(Picture @445am, on Monday, from the Elk River Bridge. The moon was intoxicatingly beautiful...)

The most unkind cut of all? This week is lasting forever, and I'm exhausted but... no sleep.

And my heart and mind are being assholes about it. But like the song says:

"Hurt me once, I let it be

Hurt me twice, you're dead to me

Three times makes you family

Why can't you see I'm yours?"- f'ing Mayer, for the win.

Wake me in 6 hours, it'll be time to do it again.

Quick Question For Adam/Shiro Shippers

Is there a single goddamn fic in this world where Adam and Shiro get back together, but before they do, they actually TALK about their prior relationshit? All I ever see is, "baby, I missed you!" and just what?! They parted on terrible terms, with so much shit to talk about! I believe in love, I believe people can change, and to get really real, I know how having a seriously (let alone terminally) ill partner can bring out the most controlling, bitchy, and passive-aggressive sides of a person, but Shiro is basically the Space Core walking like a man, and Adam mistook his love of the stars for an ego trip and tried to bind him to the ground. That is a terrible way to treat someone you love who doesn't have much time, and it makes me sick every time I see Shiro let the guy back into his life without so much of as a mutual, "Sorry I got so shitty and controlling/Sorry I didn't think about how afraid you were."

Friday Faves: Playground of Love

Damn it late again! My excuse is that I was installing a couple of exhibitions…and also that I forgot. I will start updating this old ones soon and collate them into a book. This one I like (well I like all of them heheh) but that typeface which I used for years, I have gone off it and think I will change it… I am also realising the titles are an important element but in book form often you…

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Hi, I’m writing X people again! This one’s about one of my fave non-romantic relationships in the X-men, Gambit and Jubilee. It is, in fact, the very reason Gambit became my favorite—11 yo me sat down in front of XTAS’ Night of The Sentinels back in ‘92, fangirling Storm so hard, but also relating to little Jubilation Lee (hey! She was my age!), and then Gambit comes busting his ass into that mall scene with the Sentinel, helping Jubes, and I was just…done. I loved the big brother/little sister dynamic so much, he became a favorite (later, he became my favorite, Rogue not far behind, cuz those boots and that jacket!) instantly.

(Yes, Storm is still a fave, of course; she was my first X crush lmao)

But anyway, I’ve always had a soft spot for their relationship, and this idea popped up after becoming an obsessed Jono/Jubes shipper recently. It tickled the funny bone a little, realizing some of the similarities I see between Romy and Chamberlee, and I sort of snickered my way into this one shot. It still needs work, I’m rusty, and as you know, I never give a damn about canon-compliant fics, so to hell with fitting into canon timeline or whatever, I do what I want. But here’s a hint of the amusement I’d experienced upon stumbling ass-first into a ship I really wish would pick back up.

In the words of Jubes, I have a type. *sigh*

———————————————————————

“So Remy. How can I get a guy like you take note of a gal like me?”

“You don’t; I’m a piece of shit,” he shoots back, eyeing the roof’s edge before him from which somewhere not far below the question had chirped up, “but it helps immensely to not be twelve, ‘tite-chere.”

“I’m not twelve, you butthole,” the owner of said chirpy voice grunts as she hauls herself up into view over the roof’s edge. “Also quit smoking. Gross habit. I heard Rogue bitching about it earlier, too, lover-boy.”

“I do what I want, and so does she,” he shrugs, deliberately not considering the ass-chewing he has coming once his wife smells evidence of him chimneying away like he hadn’t promised to quit. “The hell’d your question come from anyway, eh? I know you ain’t set them pretty brown eyes on me.”

Jubilee nearly snorts out her entire brain at him. “Of course not. Well, maybe when I actually was like, twelve, and you’d first arrived,” she amends with a flip of her hand as she unceremoniously deposits herself beside him, “but I was young and stupid then, and that was a long time ago. Besides, you’re old now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, p‘tite,” he crooks her a lop-sided grin. “Forget what I just said about being a piece of shit, chere, I do in fact gotta commend you on your taste. And I ain’t old, you’re still just twelve.“

“Yes, ‘cause tears and tragedy are so delicious,” the girl rolls her eyes, choosing to ignore his teasing about her ever-youthful appearance. “Apparently, I have a type,” she adds with a long-suffering sigh… … …

. . .

My mind is playing memories of us that never existed.

In my dreams, we have this whole life together.

When my eyes are closed, all I can see is pictures of us that was never taken.

My Story of Envy

In ninth grade, the worst possible life you could be living was to be steadily approaching your 15th birthday (mine was in January and hers was in March) and still never have been kissed. We would have preferred to be taken as prisoners of war and waterboarded. I'm 18 now. (No, that's the end of the paragraph.)

At the time, I thought of Rachel as this incredible, addictive echo chamber, the one and only person I had ever met who really understood me. Looking back, we had almost nothing in common. She was very, very religious, very smart, and had a completely opposite worldview and lifestyle to mine. We were friends because the way that we defined ourselves was so similar, because we hated all the same things about ourselves. Isn't it so great and disgusting that women can build an entire friendship on wishing our boobs were bigger?

This was during the 2020-2021 school year, when we were all desperate to escape our isolation. In any other time, I don't think we would've become friends.

I've always been obsessed with that idea of a ride-or-die, who you've seen through thick and thin, whose hair you hold back while she vomits Mike's Hard Lemonade at a frat party and whose dress you hold up while she pees at her wedding. And while Rachel and I were connecting very quickly, talking every day, learning everything about each other, confessing secrets like they were passing comments on the weather, we had only known each other for a year. I still can't understand why I thought I could will that kind of friendship into existence overnight.

I had felt her pulling away from me for a while, but I threw love at her like Coraline threw the Cat at her Other Mother's face. I thought if I ignored the feeling for long enough, it would give up and go home. I knew something had changed between us when I found out the boy we both had a desperate crush asked her out 3 weeks earlier.

He wasn't the love of my life, or anything. Mostly, I liked him to share something with her. Her type was cowboys (yes, really), so I guessed mine was, too. This boy looked at 21st-century Seattle and saw Gilded Age Louisiana. I mean, he unironically wore a huge cowboy hat and boots and a bolo tie to school everyday and called Rachel "ma'am." Something about a man in uniform, maybe?

I wasn't upset about losing him. I never had him, anyway. I was upset about losing her, because, for once in my life, I felt like I really belonged with someone, and I was under the impression she felt the same way. No rejection from any boy could ever hurt as much as a rejection from a friend.

Of course, there are so many going-on-15 girls who've never kissed anyone, but we didn't talk about it. I knew those girls existed, but I didn't know who they were. They weren't the loudest, most popular girls at my school, they weren't in my friend group, they weren't on Disney Channel or in Sara Shepard books. Rachel was the only girl I'd ever met who I thought was like me. We got along so well because we were both ugly.

Rachel wasn't ugly, though. She was definitely shy, and she had a growth spurt that the boys hadn't caught up to yet, but eventually they did, and that was it.

I'm not denying the importance of how self-esteem effects overall happiness and quality of life, especially in a teenage girl. What Rachel felt about herself was real and awful and painful, and I'm sorry that anyone has ever been made to feel that way. But in the end, she escaped. Not completely, of course. She is still going to have to live in a world that actively encourages self-loathing every second of every day for the rest of her life, but she can take comfort in the fact that what she feels about herself isn't actually true. She can know that it's no more than some see-through, half-hearted lie. She's someone who thinks she's ugly, and that's not easy, but she's not someone who has to go through life being ugly. She can think about other things besides her looks, because she's pretty. She can be absolutely certain that she will be loved. God, I want that more than anything. More than a sloppy kiss with someone who wears braces, even. I don't need to stop hating myself, but I want someone to disagree with me.

Rachel got to take off her metaphorical glasses, walk down the stairs in her new dress, and The Boy thought she was so beautiful, all he could say was, "wow." Meanwhile, I still have to be that 14-year-old girl four years later. And I still will be four years from now, and four years from then, and forever.

This was never meant to be who I was. I was never meant to leave middle school unkissed, I was supposed to be dating a ninth-grader in eight grade, and asked to senior prom as a freshman. I was supposed to throw sleepovers for all my friends and stay up all night gabbing (I hate that word) about our boyfriends.

And I just know that in 10 years, it's going to be 3:00 A.M. and I'll have work tomorrow but I'll have stayed up that late fighting against Prozac and trying to make myself come and eventually I'll give up, close AO3, and open up Facebook. I'll look her up and see that she went to Northwestern (ooh) and just got engaged to some guy who has his own business (makes jerking-off gesture) selling organic soy candles. Good for her, seriously. (Is jerking-off hyphenated?)

It wasn't that I didn't think she deserved to have that, or that I wanted to take it from her. I wanted her to have it, but I wanted it to be possible for me to have it, too. I wished I lived in a world where there was enough of it to go around. But if we did, she wouldn't even want it anymore. She wouldn't have felt so strongly about it, it wouldn't have even mattered to her. I guess it wouldn't have mattered to me, either. She is a wonderful person who deserves everything and more. I wish wasn't someone she feels lucky not to be.

I wish the best for Rachel. And I wish better than the worst for myself.

Word. I don't know why I met any of my shitty exes but I wish I didn't. I also know if I didn't....I wouldn't be the person I am today....maybe I'd be better, or maybe I'd be worse. IDK

I hate that I feel upset that none of my boyfriend’s friends will ever refer to me and him as they’re “favorite couple”🫠

Half the time I wish I was no longer single. And the other half. I realize why being single is just the better choice.

It's the feeling of not wanting to be alone. While simultaneously being content in aloneness. A contradiction of values.

I suppose the right idea would be to find someone that makes you never want to be without them. That makes being with them at least better than being alone. Right. Let me just get right in that non-existent possibility ;) Someone that would want me and that I can feel that with??? Been there tried that many a time... is it even worth it. Does it exist? Who knows. Maybe not for me.

You know when someone shares a post and you're just sitting there like really....

A love that burns once can't be easily replaced.

And honey you replace them like a flavor of the month.

Maybe it's something you wish you were capable of. However, they all can't burn the same and love is never the same as the next one so it just feels as though you are sharing the post to see a reaction or lying to yourself. Which it's probably lying to yourself. He'll probably don't even know what it really is.. most of those relationships were more of a transaction than love for the other person.

I guess uncertainty makes people feel uneasy about some decisions so they avoid it, when all you have to do is just dive right into it if you feel that it will make your life richer. But be prepared to handle tons of rejection before you get it right.

Couple of the year

Friday Faves: Lump

This week I am posting two old favourites which (I think) don’t need much editing but I feel maybe I should decide on a ‘house style’? My drawing changes over time (and changes back too – I forget to put in ears too as you can see). I may standardize the text – in the top one its Bold, in the bottom Regular and may play with a different font. Black and white is easier and cheaper to print up too…

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I hate relationships and love, I hate having feelings for someone. It's really stressful and every time my effort isn't reciprocated I automatically think (it's because I'm unlovable and I'm not good enough)

Even through it all, I still feel lonely.