stage-manager-energy for me also has slightly different body language-i stand different, i carry something to take notes on sometimes. props help sdjfklsjd. but that let me have a false confidence when first meeting these kids, and it eventually turned into real confidence? and i wasn’t being fake about who i am in a way that would eventually come back to bite me, bc it was just a stretch of the truth not a disney channel original movie disaster lie?

or like, sometimes when im feeling dysphoric or anxious about the way i choose for the world to see me i’ll wear more black than i usually do and do my best to live my truth and take comfort in the fact that dan would be proud of me. hm. i’m getting on a bit of a tangent here but it’s something that’s helped me be more confident a lot over the years? being good to myself because i know it’s what a character or person i’m a fan of or know in real life and love very much would want for me?

also something that helps for me for having hard conversations with close friends is like.. sometimes having them by text even if we’re in the same room? typing can be so much easier than talking. a format for saying that could be saying “hey, i started to use they/them pronouns online and i actually am a lot more comfortable with that than she/her, could you start using they/them for me in ? 

oh also i’m fairly certain there’s probably nonbinary youtubers out there who might have better advice than me about this specific subject? my gf actually watches a lot more youtube than me - i only watch dnp, but they watch a ton of different folks including ash hardell? and from what ive seen ash might have some kind of video more helpful than my big ol ramble.

i hope some or all of this helped? it’s a tough thing that i’m still really learning to navigate for myself instead of just as a support to friends, so i’m not sure how much of this is anything at all, but i hope that something in here was worthwhile and if you ever wanna come back and chat again, on anon or off, i’d be happy to listen to you

Survey #153

“i may be easy - easy to hate, but you’re so fucking easy, easy to break.”

Do you think age matters in friendship?  Nah.  One of my closest friends is in his 30s.  Now of course I believe a parent should monitor a friendship of a minor and adult, but, I still believe friendship is certainly possible. What was the last essay/assignment you wrote about?  It was only the rough draft, but I helped Colleen with her assessment of "Female" by Keith Urban. When do you usually put your Christmas decorations up?  Usually start in early December. Are you more likely to eat when you’re bored or depressed?  When I'm bored, I'd say.  When I'm depressed, I'm more keen on sleeping.  I've gotten better about not eating when I'm bored, thankfully. Do you have a case/cover for your phone? Describe it.  No, I want one tho. Do you take good care of your skin?  I've been making a decent effort lately.  I HATE the bumps I have on my arms from dry skin, so I've been moisturizing them as well as my face. What was your dream job when you were a kid?  Paleontologist.  I would still pursue it if I wasn't turned off by a career with loads of travel, nor do I think I have the patience to obtain a PhD. Is there any music you listen to that was influenced by your parents?  Oh yeah, Mom especially.  She's all about heavy metal, especially the classics.  Dad too, but I'd say he's more hard rock. Do you use tampons or pads? Or both?  Tampons, pads gross me out afsdjafjw.  I started with them though. Is your internet wireless or do you need a cable?  Wireless. What is something you’re behind the times on?  Ummm idk. Have you ever had a severe allergic reaction?  No. What color are your glasses, if applicable?  Black. List a great $1 store find:  Idk. List a great garage sale find:  *shrugs* Who is one YouTuber you would like to meet?  m a r k Do you have your own website?  I have my own photography one. Do you like candy corn?  Omg demons stay back. Were you happy as a kid?  Yep. What is your favorite Queen song?  If your answer isn't "Bohemian Rhapsody," I don't want you in my life. Who was the last person you blocked on social media? Why?  Colleen, 'cuz I was kicking her out of my life and know that woman too well that she would try sending me a novel of hate, and I wasn't having it.  Turns out she shared our drama over Facebook afterwards to make me the bad guy, and I still have trouble believing I forgave something that petty.  She apologized for it, eh. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?  The old woman my mom had watched.  I knew enough about her to know she was a super sweet woman, so I barely held it together in there.  She died the very next morning. Could you ever be friends with the person who hurt you most in life?  Ha, no.  He doesn't deserve my friendship. You never know what you have until you’ve lost it, true or false?  Nah. What’s the craziest thing you’ve done?  I dunno, possibly something sexual. When was the last time you spoke to someone in a different language?  Back in high school when I was doing a German test over the phone. Have you ever successfully broken a bad habit? How about conquered a fear of something?  Omg, so I had this habit of when I was thinking deeply or nervous, I would pull my eyebrows out.  It got to the point it would sometimes look like I almost had none.  Super embarrassing, especially because I did this a lot in school.  As for a fear, it was never a big one, but going to see Sara broke my mild fear of flying.  I like it now. Have you ever read a whole series of books?  Yes. Are you going to walk at your graduation or just pick your diploma up?   For when I finish college, I'm probably just picking up my diploma. Have you ever tried to break a Guinness World Record?  No. Do you know how to read music?  I recall some notes. Do you own any shirts that have a year on it?  Ha ha, I got that "I was there" shirt for the Back to the Future date. Do you have any scratches on your cell phone?  No. Is your skin tone lighter or darker than your mom’s?  Lighter. Have you ever done another person’s make-up?  I gave Jason a makeover. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Honestly still hope I have that picture somewhere.  Regardless of what happened, that is damn good memory, he hated it so much. Is anyone saved in your phone under a nickname?  Sara, Ashley, Nicole, and Mom. When, where, and why did a needle last pierce your skin?  'Bout two weeks back to get my tongue pierced. Who is the youngest gay person you know?  Dunno. Have you ever watched an animal being eaten by another animal?  Yeah, our old cats with mice 'n such. Do you get along with people who are especially religious? Why/why not?  If you don't push it on me, certainly.  Respect my theism, I'll respect your whatever. Do you have any interesting pillow cases?  No. Are you more afraid of spiders or bees?  Well, there's too much variety in this question.  I'll fear a wolf spider more than a bumblebee, but a hornet more than daddy long leg. Has your best friend ever seen you naked?  No. Do you get mad when your current bf/gf talks about an ex?  Not at all. Do you know anybody who was abused?  Yes. Would you prefer a baby boy or girl?  If I was to have kids, y'know, I don't know.  Perhaps a girl, but I know boys are generally easier, and feeling the bond between a mother and her son would be amazing.  I'unno. When did you last feel like your privacy was invaded?  I'm not sure. Do your parents volunteer anywhere?  No. If you were a different religion from your current one, what would it be? Why?  Wiccan, because their beliefs (that I know of) are interesting. Have you ever had your phone taken away at school?  No. How old were you the first time you dyed your hair?  Idk.  I think first year of high school; I don't believe dyed hair was allowed in middle. Do you talk the same way you do in person as you do online?  For the most part. How would you react if a doctor told you that you were infertile?  I'd be like, irrationally happy.  I don't want kids, and I have a considerably large fear of being raped and thus get pregnant, so. Do you get along with your best friend’s parents?  Her mom's a bitch, and her dad's... different. Have you ever been in a relationship where you didn’t get along with the person’s parents?  No. How many people of the opposite sex have you said ‘I love you’ to?  One, romantically. Do you put marshmallows in your hot chocolate?  No. What is the best thing you can draw?  Meerkats are like the only thing I can draw decently without a reference. What band did you see for your first concert?  Alice Cooper. Do you think people with legitimate addictions are pathetic, or do you understand them?  Oh fuck off.  I obviously can't "understand" because I've never endured one, but addictions are serious.  Addiction is not a choice, and from meeting so many druggies during my psych hospital visits as well as having a friend who got clean, it's fucking hard. Has anyone you know ever had serious surgery before?  Yeah, Mom had kidney cancer.  The tumor was bigger than the kidney itself. When was the last time you had butterflies?  When Sara was here, we had these few moments where we were just staring at each other smiling and asjdfawjij. Do you think Gatorade tastes refreshing or just gross?  I don't like it. Do you own a pet fish? What kind of fish are they?  No. Do you have a porch swing?  No. How many area codes would you recognize?  My own and childhood town's. Who has the best taste in music in your family?  Besides myself obviously, Mom. What animal did you last pet or hold?  My cat. If you were a different gender, what name would you want to have?  Maybe like.  Dakota.  Probs my favorite unisex name. If you had to have one feature on your body changed to a canine version of said feature, what would you choose?  Gimme dem teefs. What product or service do you find ridiculously overpriced?  Some fast food, QUALITY MAKEUP, gas, uhhhh. How many people, outside of your immediate family, do you know the birthdays of by heart?  Six, or seven if you count my dog.  Maybe forgetting some. Shot of whiskey, or a bottle of Smirnoff?  The latter, I love Smirnoff's. Have you ever been afraid of being underwater?  No. Would you ever scuba dive in shark infested waters if you had the chance? In a cage, sure.  Otherwise, no.  Sharks are very much villainized, but I respect their capabilities, rare as an attack is. Have you ever hit a parked car with your car?  Not yet, boy will I when I learn how to park around others lmao. What band/group have the most lyrics that represent you? Hmmm, not sure. How many times have you been on a plane?  Four times that I remember, but I was on one as a baby, too. What do you wish were different about your hair?  I wish it was eASIER TO DYE- What’s a personality type that you do not like? Overly talkative is draining for me.  I also dislike the kinds of people who aim to make every "conversation" almost exclusively about themselves/leave no room for you to really express your own thoughts.  That's not a convo. What’s a personality type that you do like? Deep thinkers.  Those open to many possibilities, even if wild.  Nature-adoring people and/or ones who feel heavily connected to the earth. Which of your friends is the least like you and in what way? Colleen.  My best friend somehow, ha ha.  She's extremely straightforward and isn't afraid to hurt feelings if she feels it's important for you to see truth, she gets shit done quick/doesn't procrastinate, she can be quite argumentative, she's completely independent, our religious and some political views are different, our music taste is totally inverted, and I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.  We're a prime example of opposites attract.  Love her to death. How about the most like you and in what way? Sara, and I could write a novel here lmao.  Separated at birth kinda shit. What’s something you do daily and is this a habit of yours? Sit on the computer, and yeeaah it's just about all I do. What was the last thing to frustrate you and is it still frustrating you now?  Hm.  Dunno.  Probably something like Roman being so intent on lying on the keyboard. What helps you fall asleep? Nothing lol. Is there any type of medicine you can’t take? For what reason?  Anti-depressants.  Learned from my current psychiatrist that taking them only amps up bipolarity symptoms if you have that as well, which I do. Do you like designer bags with the logo stamped all over them?  No. Is Russian or Native American history more interesting to you?  Native American. If you had to choose to have a different accent than the one you have now, what accent would you choose and why?  British, 'cuz it's hot. Have you ever missed a flight?  Omg yes.  O'Hare after visiting Sara was absolutely impossible.  It was so.  Busy.  That and I didn't know what I was doing through half of it. If your ex suddenly kissed you right now, what would you do?  "The" ex would lose his balls, the others I'd push back. Are you a virgin?  P sure no but my story is complicated so aojsdfaow. What is one feature that you don’t like?  I'm guessing you mean on myself personally, and that would easily be weight.  I'd be relatively fine with myself if that was where I want it to be. What’s the genre of the current song you’re listening to?  Metal ballad. What would you do if you were stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean?  I don't really know.  A part of me says I'd be so hopeless and terrified I'd drown myself.  The odds of being found are minuscule. Who is the funniest person you know?  Girt. When sitting on the floor, in what position do you normally sit?  Kinda with my legs turned to the same side. Do you like being kissed spontaneously or asked?  Spontaneously is way less awkward for me.  But only if you're pretty sure through my display of comfort that I'm fine with it. Have you ever tried to break someone up?  I thought about it out of spite.  I considered messaging her over Facebook and telling her what she was in for, and I wished her dead, and I'm not joking.  Turns out he broke up with her for the same reason as me, according to Mom being a FB stalker apparently. Are you a bad influence?  I am in some areas.  Shouldn't be even remotely lazy as me, and you shouldn't illegally download shit. Would you ever get a tattoo?  I already have five, and six is probably coming next year with holiday + birthday money. Do you get nervous before going to doctor appointments?  Not really, no.  The only thing that makes me anxious is having to get weighed lmao. Do you call anyone "baby?"  Sara, but more frequently "babygirl." What is a movie that you thought you would hate but you ended up loving?  Off the top of my head, I think A Raisin in the Sun. Do you have any close friends that were adopted?  No. What time do you usually have a shower?  Night. What do you want to do after high school? I immediately went to a community college but dropped out in like a month.  My depression was so bad and I just couldn't handle the difficulty, responsibility, and independence leap. Do you know anybody that is pregnant right now? Not off the top of my head.  My acquaintance had a baby girl less than a week ago, though.

kinda curious about what you've been up to. how are you doing? still working on those pilots? new cfau chapter coming soon? just tell us stuff lol. anyway hope you're doing ok because you're nice take care

Thanks buddy. I’m doing okay. I ended up ranting so I’m just going to put a full life update under the cut. Whoever wants to read it can, those who don’t don’t need to scroll through it because I ended up ranting for real lol.

Now that I have a computer I can actually work on I am definitely going back to working on those pilots that I have half finished. For the sci-fi one I need to finish rewriting the feature first in order to be able to convert the plot of the feature into what is going to be the first season of the show but I’m really excited to see what that turns into because I’ve always believed the core of the story was amazing I just needed to polish it. It’s harder than it sounds but nothing like a good challenge. Biggest challenge of it all is converting CFAU into a show. Trying to figure out where one would even fall in that entire storyline for a pilot and what the structure would be is madness. I know there’s a solution to that puzzle I just haven’t found it and it’s kind of frustrating to be completely honest.

I went to therapy for the first time in nine years last Wednesday. The way my insurance works is that I needed to see a psychologist first before I could get referred to a psychiatrist for my meds. I spent like an hour with my new therapist and walked out with the referral for a psychiatrist because he agrees that I should be on meds and also a referral for three group therapy sessions (each for different things). So less than a week ago I had no therapist and now I have a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and three others (one being the head of each of my group sessions). It’s always taken a literal team to keep me sane so I’m not surprised lol. My meds made me a zombie before and it’s part of the reason I hated taking them but this time around I do want to get better so I’ll speak up if I need to have them adjusted and what not. Looking forward to all of that, particularly the group for my eating disorder because I’ve never met other people with the same problem I have and it’ll be a great reassurance that it does happen to other people. So that’s that on the sanity front…just…really making an effort to get my BPD, bipolar disorder, depression, eating disorder, anxiety, and the million other things wrong with me under control. They’ve been running me for almost thirty years. Time to take the reigns back.

On the friends/love life. I get to see my best friend/writing partner next month. He’s coming to visit again because his gf is moving out here and after not seeing him for like three years straight getting to see him twice in a year and knowing it’ll be more regular since his girl will be out here is all sorts of fun excitement. Once he moved back to the east coast we got really bad at actually finishing all the scripts we have halfway and/or actually writing the ones we talk about writing. I’m hoping now that we’ll see each other frequently throughout the year we can get back on track with our projects. Besides that, Megan and I are supposed to be having drinks at some point this weekend, we just haven’t nailed it down. That should be interesting because we haven’t seen each other in a year so…we’ll see how that goes. There’s also a certain girl that is driving me crazy in all the best ways so that’s been pretty good. She’s amazing. It’s all I can say about her without starting to gush so I’ll just leave it at that.

A handful of other super competitive writer/director programs have deadlines in the coming weeks and now that I can actually take part in all of these things since I’m no longer undocumented I’m taking my shot and am starting to apply to them. It’s going to be so much work crafting these applications and I’m a known procrastinator so I may out of commission with CFAU until I get all of these out…or I’ll procrastinate getting these out by writing CFAU. Who knows how my brain will choose to work. Send good vibes that I get in because I’m probably going to be going up against tens of thousands of people for some of these. Odds aren’t great but things don’t happen if you don’t try, right?

Now...work. Whispers say that I might get like my fifth promotion in ten months at this job. I mean…it’s more than whispers. My boss already told me he wants to create an even higher managerial position for me (somewhere between where I am now and where he is) but also knows I’m going to start applying for new jobs as soon as I hit the year mark there so he doesn’t want to keep moving me up when he knows I’m (hopefully!) leaving soon. At the same time I don’t hit the year mark there until Mid September so that’s still two months away so I could use a higher title and more money until then. I got a new computer to pay back after all lol. They’ve been so good to me and I’m surprisingly good at this job that was just supposed to be just a temp thing to make ends meet for a few months.

My boss used to be a TV producer and then switched out of the entertainment industry because he was traveling too much and was missing his kids grow up but his wife is still SUPER HIGH UP in the studio/network world. He loves me so much that he has been talking to his wife about me for months and as soon as I got my green card he told her “she’s finally going to leave and as much as I hate it it’s what needs to happen” so as soon as ComicCon is over and his wife is back from that madness he’s going to set up a meeting between her and me to see where she can get me into either through herself or my friends. It’s funny how life works because about a year and change ago I was in a meeting with one of the VPs at Disney and the VP of Casting at one of the studios who are both also Emerson alumi and they both said something like “Don’t say no to anything and kick ass at whatever you do because the route that got us where we are today was not straight and there were a lot of detours but ultimately they all advanced our career even in ways we couldn’t see at that point”. Honestly I thought “bullshit” at the time but this was one of those odds jobs that everyone in LA ends up picking up at one point or another because they need to make rent one month. I needed a little extra cash and I had no idea I was going to end up making hella important connections there. My boss and I clicked right away because we both have media backgrounds and one of his best friend’s kids went to Emerson too so he knew where I came from but I was never like waving my reel around and he never said who his wife was. But then it happened that one day he asked to see my stuff and was hella impressed and went home and showed his wife. When she liked it he finally told me who she was. Then the DGA director’s program happened and I obviously had to explain why I was asking for permission to be gone several days a week from what is a strict full time job for everyone else and he was even more impressed and let me take all the time off I needed. Then he saw my spec and he got goosebumps. Within a day he had showed what feels like everyone in our 150 person company and random people call me “Hollywood” around the office now lol. He also showed the spec to my wife and because of them going on vacation and a few other commitments on her end we haven’t been able to arrange a meeting but according to him it’s definitely happening after the SDCC madness is over for them at work and like honestly…I never thought this one random job could get me into a studio/network but it just might. All because I kept my head down and was the best at something I didn’t even like and impressed all the right people.

My point with the long rant is that for the past month or so it was finally made clear to me that sometimes life seems to take you on some weird detours and you end up doing something you never even dreamed of doing for a little bit but that someway, somehow ends up being right where you needed to be to push you further along in the path you do want. So don’t get discouraged if right now you’re stuck. Just kick ass at whatever it may be you’re doing because you don’t know what the universe has right around the corner.

I think that pretty much covers all the important things…