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tieronecrush · 1 year

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ninth wheels

javier peña x f!reader

prequel little flahsback to ‘a slight malfunction’

warnings: NO USE OF Y/N, use of pet names, alcohol use, dancing, alluding to smut, javi is always respectful to women cause that’s how i think he is so

rating: M (18+ ONLY, MDNI)

word count: 2.1k

summary: the night you and javi first meet - your friends have dragged you out, but they’ve made you both ninth wheels when they all pair up with their current hookups.

a/n: more to come about these two if y’all want it <3

March 1990

Eyes wander around the bustling bar in San Antonio. Your friends from home that moved up to the city with you dragged you out after the shittiest week of work you’d ever had. Your clients were constantly changing their minds about what they wanted when you approached them with new drafts, you hated the work you were producing, and your coworkers were leaning in a bit too hard with hazing the new girl (your computer getting unplugged when you went to the bathroom, your Xacto knives dulled, the printer ink mysteriously disappearing when you needed to print designs for a client presentation - the list could go on). And to top it all off, you were now sitting at an overly crowded bar, playing too loud country music, a shitty mixed drink in your hand when all you wanted to do on this Friday night was curl up with a bottle of cheap, screwtop wine that belonged to your roommate and watch some sort of romantic comedy. You weren’t going to be picky.

But alas, you were trying to be a good sport for your friends. You made easy conversation with your roommates and other friends from back in Laredo, the night moving a bit slowly as you checked the time on your watch to see if it was an hour where you could graciously excuse yourself.

Vibes were good for the few hours you were there with your girls, all dancing together and chatting about work, graduate school, or the stupid men you’d encountered since you had last seen each other. That is until a group of guys walk up to you. You recognize a few of the faces, placing them in the halls of Nixon High or at various places around Laredo that you’d seen glimpses of them in. One face doesn’t look super familiar, and he looks at least a year or two older than the guys around him.

The blonde one that you recognize from classes in high school speaks with your roommate, the noise of it too quiet and getting drowned out by the music blaring. It’s as if it’s a teenage drama; each of the rest of the men break off and pair up with the rest of your friends. That leaves you, and the one older guy who looks vaguely familiar.

He looks at you, and you meet his eyes. Between the two of you, four shoulders shrug. He motions you to the side with his head, pulling you away from the rest of the group at the table just as you’re starting to feel like a ninth wheel. Some part of you thinks that maybe you shouldn’t be following this stranger to the bar, but if he was hanging around the other guys, he must be at least sort of tolerable. And hopefully not a murderer. At least you could kill some time with him before you make, what you now decided, to be a gracious Irish goodbye.

The two of you saunter up to the counter; the bartender makes a motion that he’ll be right over, and the mystery man pulls out the last available stool for you. Chivalry isn’t dead. A deep baritone pulls you away from facing the bar, turning to face the man who rescued you from being in the middle of a giant flirting-turned-make-out session.

“I have to say, you are a bit of a sight for sore eyes. Have been feeling like the ninth wheel going out with that crew on the weekends lately. I haven’t seen you with the girls before, though, and I would definitely have noticed someone like you,” he clears his throat, cutting off his slight rambling, “I’m Javier Peña, but, uh, you can call me Javi.”

His stumbling around his words is just so damn endearing that you can’t help but give him a warm smile. He matches your smile, his lips curling up under the dark mustache that frames the top of his mouth.

You give him your name, shaking his hand that he had extended politely. “Well, I’m glad to be of use to you, Javi. I was just starting to feel like a ninth wheel myself. But now, I guess, we are ninth wheels together. Or would that make us ninth and tenth?”

He laughs just for a moment, eyes crinkling as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure, honestly. I guess that would depend on if you wanna come out with us again. Or maybe we’ll both never wanna go out with that group again by the end of tonight.”

“Could be possible, especially with the fact that I think everyone’s going end up as sloppy drunks feeling each other up in this damn bar,” You laugh as you turn your head away from the table full of your friends, meeting his gaze again. It sends a shock up your spine with the intensity of his stare, not intimidating or scary, but full of sincerity and what you think might be a bit of attraction.

“Hey, never know, you could end up being sloppy with someone in this damn bar. Never say never, querida.” His mouth quirks up to one side in a smirk, his accent changing with the last word spoken. You have no idea what it means, but based on context clues, you can figure out it’s flirty.

The bartender waltzes over to the two of you, taking your orders. Javi orders a beer, a Tecate, while you order your usual G&T. The bartender makes small talk with the two of you as he quickly makes your drink, setting your glass and Javi’s beer down in front of you. As you turn to reach into your bag for your cash, Javi is already handing the bartender a ten-dollar bill with a few singles, telling him to keep the change.

“Well, don’t say just someone, Javier. I think we both know who you’re hoping I get sloppy drunk with,” You shoot him a wink and take a sip of your drink, “And thank you for the drink. I’ll get the next round.” You cheers your glass against his beer and send him a cheeky grin, enjoying the slight flush that appears on his face.

“There’s going to be a next round, huh? Guess we actually might be on track to be messy drunks by the end of the night,” His smirk appears on his face again, his confidence coming back as he recovers from the blush that gave away part of his hand. “But I can’t deny that you’re right. Definitely wouldn’t mind being the guy you choose at the end of the night, hermosa.”

Now it’s your turn to glance away sheepishly, and a stirring in your stomach whirls its way around at his words. It feels as if you’re nearly twenty pounds lighter, that shaky adrenaline feeling coursing through you to send a chill over your whole body. You challenge his gaze with your own, the coquettish glint in his eyes giving away just as much as his words. He was not one to back down so long as you were reciprocating, and you figured that if you were already here for your friends, might as well have some fun with night. Maybe it’d turn out to be your own romantic comedy moment, and you wouldn’t be remiss about having to change your Friday plans.

And by the end of the night, you weren’t quite to a messy level. Drinks had slowed down as you both got to talking more, a light buzz kept consistent to keep your confidence up but not enough to inhibit your judgment about embarrassing stories to tell him. The two of you sat at the bar and chatted for a while, realizing that you two had, in fact, gone to the same high school, but he was a few years ahead of you. He was born and raised in Laredo, yet you had moved there the summer before freshman year. Javier was genuinely curious about your life, asking you about your life before Laredo, what brought you to San Antonio, and your shitty job. The complaints about the latter earned you another drink bought by him, and that definitely allowed you to change the subject and be bold enough to ask him to dance.

It was after nearly an hour of dancing with him that you knew how the night would end: him in your bed. And that is exactly what happened.

Light filtered through your curtains, blinding you along with the striking pain of your hangover washing over you. Turning your head to the left, you’re met with the sight of a sleeping Javier. His mouth hangs open just a bit, breaths deep and even. His expression is peaceful and relaxed, and you think back to his words from last night as you study his features: a sight for sore eyes.

You admire the softness of his tanned skin, a slight sunglasses tan line around his eyes. He’d mentioned last night that he was working as a sheriff around Laredo right now, working his way up in law enforcement. Which would explain the tan line - spending hours in the car or standing around traffic accidents or crime scenes under the Texas sun. The thought occurred to you to make sure he was wearing sunscreen every day, but you brushed it off. Too much for you to be concerned about his skin health after one night together.

Eyes skate across the rest of his features, his long lashes (why do they always get gifted to straight men who don’t care?), thick and messy brown bedhead hair, the currently mused mustache on top of his plush pink lips, his aquiline nose. Just when your eyes move up to take more of him in, his low, throaty baritone comes out in a scratch from going unused in sleep.

“You’re staring, querida.”

At this moment, you’re grateful he’s kept his eyes closed so he doesn’t see the way your eyes dart away from his face in embarrassment of being caught. His eyes slowly open and you shoot him an innocent smirk, biting the inside of your cheek as he fully wakes.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be weird. You’re just pretty.”

“Never said it was weird, I’d take a pretty girl staring at me every morning.” He grins sleepily at you, reaching a hand up to rub the drowsiness from his eyes. He turns onto his side to face you, a genuine smile fighting its way onto his face. “Good morning, hermosa. Slept alright with a strange man in your bed?”

“Mhmm, especially after my activities with said strange man last night,” You smirk cheekily as he chuckles out a raspy laugh, “And you really are wasting all of this Spanish flirting on me. I have no idea what any of it means.” It’s his turn to give you a cheeky smirk, moving in closer to you on top of the mattress. “I figured you didn’t after the first one I used last night. But what’s the fun of telling you what they all mean or not using them? It’s like a little secret each time.”

Eyes lock into his umber eyes, flecks of caramel and gold catching the morning light from the window. At that moment, you realize you don’t really want the fun flirty banter to end quite yet, so you abruptly extend an invitation to him.

“Do you wanna get breakfast together? My favorite diner’s right down the street and they’ve got killer food.”

Javi seems a bit taken aback by the suggestion for a split second before a genuine smile spreads across his features. A warm, roughly calloused hand finds its way to your bare waist, pulling you close enough to kiss. His lips are inches from yours and you can feel his humid breath dance across your face and neck from the proximity.

“I’d love to get breakfast with you. But I have to tell you, I’m a sweet breakfast kinda guy. I’ll be judging this place based on their waffles.”

You exhale a short laugh from your nose, nodding as you keep his eyes fixed on yours. “Well, that solves my dilemma then. I can never decide between sweet or savory for breakfast, but now I know I can choose savory and steal some of yours.”

He matches the sweet grin on your face, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he responds, “You can have whatever you want of mine, cariño. I’ll gladly let you have it.”

taglist (pulled from notes on the first part, lmk if you want to be removed!): @swiftispunk @pedrit0-pascalit0 @lil-stark @joelsversion @mrsvedder12 @starsandsaints07 @wild-fauxed @rubyshouse @notes-from-my-journal @mi-place @killervirgosworld @paytonispunk @jakecockley @hydrangaces @jupitercorgi @kaliforniahigh @starshinedowo @siby-lline @luckyclo @nic0lodean @creedslove @westeros-needs-me @ikigailereve @the-casual-cat @marysucks-blog @midnightswithdearkatytspb @luamarieta @eggnox @algressman16 @blooming-bubs @kamcrazy123 @kaletastrophes @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @nasanatmfers @storyarcscribe @s3xymoonman @sylphene @asirenbyanyothername @ur-honey-child @frustratedpanda @sarcasmismyonlydefense24 @nonbinarymothman @dieterbravo @theelishad @pascalislove @bigbutchenergee @starkovli

#javier #javier peña fic #javier peña x you #javier peña fanfic #javier peña #javier peña x f!reader #javier peña x reader #javier peña x female reader #javier peña fanfiction #javier pena #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena fic #javier pena fanfiction #javier pena fanfic #me #writing

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urmumsdrycooch · 2 years

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ᒪIᐯEᔕ ᗪEᑭEᑎᗪEᗪ Oᑎ IT

Alex Chen x GN!Reader

Summary: "A gn!reader x Alex Chen from lis: true colours where reader is new to Haven and they know Alex because they used to date (let's just say she's a bit older since shes, like 16 or something in the game) but they broke up because Alex had abandonment issues (you can add anything else if you like) so when reader shows up, Alex is a bit distand and cold shouldered because shes falling in love with them again and is super scared to admit it even though reader never stopped loving her? Happy ending and all pretty please with a cherry on top?"

Warnings: Swearing, abandonment issues.

Someone told me that the best way to start life is by moving on and away. Make things happen for yourself, get out and seize every opportunity that crosses your path. Live life to the fullest and don't let anything hold you back. Though I may not remember who, it didn't stop me from following their words.

I'd been living in Portland for the past two years, and those two years were probably the shittiest of my life. Living on minimum wage in some good-for-nothing bar in the cheapest flat possible with a roommate I never see and their cat, still trying to recover from a breakup from like a year ago.

I had given up on everything and everyone. I was going through the motions, just existing.

One day, I was at the bar, nursing a beer and scrolling through my phone when I saw an advertisement for a job in a small town over in Colorado. I continued to scan over every minute detail, each word tempting me more and more. It gave me everything I lacked, a stable home and job, a community, and just peace within myself. I hesitated for a moment, but then I decided to go for it, sending an email to the ad's address.

It wasn't exactly how I'd planned on spending my shift, but for some reason, I don't feel a single ounce of remorse. So as soon as I got home I began packing.

It felt all too familiar, shoving all your stuff in bags knowing you'll be leaving everything behind. All too familiar.

I'd been placed in this situation a year ago, I was with someone, I was in love, but it doesn't matter anymore. Well, it shouldn't matter, even thought it's the only thing I remember before this version of my life. I chose to be with her, I gave everything for her, I was doing it for Alex and I, but clearly she couldn't do the same. She destroyed every ounce of my happiness with a few of her words, it was almost like she knew exactly how to take apart all of my feelings.

But this time, I knew that I was doing it for me.

After numerous taxis I could barely afford and several mental breakdowns, I arrived in Colorado two weeks later and despite the nerves, at first glance, it was all worth it. Haven was adorable, the people looked friendly, and the job position was perfect. It was everything I'd ever wanted and more.

That was all until 2 hours post arrival. Where I'm at now. Occasionally glancing through a record shop window, in fear I'd seen someone I'd been trying to escape. Brushing it off as if it were just my mind playing tricks on me.

Considering it was the first day, I settled in nicely, a cutesy little flat above one of the shops littered around the town. It already felt like home, but as always, something had to go wrong.

I slept like a baby knowing I had no more major responsibilities to take care of, I can simply just live my life.

I exit the building the morning after to take a walk around Haven, and familiarise myself with my new home. I stroll past the small ice cream shop, the couple (who I guess is the owners) outside in a heated discussion. Then passing by a post office, I look ahead, and finally, something intrigues me.

'Rocky Mountain Record Traders', sounds cool, might go have a look inside.

I wander over to the door, letting my hand push it open. I'm greeted by a cheerful auburn girl, rocking a navy blue beanie, "Welcome!"

"Hey," I smile back out of politeness.

"Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you around?" She questions, leaning back on the counter.

"Yeah, got here yesterday from Portland," I answer, scratching the back of my neck.

"Oh, cool! My friend in the back is from Portland, what's your name?" The auburn beams, waiting for my response so she can call her friend.

"Y/n. Y/n L/n."

There she is, she walks in, taking one glance at me then not bothering to spare another in my direction. It feels like my heart's stopped as if I'm witnessing a scene from a movie and not reality. I can't move, I can't do anything as she stands in front of me, my heart shattering into a million pieces all over again.

"Have I reunited something special or are you total strangers?" Steph jokes in an attempt to fill the silence.

"Total strangers." The black-haired girl huffs before turning around and walking out the door.

What is her fucking problem? Can't we at least be civil, I didn't end us, she did. I should be the one storming out the door, the fucking nerve of her. She doesn't get to walk out on me. Not again. "Hey, where are you going?" Steph asks, not receiving an answer from the girl.

Steph glances at me with raised eyebrows, unknowing of what had just happened. I can tell she's decided not to dwell on it, simply just giving me a nod before letting me leave.

Later that night I sat in my room, wondering how the only good thing in my life has been ruined by the only good thing in another life. How did we end up in the same place again? Part of me wants to say fate, but it's immediately terminated as soon as it was brought to mind. Alex doesn't get to be angry, she left me. No goodbye. No explanation. Nothing.

I go to sleep with her on my mind, nothing has changed.

I wake up in the morning and do as I usually would, shower, brush my hair and teeth, etcetera. It soon gets to 1:30, and I begin to make my way over to my new job, a bartender at some bar called the Black Lantern, I talk to some guy called Jed who runs the place and we discuss my schedule and wages, nothing too exciting, then I finally get to work.

I scan the room, noting the very... unique style, unable to tell if it's pirate-esque or cowboy-esque. I continue to think about that for another half hour until I notice somebody to my side.

I take my eyes off the beer I had begun to pour to find out who had just joined me behind the bar. For it only to be, the one, the only, Alex Chen. What a shocker. The one thing (person) that I'd hoped to avoid at all costs just happens to work where I work.

The shift goes on and the bar gets busier and busier as more people flow into the building. I'm surprised we haven't run out of Lager yet, got me pouring three at a time. Alex hadn't uttered a word to me, only bringing back empty glasses and occasionally pulling the odd few drinks. I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not, so I decided to just let it go.

I watch her put on her jacket and make her way to the door, "Hey, what the fuck are you doing?" I shout over the loud chatter of prominently old men.

"Shift's over."

"It's jammed in here, can't you stay a little while longer?" I request, sounding too needy and desperate for my own liking.

Alex rolls her eyes in response and walks annoyedly back over to the bar, this time she'd every so often bear to even speak a couple of words to me, whether it's "Pass those." or "Hurry it up." It's still progress, not like I needed it nor wanted it.

A few hours later and it's getting close to close, Jed lets us know that we're all going home for the night. As we're saying our goodbyes, Alex finally breaks the silence.

"So, you work here now?" She asks eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Yes, I started today," I answer, not really knowing what else to say.

"Why are you here?" She continues, her voice laced with a tone I couldn't quite distinguish.

"My own reasons."

"Just tell me did you know I was here?" She bites, her voice laced with poison as she spat it right into my face.

"God! Everything is not about you, if anything I came here to get over you." I snap back, her face dropping as soon as I responded.

Maybe I shouldn't have told her that, she probably still thinks I have feelings for her, which I do not. I do not. But what if she still has feelings for me? Oh God Y/n, get your mind out of the gutter.

She just looks at me for a moment, seeming to contemplate what to say next. In the end, she simply turns on her heel but before she could walk away I take hold on to her wrist. She doesn't look shocked, she actually looked like she knew I was going to do it. And that fucking annoys me.

"So?" I let go of her wrist, crossing my arms.

"So what?"

"Don't play dumb, Chen. No explanation? You left me, no reason as to why." My voice on the verge of breaking due to the tears I try to hold back.

"It's not that simple, Y/n."

"Oh? So how simple is it then, Alex? I did nothing to you, I loved to until my heart could take it no longer, and even then I continued. Was it one-sided? Did you get bored? Please, just give me a clue." I utter, a waterfall of tears threatening to pour from my eyes.

"You were going to leave me, Y/n! So, I had to leave you before you would do it to me!" She admits, taking me back quite a bit, silencing any words that were ready to pass over my lips. She plays with her sleeves, looking as though she regrets what she'd just confessed. The sight brought a hint of sadness to me, she looks so vulnerable and fragile.

"I would've never fucking left you, Alex. What could've possibly made you think that?"

"I could feel it, I had my suspicions and I was scared, so I did it before I got hurt. I won't have another person leave me. I knew I'd never stop loving you, so I left while uncertain."

Deep down I know that I too would never stop loving her, and how true that is right at this moment.

"Did you ever stop?" I ask, my voice shaky and broken.

"No."

The silence fell upon us again, this time it was heavier, more weighted. It felt like the air had been cut off and we were both struggling to breathe.

"Me neither." I finally whisper, my voice trembling.

And with that, we hugged each other tightly, letting our tears soak into each other's clothes. We held on to each other as if our lives depended on it because, in a way, they did.

#life is strange true colors #life is strange x reader #life is strange 3 #alex chen x reader #alex chen #steph gingrich #jed lucan

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greyfix · 2 years

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Honey, I’m Home

Ship: Tsukishma Kei/Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Tobio & Yamaguchi Tadashi

Summary: Yamaguchi, Kageyama, and Tsukishima have a routine. Ho do they handle it when things change.

Word Count: 979 (sorry it’s short, but it was originally a drabble)

Requested By: n/a

Warnings/Tags:

Author’s Note: This was originally the shittiest drabble I ever wrote. And then it became this. If enough of you guys want a part two i might do it.

“Honey, I’m Home~” Yamaguchi quipped as he walked into the apartment.

“You are aware that you don’t actually live here, right?” was the response he was met with from the kitchen.

He was, in fact, aware that this wasn’t his apartment. But he didn’t have a roommate, and bothering Kageyama while waiting for Tsukishima to get home was one of his favorite pastimes.

He walked into the room and sat at the counter watching Kageyama cook from behind. “You’re just mad because Tsukki gives me more attention.”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Kageyama growled, turning around to look at the green haired boy in his home. “I should get all of the attention.”

Yamaguchi laughed, “The fact that you admitted that you’re jealous is comedic gold my man.”

They had all become a lot closer after their time on the volleyball team. Kageyama learned to play well with others, and Tsukishima learned to express himself through something other than insults. Yamaguchi gained confidence being their captain, and they all stayed friends throughout their college years. They had changed, but it was for the better.

Tsukishima and Kageyama still played volleyball with the college team, but Yamaguchi decided to focus on academics. He did still see everyone, and sometimes the college team would let him join in on practices since he’s oh so close with Tsukishima and Kageyama.

“Kei’s got a class right now, so you’re stuck with me.” Kageyama grumped, “Or, even better you could leave and let me eat in peace.”

Yamaguchi chose to ignore this, instead focusing on peering around Kageyama to see what’s in the pan he was hunched over. “What are you making?”

“You can’t have any.” Kageyama didn't look away from his task.

Yamaguchi did end up getting a portion of the food. Funny how Kageyama just happened to cook for three. . He continued to banter with Kageyama until Kei got home, as per their usual routine. They had some classes together, even though Kageyama wasn’t as academically inclined as Yamaguchi.

Kageyama took care of him, feeding him and allowing him to stay in the apartment. And Yamaguchi did his part too. He always made sure to do the dishes after Kageyama cooked, and helped him with classwork. And though he showed up quite a lot, he always made sure the couple had their apartment to themselves. He may be annoying, something he has accepted, but he wasn’t an asshole. .

Yamaguchi made gagging noises when Tsukishima kissed him hello, after setting his keys down by the door and walking directly to the kitchen, knowing that’s where his boyfriend would be. He smiled at Yamaguchi, saying his hello’s and asking how close they came to killing each other before going to change.

They hung out for a good while. Watching movies or listening to music in the background while they played video games. Sometimes they would all just study together in silence. Sometimes they would break open a couple beers and just talk.

They’d grown together, creating this almost domestic routine that they followed to the tee almost every day.

That is until their little bubble bursts.

They loved their friends from high school, and they always would. But some of them tended to be a lot to handle all of the time.

So they were stoked when they heard that Hinata was going to the same college as them once his gap year was over. Yamaguchi even offered to let him stay at his apartment for a while until he could get settled on his own.

But it did interrupt their little routine. When Yamaguchi usually would go to Tsukishima and Kageyama’s for dinner, he found himself in the grocery store trying to keep up with Hinata’s ridiculous appetite. Hinata did pitch in, but he didn’t seem to register that most people didn’t eat 6 full meals a day.

And when he did go to Tsukishima and Kageyama’s to wind down, he would find hinata there as well. He was Kageyama’s best friend after all, even if they spent that year apart. Yamaguchi wasn’t one to try and break up a relationship like that just because he wanted a little bit of attention.

So he just let it be. He let the routine change. He was home for dinner more often, and his dinners with tsukishima and kageyama were a lot more high energy. More playful, energetic arguing than the calm banter he was used to.

He and Kageyama ended up going to the Library to study more often in order to escape the noise that came with hinata.

Then there were the times when Yamaguchi would go to walk into Kageyama and Tsukishima’s apartment to find it empty. They’d given him a key for that reason, but he couldn’t help but feel the pang of jealousy that came from knowing that his apartment was also empty. That came from knowing that Kageyama and Hinata were probably out playing volleyball somewhere while Tsukishima was in class.

So he did what he thought was best. He ignored the emotion and started towards the kitchen. He knew that when Kageyama comes home to an empty apartment, he cooks knowing well that someone would be home soon and he could give them food when they got there.

He pulled out Kageyama’s favorite pan, and a rubber spatula. He searched for the Chef’s knife and cutting board and started on prep. By the time he heard the door open everything was in the pan and nearly done.

He had been expecting Kageyama to walk into the kitchen since he was usually home long before Tsukishima’s class was finished, but what he saw when he turned was Tsukishima standing behind him, seemingly just as surprised as he was.

“Where’s Tobio?” Tsukishima asked, and Yamaguchi’s heart broke, and all of the feelings he’d been avoiding came to the forefront of his mind.

#haikyuu #tsukikage #tsukishima #kei #yamaguchi #tadashi #hinata #shoyou #fanfic #fluff #angst #hurt/comfort #emotions #feels #fanfiction #volleyboys #tsukishima/kageyama #sad yamaguchi tadashi

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wholeanimal · 3 years

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Quietly Shitty Men

“There is a specific type of person who will siphon the gas right from you because they’ve never learned how to shine their own light.” My ex is engaged. That shouldn’t bother me, should it? Oh, but it does. It bothers me because I saw it coming. Tell me, what makes a woman “crazy”? Is it when she follows her own instincts? Or is it when she suppresses them? Is she crazy for sensing something is wrong, or crazy for acting like it? It would be one thing if this was someone new. Good luck and God bless. It would be another if he said, at any point in the relationship, how he felt. That he was anxious or nervous or angry or scared or hurt or apprehensive or lost. You know, feelings. I can’t blame a person for having feelings. Had he stepped up and said “you know what, I can’t stop thinking about my ex, I want to give it another try with her.” That would have been fine. Not in the moment, but nine months later, I wouldn’t be feeling like this. Feeling like I’ve just clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place.

It wasn’t me. It was, obviously, never me. I wouldn’t still be putting myself back together after riding the world’s shittiest, least exciting roller coaster. I wouldn’t be having nightmares that I was somehow still dating him, still subjected to his unfortunately not unique brand of emotionlessness and quiet disdain. Like I was the freak for feeling. When things were really, truly over, that’s when I learned the most about who he was. I remember sitting at the kitchen counter, having a silent panic attack, wondering where I was going to live, what I was going to do, how I was going to make this all work. The pandemic and riots had hit my neighborhood hard, and I was trying to imagine starting life over when everything else was figuratively and literally crumbling. Granted, I can’t remember the conversation word-for-word, but this is my best attempt. “What’s going on?” “Nothing, I’m just freaking out.” “Why?” “I have to move. I have to start over. I have to figure out so many things.” “Yeah, well...” “What?” “I just don’t know why you’re so upset.” “Are you fucking serious?” “Yeah. I don’t know why you have to have so many emotions.” “Do you mean now, or in general?” “In general.” I was about ready to fly apart.

“You don’t...understand...why I have EMOTIONS?” ”Yeah. I guess I just don’t see the point.” I don’t remember much after that. I remember going back upstairs and crying so hard I vomited. So much made sense: it wasn’t that he couldn’t empathize with me. It’s that he saw no value in it. Only his emotions were valid. Anything beyond that was simply not worth caring about. It was chilling, and nauseating, and heartbreaking. My heart broke many times over the course of the month I spent living there after we decided to part ways. I had several conversations like this, where I realized just how long I had been having a one-sided relationship. It also made me feel white-hot, clench-fisted RAGE. How DARE he? NOTHING about his daily life would change. He would wake up in the same bed, go down the same set of stairs, putz around his merry fucking way. He wouldn’t have to spend a dollar or dime sorting out what came next. Me, on the other hand? I lost my job the same day I found my apartment. I wanted to claw the paint from the walls I had meticulously restored. I wanted to splinter the floors I had paid to have refinished. I wanted to take all this hard work with me, somehow, to show that I had not truly given up everything. That I had something left. I’m not writing this for you to feel bad about me. I’m more than fine. I’m not looking for words of encouragement. I don’t need them. I want him, and other quietly shitty men, held accountable. Nothing my ex did was actually abusive. It was juuuuust under the line, just enough for him to be able to walk away with his hands up, all “Guess it just didn’t work out!” And I know, I KNOW I’m not the only one. He made me feel crazy and stupid and weak and small and pathetic. I contorted myself into impossible shapes, trying to make the relationship work. I did things he would never do, that I would never do again. I moved across the country. Twice. I downplayed all the porn he watched. I pushed the fact that he had an active FetLife account out of my mind. I ignored my dealbreaker about being with a smoker - something he claimed he quit, then started up again in secret, then held against me when I called him out. Making me the bad guy. It got so bad, I suspected I had R-OCD, or relationship-based OCD. That was my only explanation for how I was always so anxious and he was always so calm. It was MY fault that something felt off. He was aware of my tendency to blame myself, and used it against me. Then, he would get to be the patient, understanding boyfriend while I broke down again and again, hating myself for being so “weak.” I wasn’t weak. He was keeping me in the dark on purpose, because it was easier to do that than to, I don’t know, be fucking honest?!

Every time I got really bent out of shape, when the little slights and coldness and disdain had built up to a breaking point, he would let me say (or scream) my piece, and respond: “You’re right.” Wow. Thanks! I see now that you don’t have to do much work on yourself when you just agree with the person who is upset with you. I’m also not writing this to paint myself as an angel. Yes, I was frustrated and confused and upset, which came out in outbursts of tears and anger. But the difference is, I was trying to connect with him in everything I did. He was trying to push me away. it dawned on me, during one of those horrible post-breakup conversations, that he had fully checked out many months ago. I finally asked him to define a phrase I had heard him use during couples counseling (another suggestion of mine). “What do you mean by ‘I’m deeply invested in your happiness?’” “What?” “Well, like an investment, do you mean time, money, emotions? Or do you just want me to be ok?” “Yeah, that.” “Ok. so you just want me to be “okay”.” I’ll take “Performative Allyship” for 200! I’ve told myself I should have known. Should have left sooner. Should-ing myself to death, sparing him from any fault. Remember, he’s the long-suffering partner of an overly sensitive woman. Another wince-worthy excerpt from couples counseling: Our therapist asked us, at the end of a session, to each tell the other something we loved about the other person. I turned, with tears in my eyes, and told him I appreciated how consistent he was. I was always able to count on him being stable and calm. He told me he liked how nice and clean I kept the house. Cool! He could have saved himself about six months of this bullshit if he had just spoken his mind. I wonder, now, if he even had the capacity. But no, he preferred to wait and let me figure it out on my own, until I was so depleted that I was having almost nonstop migraines. But, just like the sibling who can’t get into trouble because they’re “NOT ACTUALLY TOUCHING YOU!!!”, nothing he did was exactly abusive. But it was plenty shitty. Mr. Social Justice. Mr. Feminism. Mr. Don’t Comment On That Topic Or I’ll Shut Down Emotionally. Mr. We Have To Move Away From Montana For Vague Reasons Including Racial Tension Which I Never Actually Experienced But That’s Reason Enough For Me! And when we got to Philadelphia, it was Mr. Why Don’t You Take More Walks Outside Even Though You Get Harassed and Followed? You’re In The House Too Much (Yeah, Even Though It’s a Pandemic). He’d spend hours on the phone talking to the nurses he helped at work. But when a woman in need lived in his own house, ew, gross! Too close to home! There’s a line in a very funny Chris Fleming song called the “Grad Student Shuffle”, which takes the absolute piss out of white male graduate students. A few of the lines apply, but these especially: Call yourself a community organizer Even though you’re not on speaking terms with your roommates! Stand tall and look mindful Even though you're addicted to porn! C'mon! Now close your eyes Say fair enough "Fair enough" Now you are doing the Grad Student Shuffle I’ve gone back and added to this post a bunch of times since I wrote it. I like having a record, even if it’s one-sided. I realize I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for anyone else. To put my story down somewhere, and not to be too concerned if it’s fair or balanced. What happened to me wasn’t fair or balanced. Which reminds me of the worst confrontation we ever had. It was just an hour or two after we decided to break up. It was a sad, but quiet conversation. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I went upstairs to let the new reality soak in, and asked if I could steal a puff from his vaporizer. Not weird, right? What was weird was that I felt like a guest in his room. We kept separate bedrooms, which I highly recommend to any couple who can spare the space. But there is a difference between having the option of separate spaces, and feeling relegated to separate spaces. I didn’t feel welcome in his room, and he made no secret of it. So, as usual, I asked to go in. He had left his laptop open on the bed, and I stared off into space as I waited for the vaporizer to heat. I must note, here, that I am not a person who digs. I will run circles in my own brain, but by and large, i leave stuff alone. So I didn’t go looking for what was already on the screen, which was a conversation between him and his best friend. I read maybe a couple sentences before realizing, oops, probably shouldn’t. It was enough to see one exchange, less than two hours after we had officially broken up. “That sucks, man. How long do you think til you’ll be back on Tinder?” “I don’t know. Probably before she moves out.” I’d like to say I don’t remember what happened next, but I do remember. I marched down two flights of stairs, yanked two giant plastic bins out of basement storage, and rage-packed everything I owned outside of my own room in less than ten minutes.

He, of course, had no idea. Nuanced as a fucking turtle, he told me he was going out for a walk, and then asked if something was wrong. I let him have it. Everything that had been building inside of my body came spewing out, all at once. I stumbled over my own words, laughing-crying-screaming-asking him what the fuck he was thinking, who the fuck he was, and what the fuck was this relationship? Was any of it even REAL? He had nothing to say. And that, my friends, was my main mistake. Thinking anything I could ever do could ever get a reaction out of him. Could ever draw the sort of love or support or attention that I used to get from him, before he decided to turn off the tap.

I spent another month there until I could finally move out. I could tell he was annoyed that I was still there. I remember telling him people aren’t disposable. They don’t disappear when you decide you’re done with them. Thirty days was the absolute minimum I could manage, and even that was an incredible feat. He asked me to watch the dog, the one he adopted only a couple of months before, while he went out. I remember thinking, “Am I watching this animal so he can go out on dates? No fucking way.” I still don’t know, and I’m glad I don’t.

He’s not the only quietly shitty guy. There are many. I’m sure bunches of them are being congratulated on their engagements or promotions right now, by people who have never dated them. Have never had the soul-wrenching realization that oh, this person who told you you were their dream and their angel and their moon and stars actually decided like a year ago that they just weren’t feeling it and didn’t have the balls to tell you. But, feel free to question reality in the meantime!

Women reading this, beware. There are men who hold up their hands and shrug and say shit like “I wish her the best” and know to use phrases like “emotional labor” to fake enough self-knowledge to start a relationship that they don’t know how to finish. I encourage you to ask questions. Find out how much they know about themselves. How long their relationships tend to last. If their friends really know them. If they change jobs frequently. If they move states frequently, and why. But most of all, know yourselves. Know that you deserve to have your questions answered, your emotions validated, and your opinions heard. There are plenty of quietly shitty men to choose from. You don’t need to choose one.

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psycho-slytherin · 6 years

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Strangers ch. 21

You move in with the guys, and the music video is finally released.

Pairing: Yoongi x (female) Reader

Word count: 2.9k

Genre: Fluffy fluffalicious flufflefloof

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You bolt upright, gasping for air. Your bedframe is creaking under your weight. When you check the time, you see that you’ve only been asleep for an hour, it’s still morning, your apartment is uninhabitable, and your cheating boyfriend is coming back tomorrow. Speaking of…

2 missed calls from Xiumin.

You shake your head, banishing him from your mind while your thoughts turn to your dream. What a weird… you kissed Yoongi in your dream, you’re sure of it. And yeah, there’s nothing weird about that– you used to dream about Yoongi all the time before you became friends in real life.

Ugh, but kissing Yoongi– even in a dream– right after finding out about Xiumin? What’s the matter with you? And it was so real; he tasted like toothpaste and whatever he’d been drinking last night.

You slide off the shaky bed and walk around you waterlogged apartment, collecting your valuables and necessities. You won’t be able to sleep in your own home for a week at least… for the thousandth time since walking in on Xiumin, you’re cursing your own idiocy.

You rummage through your jewelry box– you don’t want to leave your nicest pieces lying around while you’re away. A spot of color catches your eye and you smile fondly: it’s the Starry Night necklace that Yoongi gave you while you were in the hospital. You stopped wearing it when you began dating Xiumin– it felt wrong, somehow. But now… you fasten the thin chain around your neck and allow the cool glass bead to rest against the hollow of your throat. With that, you gather your things and head to the street to wait for the magic teleporting car.

As soon as you step outside, you hear a voice that turns your blood to ice.

“Y/n! Surprise, sweetheart,” and Xiumin’s arm snakes around your shoulders, he pulls you into him and you feel stiff, frozen, painfully aware of the fact that not two nights ago he was sleeping with another woman.

You push him away. “Don’t touch me.”

Xiumin’s face falls. “Y/n-ie? What’s the matter?”

“I’m…” Breaking up with you. Done being lied to. Stronger than I look. So, so scared. “I’m just… tired,” you say eventually.

“Aish, go up and take a nap, then! What are you doing with all this stuff?” Xiumin prods at one of the boxes you’re holding. “Are you donating your old clothes or something?”

“Uh…” in your peripheral vision, you see the sleek black car approaching. It’s now or never. Where once you would’ve let Xiumin’s actions slide, or let your relationship end quietly, you now feel a fury so intense you might boil over. Your words hit you like a lightning bolt– you stand up straight and look at Xiumin dead in the eye.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s charity. You could say I’m doing spring cleaning,” you say, “getting rid of everything that I don’t need, everything that makes my life more complicated. You know, the junk.”

“Uh huh…?”

You shift to balance your things on your hip so you have a free hand as the car pulls up beside you. “Sometimes people need to take out the trash, and in my case, that includes you. And however many people you were fucking on the side.”

He stares as the chauffeur gets out to take your things and open the door for you. You wave at Xiumin before getting into the car.

“See ya, Xiumin. Don’t call me; I’ll call you. Or, wait…” you pretend to think. “No, I won’t. Bye!”

And with your ex-boyfriend still gaping on the sidewalk, the car pulls away.

You don’t see Yoongi in the car; he must be busy, and so you silently celebrate your little victory before pulling out your phone and calling your best friend.

“Helloooo~” Lisa sings into the phone.

You laugh. “Why didn’t you decide to major in music again? You’re a born singer.”

“Production and management is my calling, babe. What’s up?”

“I broke up with Xiumin.”

“WHAT?” Lisa’s ear-piercing shriek is so loud you notice the chauffeur flinch through the half-lowered divider. “Wait, what? How? When? Why? Where? What?”

“Yeah, he was cheating on me–”

“What. Did. You. Say?” Your friend’s voice has lowered to a dangerous tone, and you remember the last time you heard her like this: right before she punched a guy for getting too handsy.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Lisa, I’m practically over it,” you assure her.

“Me, stupid? I never do anything stupid,” Lisa replies innocently. “Anyways, I have to go. Bye!”

The click of the line going dead fills you with uneasiness– she’s up to something, you’re sure, but you don’t have time to think about it since you’ve arrived back at the apartment. You head upstairs with your things and knock on the door. Seconds later, Hoseok swings the door open and greets you with a blinding smile.

“Hey,” you say, getting to the point, “My landlord says it’ll be at least a week before I can move back in. And even after that, how am I gonna afford repairs and the rent?“I really hate to impose, but can I stay here for a few days more? I’m a decent chef, and I’m tidy, really, just let me sleep on the couch–”

“No,” Hoseok interrupts, and your face falls.

“Wh-what?”

“No, you can’t sleep on the couch,” Hobi begins to crack a grin. “Otherwise what would we do with the new bed we just bought?”

Your jaw drops. “You’re kidding.”

“C’mon, you’ll be rooming with Jungkook, is that okay?” Hoseok tugs you down the hall.

“M-more than okay,” you manage. “Hoseok, really, I– I can’t thank you enough, this really isn’t necessary–”

“Ah, we all insisted,” Jungkook says, standing to greet you as Hobi opens the door. Across the room and separated by a paper divider is a brand new bed, complete with a pillow and clean sheets. “Hiya, roomie.”

“Oh my god!” you squeal, throwing your arms first around Jungkook and then Hoseok. “You guys, I can’t… I’m so lucky, I don’t deserve…”

“Sure you do,” Jungkook says seriously. “Y/n, we love having you around, honest. You’re probably going to be the best roommate ever– do you even sleep?”

“I do go on a lot of walks,” you admit. Since you whaled on that drunkard with your textbook, you feel bolder, safer, walking around at night.

“See? So I’ll basically have my own room, but with good company. It works out,” the maknae says, and you can’t help but grin.

“Are you sure that all the guys are okay with this?”

“Yoongi hyung was the one that told me to buy a bed, and Taehyungie said that even if you had some other place to stay he’d want you here,” Hoseok says, and his words make your heart swell.

“B-but I haven’t done anything for you…” you stammer. On what planet do you deserve this kindness?

Hoseok laughs. “You don’t understand how friendship works if you think you need to do something for us. Get settled in, you can stay for as long as you want.”

“What about the whole ‘fish and visitors’ thing?”

“You’re not a visitor,” Jungkook says. “You’re family.”

The kindness of your friends in the face of the shittiest two days of your life brings tears to your eyes, and you blink hard to clear your vision.

“Kook and I are going to head to the studio, but make yourself at home, yeah? Just be careful about who sees you leave– you know how crazy the fans can be,” Hobi says, reaching for the door. “Do you have anything you need to do?”

You rub your eyes. “Yeah, homework. I have… a lot of homework.” You’ve not been half as productive as you should’ve been lately, for obvious reasons. The door closes behind the two idols and you grab your phone. You want to do something to thank the boys, but what can you do that they won’t be able to get on their own?

Idea. You grin and call your best friend.

“Long time no talk, y/n.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s been like half an hour. Listen, Lisa, I need a favor.”

“Does it involve killing your ex? Cause I know a guy.”

“What? No. No killing anyone, okay? Promise me.”

“Anyways, what’s the favor?”

“You’ve still got solid followings on Tumblr and Twitter, right?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Great, here’s what we’re going to do.”

After hanging up with Lisa you pad to the living room and settle on the couch, scrolling through your to-do list. You’ve got to study for history, and do about a week’s worth of math homework, and practice a monologue for theater, and…fuck. You’ve got about a dozen poems due Friday for your writing portfolio. And you’ve written exactly none of them.

You crack your knuckles– it’s a long week ahead of you. Time to get to work.

“I’m glad it’s been fun,” Seokjin says, leaning back from where he was peering over your shoulder. “Anyways, I just popped in to let you know you’re gonna have the place to yourself for a few days.”

“Why, what’s happening?”

“Ah, just publicity– our comeback was pushed way back because of some management errors, I dunno. It’s finally back on though, so the guys and I are going to be away for a little while.”

“And you’re okay leaving the apartment to me? What if I throw a raging party?”

“Y/n, the only times you’ve moved except for school and work is going from the couch to your bed and back,” Seokjin chuckles. “Somehow I feel safe knowing you won’t trash the place when we’re gone.”

“Well, at least let me cook dinner tonight as a thank you,” you say, sitting up on the couch and stretching. “Who knows, I might be ready to go home before you get back. This could be a farewell dinner for all of us.”

“Oh, that’s not depressing at all,” Namjoon says as he wanders into the living room holding a Koya mug. “Good morning, you two.”

You check your watch. “It’s eleven o’ clock, Joon. Did you fall asleep late again?”

He yawns. “More like early. Hey, but at least you know my next mixtape will be fire.”

“Who’s mixtape? Are we talking about me?” Yoongi asks, plopping down on the chair across from you. He’s wearing a worn gray t-shirt and plaid pajama pants that hang a bit too low on his hips.

“Hyung, why are you even awake before noon?” Jimin asks, appearing in the doorway with Hoseok.

You stifle a giggle at Jimin’s question: you found Yoongi asleep in his studio late last night, his face pressed against the keyboard. When he startled himself awake and tried to keep working, you’d insisted that he go to bed.

“I can hear you typing through the wall,” you’d lied. He’s been working himself to death lately, and you’ve hardly seen him at all. If you didn’t know him as a crazy workaholic, you’d guess he’s been avoiding you. Even now as you try to catch Yoongi’s eye, he seems to be looking in every direction except yours. Oh well, you’ll talk to him later.

“Excited for tonight?” Taehyung settles next to you and lays his head on your shoulder.

“Why, what’s happening?” you ask.

“Have you been living under a rock?” Hoseok exclaims. “And here I thought you were an ARMY.”

“I haven’t been paying attention– I’ve been working!” you protest. You stay away from the internet as much as possible when you’re finishing an assignment. As far as BTS updates go, you practically have been living under a rock.

“The music video is coming out at midnight,” Jungkook offers. “The one you filmed with us.”

“Are you serious? Why did it take so long?” you ask.

The maknae shrugs. “Bureaucracy. Hey, at least we’re not changing our hair colors.”

“Are you excited? This could mean a lot of opportunities for you,” Seokjin tells you. “You should definitely start auditioning more.”

“Yeah, of course. I’m so glad for you guys!” you grin. “I won’t be surprised when you break all of your own records. Again.”

“We’re not the ones that are gonna win the award for cutest backup dancer, though,” Hoseok says, tweaking your nose.

You wave him away and stand. “Yah! I’ve got a class to get to, and don’t you guys have places to be? Dinner’s tonight and I’m cooking, so no one’s allowed to be late.”

The boys cheer and begin sitting down for breakfast while you sling your bag over your shoulder and head out the door. As always there’s a small crowd of girls waiting outside the main entrance and so you sneak out the back, taking the bus to your old apartment to wait for Lisa to pick you up. Since she doesn’t know about your friendship with the members, you have to go the extra mile to keep up the charade. You honestly despise this, the remaining lie that blossomed from your crazy friendship with Yoongi, but as sweet as Lisa is, she’d scream it from the rooftops if she caught wind that you’d even met any of the members.

“Hey girl! How are you doing?” Lisa calls as she pulls up and you hop into the passenger’s seat. She’s as bubbly as always but underneath her cheerful tone you hear the underlying note of concern that’s remained a constant for the past few days, ever since she heard about Xiumin.

“Great, you?”

“Awesome. You excited about the new music video tonight? I’m totally gonna stay up, are you? I wish your apartment was fixed so we could do one of our comeback sleepovers. I heard the new track is gonna be a ballad, I’m literally going to die if I hear Jimin belt, that man makes my heart explode a thousand times over, I think I would give my firstborn child for him to even blink in my direction–”

“Lisa!” you laugh, interrupting. “Breathe, please. Save your lungs for the comeback performances!”

“Damn, you’re right. I’ll live-text you my reactions, okay? We can pretend we’re having a comeback sleepover. Where are you staying, anyways?”

“With some family friends, they’re nearby.”

“Have I met them?”

“I think I’ve told you about them,” you respond vaguely. “Ooh, look, a good parking spot!”

“Yes!” Lisa whoops as she pulls in. “I knew we started carpooling for a reason.”

“Yeah, because you give me a ride and I make sure you obey the rules of the road,” you tease. “And I pay half the gas.”

“Fair, fair. Hey, I have to get to class early to meet with my professor– I’ll see you later, y/n!”

“Yeah, see you.”

Your classes pass quickly and without incident. Your theater professor actually compliments you on the delivery of your monologue, and you use your history class time to edit the trash fires that your poems devolved into with the boys’ contributions.

It’s late afternoon by the time you run to the grocery store close to campus to pick up the things you’ll need for the night. Seokjin keeps his precious cupboards mostly well-stocked, of course, but you’re making this dinner for them so you at least want to buy your own ingredients. You peruse the shelves, picking out produce, meats, and spices before hurrying back to the apartment, using the spare key to let yourself in. As usual, the place is empty– the boys are rehearsing, and the space seems unnaturally quiet.

It’s weird, you muse as you begin to cook, I’ve always preferred living alone. But now you’re sure you’ll miss the guys once your apartment is dry.

Two hours pass, and seven exhausted men stumble into the room.

“I want to lie down and never get up,” Seokjin announces, flopping onto the couch. The others murmur agreements.

“Today was a short workday anyways,” Namjoon mentions. “We’re lucky the choreographer let us leave early.”

“Oh, get up, you lazy bums,” you nudge Jimin, who appears to have fallen asleep on the floor. “I made food. Eat it while it’s hot or I’ll personally guilt-trip each of you forever.”

The eight of you move to the dining table, where you’ve already set out platters of the guys’ favorite foods. Sure, a bit of light stalking was done to ensure you were making the dishes just as they liked them, but the members don’t need to know that.

A chorus of “thank you for the food!” is music to your ears as you all dig in. You’re not the best chef, but BTS-favored dishes you could make with your eyes closed.

“That... was... amazing.” Yoongi sighs, speaking for the first time that evening. Seokjin is helping Namjoon load the dishwasher while the rest of you are sat around the table. “For real, how did you know to spice the lamb that well?”

You shrug. “I’m just that good.”

“Guys, the music video is premiering in an hour!” Jimin yelps, and that hour passes far too quickly. A minute to midnight and you’re all squished around Taehyung’s laptop.

Tae refreshes right at midnight and BTS’s new music video pops up on his screen. Before he can even click play, you get a call from Lisa. You walk a little ways away to answer it.

“Lisa? I thought you were going to text me–”

“Y/n,” Lisa’s voice sounds strangely hollow, and your stomach drops.

“Lisa, what’s the matter?”

“You’re... why didn’t you tell me you... y/n, how could you?”

A/N Thank you lovely friends for being so amazingly patient with me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! As always, my inbox is open and feedback is not only welcome but thoroughly appreciated. Please feel free to drop me an ask to let me know your thoughts!

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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419

What color hair did your first crush have? Black, as they both did. What type of shoes do you find the most comfortable? Classic sneakers, like Chucks or Onitsukas. Are you more masculine or feminine? Feminine I guess, but I’m not really a fan of categorizing anything in those two. Are you male or female? Female. Do you feel your personality matches your heritage? Uhhhh I think so. I have a tendency to be hospitable, I’m very iffy about walking around with shoes in the house, being family-oriented comes naturally to me...I dunno about ‘matches my heritage’ but I think it would be very easy to spot me as being Filipino/Asian.

If you could design your own mug, what would you put on it? My dog’s pawprints. What's one item on your wishlist? Kids. What is the best beach you've been to? Palawan, Boracay, and Bohol were all gorgeous. I’d say Bali but it was so fucking humid when we went over there. What is one thing you physically can't do? Carry a car. Do you know a lot of people who have the same middle name as you? I know a lot of Isabels but very few Isabelles, which is the actual spelling of my name. Do you like your middle name? I love it. Would you ever audition for American Idol? N e v e r. Have you ever lost a survey you started making? I don’t make my own surveys. Who would you most like to have a sit-down conversation with? Any wrestler. I’d love to talk about the industry with them. What book are you currently reading? Not reading anything at the moment but omg, I did just find a copy of the WWE Encyclopedia (2012 version) at a booksale and I bought it without having to mull over it because I’ve wanted it for yeeeeears :((( <3 What song are you listening to? I don’t listen to music when I take surveys but Sasha Banks’ entrance theme is stuck in my head. Have you ever been to a funeral? I’ve never been brought to a funeral; my parents prefer to shelter us from that kind of stuff. I’ve been to several wakes though. If you live alone, do you leave the bathroom door open? No, I still close it when I need to take a bath. What's a favorite camp song of yours? I don’t go camping haha. Do you wish you could go camping more? I’d definitely like to try it out once. Have you ever visited your state's capitol building? I’m pretty sure we went there during my first grade field trip. Have you ever visited your nation's capitol building? Yes, I had to for a journ class. Name 3 cities you'd like to visit again. Shanghai, Bali, Vigan. Name 3 places you'd like to visit that you've never been. Bangkok, Sydney, Seoul. Elephants or cats? ELEPHANTS Do you have any regrets? I don’t believe in regrets but I do hate getting this one particular class this semester, because it has the shittiest, and I mean ABSOLUTE SHITTIEST instructor I have ever come across in all my years of being a student. I wish I knew better and signed up for the other section instead. Who was the last person that said somethiing that warmed your heart? Idk, I haven’t felt that recently. Do/did you have a favorite seat in church? Does it bother you when someone else sits in your favorite spot? It bothers me when someone takes my seat in class, but I don’t care for church seats. What is your favorite park? I really, really wish I could answer this question, but our government just doesn’t put a premium on public places. We don’t have parks other than the national one, and that’s an hour or so away from where I live. Cherish your public parks and libraries, people :’( Do you miss having a roommate, if applicable? I’ve never needed a roommate. What do you miss the most about living with a roommate? Your first year of college, what were the people across the hall from you named? Not applicable. I’ve been driving to and from home throughout college. Have you ever felt an earthquake? Yes. Very light ones but I felt them nonetheless. Once I thought it was just my dog furiously scratching himself against one of my bed’s legs, but when I tuned into Twitter, what I felt was apparently an earthquake lmao. Do you have to take pain medicine regularly? I don’t have to, no. What were the best years of your life? Definitely 16-17. It was a period of so much growth, and so rapid as well. Have you made any huge mistakes? Sure.

Do you have any regrets that haunt you currently? Nope.

Was it warm out today? It will be. Temperature reaches 45ºC (113ºF) nowadays. What is the next holiday you will celebrate? Does Holy Week count? I have a whole week off right now thanks to that lmao, then it’s gonna end right on my birthday, which falls on an Easter Sunday. Do you own a lot of shoes? I’d say I do, yeah. Do you believe anyone is asexual? Of course. Do you chew gum regularly? Not really. I only have gum when JM brings some. What color socks are you wearing? I don’t wear socks around the house. What was the last flavor of tea that you drank? Idk, it was just iced tea. Do you have a missed memory that haunts you every spring? No. Is there a certain person that makes you feel hurt every time you see them? Sure. Were you abused? Emotionally. I was and still am sometimes. Have you ever missed a deadline? Never. I absolutely fear deadlines. Where did you go on your first train ride? I had to go to Manila. I was coding that day, but I had to go to the House of Reps for a journ coverage so I asked my friend to go with me and she said taking a train was the best option. ...first plane ride? Boracay. Can you tell Mary-Kate and Ashley apart in pictures? They’re easy to tell apart but I could never remember names haha. Do you have natural blonde highlights? I’m 0% blonde. What color was the last nail polish you used? My friends put black nail polish on me when we went out drinking a month ago. What electronics are you using right now? Laptop. When someone hurts you, do you start to feel jealous of them? ??????? Why ??????? Do you like to sleep with the windows open? If it’s naturally cold outside, yes. If not, I’d rather turn on the aircon. List all the people you've met whose name started with a Y. Yumi, Yani, Yvonne, Ysa. What color was your first boombox? I never had a boombox. Do you do all the chores yourself? No. Do you find it hard to keep up with everything? When it comes to my studies, yep. I have too many readings and too many things to keep track of this semester.

#survey #surveys

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happybubblebee · 5 years

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happy new year. feel free to scroll past <3.

A lot of people (well, maybe, I’m not sure, really—this is just the perception I have) say that writing is an escape. Like, it’s something that can pull you out of something awful. Like you write and write and write while you’re in a dark black pit with swirling brown light with an ominous sad, red, glow and as you type and type and type with the blue Microsoft Word toolbar reflecting in your huge hipster square glasses and then you press print and there’s that chk-chk-chk sound of the printer and you pull the warm paper out of the printer and then there’s this sigh of relief that just rushes out of you and then there’s this swirl of golden light that rises up around you with all this sparkling light and the sound of rustling paper emanates from who know where and then all of a sudden there’s a cutaway to you at a book signing and your hair is all fancy now and you go home to a cute puppy and your friends or some shit and wow everything is fucking amazing because you wrote your goddamn way out.

For me, this kind of thing (though not as dramatic, obviously) I guess kind of happened with reading. When I was a kid I would just read and read and read. That’s probably why I didn’t notice a lot of things that were happening. Or why I don’t really remember a ton from middle and elementary school.

Ugh, basically I’m in a situation I’d rather escape from right now. To start off: I have housing insecurity again because of my roommate not communicating and still leaving? Honestly, I don’t know what the fuck is going on. All I know is that I need to find a new roommate for next year. And I don’t know if that will actually happen. I don’t know who to ask. I have like one friend at college. And I barely see her. And the one other friend I have is in another state ninety percent of the time. I have one other friend, but we only talk twice a year, and she goes to another school.

Yes, that’s right. I’m nineteen and in college and I have like three not whole friends. The thing that at the moment makes me feel the shittiest about it (because let’s be real I’m hella fucking desensitized at this point) is that I went and visited my most favorite teacher from high school and she was so genuinely concerned that I don’t have a good group of friends that it broke my damn heart. I’ve just been drowning myself in work for the past semester (and will do the same next semester) to avoid thinking about it, because I was already depressed about it during my freshman year about it, during which I lost two friends from high school (one of whom turned out to be a real bitch, so I guess that was a positive), so I really don’t want to go through that again.

I can go back to therapy after college, right?

Anyway, the point is I want to write myself an escape from this. I need to write a story about me living in a village somewhere far away from home where I just exist and no one judges me for living alone until I get old. I’ll live in a cute cottage with whitewashed stucco walls and ivy covering the outside and a thatched roof and my backyard will be a field of golden wheat and I’ll raise goats and pigs and have a cat and a dog and wear aprons like Belle (my childhood dream girl/idol—feelings are confusing okay?!). I’ll plant a fucking garden and learn to talk to all the animals and meet people because I rent out my spare bedroom but I sure as hell won’t fall in love with any of them because being vulnerable with someone is just not something I’m ever going to do again.

Sorry for this long post. To be honest there’s no reason I’m sharing this online except for if it lives solely as a file on my computer it will fester and give me more nightmares than it already is.

Good night x

#bubble babbles #if you have a problem with people being sad #just fuck off #like literally block me #depression tw #anxiety tw #writing #escape #college #university #rants

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almostafantasia · 6 years

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hurry down the chimney tonight

Merry Christmas @hedaforr! lots of love from your secret santa xoxo

Summary: Lexa isn’t a scrooge. She isn’t. But when the Christmas music is blaring and the apartment is covered in decorations and it’s still the middle of goddamn November, Lexa starts to question her decision to move into the spare room of an apartment with three strangers for her junior year of college.

Unless a certain one of those three new roommates can use their persuasive charm to convince Lexa that it’s never too early to start celebrating Christmas…

Read on AO3.

It’s November.

Fucking November.

There is not a good enough reason in the world why Lexa should be able to hear the familiar voice of Mariah Carey from the next room when it’s still November.

Lexa realises only too late that this is a question she should have asked her new roommates for junior year of college when she met them for the first time over the summer. When do you start playing Christmas music? And anybody who gave an answer of before mid-December would have been out of the door ready for the next set of prospective roommates to be brought in.

Considering she’s living with people who were total strangers until a few months ago, in a spare room that the girls didn’t want to have to cover the rent for themselves in order to keep their cushy apartment near the centre of campus, Lexa has done pretty well for herself. The three girls have been welcoming and respectful, and despite having known each other for much longer than they’ve known Lexa, they’re always keen to include her in the group.

And they aren’t bad people to live with either. It’s not too messy, there’s a clear washing up rota that they generally all stick to, and Lexa’s leftovers have only gone missing from the fridge once. (Lexa blames Clarke, Clarke blames the inordinate amount of tequila that was consumed about an hour before the leftovers were last seen.) But they are good people and easy enough to live with.

There’s Raven, who spends long days in the engineering department followed by long nights at the campus bar. There’s Octavia, who has a busy life between going to the gym and spending time with her boyfriend and visiting her brother at his apartment on the far side of campus.

And then there’s Clarke, who thinks it is okay to start playing Christmas songs in November.

Lexa doesn’t want to be misunderstood; she loves a good Mariah Carey singalong as much as the next person, but not when it’s still November.

(It isn’t even late November yet – Halloween was less than a week ago!)

As Mariah fades out and the opening chords of Wham’s classic Christmas hit drift through the thin walls from the bedroom next to hers, Lexa lets her head fall down against the heavy textbook open on her desk and groans as she realises that the only way she’s going to put a stop to this preposterously early barrage of Christmas music is to go to Clarke’s room and ask her to switch it off.

Which is okay, because Clarke is definitely the person that she gets on with best in this apartment, but Lexa is also very aware that she’s still the newbie around here and she doesn’t want to ostracize herself when things are going so well by becoming that roommate.

With a heavy sigh, Lexa pushes her chair back and gets to her feet, plotting out in her head the least confrontational way to ask Clarke to switch the Christmas music off until it’s actually Christmas.

Lexa leaves her own bedroom and walks three paces down the hallway to Clarke’s, raising her fist and knocking three times with a sharp rap of her knuckles that she hopes Clarke will be able to hear over the music that thrums beyond the closed door.

“Lexa!” Clarke greets her enthusiastically upon flinging the bedroom door open. “Hi!”

As if on cue, the music changes, the end of one song signalling the start of a new, much sultrier number. Clarke smiles to herself and shimmies her hips gently in time with the swung rhythms of the big band accompaniment to Santa Baby – and it’s really not helping Lexa’s brain to put together a logical argument against the music that Clarke is dancing to. Because Lexa has a weakness for pretty girls and Clarke is the prettiest and she is dancing and there’s sexy music and oh boy…

“The music…” Lexa stammers awkwardly, almost forgetting why she had a problem with the music in the first place.

(Because it is November, the rational part of Lexa’s brain reminds her, though it takes every bit of willpower that she has to stop that part of her brain from being swallowed completely by the gay part of her brain that can’t take her eyes off the way that Clarke’s hips swing from side to side and her lips mouth the words ‘santa baby’.

“Do you like it?” grins Clarke.

Lexa is so disarmed that she almost says yes, but then she shakes herself out of the trance and focuses on her matter at hand, staring over Clarke’s shoulder into the room beyond as she says, “Well, actually no. Do you know what day it is?”

“Monday?” shrugs Clarke, eyebrows furrowing slightly as she forgets about the music playing from the speakers of the laptop behind her and frowns at Lexa as if waiting for her to make her point.

“It’s the sixth of November,” Lexa answers her own question. “It’s a little early for Christmas songs, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too early for Christmas songs, Lexa,” Clarke replies matter-of-factly and, because it’s Clarke, Lexa almost believes her. “But I can turn the music off if you want.”

“Just…” Lexa sighs, and then gives in. “I’m trying to write an essay, so maybe just turn it down a little.”

“Sure! No problem.”

Lexa wouldn’t be able to run away faster if she tried.

It starts with some fairy lights. Lexa can deal with those. Fairy lights aren’t specifically festive, they’re aesthetically pleasing all year round. So pleasing, in fact, that Lexa considers the merits of buying a string of twinkling white lights to hang up in her own room.

But then the rest of the decorations start to appear.

It feels a little like Lexa’s life is becoming a horror movie – a weird, Christmas-themed horror movie where her apartment is slowly getting taken over by decorations. Because it’s not like Lexa wakes up suddenly one morning to find the apartment covered from floor to ceiling in red and green glittery madness. It happens gradually, a garland of tinsel draped over the television one morning, a wreath on the door the next. And what’s even weirder is that none of the others seem to talk about it, like they’ve just accepted that there’s a supernatural decorating demon that sneaks into their apartment when they’re not looking to add something else.

(A supernatural decorating demon that Lexa has every suspicion is called Clarke.)

Lexa deals with it in the way that she deals with most things, in stoic quietness with a series of passive-aggressive huffs and disapproving glares each time there’s a new piece of tinsel hanging from the furniture.

Until the dancing reindeer appears.

There’s a table beside their front door, a table which mostly gets used as a dumping ground for junk mail and keys and empty beer cans. But one day Lexa comes home from a day of classes to find that the table has been tidied and the crap that usually litters its surface has been replaced by just one new item.

The dancing reindeer.

It’s quite clearly motion activated, because every time Lexa enters or leaves the apartment, the stupid thing starts lighting up and dancing along to a tinny rendition of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And every time one of the other three comes or goes, it doesn’t matter which room Lexa is in, because she can still hear the faint sound of the music and can picture the little stuffed reindeer bobbing from side to side on that table by the door.

Every. Fucking. Time.

So one day, she just decides to unplug the damn thing.

She chooses the wrong moment, because right as Lexa is on her knees, reaching under the table to the wall socket that the reindeer is plugged into to finally put an end to the torture of having to hear and watch it every time she walks past, Clarke enters the apartment.

There’s no hiding what Lexa is doing. The reindeer is in one hand, the plug in the other, caught red-handed on her knees by Clarke, who is frozen to the spot in the doorway with her mouth open and her eyes furrowed.

“I was just…” Lexa fumbles for an excuse, but she falls short.

In what seems like the biggest overreaction of the century, Clarke promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh, shit,” mutters Lexa. She fumbles desperately with the plug, trying to slot it into the socket, but it’s a much greater challenge under pressure than it seems, not made any easier by the added distraction of the weeping girl just two feet away. “Shit, Clarke. I’m so sorry.”

Lexa gives up on the plug entirely after two failed attempts at putting it back in its socket, and scrambles to her feet, reaching out with one awkward hand to give Clarke’s shoulder an apologetic squeeze.

“It’s just…” Clarke sniffles and wipes at her ears with the sleeve of her sweater, before she continues, “my dad bought me that reindeer when I was younger.”

Lexa realises her mistake immediately and decides that she is the shittiest person to have ever lived. Clarke doesn’t mention her dad often but Lexa knows there’s a reason for that – Clarke’s dad passed away just over a year ago – and she doesn’t feel as though she knows Clarke well enough yet to be initiating conversations that might involve talking about him.

“Oh god,” Lexa groans, “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

Lexa considers trying to justify her actions, to explain that the reindeer has been annoying the hell out of her since its appearance next to the front door, but Lexa can tell how important this reindeer is to Clarke and she certainly isn’t going to rub salt into the deep gash that she’s opened up already by trying to remove the reindeer.

“I had a bit of a shitty day and I took it out on the reindeer,” Lexa concedes. “I can’t apologise enough for that. I can tell how much that reindeer means to you.”

“It’s dumb, I know,” chokes Clarke.

“No!” Lexa protests, reaching out with one hand and placing it on Clarke’s knee, which she squeezes with her fingers. “It’s not dumb at all. It’s important to you and so it’s important to me. The reindeer can stay by the front door all year if you want it to.”

“We’ll take it down after Christmas, don’t worry,” says Clarke, smiling knowingly through her tears.

Lexa tries her best to not let the relief show on her face.

If she goes out later that day to buy some tinsel and fairy lights for her own bedroom, it’s only out of guilt.

And definitely not because she’s getting soft under Clarke’s influence.

Buying a Christmas tree ends up being a group outing. Lexa should be revising for midterms and really can’t afford to waste an entire afternoon choosing a tree for their apartment when her time would be much better spent in the library, but she allows herself to be persuaded otherwise when Clarke comes knocking on her bedroom door to inform her of the planned outing and Lexa’s expected involvement in it.

(Lexa tells herself that the ease at which she says yes is because she still feels guilty about the reindeer incident, and not because she has a susceptible weakness for a pretty girl with pleading eyes and a pout.)

“How about that one?” Lexa suggests, as she traipses around the tree farm behind her three roommates, all of whom are significantly more enthusiastic about looking at tree after identical tree than she is.

“It’s a little crooked at the top,” Clarke shakes her head. She walks along the row of trees, critiquing each one on why it isn’t quite good enough to be their tree. “Too small, too small, not fluffy enough…”

“Why does the tree need to be perfect?” Lexa dares to ask, because they’ve been wandering up and down rows of fir trees for thirty minutes already and don’t seem to be any closer to choosing one than they were before they even left the apartment.

“It just does,” Raven shrugs. “It’s the centrepiece of all the decorations, it needs to be worthy.”

“But isn’t any Christmas tree worthy if you make it so?” sighs Lexa.

She doesn’t mean the words in a deep philosophical way at all, more in a way that will get the three girls to stop bickering over what features make a tree perfect for long enough to just pick one and take it home. But when Raven opens her mouth to protest, Clarke holds up a hand to stop her, blue eyes focused on Lexa with an expression of intrigue.

“Go on,” she prompts Lexa.

Lexa falters, unsure how to continue, but with Raven and Octavia watching her expectantly, and Clarke giving her a reassuring little nod, she carries on speaking, “I mean, whichever tree we’re going to take home, we’re going to decorate it and make it ours, aren’t we? So that makes the tree special to us, regardless of whether it’s a little bit small, or has crooked branches, or anything else that you might think is ‘wrong’ with it.”

Lexa feels the passion surging up within her – most unexpectedly, as she didn’t join this shopping expedition with an expectation to come away from it with anything other than a slightly greater distaste for the commercialism of the festive season.

“And,” continues Lexa, as she gets more involved in her argument and the thoughts just keep on flowing, “there are probably thousands of perfect Christmas trees out there – tall, and straight, and bushy – but what makes those trees any better than the others? It’s like, if you wanted to get a dog, would a puppy with three legs be any less ‘worthy’ of adoption than one with four?”

They stare at her dumbfoundedly for a few seconds, and Lexa flushes pink under their gaze, until Raven pipes up in a weak voice, “Christmas trees have feelings too.”

“Stop it, Raven,” says Clarke, rolling her eyes. Shooting Lexa a smile that washes relief over her at the realisation that she hasn’t just ruined an established festive tradition with her impassioned speech, Clarke asks, “So which tree would you choose?”

Lexa turns her head this way and that, looking at the trees that surround them, until her eyes fall on the one that she pointed out earlier, the one that got rejected by Clarke’s for having a crooked branch at the top.

“That one,” she says conclusively.

If she’s expecting a protest, she doesn’t get one. Clarke merely shrugs in acceptance, before she says, “That one it is then. You girls got a problem with that.”

Octavia shakes her head and mutters, “Nope.”

Raven takes slightly longer to answer, her eyes flitting between Clarke and Lexa with something dark in her eyes like she knows something that they don’t, before she finally says, “Yeah. I like it. It’s got character. Now let’s go and cut that bitch down and take it home.”

Lexa ends up carrying the tree back to their apartment, or at least, she ends up with the base of the tree’s heavy trunk being supported on her shoulder while Raven holds onto the much less chunky tip a few feet in front of her. Clarke, despite being the one in their group who seems to be the most excited for Christmas, doesn’t help at all, but she does fall into step beside Lexa as they lug their new tree back to campus.

“Only you would turn choosing a Christmas tree into a lesson on prejudice and acceptance,” she teases Lexa.

Lexa can’t really shrug with the tree on her shoulder, but she speaks with an indifference that would match such a gesture when she says, “They’re just trees.”

Clarke glances away and, with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, she asks, “You’re a Scrooge, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a Scrooge,” Lexa argues back, eager to defend her stance on Christmas. “I just think that Christmas should be celebrated, you know,” Lexa looks at Clarke as she pauses, before finishing pointedly, “at Christmas.”

Clarke shakes her head and looks away as she fights the smile that crosses her lips.

“You know that feeling you get just before Christmas. When you’ve got all the decorations up and the presents are under the tree and everything is so fun and exciting?”

Lexa nods reluctantly.

“Okay, so imagine that, but for longer.”

Lexa can’t think of a response to that and, to be quite honest, she isn’t sure that she wants to. Clarke’s enthusiasm for Christmas, while it seemed annoying at first when Lexa’s eardrums were being assaulted by jingle bells and upbeat Christmas songs, is actually quite endearing, and she doesn’t want to make Clarke feel like she has to change anything about herself, even her excessive celebration for a holiday that is still a month away, just to please Lexa.

“You know I’m right,” says Clarke, when Lexa says nothing in response.

“I know you’re crazy,” Lexa quips back.

Clarke’s smile of triumph is ridiculously cute and Lexa tries to burn it into her memory for later.

Okay, this is something that Lexa can get behind.

There’s a candle – a cinnamon scented one – next to the reindeer that greets Lexa when she walks through the front door, and two spiced orange ones, one on the coffee table in the living room and one beside the microwave in the kitchen. And, upon further inspection, a fourth candle that just calls itself a “Christmas candle” on the edge of the bathroom across the hall from Lexa’s bedroom.

They might call themselves festive candles, but they are still candles, and Lexa has always had a weak spot for the sight of a delicate flame flickering in her peripheral vision, no matter the time of year. The fact that these particular candles smell of cinnamon, or spiced orange, or something else supposedly festive, is just a moot point as far as Lexa is concerned.

And so what if she picks up her laptop and textbooks and moves them into the living room to study for the test that her professor is giving them the following day, with the dim glow of a single candle dancing on the table beside her steaming mug of coffee?

Lexa vaguely registers the sound of the musical reindeer as the front door opens and then shuts, and she removes her earbuds as Clarke enters the living room, wrapped up in a thick coat and a cosy scarf, her face flushed pink from the cold weather outside.

Nodding at the candle that flickers on the coffee table, Clarke smiles and then says, “It’s good to see you finally getting into the Christmas spirit.”

Lexa shoots Clarke an I’m done with your shit glare, then stuffs her earbuds back into her ears as Clarke leaves the room with a grin on her face.

(Clarke doesn’t need to know that Lexa is listening to a YouTube playlist of Christmas carols sung in the relaxing tones of a British cathedral choir.)

On the first of December, Clarke enters Lexa’s room while Lexa is on her bed procrastinating from the studying that she really can’t afford to be skipping out on, with a gift in her hands.

“I have something for you,” she tells Lexa.

Clarke extends one arm, holding out a polythene shopping bag, which Lexa accepts and peers inside tentatively. It’s hard to tell exactly what is inside just by looking – an item of clothing, it seems – so Lexa takes the contents out of the bag and unfolds it on her lap to get a better look at Clarke’s gift to her.

It’s a sweater, knitted from royal blue wool and adorned with a giant cartoon penguin on the front. Definitely not Lexa’s usual style, and she looks back up at Clarke with wide-eyes, not quite sure how to react.

“We’re having a Christmas party. Sweaters are compulsory and I knew that you wouldn’t have one of your own so I thought I’d get you one.”

“It’s…” Lexa starts, pausing to carefully select the right words to describe the sweater. “Wow. It’s very festive. So when is this party?”

“Well,” Clarke replies sheepishly, “Raven is setting up the table for beer pong and I think people will start arriving in about thirty minutes.”

“Thirty min-“ Lexa trails off, letting out a sigh of resignation as she realises that she isn’t going to be able to avoid this party. “Let me see what I can do.”

“Looking good, Lexa,” Raven hums appreciatively, when Lexa joins them in the living room twenty minutes later, having changed into her nicest pair of dark jeans and the sweater that Clarke bought her.

Lexa shoots Raven a glare in response, and then complains, “I look like the village idiot.”

“You look very festive,” says Clarke, entering the room behind Lexa in a short dress in an emerald green colour with white trim, a matching hat adorned with little elf ears on each side perched over her blonde curls.

Lexa’s eyes widen in surprise at Clarke’s getup and her mouth goes very dry, mostly at the generous amount of creamy skin that the dress reveals, and suddenly her mind is blank of all previous embarrassment at her own outfit.

“Wow,” Lexa exhales stupidly, trying her best not to gawk too much.

“Okay,” Raven interrupts, folding her arms across her chest impatiently, “when Lexa has put her eyeballs back in her own head…” She gives Lexa a deliberate gaze that only darkens the blush on Lexa’s cheeks, then continues, “How about we get that game of beer pong going?”

“Ignore her,” Clarke mumbles to Lexa, quiet enough that Raven, who has started to fill up the red plastic cups with cheap beer with Octavia and Lincoln’s help, can’t hear them. “Do you want to be on my team?”

“Yeah,” Lexa breathes a sigh of relief. “I’d like that.”

The party has been going on for a couple of hours now – the apartment is full of guests and Lexa has long since stepped away from the beer pong table, choosing instead to watch with a drink in her hand as Raven and Clarke team up to take on a series of fresh opponents with increasing levels of rowdiness as they get more drunk.

Lexa herself is delightfully tipsy, buzzed enough to be enjoying the Christmas music and the assortment of festive outfits worn by their guests.

But not quite drunk enough that she will admit that to Clarke, who has finally given up on beer pong and has joined Lexa at the side of the room.

“So, have I convinced you to enjoy Christmas yet?”

Lexa bites her tongue and then, fighting a smile, answers, “I’ve already told you, I do enjoy Christmas, but only…”

“But only when it’s actually Christmas,” Clarke finishes with a smirk. “Yeah, I got it.”

They’re interrupted by a raucous cry from the game of beer pong, though since Clarke’s appearance at her side, Lexa has lost track of who is even playing, let alone which team is winning.

“One more chance,” Clarke speak up unexpectedly.

“What?”

“Give me one more chance to prove to you that Christmas is worth celebrating as early as possible.”

“Clarke, I…”

“Lexa,” Clarke says, resting one hand on Lexa’s arm, and the pleading expression on her face is almost sobering. “One more chance.”

“Fine,” concedes Lexa, “but I was actually going to say that you don’t need to convince me anymore. While I don’t quite agree that Christmas should be celebrated in November…”

“It’s December now,” interjects Clarke.

“… I’m not going to stop you from celebrating it as early as you want. It’s quite sweet actually, how enthusiastic you are. Anybody who would want to stop that is just heartless.”

Clarke smiles shyly to herself, then says, “So tomorrow afternoon? I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“Sure,” shrugs Lexa. “Why not?”

Anything to spend a little more time with the girl she is rapidly becoming more infatuated with as Christmas draws closer and closer.

“Gingerbread,” Clarke announces the following afternoon, placing a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter with a heavy thunk.

“This is it?” Lexa asks in surprise as Clarke starts taking the ingredients out of the bag. “Your last attempt to convert me to celebrating Christmas early is by baking gingerbread?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” Clarke quips back. She slides her phone across the counter, with a gingerbread recipe open on the screen, then asks, “Start weighing out the ingredients?”

A slow smile spreading across her lips, Lexa salutes Clarke mockingly and replies, “Yes, boss.”

Baking is fun. Spending time with Clarke is fun.

(Perhaps, though Lexa is reluctant to admit it, celebrating Christmas early is fun.)

Their gingerbread is far from the best – the dough is more crumbly than the dough in the pictures on the recipe, and the baking trays now in the oven are covered in cookies that although may smell great, are lopsided and messy in places – but that hardly matters when Lexa has had such a good time making it.

And that’s mostly down to the girl she’s been making gingerbread with, but whatever.

“Well that was fun,” grins Clarke, echoing Lexa’s thoughts exactly. “Let’s hope they taste good.”

Lexa hums absently in agreement, dropping the empty mixing bowl into the sink to be washed up later.

There’s a sharp intake of breath from beside Lexa, and when her head snaps up in curiosity, she finds Clarke staring at her with wide eyes, pointing up at the ceiling above them.

“Lexa, look…”

And Lexa does. She slowly drags her eyes upwards, frowning as she investigates the cause of Clarke’s surprise, until her eyes fall on…

Mistletoe.

It’s so cliché that it has Lexa blushing instantly. Lexa wonders how she didn’t notice it earlier. In fact, she is almost certain that the mistletoe was not there when she entered the kitchen earlier, which only means that it must have been placed there while they were baking. And as Lexa didn’t put it there herself, and the only other person ho has been in the kitchen this afternoon has been Clarke, then…

Oh.

“You know what that means, don’t you?” says Clarke. Upon seeing the panic that flashes across Lexa’s face (because hello, yes she would love to kiss Clarke but she’s still having a hard time reacting to the fact that Clarke has deliberately set up a situation for them to kiss and so must clearly want to kiss her too), Clarke adds, “It’s okay, I know you aren’t one for Christmas traditions, so I guess we can let it slide.”

It feels an awful lot like a challenge. A lump lodges itself in Lexa’s throat, one that makes it even harder for her to talk than before, and she has to push past it to get her next words out in a croaky voice.

“I…” she stammers. “There might be some traditions that I could get behind.”

“Like playing Christmas music in November?” Clarke teases her.

“That’s not the tradition I was thinking of,” replies Lexa.

“What were you thinking of?”

Clarke has somehow moved closer without Lexa noticing, because all of a sudden she is right up there in Lexa’s personal space, their front almost flush against each other, and while Lexa isn’t complaining, it makes it much harder to think when Clarke is so close.

“I mean, it’s bad luck if we don’t kiss under the mistletoe, right?” Lexa attempts to reason, as much for her own benefit as for Clarke’s.

“Bad luck,” smirks Clarke. “So that’s the excuse you’re going with, huh? I didn’t have you down as the superstitious type.”

“I’m not,” confesses Lexa. And then, because Clarke’s face is dizzyingly disarming in its proximity to Lexa’s, “Can I kiss you?”

“I wouldn’t have put the mistletoe there if I didn’t wan-”

Lexa doesn’t let Clarke finish. She crashes their lips together, fisting her fingers into the material of Clarke’s sweater to keep her closer. Clarke’s lips are soft and pliant and she tastes like Christmas, the barest hint of ginger from the raw cookie dough that she’s been eating on her tongue as it sweeps through Lexa’s mouth for the first time. Clarke lets out a little sound, a hum of delight, and one of her hands goes up to the back of Lexa’s head, cupping it through dark curls with a firm enough grip to anchor Lexa’s mouth against Clarke’s, like it would kill Clarke for their lips to part for even a fraction of a second.

As first kisses go, it’s as close to perfect as Lexa imagines that it could be, and she quickly decides that she would be content to start celebrating next Christmas now, if it meant kissing Clarke for the next thirteen months.

But even the best of things have their flaws, and the flaw in this kiss turns out to be the throat that gets cleared in the door to the kitchen, interrupting them long before Lexa is ready to pull her lips away from Clarke’s.

Raven is watching them from across the kitchen, arms folded across her chest and a smile of smug delight on her face as she says gleefully, “Just a reminder that you’re using the oven and that I really like living in an apartment that hasn’t burnt down.”

Lexa wonders if it’s possible for her cheeks to turn any redder than the shade of crimson that they currently are.

“Anyway,” Raven shrugs jovially right before she leaves the kitchen once more, “I guess we know who will be coming down Clarke’s chimney on Christmas Eve.”

#clexa #clexa fanfic #clexa ss 2017 #clarke griffin #commander lexa #fanfiction #hedaforr

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yuckyxgirl · 6 years

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just all my thoughts loll

i grew up in a small ass town with strict parents that literally monitored everything in my life and gave me no privacy and of course like every other teenager would i thought it was stupid af. that made me start sneaking out of my house and being gone all night, stealing cars to go places, i’ve even snuck people into my house lol. i did a lot of shit wrong because i hated my parents and how they treated me. i just wanted to be a terrible kid because that’s just who i was at that time. my parents of course hated that and put even more bullshit on me with the control games and made me do all these sports and clubs i was never interested in. i felt like they made me do those certain things and be that certain “perfect student/athlete/daugher” for the image they wanted our judgmental little town to have for our family. they have ruined so many damn important memories in my life too. they have kept me from my own family, ruined important school memories with controlling bullshit like keeping my family from seeing me at my high school proms, my high school graduation, my 18th birthday. i never got to make those happy memories with the family that i loved and wanted to be surrounded by. instead i was left to put on my fake smile and act like i was so happy and they were giving me the biggest parties and best college things because they wanted to be able to show everything off that they did for me. they wouldn’t even let me go to college for cosmetology because that’s how much they didn’t fuck what about what i wanted with my life. i was so sheltered and so brain washed its not even funny. i wasn’t raised right. never learned the right way to do things or anything like that because my parents were shady af.

i will never forget the humiliating moment i was trying so hard to remember dee’s phone number to call from my roommates phone for help because my parents had forced me into a counseling session that didn’t go like they thought it would. they ripped my phone and keys from my hand saying that it was theirs and to get the fuck back to my dorm however i could. i started walking and i will never forget how scared i was then. i was in small town so it was nothing dangerous but just that my own parents could just rip everything away and leave me stranded like that. i couldn’t believe how they had just done that to me and drove off like nothing wrong had happened. i remember my roommate picking me up as i walking back to my dorm freaking out that i wouldn’t even be able to get back to my dorm room because they had taken my whole key ring with them. i was so embarrassed to have her show up to pick me up on the street walking. i remember how nervous i felt to have to call dee’s phone and try to explain what had happened and that i needed her help. i have always depended on her my whole life and when my parents took me away from her i didn’t really fight hard enough i just laid down and accepted the rules and punishment when i had to go back home after my step dad beat me. I hadn’t gotten to talk or see her in so long and here i was calling again in an emergency because my parents had done something wrong to me again. that was the second time i had to make that phone call to her begging for her help because she was all i had. i will never be able to put into words how selfless dee was both times i called her in need. she has picked me up from rock bottom more than once and has never failed me. she has somehow always found the good in me when i never saw it or even thought there was any in me. she has shown me a motherly love that i would give anything to be able to experience my whole life.

i still to this day hate my fucking parents. like both sets of them tbh. my mom and step-dad treated me like shit and always tried to making me look like such a terrible kid but they were just shit parents. he beat me, they stole money from me, tried to ruin my life and control every single part of it. they honestly fucked me up for the first 18 years when they raised me. then at 18 i was lucky enough to meet the piece of shit known as my sperm donor. i thought he was so great after the first visit because of course they were like so excited to meet me. i went back for christmas and fuck them. my dad is a felon alcoholic that literally got his ankle bracelet off and a month later was drinking like he was when he got it on!! he never financially provided for me as a child when i was alive for 18 years so when i asked him for help while i was in school he was going to give me the bare minimum amount that i asked to help me pay for my car while i worked to pay rent and live. his fucking stupid ass washed up version of my mom (my new step mom) bitched every fucking month about sending me $100 for it and i fucking hated that bitch from the beginning. she is a terrible mother that doesn’t raise her brat fucking daughter right. she has just as bad of a drinking problem and felt so threatened when i came into their life. life i hadn’t already been his daughter for 11 years prior. but whatever the insecure bitch felt so threatened by me and always tried to sabotage my relationship with my dad. i never got to bond with him or get to know him other than the shit parts that i saw and heard. when i went for their wedding was really when i fucking lost it. they had the most disgusting backwards wedding and visit. that bitch was so fucking evil and i honestly wish now that i would have tried harder to ruin their wedding. they don’t deserve to call me their daughter and be happy that i’m “finally in their lives” so i’ll probably let me know that soon just so they know how i truly feel about them both. both sets of my parents are so fucked up and honestly that’s probably why i’m so fucked up and feel like i have so many things wrong with me. i’ve suffered thru traumatic experiences and never got proper therapy or recovery from it so that’s my next step in my life to get past this. but i am so relieved to know that i never have to speak to any of them again. they never deserved me as a daughter and i never deserved to grow up like that. fuck all them i won’t let them ruin my life forever. onto bigger better things without them and they will never ever get to know or be apart of it.

i guess i hold a lot of anger because of how much it feels like they ruined my lives. not only with the control and not being able to figure out who i am as a person but when my step-dad (guy who always literally claimed to have given me life lmao) beat the shit out of me and made me literally run away to a middle school friends house to get help from his mom because that’s the only thing i could think to do. they had taken my phone and ipad so i couldnt contact anyone for help. how fucking bullshit i felt in that moment having this huge guy beating me in the face and shoving me down and digging his thumbs into the bottom of my chin. i will never forget how helpless i felt then and how much i can’t ever fucking forgive my mom for just watching the whole thing happen to me and just watching. then when i explained what happened she would lie and say that it wasn’t happening but she was right fucking there. that night has got me so fucked up probably forever. i am always so sensitive to guys yelling or anything with angry men because i am probably still traumatized from what happened to me that night. fast forward to being forced to move back home and becoming so fucking depressed i ruined my life at that time. i was coping with my depression by sleeping a fuck ton. i didn’t want to be awake or in that house which they trapped me in so i just always felt tired and could sleep. 18 or more hours if i was left alone or unbothered. i kept my door shut and had a room in our basement living area so no windows and would just stay in the complete darkness of my room and try to avoid everything. i think at that point i was just so fucking done living life. i really did want to kill myself at that time and honestly if i could have been alone more during that time i probably would have just done it one day. that’s how much my life wasn’t even worth it anymore. i made it thru the rest of the bullshit acting and being something i’m not for the show my parents put on. the typical big school trips and graduation parties and presents because they wanted to look like the fucking best parents ever ya know?? because maybe then everyone would be like nah he didn’t beat her. no way. whatever and fuck anyone that has ever accused me of lying about that night. i finally had the shittiest experience in college. i was sleeping so fucking much again. i skipped classes for like a month before i dropped out. i hated it at that school, the program i was in, the people, fuck that college. of course that was the college my parents picked and made me go to. what a surprise right

uhh fast forward just a lil bit i was in hair school and had finally moved out onto my own. i was terrible and idk what the fuck i did with my life at that time. i wish i never would’ve gone that early and fucked everything up for myself. but as usual the whole time i was in school and after i wasn’t confident and literally hated myself. i let depression and fuck up meds control my life. i would take them so i like couldn’t even remember things. my memory just started becoming like a fog when i would try to remember literally anything. i slept around because ya know the attention felt nice. i wouldn’t respect myself or my body to know my worth and not do the shit i did but at least i learned from it. i’m not proud of it by any means and i’m sure as fuck aware of all my terrible fucking choices in men. i will forever know that and be like damn girl you let that fuck up your life a lot lol

i finally left kansas and for a long time was pretty unhappy. idk probably a lot of trying to adjust being away from my family and we just lived in a shit situation at that time. but we finally got our lives together. i fucking work on my depression and shit and make it more known that way vince can help me to get thru it. for the first time in like forever i actually feel fucking good about myself and how i look. it feels really fucking good. like now that i’ve had this huge realization that the way i was raised and everything i thought was normal was actually wrong and bullshit. i can honestly say that i’ve seen so much and changed so fucking much this year and its so awesome. i have figured out who i am and cut so many undeserving fucks out of my life. i’ve blocked all those fucked up people in my life so they can’t even see what i’m doing lol. i have finally figured out that i don’t have to take the shit i don’t deserve anymore. i used to be a huge fucking pushover and i’m not going to be anymore. fuck that. i know who i am and my worth. i’m living my life and worrying about myself because that’s the only thing that fucking matters.

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shameforskam · 7 years

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exactly a year ago today (oct 30th) was the day i first found skam

im kinda surprised i remember it, i was scrolling through tumblr and saw a gifset with four couples in it all from different shows, all of which i recognized except one, it was a gif from hjernen er alene (of course) and the op had tagged skam so i immediately googled it which at this point in the fandom… didn’t get me very far, i found the skam page and nrk tv which had the shittiest google translate ever and really nothing else, i don’t think the wikipedia article even exist yet (at least on the english wiki), but it gave me the basics: skam was norwegian, in its third season, and it had no official english subtitles yay!

while randomly searching for a translated version of the episodes (i’d found the srt files but i wasn’t sure how to use them yet) i found a youtube channel that was uploading only the isak and even storyline (so also missing a lot from s3) with english subs. i remember avoiding it for a bit because i wanted to start from s1 if i was gonna start at all but upon finding no other translated videos i wound up back there and figured i’d see if it was worth going to the trouble of figuring out how to watch the rest. i watched all the videos in one go and i knew i’d found something i was going to fall in love with, i remember particularly loving bånder and the call your girlfriend scene and not having any idea who the girl with the suitcase was. i needed the backstory on these characters asap. i went back to tumblr and found a post suggesting an extension i could use to overlay the srt files on the episodes, so that's what i did for the next week. that was super fun because anytime i had to pause the show i had to pause both the program playing the subs and the video and keeping them synced up was such a joy lmao. but it was worth it. i loved this strange niche show with such beautiful characters and such rich storylines and dialogue and i felt so excited by what i’d found

as i was catching up on s1 and s2 i was figuring out how to follow along with s3, the format of skam has always been the thing that intrigued me the most and there’s no way to describe exactly what following the story in real time feels like, but you all know that. i watched the next two clips uploaded on the youtube channel but it got taken down on nov 1st. i consider pause to be the first clip i watched in real time. that was when i’d started getting the translated clips from shametv and getting the texts and everything as well on tumblr. that was the first clip i remember seeing had dropped and known i’d need to wait a few hours for subs. i remember i’d just got settled into how the process was working when the show went on hiatus

i’d been all over the skam tag and stalking the fandom every day, loving everyone talking and all the theories (some just hilariously wrong). i have the first post i ever reblogged about skam [x] (a great one) and the first reaction post i ever made [x] i remember being so sad just trying to process the incredible relationship and show i’d just found out about ending in a heartbreaking moment and then leaving me while trump won the election, it was too much devastation for one week! during all this i was in my first semester of college, living with 3 roommates who are now my best friends. i don’t remember talking about skam to them too much to begin with (they’ll probably say different) but one of my roommates also found out about it on tumblr and i showed her how i watched the first seasons. skam came back and on nov 15th we were all out to eat when ingen lever lykkelig alle sine dager dropped. it was exciting every time a clipped dropped but this one was special because we were at dinner and i told my one roommate there was a new clip and we translated the title word for word on a napkin while our other roommates were like ‘what is happening??’ and the title was sad! and i didn’t want sad! and i spent the next few hours trying to avoid thinking about what it could mean and running around the city with my friends and hoping the translation would be up when i got home

that was the night i created this blog. it started simply as a place to put all the posts i wanted to save and to write down my thoughts so i wouldn’t talk my roommates’ ears off. that was the night i committed to actually being involved in the fandom, something i hadn’t done in a few years and not close to the same extent. but skam was special, still is special, it’s the reason i’ve talked to so many people from all around the world now. i never thought that this blog would get followers or that i’d make posts that people would find interesting or that i’d learn to make gifs or that i’d have any influence on the fandom at all. it’s the weirdest thing stumbling on my posts linked to on twitter or used in discussions on reddit when i’m looking through the parts of the fandom i don’t regularly interact with. there’s a lot of aspects about being heavily involved in and up to date with a fandom that i’m still grappling with, and there’re the aspects i hope i never get use to, but i’ve found so much more joy in this show and with this fandom that i would always choose to be a part of it. i don’t know how long i’ll stay, i don’t know if i’ll eventually archive this blog but i’ll be here until my interest with skam fades, until there are no remakes to critique, until i lose track of the cast, until there’s no one left translating and nothing to talk about but i don’t see any of that happening soon

i’ve loved this show for the last year. even with it’s flaws at the root of it all i still love it. i love what i’ve learned from the show and from the fans, i love that the show made me believe in where i want to go. i’m in college studying film and watching skam during that first semester made me 100% sure this was what i wanted to be doing with my life, making media people could believe in, something that touched their soul and made them think, something new and inventive, something people could find themselves in and fall in love with, something beautiful, and that’s really why i’ll always be grateful for this little show, i’ll always be grateful for the people that translated it and the people that continue to translate, to everyone that made me realize something i never would have and think about something in a brand new way, to anyone that’s sent me questions and enjoyed hearing my thoughts, to everyone that made me laugh with some ridiculous post, to everyone that sent me comforting words when i asked, and to everyone that created content that made me love skam even more, it’s been a great year 💙💙💙

#this is a long post about how i started watching skam #thank you to everyone who follows this blog #i hope it brings you joy #mine

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scientia-rex · 7 years

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I think my depression went from “bad but not that bad” to “well above baseline suicidal ideation” about a year ago, when I went to the little hick town with the preceptor who hated me for outpatient internal medicine when I was woefully underprepared.

I was just thinking about it when I took the dog out for potties. It’s such a constant feeling for me now--and obsessively checking in with myself about it, how much do you want to kill yourself right now?, doesn’t help, I know it’s part of the problem--and it feels like it’s been like this forever. But it hasn’t. Even during my Surgery rotation, which was hands-down the most stressful six weeks I have ever experienced, I wanted to live. I was doing a lot better during my family medicine sub-I. There are specific, discrete periods of time I can point to when my symptoms, very predictably, got worse:

-on the road, far from home, with no one to interact with who liked me or saw me as competent (which is why OB wasn’t as bad as IM or, for that matter, Peds; my preceptors were kinder, my resident was great, and I had a roommate, who was super nice and is still one of my preferred people from our class) (and also on my shittiest rotations I was fighting with the administration about transportation requirements)

-nothing to do all day for weeks on end while studying for USMLE Step 2, when I got really bad

-stuck on rotations in fourth year where I feel like I’m not contributing anything positive to patient care and no one I work with likes me or sees me as competent

-stuck on rotations where I had to listen to bullshit fucking attitudes from attendings and couldn’t do jack shit about them because WOW you don’t realize HOW helpless you are as a medical student until somebody says something horrible right in front of you and in that moment you realize if you say anything about it to anyone, you are labeling yourself “WHINER” in flashing neon lights and no one will want to work with you ever again

So if I know what the triggers were, and I know it’s gone up and down in intensity depending on those, I know it’s not authentic, in the sense that my urge to commit suicide isn’t some lofty philosophical conclusion I’ve reached by logic (no matter what my dad says when he talks about his suicidal ideation); it’s a direct response to a situation that is going to change again.

The antidepressants didn’t help this time. It’s been a full twelve-week trial at full strength and I still think about strangling myself with phone cords every time I’m stuck in a fucking endless meeting or listening to my attending call patients names. So I’m going back off them--they aren’t even sedating me at bedtime, this time around--and I’ll consider a trial of something else when I get established with my new primary care doctor.

And it’s going to be OK. Because I’ve been this bad before; I’ve been worse than this before; and I survived, and I’m learning how to make new kinds of art with video and audio editing, I have a book coming out in the spring, I’m setting up interviews for an oral history of care providers during the AIDS crisis that I think will be my best and realest legacy, I’m on the admissions committee so I can help choose a more thoughtful next generation of physicians, I’m watching my nephew walk so fast he pulls ahead of us after everything we went through with his older brother’s death two years ago, I’m fighting for health care coverage for my patients. I survived third year. I’m going to survive fourth year, and residency, and establishing a practice after that. Whether I do it married or divorced, whether I do it laughing or crying, I’m going to do it.

Life is really hard. When I was a teenager I thought that once I was an adult I’d have so much more figured out. Then, at college, I thought after college everything would fall into place; then in grad school; then I had to start putting together an actual career; right about the time I had a decent career up and running I went back to med school; in my twenties I thought I’d have a handle on things by my thirties; and here I am, well into my thirties, and still struggling, still figuring everything out. I don’t know if teenaged me would have found this a comfort, but adult me does. Because not having everything figured out means I’m not stagnating. I’m not becoming one of the living dead who stop thinking and growing and learning and changing. I’m not ossifying in place as a member of a privileged establishment. I picked medicine, in large part, because I knew it would do this to me--it would force me to keep changing even when it hurt and I wanted to stop.

As a teenager, everything was huge and overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine the future in any kind of meaningful detail. My anxiety was so huge I couldn’t do anything by myself; I was in a self-imposed prison. And I clung to the idea that things wouldn’t be so hard in the future to convince myself to get through that. Now, as an adult, I have so much more of what psychologists call self-efficacy. The belief that I can do things. And it means that even when things are really, really hard, I still look at the world in a different way than I did then. It’s less scary, less terrible, because I can do things.

It’s not just a different point of view, either. As an adult, you do have more options. I couldn’t leave my parents, even though they were mentally ill and awful to me. I didn’t have money, I didn’t have freedom, I couldn’t vote or get my own line of credit or get an apartment. I don’t want teenagers to look at struggling adults and think, Jesus, is that what I have to look forward to? because it’s better. Even when it’s bad, it’s better.

My depression has been a part of my life for so long--at least since I was eight--that it’s a familiar companion. I know it lies to me. Sometimes it helps to remind myself that I know that.

#suicide tw #med school dead school

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aresaphrodites · 7 years

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the night’s on fire - chapter two

thank you @itstenafterfour for looking this over. :) time to meet betty!

this chapter is me giving my baby, jason blossom, the justice he deserves. also i’m experimenting with literally every relationship on riverdale in all of my fics because why not? in this case: say hi to cheronica.

Betty Cooper works in a dump.

Literally.

Okay, maybe not literally but it’s close enough to put the dumpster outside to shame. The hole-in-the-wall cafe that she’s a barista at serves the world’s shittiest coffee, despite its “Best Coffee in New York!” sign that hangs above the door outside. Betty’s tried the cafe’s roasted bean water (it doesn’t deserve the title of coffee, she thinks) and would rather drink week old coffee than the stuff they serve here. It continues to phase her that they aren’t out of business yet.

“Can I have a chocolate chip frap?” The woman in front of her asks and Betty gives her a dumbfounded look, trying to decide if she’s serious or not. After a few seconds, she realizes that the woman is indeed serious and she sighs.

“No, ma’am. We don’t serve that here.”

“Oh,” she says looking disappointed. “What about a blackberry frap?”

“We don’t have that either. We aren’t a Starbucks.”

“Well, what do you have?”

Betty gestures to the sign above her. “We have a menu that tells you what we serve.” She’s being rude. She’s well aware of the fact that she’s being rude, but she can’t help it. She’s exhausted. She’d been up all night studying for the finals she has next week. She hadn’t gotten much sleep and then she had to come work a six hour shift and deal with annoying customers so yeah, she was a little irritated and thinks she deserves to be as such.

The woman stares at the menu for so long that Betty would have thought she’d fallen asleep standing up with her eyes open if it weren’t for the insistent humming she kept doing.

“I think,” the woman says, pausing, “maybe… hmm.”

Betty taps her foot against the tile. She’s about to throw her own two cents in, when the woman snaps her fingers and smiles.

“I’ll have a raspberry tea!”

At least there’s that. Betty smiles and nods as she rattles off the price to the woman, who doesn’t seem one bit bothered by it. Maybe that’s why they’re still in business. Their drinks aren’t the best in New York, but they sure are the cheapest.

Behind her Veronica Lodge, her best friend and roommate, makes the tea before handing it over to the woman.

“Daniel wants to talk to you after your shift,” Veronica says whenever the lady leaves the front counter. “He told me something about hours.”

Betty sighs. Daniel’s her boss and as much as she likes the guy, he’s always pushing her to do more hours. It’s like people forget that she’s still in school. If she had it her way, she wouldn’t be working at all. She’d just focus on her schoolwork, but sadly she has to pay her own tuition.

Veronica’s lucky. Her dad pays for her tuition and the apartment that they both live in. His only requirement was that Veronica go out and get a job and learn what it’s like to work. If you ask Betty, it was all a little too simple.

“Okay,” she mumbles. She gets off in thirty minutes and she had really be planning on going straight home to take a nap. It’s a Friday night and while everyone else she knows is out getting drunk, she just can’t wait to go back to sleep. She wonders what that says about her.

Veronica gives her a half smile before she runs off to help another customer. Betty wishes that she could have the life that Veronica lives, and this isn’t the first time she’s wished for it.

Thirty minutes passes by quickly and Betty tugs off the ugly red apron before walking to the back of the building where Daniel’s office is.

She knocks on the door before letting herself in.

Daniel sits behind his desk, head in a bunch of papers. He’s a cute guy. He’s really young to be their manager, only about thirty. He has one of those boyish faces like Scott Speedman’s and Betty’s definitely swooned over him a few times.

“Hey,” he greets in the soft yet deep voice of his. “Sit down, Betty.”

She does as he asks and before he can even say anything, she’s talking.

“Daniel, if this is about getting me to work more hours, I really can’t. I have two more finals next week and I really need--.”

“Hey,” he says, smiling at her, “calm down. That’s not what this is about. I was actually going to say that you could take the next few days off until your finals are over. I remember what college is like. I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

She looks at him and has to stop herself from tearing up. This is quite literally the sweetest thing anyone has ever told her and she doesn’t know how to handle it.

So she cries.

“Oh, my God,” Daniel says as Betty holds up a hand, trying to tell him to just give her a minute.

She wipes at her eyes and looks at him with a watery smile.

“Thank you.”

Daniel laughs. “Of course. Just make sure you do good on your finals! You deserve better than this place.”

Betty nods. She agrees with him. She doesn’t know exactly what it is that she deserves, but she knows it’s more than this.

“I’ll see you Thursday,” he tells her, knowing that her last final is on Tuesday. “I’ll give you one day for recovery.”

“Thank you so much,” she says again before waving goodbye and walking out of his office. It hadn’t been what she was expecting at all, but it was just what she needed. Despite the shitty job, Daniel was an amazing boss. He always had been.

She walks out of the cafe, waving goodbye at Veronica who still has another two hours before her shift is over, and hails down a cab.

As soon as she climbs inside of one, her phone starts ringing in her purse and she pulls it out, narrowing her eyes in confusion at the caller.

“Hello?” She greets when she answers the call.

“Where are you?”

“Nice to talk to you too, Jason. I’m doing good. How are you?”

She can practically hear his eye roll as he answers her. “Hey, Betty. Where are you?”

“I’m in a cab going home, why?”

“Come down to the station. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“No!” Betty hates going down to the station. It’s on the other side of the city, far from where she lives, and right now she just wants her bed and a nice shower. “I’m tired. I want to go home and sleep.”

“Stop being such a baby. If you come, I’ll give you some of this Chinese I ordered from Golden Dragon.” She can hear the smirk in his voice and she groans. He’s won. He totally knows that he’s won. Golden Dragon has the best Chinese food ever, she’ll never turn it down.

“I don’t want Chinese,” she grumbles, lying as she taps the cab driver on the shoulder and mouths ‘police station’ to him. “What do you have to talk to me about that can’t wait until later on? Or tell me right now? We’re on the phone anyway.”

He pauses and she waits.

“Just get here soon. It’s important. It needs to be said in person.”

And then he’s hanging up. She scowls down at the phone. Jason was pushy as hell, but Betty had a hard time telling him no to anything; just like he did for her. The two were close, always had been, and that meant they always had each other’s back. So as much as she wanted to get home to sleep, she knew it wasn’t going to happen just yet.

On the ride to the station, she wonders if she should tell Jason about her job. Chances are he’s going to flip out and demand that she move in with him and Cheryl or something. Jason and Cheryl’s parents were extremely wealthy, until they had both died four years ago, right after senior graduation, leaving them with an incredible amount of money; more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime. It was bizarre, though. They’d just wiped off the earth and news soon rolled in they were dead. There wasn’t even anything to bury.

The death of her aunt and uncle, Mayor Blossom and his beloved wife, had been tragic, but at least it didn’t leave them hanging dry.

The ride to the station is boring and long; traffic is terrible, but they finally get there and Betty’s glad to see the foreboding building for once. Her legs needed to stretch out. She hands the driver a twenty before hopping out of the car.

The station is pretty calm for a Friday evening, but she knows it won’t last long. It never does.

She walks to where Jason’s desk is, waving hi to a few of the officers she knows. When she gets to his desk, Kevin Keller and Cheryl, his twin sister, are sitting with him.

She waves to her cousins and then Kevin. They all wave back, but the look on their faces lets her know that something’s up.

“I was promised Chinese,” she says as a way to break whatever ice is between all of them right now. Jason smiles as he slides her two takeout cartons. She takes them before sitting down on the chair across from his desk. “So what’s going on? What’s so important that I had to come over here on a Friday night?”

“Did you have something else planned?” Cheryl snorts.

“Maybe I did,” Betty glares as she stuffs a piece of sweet and sour chicken into her mouth. “You don’t know my life.”

“Books or sleep?”

“That’s enough,” Jason says, always the peacemaker between Cheryl and Betty. It's been that way ever since they were kids. “We actually need to talk to you about something pretty important.”

Betty nods, urging him to go on. She had guessed that it was pretty important. She just didn’t understand why no one was talking right now. She hated when people dragged things out.

“We need your help,” Kevin finally says, getting tired of the twins not speaking up. Betty looks at him in confusion. What on earth could they possibly need her help with? She didn’t even work here.

“Uh,” she drags out, rice in her mouth. “With what?”

“We need you to do an undercover job for us.”

Betty looks at him like he’s gone crazy before she bursts out into laughter. When it becomes apparent that this obviously isn’t a joke, she slowly stops laughing and frowns.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Why do you need me to go undercover for you? I don’t even work here.”

“That’s exactly why,” Jason says completely serious. “We need someone who isn’t tied to the police force.”

Betty shakes her head. “Okay, wait, hold up. What kind of undercover are we talking about here? Can someone give me some background information please?”

Kevin looks over at Jason who nods.

“We have a reason to believe that there’s a family in New York City that’s affiliated with the Mob.”

Betty can’t help it. She snorts in disbelief.

“Are you serious?” She asks, giving Kevin a look like he’s lost his marbles. “The Mob? Does the Mob even exist anymore?”

“Yes, you idiot,” Cheryl says. “The Mob’s always going to exist.”

Betty glares at her. “Okay, well let’s say that’s true. Why do I have to be part of this?”

“The family in question is the Jones family. They’re an old, very wealthy family. We’ve suspected them for a while now, especially after we lost Martinez to a drug bust gone wrong.” Betty remembers that. Jason wouldn’t give her the details, he’s always trying to protect her from the ugly stuff in the world. Pretty ironic that he wants her to be in the middle of all this now.

“Jughead Jones, the son of FP Jones, owns a nightclub in the city, Pulse, it’s apparently how he makes all his money but we think it’s where he does most of his business.”

Betty knows about Pulse. Veronica had tried to get her to go there once. It’s supposed to be really fancy and glamorous; the kind of club with a dress code. The exact place that Betty would never want to step foot in. Now, she’s sure she won’t voluntarily be in a 50-foot vicinity of it.

“He runs with a group of guys,” Kevin continues on, “a bunch of young kids, early twenties to twenty-five. Apparently they’re all working over at Topaz’s Mechanic Shop. I had one of my guys go by earlier to get their work logs, to see if maybe there was something that didn’t add up and sure enough there was. They’re kids, they slip up. Their slip up was not clocking in for ‘work’. The amount of pay they’re getting does not match the hours they’re supposedly working.”

“Um, couldn’t they have just gotten promoted or something?”

“Unlikely,” Kevin says, but to Betty it seems like he’s grasping at straws.

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me. How am I supposed to help you?”

“We want your help to take him down.”

She looks at Jason, eyes wide and scrunches her face up.

“You want my help to… take down an apparent mob boss?”

“Jughead Jones is a smart son of a bitch,” Kevin says, not letting Jason speak. “He’ll see any trick we have set up coming from a mile away, unless our trick happens to be an innocent, blonde haired college student.”

Betty takes offense to the term “innocent”. She isn’t innocent. At least not completely. She knows things. She’s seen things. She hasn’t necessarily done things, but still. Definitely not innocent.

“Long story short,” Cheryl says, “we want you to get close to Jones, work your way into his life, find out if we’re right about him, and then feed us information about him; where he’ll be during certain days, preferably one when something big is about to go down.”

“You’re joking,” Betty tries to say, but defaltes when she sees that they definitely aren’t joking. “Oh my God, you’re not joking.” She turns to Jason; the one guy who’s always protected her and glares at him. “You want me to be some kind of sacrifice to a Mob Boss? This is how people die!”

Jason stands up from his seat and walks over to her, hands up as he tries to calm her down.

“Do you really think I’d let anything happen to you?” He asks her, sounding a bit offended at her reaction. Deep down, she knows that Jason wouldn’t but still. This request is insane. “You’ll be safe, Betty. I promise. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I need you to trust me, but I also need you to do this for me. This could be huge if it goes the way we want it to.”

“Once you get close enough to Jones, you’ll start wearing a wire,” Kevin says. “If you ever go anywhere alone with him, someone from the force will be trailing you. You’ll never be completely alone with him.”

“How am I even supposed to meet him?” Betty asks, not feeling as unnerved as she had before. “I don’t even know who he is or what he looks like.”

“You’ll go to his club, Pulse. He’s there every Saturday night. You should consider getting a job there as a bartender. It’d probably pay more than your current job anyway.”

Betty glares at Kevin. She’s not quitting her job for this. No way.

“Why can’t Cheryl do it?”

“Because I’m a cop, smart one,” her cousin says with an eye roll. “Jones isn’t dumb. If he starts to get close to you, which he will, he’s going to do a background check on you. We can make sure that you’ll have no ties to us or our family name, but there’s no way I could get away with it.”

Betty sighs, realizing that she’s at a loss here.

“You can say no,” Jason tells her.

She can, but she won’t.

“What do I need to do?”

She goes into work the next day around noon. She wasn’t even scheduled to work on Saturday, but she left her phone charger behind the day before and her phone’s been dead ever since she left the police station.

She’s been on edge ever since she woke up. Tonight’s the night she’s supposed to go to Pulse and try to worm her way into Jughead Jones’ life. She still has no clue what he looks like or who he even is. Cheryl’s supposed to stop by her apartment to go over the details later and she’s really not looking forward to it. The only reason she even agreed to any of this is because Jason asked her and she owes Jason a lot.

Her plan is to be in and out of the godforsaken coffee shop. The last thing she needs is Daniel seeing her and trying to talk to her. She cannot be slowed down today.

She walks behind the counter and bends down to search for her charger. No one’s working behind the counter and she briefly wonders where everyone is before she spots her charger and stands up.

She gasps when she sees a man standing behind the counter. She hadn’t even heard him walk inside.

She stares at him as he tilts his head at her in greeting. He is quite possibly the most handsome man she has ever seen in her entire life and she’s seen a lot of men. He has dark hair that falls into his eyes; it’s a bit curly in the front and she has to refrain from biting her lip at the sight. She’s always been a sucker for a man with curls. His eyes are a mixture of green and light blue, it’s hard to tell the exact color from where she’s standing but she finds that she’s enamored by them either way. He has bags under his eyes that look like he hasn’t slept in days and Betty finds herself attracted to them too.

“Can I have a coffee? Black.”

She pauses before realizing that he’s talking to her.

“I, uh…”

He tilts his head, looking bored with her.

“Can you make me the coffee or not?”

Her cheeks redden at the way he chastises her.

“Y-yeah, I can,” she says as she goes to the coffee machine. “I just wasn’t working today. I’m not on the clock.”

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

“I needed my charger.”

She doesn’t know why she’s telling him any of this. He doesn’t care. She’s embarrassing herself right now. Her hands shake as she carries the coffee over to him. This guy is easily the hottest man she’s ever seen and she’s making a complete fool of herself.

“Here you go,” she says shakily. His tongue runs across his bottom lip as she hands it to him and her hand twitches, dropping the coffee everywhere and all over him.

“Fuck!” The guy yells out as he jumps back. It’s no use though, the coffee has already gotten all over his coat.

“Oh, my god,” Betty says in horror. “I’m so sorry. Here, I can fix it.”

“No, thank you!” The guy snaps at her, but she’s crossing the counter and patting him down with napkins before he can actually stop her.

“I’m so sorry. Do you want me to pay for you to get it cleaned?” She’s already calculating how much this coat is worth. She catches sight of a plaid design on the inside that resembles the brand Veronica wears; Blueberry or something like that.

“You couldn’t afford it.”

The words cut through her and she looks at him with wide, sad eyes. She knew she couldn’t afford it; he didn’t have to throw that in her fact that way. She was trying to make up for what she had done wrong. She was trying to make things better.

“Is Daniel Leon here?” The man asks, taking Betty off guard. He’s not going to complain to her boss, is he? She really needs this job.

“I think so,” she answers, nervously. “He might be in the back.”

The man doesn’t even hesitate before walking around the counter to go to the back room. Betty watches in horror as he lets himself into Daniel’s office and closes the door behind him. She considers two things. She can either stand here and wait to see why the man wanted Daniel or she can get the hell out of here and act like she was never inside the cafe. Daniel can’t fire her if there’s no proof that she was here.

She picks the second option, tripping over the ground as she runs of the cafe and into the first cab she can get.

The man is still on her mind when she gets back to the apartment. Who was he? She had never seen him before at the cafe, but he seemed to know Daniel so that was kind of weird.

She walks inside her apartment and screams.

“Oh, my God!” She yells out.

Veronica and Cheryl are laid out on the couch in the living room, both in their bras, lips attached to the other like they haven’t seen each other in years.

“You guys can’t do this in Veronica’s room?” She groans. “Cheryl, you were supposed to come over to help me with this ‘mission’. Not to hook up with your girlfriend!”

“You were taking too long,” Cheryl says easily as she leans back into the couch. Veronica puts her shirt back on, but Cheryl doesn’t even bother. Betty doesn’t question it at this point. “Where were you?”

“I had to pick up my charger from work. I dropped coffee all over this really hot guy. It was so embarrassing.”

Veronica and Cheryl share a look before they smirk at Betty.

“A hot guy?” Cheryl asks. “Do tell.”

“There’s nothing to tell! I spilt coffee on him and he yelled at me. The end.”

“Okay, but like what kind of hot are we talking about here?” Veronica asks, looking way too excited.

“Like hasn’t slept in five years hot.”

Cheryl and Veronica both moan at that.

“I love a guy who looks half dead,” Veronica says with a dreamy look.

“Seriously,” Cheryl nods. “You should have got his number.”

“What part of I spilt coffee all over him did you guys not understand?” Betty asks incredulously.

“Details,” Veronica says with the wave of her hand. “I kicked Cheryl in the face during high school cheer tryouts. That’s how we met.”

“A truly beautiful moment.”

Veronica just winks at her girlfriend.

“Whatever. Anyway, Cheryl can you show me what I’m up against tonight? I’m kind of nervous over here.”

Cheryl nods as she grabs her phone off of the coffee table in front of her.

“He’s actually really cute,” Cheryl says quietly, like she’s scared someone might hear her. “But don’t tell Jason I said that.” She taps away at her phone before she hands it over to Betty. “There you go. Jughead Jones the Third.”

Betty looks at the picture and groans.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It’s the guy from the cafe.

#bughead fanfiction #bughead

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heatherdemetrios-blog · 7 years

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The Space Between Breaths: Transitions in the Artistic Life

For the past year, I’ve been going through a transition, floating in a space between. It’s been three years since my first book came out. There was the before publication life, when I’d yet to sell a book and was dreaming hard. Then there was the after, where I struggled to learn the ropes of being a published author, yet still managed to write and sell one to two books a year, hustling like a mother. During that time there were aborted projects and disappointments, but I focused laser-like attention on my work and career, with little time for much else. Sometimes that paid off, and sometimes it didn’t. One thing it resulted in was a near-breakdown, spiritual and creative depletion, and an increasing existential dread that followed me around to the point where I felt like Edward Snowden, always looking over my shoulder.

This was unsustainable. A life of waiting for the other shoe to drop is not a good life. And a writer who doesn’t write, or who writes but finds no joy in it, does not a happy writer make. It also, incidentally, makes it hard to sell more books. The nervy you feel about a project somehow winds itself through the text, an X factor that makes or breaks a book. My books were breaking. I was breaking. So began my year of transition, which began in July 2016, an awakening of sorts that’s still very much in progress. This wasn’t intentional, not something I planned as a great experiment. It just sort of happened. Out of necessity and desperation and a nameless need.

This year of transition actually started in Spring 2016, though I had no idea that this was what was happening. I started devouring books like I used to, back when I wasn’t writing three of them at a time. I literally bought and read every single JoJo Moyes book I could find (okay, I’ve saved a couple because it’s too depressing, a life without a JoJo book to look forward to), after discovering Me Before You on a Barnes and Noble table. I was working—I had revisions and copyedits and submissions. But when I sent in the last thing that was due, in mid-June, I unwittingly gave myself a for-real break. It was on accident—I didn’t realize I was taking a break until the month of July passed with me having written only a handful of words, most of them non-fiction. I got ideas, I threw ideas away—I briefly considered learning Russia and moving to Moscow. The bulk of my writing was for a residency application I never sent in, as well as the occasional blog post or lengthy email. I began meditating, reconnected with my spiritual side, read lots of books, treated myself to copies of Vogue, discovered the delights of the French 75 cocktail, and took a poetry class. I basked in sunshine and visited with friends and family. There were still stressful writerly moments: two rewrites gone bad, dismal royalty statements. But for the first time in years, writing was not the most important thing. The most important thing was me. It was as though my soul had given me one of those piercing looks and said, My dear, you are the canvas.

Eureka.

I followed my curiosity, each urge a trail of will-o’-the-wisps that led me deeper into my inner landscape, with its turbulent sea, floating glaciers, and craggy mountains set against endless dunes (yes, somehow my innards resemble Morocco, Ireland, and Iceland). In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert says: I believe that curiosity is the secret. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living. She’s absolutely right. I found such joy poking around in New Age stores and going down the Wiki hole of Romanov research and planning a trip to Prague. I delighted in the plethora of self-help books I kept hearing about, got into essential oils, and finally took a Pilates class. I bought strange rings and drank beer and even started liking kale. I got a Reiki treatment and bought my first deck of Tarot cards and I campaigned for Hillary Clinton. I bought a Nasty Woman shirt and protested with thousands of women all over the world, reigniting that little Marxist-Anarchist activist that has been hiding inside me since the Bush years. I made a few big life decisions, some quite seismic, some still in progress. I grieved, felt confusion, wonder, awe, gratitude, love, solidarity, despair. I probably drank more wine after November 8th than in the rest of my life combined. I cooked my first steak. I began living according to these wise words from Elsie De Wolfe: I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life. Fresh flowers scattered about the house. Crystals lined up on windowsills. A skirt with red roses splashed across the fabric. I see the changes that all this adventuring has wrought everywhere: in my home, my body, my mind, my spirit. And yet, the writing will not budge.

I am still trekking up a damnably high mountain, hoping to reach a summit and praying there’s a nice little valley on the other side of it, with cool spring water and long, fragrant grass I can lie in when I look at the stars. Alas, creativity is uncharted territory—ever ineffable, a tricksy landscape complete with quicksand, dark forests, and, well, you get the metaphor. I confess, there have been a few occasions in which I actually uttered the phrase, Why am I doing this? Or I don’t want to be a writer anymore. I’m not sure if I meant it or not. I suspect maybe I did. It sounds ever so wonderful to leave work at work, to have boundaries between oneself and what one does for a living, to not be in constant artistic torture.

The election and its aftermath was a huge blow that I’m still recovering from. I don’t think I realized how much it affected my ability to be creative until quite recently, when I realized I have to rewrite a bogart of a book I’m working on for the third time. I cannot overstate how unlike me this is. I’ve never spent two years after selling a book trying to rewrite it. It’s madness. Maddening. But when I began to connect the dots, I could see that the bulk of the problem began in the beginning of 2016—a coincidence? I think not. As I said in an email to the book’s editor: I’m sorry for being the world’s shittiest writer. I blame Trump.

I blamed my mental health and my infernal inability to understand how time works. I blamed New York City for being so goddamn expensive and loud and distracting and fabulous. I also blamed myself, for not taking my own good advice that I give to my clients and that I myself know works. I only give advice when I’ve learned something (usually the hard way), when I know that something is tried and true. As a creativity coach, I tell my clients that each book is a different beast, and that’s true. And also that writing is a marathon (not a race), that you will never be a master, that you will always be learning, and that you should trust the process: the not knowing, the frustration—these are just hazards of the job and an essential part of the process. But each time I find myself uncertain creatively, these lessons are hard to remember. A girl has to eat, you know.

One thing my meditation teachers like to talk about is the space between breaths. In mindfulness meditation, you focus on the inhale and exhale, using it to anchor your mind in the present. Between each round of inhalation and exhalation, there is a pocket of pure being, where your body has a moment to bask in its existence, where nothing is required of it. It can’t last very long because your lungs need air, but for just a sliver of time, you are infinite. Free-floating. This is also a space for transition, much shorter than my year of transition, but equally powerful. You can discover things there, though it may take you years, or even a lifetime to figure out. You might even see what you’re made of.

This is an essential part of the meditation process. These pockets of no-breath are not simply a bridge between breaths, links on the path to nirvana. They are teaching moments, rich in the kind of knowledge that lives deep in your bones. It’s the same with the transitions in an artist’s life. The space between projects, between ideas, between inspiration and creative wastelands—this is, paradoxically, where the good stuff lives. Transitions are opportunities to grow, to heal, and to change. They give you space (whether you want it to not) to reassess your work, your craft, your goals. These sometimes involve dark nights of the soul, real reckonings that bring who you are and why you do what you do into sharp focus. Sometimes you won’t like what you see. Transitions, from an artistic point of view, are absolutely necessary. Think about the period when Bowie fled to Berlin, intent on getting clean and reconnecting to his art. He called his cocaine years in Los Angeles, where he embodied the Thin White Duke persona, “the darkest days of my life.” Despite being a rock star, he was going broke and Berlin, at the time, was a cheap place to live while he was in recovery. In Europe, he began visiting galleries, working on self-care through literature and classical music education, and, of course, kicking his cocaine habit and exploring Berlin’s music scene. His roommate was Iggy Pop, and I like to imagine them sitting around late at night, trading notes and blowing each other’s minds. What resulted was the Berlin trilogy, a rich artistic period and a turning point in his life.

Of course, not all transitions need to be so dramatic, and I’m still trying to figure out what this one means for me. When I look back, what will I call this year (or, God forbid, years)? Will I look on it fondly, or shudder, grateful that it’s over? I can’t imagine not being thankful for it. Already, I’m seeing my interests in what I want to write expand in unexpected ways. Adult fiction, young adult nonfiction, historical. I’m not quite sure where I’ll land. I’m getting ideas, but am wary of investing too much in anything. I think I’m still getting my sea legs. Meditation, exercise, and healthy eating habits are helping. As is travel and working with my clients, who inspire me every day. I’m taking lots of notes because I suspect that as much as I’m learning right now about what it means to be an artist in transition, I suspect there’s even more to glean from this time later, when I can see how all the dots connected.

Being a creative doesn’t suit our modern world, not if you’re an Artist with a capital A. Because art needs quiet, time, space, privacy. All things that are hard to come by these days, especially in Brooklyn. I stopped using my private Facebook account, rarely leave the apartment, and turn a deaf ear to industry chatter. It’s been a long time since I finished a project. Everything I’m working on is in a different stage and often ends up being cast aside or totally reworked. So of course the age old question of how to make a living as an artist rears its ugly head. If you aren’t producing, you aren’t getting paid. So while artistic explorations sound great on paper, in reality, it’s the paper itself you start worrying about.

It’s becoming increasingly hard for artists to make a living—just take a look at Trump’s budget proposal, with threatens to cut the NEA out of existence. It’s especially difficult for writers because of the plethora of content out there. Jesus, how many blogs and websites and articles can exist? With newspapers and magazines folding left and right, writers are forced to make some pretty tough choices. These concerns are ever present, and they will be for the foreseeable future. Of course, being an artist has always involved financial acrobatics. Chekhov paid the bills through a medical practice, and Tolstoy had to self-publish War and Peace. I’m in good company. I’ve very much begun to appreciate Elizabeth Gilbert’s words in Big Magic about how your job as an artist is to take care of your creativity, not the other way around. It’s been interesting, cobbling together an income that all leads back to writing, but isn’t necessarily writing. Teaching and coaching and editing allows me to talk about what I love—writing, the artistic process, and creative living—and to help my fellow writers on their own journeys. It also gives me the chance to take care of my writing, rather than requiring it to pay all the bills. I’m already seeing the seeds I’m planting blossoming. For the first time in a long time, I’m allowing myself to consider alternative ways of living and alternative approaches to my writing. Maybe I don’t publish a book every year. Maybe I don’t only write in YA. Maybe I play a whole lot more in my creative process. Maybe I take time to take care of myself.

The journey continues, endless and exciting and horrible and wonderful, an adventure I’m honored to have. I take a breath, exhale, and rest in the transition, looking forward to whatever comes next.

#pneumacreative creativitycoaching quotes writing heatherdemetrios #meditation

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captainkappa · 7 years

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Fanfic- Tough Business to Get Into

(i s2g this is the last holiday exchange i do)

I have finally finished my secret tax goat for @hexmaniacinien !!! I had so much fin writing this, I hope all of you enjoy it as well! Thank you to @kyrfiore for betaing!

Gen. 1920s/Mob AU. Guns and alcohol a plenty (with a touch of angst, my apologies ^^;)

AO3 Link Here

The aftermath of a show was always loud. Giggling girls critiquing their performance based on both what they thought and what the director saw. The flurry of feet making their way to dressing rooms and removing make-up, getting out of those extravagant (and skimpy) costumes to more practical clothing (that was still called skimpy by some older people) in order to head out for the night. Cigarette smoke filled the air, the clear alternative ever since Prohibition hit for a legal means of winding down after a big show.

Within the chaos, Markus was always able to slip in. Not like he wasn’t allowed, he was the lights and effects director, but it made it easier when everyone was moving to go into his friend’s room without questions being asked, mainly, “Are you and Inien going out?”

Which was ridiculous, Inien had been his closest friend ever since he got into show business.

She was snarky and strong willed and would be the very definition of a flapper if it wasn’t for the fact she refused to cut her hair.

It was easier, however, to just leave people guessing about their relationship status so they wouldn’t question other parts about Markus’ life… and Inien’s, for that matter. Performers were far too nosy.

So, he would slip into her dressing room while everyone was too busy to notice.

Tonight, Inien was quiet, which in Markus’ experience was never a good thing.

Especially with that look on her face, that vacant stare that meant she was thinking of something.

She sat up straight in her chair. “I’m bored… let’s start selling liquor.”

He barely registered himself standing up as he tried to process what his friend just said, “Inien…”

“What?” she said, innocently fixing her hair in the huge mirror in front of her.

“You don’t just sell alcohol. And why would you even want to do that?”

“I told you, I’m bored,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“You’re on Broadway!” He gestured wildly at her dressing room around her. “How is that boring?”

She shrugged and turned her chair to look at him. “It has for me, and besides, I’ve already thought part of it out.”

“I… how?”

“My cousin, Colvin. Even though he’s still in far east, he’s just as annoyed about Prohibition as we are, probably moreso because the U.S. was a huge import for him.” She explained casually, reaching for a cigarette. “So we started talking about getting his product over here. At first, I would’ve been selling to other speakeasies and splitting the profit with Colvin.” A small flick and she lit her cigarette. “But I’ve been thinking, why not run it myself? Cut out the middle man, make more money overall, and maybe even get out of Broadway once I have enough dough.”

Markus pinched his nose and let out a breath. “Yes, that’s very business savvy and all. But,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “You are still talking about illegal business! Who’s to say this doesn’t go completely wrong?!”

She shrugged, letting a stream of smoke pass through her lips. “I’ll never know if I don’t try.”

He sighed, lowering his head in his hands as she put on her coat. “You. Are. Incorrigible.”

She turned to him after straightening her collar. “And you are incapable of thinking outside the box.”

Looking up, he was just able to catch the door shutting behind her. “Oh no, no, no,” he muttered, grabbing his coat and following her.

She was easy enough to catch up with. She had barely made it outside the building when he caught up with her.

“So, what are you going to do now?” he asked, falling into step with her.

“I need to talk with someone.”

“Okay, if we’re going to do this, you need to be less cryptic. And tell me shit like this earlier.”

She looked up at him, smirking, “ ‘We?’ ”

“Of course, we both know I’m the better talker out of the two of us. And you need all the help you can get if you’re going to do this.”

“Alright, we’re meeting someone with experience in this business. He’s had brief interactions with my cousin, so that’s how I know him. He agreed to help set this up.”

“Wow, sounds like a good guy.”

Inien snorted loud enough for people passing by to look over at them. Markus stared down at her confused.

“What? What’d I say?”

“Oh nothing. You’ll see.”

“Again with being cryptic.”

-=-=-=-=-

The man lived in a tenement house, which was a fancy word for the shittiest apartments you could ever think of. Overcrowded, dark, and dirty, it ended up being the homes to most immigrants upon coming to the New World. Markus and Inien both glanced to each other, both knowing the other was thinking of their childhood spent in one. Markus had been the lucky one, only spending about eight years in one as his family moved upstate to work as live-in servants to a politician. Inien hadn’t been so lucky and spent her entire childhood in one till she was eighteen.

“Come on, he said he had the afternoon free today.” Inien bounded up the steps, the excitement of starting her own speakeasy overriding the memories that threatened to spill over. Markus followed close behind.

This tenement house was made out of an old, four story house that had been a rich man’s house before he moved out to the cleaner countryside. Now it was packed with mainly Russian immigrants. As Markus and Inien climbed the stairs, they couldn’t help being be jealous of how cleaner this house was in comparison to the ones they lived in. The government had made tenement housing more bearable to live in. Not comfortable by any means, but there were windows and it didn’t feel like the flu would wipe out an entire building in a night.

The man’s room was on the third floor, last door on the left side. After passing a large family loudly speaking in a language neither Inien or Markus could understand, they knocked on door marked 47 by two mismatched numbers.

There was a long pause as no one answered. Markus was about to knock again when the door flew open, revealing a man with slicked back, black hair and wearing a wrinkled white button up and vest.

“What do you want?” he asked, looking between the two of them unamused.

Inien stepped forward. “Hi, my name is Inien. My cousin told me to come here in order to start up my… business.”

“Ah, you are Inien, yes, yes, now I remember. But who is this man?”

Without skipping a beat, Markus took of his hat and bowed low. “Markus Tannhauser Velafi. At your service. I’m her… business partner.”

The man looked unimpressed by the grand gesture. “Yes, but how do I know you won’t sell us out.” At the confused looks he got from the other two, he stepped forward. I’ve talked with Inien, I don’t know you.” His Russian accent grew thicker with every word, every step he took. Before Markus realized, he was against the opposite wall with the Russian man’s stare keeping him in place.

“Look,” Markus started, “I’ve known Inien for a while. Even if I’m still unsure on someone who’s never had experience in this, throwing herself in the business, I’m not going to go behind your backs.”

It took a moment, but the man stepped away and walked into the apartment. “My roommates won’t be back until night, we’ll be okay.”

Markus gave Inien a worried look before she shrugged and followed. He took off his hat before following into the small apartment.

“Wait!” Markus said suddenly, pausing midstep. “What’s your name?”

A beat of silence. “Just call me Thog.”

Markus nodded as Thog started talking about setting up.

Even though he knew Thog didn’t trust him wholly, and Markus was still on the fence on the legitimacy of this mob business, he was still glad Thog was there, or else Inien would have no idea what to do. His knowledge was easily seen in his planning, how he seemed prepared for any situation; cops come in to the bar, being seen carrying crates after dark, all of it Thog had a way out which made this idea… feasible.

“Alright then, all we need is a base of operations, right?” Inien asked.

“Mhm, and I know the right place. It’s a coffee shop downtown called ‘Number Seven’.”

Markus and Inien exchanged a confused look.

“A coffeeshop?” Markus asked.

Thog grinned, for the first time since meeting them. “No one would suspect a thing. The owner is… a character.”

“But, is there going to be enough room in the basement?” Inien piped up.

“For now, we can out-source later, but this will be a good enough base of operations.” Thog leaned forward, seemingly growing more excited as the plan came together. “Now, if we send for the shipment this week, this means it’ll arrive in about three weeks.”

It was Inien’s turn to grin widely. “There’s a big opening night around then. Don’t you think the cast would enjoy some ginger water, Markus?”

Markus stared at her before slowly shaking his head, a small smile growing.

“Ginger water sounds like something I’d be more inclined to say.”

-=-=-=-=-

The cast did enjoy the alcohol, no questions asked. Markus didn’t want to say it out loud, but the successful first selling made him more confident in this speakeasy business. It still scared him that he now owned a gun and had learned how to (sort of) shoot it as per Thog’s request.

“Jobs can get… rough” was all Thog gave as explanation, rubbing his left shoulder. He and Inien had simultaneously decided not to ask.

True to his word, the job did get rough. Second time the trio went to fetch the shipment, cops were patrolling. Markus had broken into a cold sweat the moment a flashlight’s beam passed by his feet. Quick thinking and stuffing his’ handkerchief in his mouth to keep him quiet rewarded them with the alcohol they paid for.

The bakery had also proved to be a decent base. Ol’ Inny was the character Thog promised, his ramblings petering off from English into Swiss and then into a weird combination of the two languages. Those who entered often wanted to buy what they need and leave, ignoring any signs of illicit activity.

They were all happy their business was off to a good start.

Something had to go wrong eventually.

It was their first European shipment, the good stuff from Colvin. Thog had predicted their profits to jump after these wares were bought. They needed this shipment to really bring the cash rolling.

The night seemed perfect, enough moonlight so they could see in front of them, but not enough to be spotted by the passing cop on the street opposite from the wharf.

Inien managed a handshake between the people unloading the goods before Markus turned, a noise setting him on edge.

“Did you-”

“As wary as we should be, it was probably a worker dropping something,” Thog supplied, pausing before putting an uncertain hand on Markus’ shoulder. “You need a nap once we get this shipment in the basement.”

He could only nod in agreement before turning to help the workers load the wares in the trunk parked nearby.

Markus managed to lift one of the smaller boxes when they all heard a “Hey!”

All heads turned, to a cop, who couldn’t have been more than 25, holding a gun. HE looked more scared than they were.

“D-Drop it!” the cop yelled again, addressing Inien, about to pay the boat workers.

No one moved.

“I-I swear it!! I-I’ll shoot!” The gun was shaking. “3! 2!”

Markus couldn’t hear the rest, blood pounding in his head as he ran, going for his gun. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do, just knowing there was no way this man was going to hurt Inien.

There was a bang! and Markus stopped.

He heard someone scream, but it wasn’t him. People were moving by him and when had he fallen onto the salt-encrusted wood of the dock? He only knew it hurt, oh Gods it hurt, how could something hurt this much?

He barely noticed the gunfire above him, only able to flinch every time he heard another shot.

Inien and Thog’s voices were muffled, like he’d been throw underwater.

From yards away, he could hear Thog yell, “I know where to take him!” before the pain brought him under.

-=-=-=-=-

It wasn’t clean, but it was clean enough. It wasn’t easy to get to, but considering how much blood was pouring from Markus’ hand, there was no other option. It wasn’t cheap, but it was better than explaining to nurses how he’d gotten a bullet in his hand.

The “underground hospital” actually just the basement of an abandoned building, the only traces of what it was were the chipped paint of “Alaran” on the front. They were allowed one day in this shit hole. One day before Markus had to give up the cot to another low life who couldn’t explain their injuries to professionals.

Inien stayed by his side the whole day, silently contemplating the bandages covering the 5 stitches in his hand. Thog, for once, was not so quiet.

“We weren’t ready. We should’ve prepared for. We need more people; people who know how to fight, at least one doctor…” He sat down on the other side of Markus, head in his hands. “Why am I even this concerned about you people? This isn’t my business.”

She glared at him. “Well, you’re basically family now after the shit we’ve been through. You’ve been a part of this since day one.”

He went quiet. They both did. They knew they had a lot to do; they had already lost money, only getting half the stock in the resulting shootout, recruitment of more people, selling what they could, establishing what exactly was this work relationship they had, but it could all wait.

-=-=-=-=-

Markus was now left handed now, still able to move his right hand, but the limits made it virtually impossible to use it for more than pointing and gesturing. For now, that was good enough as he and Inien descended the stairs to the club. Two weeks of scouting for new people led them to believe a man by the name of Gregor Hartway was the best for them.

He already had experience, being one of the front men for the Outriders, a notorious gang that had once ruled upper Manhattan, but one night had changed all that. Gregor was one of the few remaining people.

Markus and Inien gave the password and the entry fee as they entered. The place was huge, room for a bar, several tables and chairs, a dance floor and enough walk space to not feel crammed. Soft lighting gave the place a warm atmosphere despite the crimes everyone was committing but just standing there. The place was bustling, which was not a surprise for a Friday night.

The two walked toward the bar, eyes scanning the place for their man.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Markus stopped Inien with his good hand and quietly gestured with the other. “Is that him?”

He guided her line of sight to a shorter man with a ponytail sitting off in the corner, smiling to himself.

He wore simple clothes, a white collared shirt with pinstripes and brown slacks held up with red suspenders. From where they were, they could see the top of some blunt weapon leaned against an extra chair.

Inien nodded and the two started toward him. He only looked up when they were in front of him.

He smiled. “Hello.”

Markus smiled back, sticking his bad hand in his pocket. “Hello, my name is Markus Velafi, this is my associate Inien, and we were wondering if you’d like a job.”

Gregor paused. “That was a quick introduction.”

“We have limited time.” Inien said plainly as Markus picked up the conversation. “We need someone who can handle himself in a fight and we heard you were the one to talk to.”

The other man smiled. “What’s the job?”

“Helping to protect a bar like this, but better.” Markus winked.

“We want you in,” Inien deadpanned. “The pay’s good. What do you say?”

Gregor scratched his chin, considering it. “Can he come?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Who’s he?”

“He means me.”

The sudden voice behind her sent her nearly twenty feet in the air. She stumbled into Markus, who was equally unprepared for the new voice. The man calmly walked to Gregor’s side, a wide grin on his face.

“W-Who are you?” Inien asked, setting herself right.

“I’m Zalvetta, a pleasure.”

Gregor piped up, giving no reaction to the surprise entrance. “We’re kind of a team. I’m good brute force-”

“And you can imagine what I’m good at.” Another wide grin.

Markus looked to Inien. “We do need people…”

Inien looked directly at the two of them. “You’ll have to split a paycheck till our… business gets rolling.”

Zalvetta looked displeased, but Gregor looked hopeful, which seemed to sway his friend.

“Deal.”

-=-=-=-=-

“I’m surprised that went so well,” Markus commented as they exited the club. “Two for one? I’m calling that a good day.”

Inien didn’t look so impressed. “We still need a doctor.”

He rested his good hand on her shoulder. “Inien…”

“Don’t!”

Markus paused. “I’m fine, you realize that, right?”

Silence. They kept walking through the streets like that, letting the sounds of the city wash over what had been unsaid between them since that night.

“I don’t want it to happen again,” Inien finally said.

“I know, but if we can’t find one soon, it won’t be the end of the world, okay?”

“…Okay.” Markus gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before shoving that hand into his pocket.

Luckily, they had found the person who they were looking for. She was spoken highly of, those in the Alaran hospital had attested to that. Her ability to heal was unmatched by any other person who bothered to lend a hand there. It was a shock that she wasn’t an actual doctor, but no one asked questions. It was part of the policy.

What they had been able to find out was she worked at a printing press near the outskirts of the city. Her specific job was unknown, but a building was all Markus and Inien needed.

Even more luck fell upon them when they found her loitering around the outside, on a lunch break. Her white hair was in disarray, with ink splotches all over her trousers. Despite that she still held herself with some air for authority. Out of all the workers walking around, she stood out.

As they approached, she looked up at them, narrowing her eyes.

“What do you two want?”

Inien shrugged, “We need a doctor.”

“ ‘ow good?”

“Excuse me?”

“ ‘ow good of a doctor? I never got my degree.”

“Kicked out?”

The woman grit her teeth. “Money problems. Father refused to pay the rest, I didn’t have enough, I dropped out just before I would ‘ave graduated.”

“Well, we don’t care about that.” Markus cut in, glaring at Inien briefly before putting on another charming smile. “I’m Markus Velafi and we’ve heard you’re very good at what you do.”

The woman stared at the two of them. “Who’s the patient?”

Markus gave Inien a quick glance. “It’s more so we want to hire you for when the situation is needed. We want you to be on hand in case we get hurt.”

Inien butted in, slipping Ashe the number for what could be her paycheck. The number made her eyes go wide, but she schooled her expression quickly.

“What’s the business?”

“It’s a speakea-”

“I’m in.”

Markus and Inien shared a look.

“Really?” Inien asked.

The other woman nodded. “I haven’t had a drink in forever. You bet your ass I’ll take the job.”

Inien grinned and held out her hand. “Alright then, what’s your name.”

“Aesling, but call me Ashe.”

They shook hands.

-=-=-=-=-

From there, their business only grew. The basement area under Ol’ Inny’s place was turned into storage as they found a larger place, under a bakery run by a woman named “Dont,” where they had plenty of room to turn it into a proper speakeasy.

Thog, while still essentially the co-head of the place along with Inien, ran the bar, ignoring Markus when he tried to get him to flip bottles and put on a show. He’d roll his eyes, but when the bar emptied, he’d try flipping an empty bottle, just to see if he could do it (He couldn’t). Ashe helped him on the busier nights, when she wasn’t stitching someone up in the back or threatening someone with surgical equipment (Inien hadn’t expected her to be so good at it. It both scared and intrigued her).

Gregor and Zalvetta turned out to be key as more shipments came in and they needed a path clear of police. Their skills also became useful as people started not keeping up their promises.

Markus turned to be the sole employer, finding more people to build upon their so-called “empire” as Inien liked to brag. He found Firi, a flapper and a girl good wit organization, at a dance class. Batty, their bouncer, he found in alley as she beat up the man who tried to rob from her. Moren… Markus never told them how he found Moren, avoiding the question with wild gestures and a blush across his face. He slipped dollars to the orphan kids so they would make quick deliveries and return with all the cash owed.

All the while Inien sat back on her throne (it was the least rickety chair in the place) and grinned, ecstatic her once crazy idea had pulled through.

It was good to be the Queen.

#thrilling intent #tifanart #ti mob au #ti mafia au #TI SECRET TAX GOAT 2K16 #kappa writes #my fanfic

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stagesofabreakup · 6 years

Conversation

Stages of a Breakup: Week 48

1. Whoops you did Monday on the end of last week

2. It’s Tuesday now!

3. Who cares

4. Wake up earlyish

5. See a text from the girl moving back into your/her room about when you’re moving out

6. It triggers some stress in you

7. You ask her if she wants the window treatments you bought

8. She doesn’t

9. This is more stress

10. Check social media

11. This turns out to be a horrible mistake because while you are casually scrolling through Instagrams, clicking away, you go to a very RANDOM and private Insta you thought only you followed, it’s a stripper in Miami who likes astrology and also designs clothes so her posts are all over the place but you love it

12. She did these memes of Horoscope Starter Packs

13. You click the Aries one bc you gotta see

14. YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND HAS COMMENTED ON IT

15. ??????????

16. HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND REPLIED TO HIS COMMENT???????

17. It’s honestly too much for you

18. Because this is a safe space

19. How did he even find it

20. Does she follow and showed it to him????

21. Were they gramming together??????

22. The thought of that bursts your heart

23. Bring 1,173 dollars in cash to a Chase bank

24. Deposit it, get checks-your roommate asked for 2 rents worth now

25. Something is wrong about the rent but you’ve decided it doesn’t matter

26. Go to the gym

27. Work out but sadly

28. Your phone freaks out and won’t respond to touch

29. You get VERY nervous

30. It fixes itself? But is probably still dying

31. Go to a beauty supply store

32. Buy a bedazzled baseball hat that says, “Boss” in fake jewels, purple mirror nail polish and nail gems—for Mardi Gras

33. Go to work

34. Eat 2 halves of leftover doughnuts

35. Still good

36. Listen in disgust while two people bond over Rick & Morty

37. Get two groups that don’t tip but are loud and boisterous and annoying

38. Get one group that does tip

39. Feel blahhhhhhhhhhh all damn DAY

40. Get annoyed at one manager who does not understand how to communicate thoughts

41. Stay an hour past when you were supposed to leave, mopping

42. Almost choke on some seasoned French fries

43. Walk to the train

44. Get a text from the guy (you were talking to a while ago then realized he was seeing someone else) asking if you’re mad at him

45. You reply no

46. But really-it’s not that you’re mad at him you just realized you were putting an unfair emphasis on his interactions with you and you don’t want to be texting him at 3:00am anymore

47. Wonder if you should tell him this

48. Wonder if you should message your ex-boyfriend and tell him it’s rude he didn’t tell you he was dating someone when he knew you would see it and have to deal

49. Drink a beer

50. Pay your roommate two months rent which is the most money you’ve ever written a check for

51. Accidentally break a plate

52. Eat the world’s worst quesadilla

53. FIND WORSE THINGS ON INSTAGRAM

54. Your ex-bf and his new gf went on a date to Applebee’s and they both uploaded matching instagrams and he captioned his “Applebae’s”

55. Which is objectively terrible and disgusting

56. You remember/realize that in the two years of dating neither of you ever posted a ‘couples’ photo, that’s just the two of you together

57. She already is saying “I love you” online and he’s “loving” (the love react on fb) the comments

58. It’s too much

59. How do you stop caring??? How do people stop that?

60. Talk with a friend on the phone a little about it

61. Laugh

62. Feel kinda better

63. A girl you met a few nights ago messaged you her fire ritual so maybe you’ll do one of those

64. To cleanse

65. Send a friend 2 dollars online for a sick button

66. Keep looking at the instagrams over and over again like visual self-flagellation

67. Wish that you had a “I’m happy and loved!” picture to post

68. Remember that he unfollowed you on Instagram anyway so it wouldn’t matter

69. Feel sad & out of control

70. Put on The Patriot

71. Decide you need to take a shower

72. Want to masturbate

73. Cum!!!!!

74. Knock over some bleach and stain the carpet whoops

75. Who leaves a jug of bleach unopened anywhere???

76. Stay up too late

77. Finally turn off The Patriot and try to sleep

78. Wake up at 10:00am

79. Wake up at 3:00pm

80. Stress about stuff more

81. Eat a doughnut and half of a steak sandwich that isn’t yours but is about to go bad and one pack of fruit snacks

82. Start trying to write an email to HR giving feedback they asked for

83. Get a call from your friend Molly!!!!!

84. It’s perfect and she’s perfect

85. Three way call your other friend Gabe!!!!!

86. This is better than Facetime!!!!!

87. Gabe, your least superficial friend in the world, tells you you are objectively prettier than your ex-boyfriend’s new gf and that she is a “step down”

88. Which, whether or not it’s true is sweet and kind thing to say and you love him for saying it and it makes you feel better

89. But still feminism though!!!!!!

90. Watch some more of The Patriot

91. Email the HR email

92. Email about an editing job you’re doing for a friend

93. Maybe connect with 2 new roommates?

94. Try to get ready to go to the gym

95. Post 2 pictures to Instagram your friend Rashida took in your sports bra

96. YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND HAS ALREADY POSTED ANOTHER INSTAGRAM THIS TIME OF HIS DOG THAT YOU MISS SO MUCH and wow Instagram is an emotional battlefield

97. But you feel fortified from talking with one of your best friends who you love

98. Look forward to the gym

99. OMG talk to your friend Charlie on the phone

100. While on the phone with him, sign up for Moviepass AND unfollow your ex-boyfriend on Instagram!!!!!!!!!

101. Two huge things

102. Feel like you have a piece of glass in your foot

103. Because you definitely do

104. Talk to your friend Molly on the phone

105. Start editing your friend Randy’s story

106. The only time you leave the house today it is to go to the gym and immediately come back home

107. Talk to your friend Jade on the phone

108. Finish Moshe Kasher’s book “Kasher in the Rye,” which was incredible

109. Take pictures of all the outfits you have for Mardi Gras, send them to her

110. Buy two items from Torrid for 62 dollars and get them shipped to her house so they’ll be there for Mardi Gras

111. Make an Instagram story starring your jeweled hat that says “BOSS”

112. Watch the first 35 min of Get Him To The Greek

113. Masturbate

114. Shower

115. Sleep

116. Wake up weirdly early for going to bed at 6:00am

117. Feeling rested and alert!!!

118. Ignore the shooting invisible pain in your foot and get dressed to go to the gym!!!

119. Eat a sandwich with cheese that only had a little bit of mold on it

120. Send two emails you’ve been meaning to-one to your old gym in New Orleans asking if you can work out while you’re there and one to a group you’re in about a room for March!

121. Get booked on a show 2 months from now by writing a semi-snarky fb comment!

122. Go to the gym

123. Get annoyed by a weird man who moved your ipod and reminds you “you can’t trust people”

124. But like, the only person you can’t trust is people who try to remind you you can’t trust people

125. Work out

126. Listen to Britney Spear’s first album

127. It has aged well

128. Go into a sneaker store on the way home because you need new sneakers and part of you wants to get rid of all remnants of things your ex-boyfriend was involved in acquiring before you go back so you seem more changed/new/different

129. Try on like 4 pairs of shoes

130. They are ok but too expensive

131. You need a DSW in this bitch

132. Go home

133. Start a new book that’s written by the guy who wrote Election and Little Children (both great movies/you didn’t know one person did both of those)

134. Come home

135. Eat 2 packs of fruit snacks because you don’t want to encounter anyone by going in the kitchen and you hear them in there

136. Look at your phone for a while

137. Your ex-bf’s new gf is truly doing the most and has posted 2 instagrams of them and made a picture of the two of them her profile picture

138. This washes off you like water because you are an evolved being

139. You have also gone through the cleansing ritual of looking through her Instagram with a few choice friends and feeling emotionally safe & superior because you have all concluded that she overdraws her eyebrows which should be a crime

140. Peek out of your apartment to find there are a lot of firefighters in the apt next door and a lot of smoke

141. Worry

142. Breathe in some smoke

143. It’s ok someone just burned some food

144. Get an email from a girl about a place for April—decide you could put your stuff in storage and stay with friends if you needed to for a month

145. Send 3 booking emails to try to get more shows around a date you’re doing in Philly

146. Feel like a real comic/consummate professional

147. Drink a whiskey ginger you made with the shittiest whiskey the world has to offer

148. Your friend Charlie is coming over!

149. Plan to take a shower in the hour it will take him to get to your apartment

150. Sit in one spot until 5 min before he’s supposed to come

151. Text him you’re hopping in

152. He says he’s at your stop

153. You turn off the shower & put clothes back on

154. Wait 20 minutes

155. He got a roast beef sandwich before coming

156. Drink with Charlie!

157. Learn about the Rohingya and the genocide they are facing in Myanmar

158. Talk about more stuff

159. Show him your ex-bf’s new gf

160. He looks her up on some journalist database

161. No arrests

162. You look yourself up

163. It finds this YouTube video from like 8 years ago you forgot you made!!!!

164. You were so pretty????!!

165. Watch many episodes of The Office while Charlie nods in and out

166. He says he’s lonely

167. You tell him he can hold you if he wants for contact

168. You secretly hope he will

169. He says it’s ok

170. Watch more of The Office

171. Take a shower at 3:00am

172. Go to sleep

173. Wake up at 12:00pm

174. Charlie didn’t set an alarm

175. He missed an important Skype call

176. Whoops

177. He leaves

178. Go to the gym

179. Go to work for a short period of time

180. Have some down time, do trick shots with other people you work with

181. Throw (successfully) two axes at a time, two axes in one hand, underhand, and backwards

182. Sweat profusely and turn really red but don’t care because the sense of strength and accomplishment you got is more than worth it

183. Have a really annoying group

184. They don’t tip

185. Buy a 6 pack of Milk Stout and tortilla chips (for the salsa you found unopened on the ground 2 months ago) on your way home

186. Home

187. Get a check for your writing that’s 380.00

188. Freak out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

189. Also get a copy of the magazine it was published in

190. It was so long ago you forgot what you wrote kind of

191. Read it

192. You’re so funny!!!!

193. Call your mom for the first time in more than a month

194. She has company but says she’ll call you back but she’s happy you called

195. Feverishly drink beers and eat chips & salsa

196. Write a fb status about how people in love never make good art

197. She calls back

198. Talk on the phone with her for 4 hours

199. Cry a lot

200. Get past it

201. Have a really good conversation

202. Process some shit

203. Find out that she and your dad are divorced now, it finalized December 1st

204. Cry cry cry

205. She tells you you’re being judgmental about your ex-boyfriend

206. “You’re not in that position anymore”

207. This is interesting and something you haven’t considered

208. Marinate

209. See an apartment listing for 525/month

210. Send out an inquiry about it

211. Your eyes hurt from being open and crying

212. Take a shower

213. Find out Venmo charged you an overdraft fee twice, try to remember to call and get one taken off

214. Try to cut the piece of glass out of your foot with dull scissors

215. It doesn’t really work

216. You’re hungry but you’re doing this not eating after midnight thing

217. Realize your gym closes so fucking early tomorrow you have to get up super early if you wanna go before work

218. Ugh

219. You still haven’t done any more work on editing your friend’s story

220. You know you’re setting a bad impression and he’ll probably never hire you again or recommend you for others

221. You just can’t make yourself focus on it for some reason

222. Feel bad about it

223. You go to New Orleans so soon

224. This 52 week project is almost over

225. What then

226. YOU GOT THE PIECE OF GLASS OUT OF YOUR FOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

227. You’re gonna be fine

228. Find a message from someone who read all the weekly entries of this book you put on a secret tumblr every week in case something happened to the Word doc

229. They said they read it all in one night after looking for things to help with their breakup and that it was very inspirational and relatable

230. You want to cry because that’s so encouraging, you have no idea if anyone will care about any of this it’s just something you needed to do and lots of people have made you feel kind of bad like you’re obsessing or thinking about it too much or prolonging hurt

231. It was nice

232. Stay awake accidentally til 4:00am

233. Get up at 8:30

234. Eat a doughnut

235. Go back to sleep for 25 minutes

236. Go to work looking like shit because you cried for 4 hours on the phone with your mom

237. Work

238. Your friend from college picked the date for her wedding!!!!!! It’s September 29th!!!!

239. Get like 100 bucks in tips

240. Be incredibly frustrated because two different managers snapped at you and one apologized but the other one was right before you left and it was so fucking annoying and you wanted to cry and hit something

241. Leave

242. Rush to the gym

243. Work out for 25 minutes

244. Your butt/back leg muscles are sore/tight today for some reason

245. Wait in line for 20 minutes at the bank to deposit a check

246. Sing softly to oldies with another man for like 10 of those minutes

247. Come home

248. Make a stir fry on the stove like a real person

249. Eat pizza crusts out of the trash, just to remind you where you came from

250. Find the song “Pretty Girl” by Clairo

251. Listen to it multiple times

252. Watch many many episodes of The Office

253. Do NO work on the story you should be editing

254. Drink 1 beer

255. Feel sooooo full

256. Eat the LAST fruit snack package! Out of 80!!!!

257. Find out that Kate Spade made a line of “bridal sneakers”

258. No no no no absolutely not

259. Make an Instagram story about how pimples are really just gifts from the Lord

260. Text your friend Gabe for a min

261. Eat some nutella

262. Want to masturbate and take a shower and also already be asleep

263. Drink water

264. Continue watching The Office & drawing

265. Find a video of a TINY little sweet angel girl covering “Creep” by Radiohead with her dad that is HEARTMELTING

266. Stay up toooo late

267. Wake up two different times from nightmares with abusive people

268. Get up for good

269. Eat a warm doughnut

270. Masturbate

271. Start getting dressed for the gym

272. Do some stuff online

273. Listen to lots of pump up songs

274. Stretch

275. Be sad you can’t go to a Superbowl party because you really need to finish editing this story today, but you also didn’t get invited to any sooooooo

276. Decide you’ll eat chips and salsa while you edit

277. Put 20$ on a Metrocard instead of getting an Unlimited because you’re going to New Orleans in 2 days!!!

278. Gym finally

279. Walk for 80 minutes while watching a HILARIOUS episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta

280. Two grown women get in a fight because one saw the other one park in a handicapped parking spot at the mall which was, “shady”

281. The other one yelled back, “I was hanging out with someone who is handicapped, bitch!”

282. They also did a mediation/séance to “clear the elephants in the room” which was…interesting

283. Text with your friend Gabe and he says some WONDERFUL things that are helpful to you

284. He says (gently) that you need to let go of your ego in all this, and it doesn’t matter what your ex-boyfriend is doing/who he is dating/if he still; has feelings for you because it doesn’t matter in your life anymore, you have moved on without him on your own and have grown so much

285. He also listens while you talk about editing your friends story and you realize why you have been putting it off—you’re worried about offending him by doing too many rewrites/how to address ADDING when editing vs. just rearranging/subtracting

286. Home

287. Get annoyed that one of your roommates & her bf is in the living room, this is the third night in a row someone has been dominating that space with their love and you wanted to write in there!

288. Eat chips & salsa and chicken nuggets in the kitchen with your computer

289. Finally start editing!!!

290. Whew it’s hard and you are tired

291. Wish you could just watch The Office and turn off your brain

292. Do the edits!!!

293. It takes a long time and you decide you won’t charge him for all of them because you made him wait so long

294. Email your rewrite with notes

295. Hope he likes it

296. Watch The Office

297. Paint your nails with this new mirror nail polish you got for Mardi Gras that isn’t what you thought but is still cool

298. It smells terrible though

299. Think about packing?

300. Decide to do it tomorrow

301. You have to work from 3:45-10 and work out at some point though

302. Look up how long it will take you to get to Newark

303. Like an hour and a half

304. Feel free from your conversation with Gabe and really feel like you have turned a corner

305. More Office

306. New Orleans so soon! ! ! !

307. !

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