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gwen-tolios · 1 month

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Spring Break

I'm participating in #springintoastory to build a healthy, consistent writing habit!

The first prompt is Spring Break, and Lisa and Monica are from my sapphic aro ace romance - Returning to You. 💜

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"I think you should stay with me here for spring break."

Lisa looked up as her dormmate walked through the door to their dorm room. Monica's black hair was windswept, but she didn't seem to mind.

"I thought you were going home? You don't live that far away."

Monica frowned as she hung up her coat in their tight closet. "Mama keeps telling me to live life to the fullest. Enjoy the college life."

"Campus is going to be dead, though."

"I mean," Monica sighed as she collapsed in her desk chair, head thrown over the back of the headrest. Lisa shut her economics textbook and gave Monica her full attention. "There's a few frat parties I've heard about. I might go to those. And there's always something going on in Chicago."

"Do you want to spend your spring break getting drunk every night?"

"I mean, I wouldn't mind."

Lisa scoffed.

Monica rolled her chair across the room. "Look, I know you're not into the party scene."

"I would like to pass my classes –"

"But there are no classes. It's spring break. What would you do at your parent's place anyway?"

Lisa shrugged, "Just hang out."

She wasn't going home to do things. She was going home to see her family. Take a break. Enjoy her dad's cooking. At least one high school friend would be back in town, and it would be nice to reconnect. Even though they had seen each other over Christmas break.

Monica hooked her hands under her chin and tilted her face up, lip quivering. Her dark eyes turned watery.

"Ug," Lisa put up her hand as a block. "I'm not saying for break."

"Maybe stay for part? You don't want me walking to and from a party by myself, do you?"

"You can handle yourself." Monica regularly went to Boystown. Lisa had gone once or twice, cajoled by someone or another, but that part of town was Monica's scene. Loud music and people and drinks and a freedom she didn't believe she had on campus.

"Okay, yes. But I'd still like to go with you."

Sighing, Lisa looked at her friend. The puppy dog eyes were gone, replaced by sincerity. And Lisa had so few friends, she would always cave to Monica, even if they had known each other for less than a year.

"Fine. I'll hop on the Metra Wednesday."

"Yay!"

#spring into a story #springintoastory #prompt 1 #creative writing #writeblr #returning to you #gwen writes #original fiction

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paradiseiswhereveriam · 2 years

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Starting at the Beginning: Sunkissed Child as a Note on the Beauty and Necessity of Returning to Self

Sunkissed Child: Poetry in Black Life is an homage to, a celebration, and an encouragement of your survival. Not only the survival of your physical body, but also the survival of your inner child and, inherently, your black radical imagination. The life we are all striving to achieve – one of ease, joy, fulfillment, abundance, prosperity, and success– is dependent on both the validation of your inner child’s knowledge, needs and creative pursuits and interests, and the integration of them into who you are now. And this integration, this survival of your inner child, happens when you go back to the beginning.

Who were you before you were told who to be? What fascinated you? What made you bubble with excitement? What made you want to grow up quicker so that you could fully dive into it without the restraints your childhood may have imposed you? Who were you as a child? Who were you at the beginning?

It’s easy to forget who you are. You grow up and experience pain, heartbreak and traumatic events; you develop mental health struggles and try your best to cope with them, along with meeting the demands of your everyday life. Which includes everything from texting that person back to figuring out how you’re going to support yourself because you’re getting kicked out and school is just too much and you’re grieving the loss of someone or something and your physical health needs attention.

They tell you your only way out is to be like everyone else. Get into the same money-making schemes as everyone else; listen to the same music (that’s how you increase engagement); have the same aesthetic (how’s anyone gonna like your stuff?); to dress alike; to look alike; to have the same views about everything. It’s easy! And that’s why it’s dangerous.

The first reason is because this unspoken rhetoric entraps you in a rat race that makes you think that when you don’t go viral, and you’re not rich, and you’re still struggling to make ends meet, even when you’re checking all the boxes, that there is something wrong with you and that you need to run faster on your wheel, and not something wrong with why you felt the need to assimilate to survive in the first place.

And the second reason is because it kills your imagination and starves and invalidates your inner child who is the key to…

Read full post here

https://www.justforblackgirls.com/post/starting-at-the-beginning-sunkissed-child-as-a-note-on-the-beauty-and-necessity-of-returning-to-self

#mental health #inner child #blogger #blackgirlswhoblog #blackmentalwellness #returning to you #black girls of tumblr #poetry #poetry book

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aroaessidhe · 1 year

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2023 reads // twitter thread

Returning To You

NA contemporary romance-ish about a travel influencer moving back home to reconnect with her dad, who ends up living with her college friend and fake dating her to get her parents off her back

ace bi & aro bi MCs

I did….not think the aro character in particular was handled very well tbh

#Returning To You #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #ok so like for the most part this was fine?#i found some aspects the writing was messy and rushed #the set up especially with her dad randomly kicking her out and her outing her friends #*friend #(the dad's random mood swings Are intentional it turns out he has dementia #but it still could have been written a little better)#i was sort of enjoying the complex depiction of a specific ace experience and aro expereince but #overall….ace character is constantly pushing the aro emotional boundaries and yet the aro character is shown as being in the wrong?#also the aro is shown as having no friends and a plot point is that she doesn’t get along with anyone at her work and isn’t that close #to her parents it’s just kinda. idk. feels like a bad stereotype #there was like hardly any emphasis on her platonic love or friendship for anyone? if she is loveless it could have explored that intentional #intentionally but I don’t think it was intended that way #her aroness is only shown as romance repulsion and eventually the ace character is like oh obviously you’re aro! and almost forces the label #on her in anger? she does research and decides that she is but it’s handled a lot more messily than the ace character is.#also. they sleep together and the ace gets so mad that the aro treats it like another one of her one night stands #(when she has spent months talking about how uncomfortable she is with romance and relationships)#and the ace is like 'you disrespected my boundaries bc you know i only sleep with people when there's an emotional connection!!'#but COMPLETELY ignores the fact that RIGHT AFTER she said she's in love with the aro? like how is that not also disrespecting her boundaries #after chapters and chapters of her feeling like this she acknowledges in one (1) sentence that she was kinda in the wrong too but yikes.#it’s concluded very fast and i feel uncomfortable for the aro tbh #just overall it left a bad taste in my mouth tbh!#also it has this trope of the character who loves one night stands and not relationships;#where the author tries to tell us that it’s totally fine to just be into sex and one night stands!!!!! but the narrative nonetheless demonis #es them for it (cough loveless cough)

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aspeccharactersoftheday · 2 years

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Monica from Returning to You is asexual!

#monica #returning to you #canon aspec #asexual

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hansoeii · 9 months

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look at you, you're gorgeous!

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edwardbonnets · 9 months

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how to ask the demon you've been smitten over for 6000 years to dance: an angel's guide

bonus:

#goodomensedits #goodomensgifs #good omens #good omens s2 #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #userkristi #userlauren #userstede #userisaiah #userelio #userhani #my gifs #edit: the old caption has been fixed!!! changed it to 'we' like god (neil gaiman) intended #EDIT EDIT: NEIL GAIMAN HIMSELF REBLOGGED THIS POST AND CONFIRMED ITS NOT 'WE' BUT 'YOU DONT DANCE' LIKE I HAD ORIGINALLY OKAY #im returning to my roots #(aka making gifs but adding my chaotic commentary and editing to it)#i wish i was at home i'd be able to use a better quality video but im also ~impatient~#hopefully no one beat me to the punch #because this scene is genuinely one of my favorites like look at azi look at his smile im gonna fucking cry :')))))#like michael sheen!!!!!!!! michael sheen i am banging at your door like a wild chimpanzee #the ACTING CHOICES #the way you can literally SEE his thought process and excitement over asking crowley to dance i am in shambles i really am

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canisalbus · 1 month

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Today's tumblr experience.

#own art #own characters #CanisAlbus #boop #the boopening #art #artists on tumblr #Machete #Vasco #I've been trying to return as many boops as I can but if I don't get to you I'm sorry it's a little overwhelming and it's getting late #I just thought it was funny how the cat paw colors almost match theirs (+ my umbreon sona's)

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cock-holliday · 8 months

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Sometimes wild attraction shit happens when you learn to separate masc/fem from man/woman. I’ve known queer women find the femininity in a man attractive. I’ve known gay men get so hot and bothered by the masculinity of a woman.

There was once a guy who was not really my type but then he did drag and was suddenly wildly attractive to me. And since I’m bisexual it doesn’t give me a crisis when someone is suddenly hot to me in an unconventional way. I used to think this was particularly a bi experience.

Then I’ve met plenty of gay men and lesbians who are also chill about that sort of thing. Sometimes life is like that “oops made out with a twink in Brighton who turned out to be a lesbian who thought I was a lesbian” and sometimes it’s like “hey, I’m not normally into men but this guy has got something hot going on.”

#and this of course leaves out androgyny in all its formss #or feminine masculinity and masculine feminity and so on #gender and sexuality are weird #don’t get too hung up on it #you don’t HAVE to like anyone #someone liking you doesnt mean you have to return it!#AND two people who you don’t think should fit together fitting together doesn’t affect you literally at all #LJsm

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alwaysbelieveinmiraclesuk · 5 months

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Fly me to the Moon!

#Bali #Freedom #Returning to you #Retreat #manifestation #Travel #Explore

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ambrosiagourmet · 4 months

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I think one of the biggest tragedies of Laios & Falin and their relationship is how much his actions impact her life. But like. Specifically how much they WOULDN’T impact her life as much if they weren’t both stuck in such a shitty abusive situation.

This part of the Falin-tries-makeup daydream hour comic is what got me thinking about it again because truly it just... it seems like such a like an offhand comment that I'm sure Laios didn't mean to be cruel or anything. That's just like. A little kid not thinking about what they are saying. ESPECIALLY when the kid in question is Laios.

But man they depended on each other SO much as kids. Too much. It really feels like they didn't have any other source of positive reinforcement, or anyone else to share themselves with. So of course an offhand comment like that has a huge impact on Falin.

Or this little bit from one of the flashbacks:

This tears me apart. Do you think it tears him apart to think about? I think it does. I think Laios holds every small failure to care for Falin against himself.

And then there's the Bigger stuff. The way that him coping with his own trauma ended up impacting her.

Like his interest in monsters. Like him going to find a ghost, and accidentally revealing Falin's magic to the whole village in the process.

Like him needing to leave. And leaving her behind.

He shaped her life so much, and he carries so much guilt for it. And again, there should have been other people there to help. The same things that made Laios need to leave home are the things that made his leaving so hard on Falin. She ate alone after that. She shouldn't have had to eat alone just because Laios wasn't there.

She was 9 when he left for school, and he was 11.

Nine. And Laios feels like he failed her because he didn't stand by her through this better. As an eleven year old.

Both of these kids deserved so much better from the world.

#dunmeshi analysis #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #laios touden #dungeon meshi spoilers #AND this isn't even getting into her leaving the academy & how much it seems like that was directly tied to how poorly he was doing #there's a comic in the adventurer's bible where marcille is like 'yeah she had a job lined up and everything'#and like. do you think he feels bad for that too #like he wrecked her life by leaving #and wrecked her life by showing up #what do you even do at that point. if you feel like a failed protector when you are away & and a burden when you return #unable to make yourself accept. unable to make yourself resist #Laios strongest moment is when he lets himself accept that. the contradiction of his life & his relationship with Falin #that he has to kill her to save her #as a small note this came out a little more focused on Laios' POV with this stuff but Falin's experience of it is v important to me too #didn't mean to sideline her but her feelings about stuff are more speculative and probably need a post of their own

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gwen-tolios · 1 year

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I was on a podcast!

We talked a lot about queer rep in media (specifically ace rep of course) and the impact covid had on my writing

#gwen publishes #returning to you #writeblr #tumblr author #indie author #podcasting #queer author

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heritageposts · 6 months

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Nelson Mandela addressing Palestinians in Gaza:

Choose peace rather than confrontation. Except in cases where we cannot get, where we cannot proceed, where we cannot move forward. Then if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.

#palestine #israel #gaza #nelson mandela #and if you think they haven't 'tried peace' then look up what happened during the great march of return

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chloesimaginationthings · 1 month

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