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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year

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UPDATE What's up, it's the proposal guy. You said you wanted to know how this turned out, so I figured I'd tell you. First some context though, because I'm mean and I wanna keep you in suspense longer.

1- I don't wanna doxx us so I'm not telling you where we live, but suffice to say, neither of us are American, and gay marriage has been legal here for less than five years. For both of us, this is the first relationship we've had where marriage was even an OPTION, and I think that's where we've been getting some of that whole 'this has to be a REAL proposal with EVERYTHING' idea.

2- I gotta figure out how to explain this properly. So, I'm pretty used to being the GUY guy in relationships? I was always the one who did the nice gestures, not the one they got done for. Before I met my dream guy, I didn't really notice or care that it was such a thing, I just assumed that's how shit worked. Also, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot about his stuff here, but his last boyfriend before me SUCKED. Anyway point here is, it turns out we both REALLY like feeling swept off our feet sometimes, and a big part of finding each other has been getting to feel special for once? That's a stupid sappy way of putting it the point here is I think all that's what morphed into "I need to be the one getting proposed to, also it has to be completely perfect", and then our Petty & Extra genes got involved.

So I'm sitting in bed thinking about all that up there, and watching all the comments coming in basically being like "Dude, you are BLOWING this" on repeat, and telling me to compromise, and I look up and see him flossing in the bathroom and making all these doofy faces at the mirror, and it's like a switch just flips in my brain, and I'm like "Oh, I'd rather he gets to have his perfect proposal than we both have an okay one". I'm gonna do it.

Morning rolls around, and while I'm 'out for my jog like normal' I hit up a pawn shop for a temp ring (the ring pop thing is cute but NOT HIM). I found one I was at least confident wouldn't get ruined the first time he got his hands greasy (he fixes old machines as a hobby it's hot as hell), got back home, and hid the box in the toe of my nasty ass workout shoes in the bedroom closet, since I figured he'd check there last.

He was still asleep, because he stays up late no matter what and then is SHOCKED he's tired the next day, so I called and booked a table at our usual anniversary spot. (Side note about the 'he picks bad restaurants' thing. This isn't an 'I like Greek, you like Chinese' situation, dude's just BAD at finding places. He either assumes pricey is tasty and I get to eat some overrated gourmet bullshit, or he'll try and find something hip and underground and risk giving us food poisoning again, and he REFUSES to give up and pick somewhere we've been before when it's his turn to plan date night. I'm obsessed with him <3.) Date was set, I'd propose on the 21st.

Some of you might have noticed this, but fun fact! It's currently the 16th.

Last night I'm doing dishes and he's been sent to our room for mug collection duty, and he's taking FOREVER, so I go check just in case he found the ring, because the man's a gift tracking BLOODHOUND. Turns out he hasn't, he's found my Angry Box.

I assume other people have an Angry Box? Basically, we had this huge messy fight right when we first moved in together, and I never wanna let it get that bad again, so I have this shoebox where I keep a bunch of our stuff I can look at if we're fighting and hopefully cool off. There's one of those photo booth roll things, letters we wrote when he moved back with his parents for COVID, the wine cork from our first date, shit like that. Anyway, he's just sitting on the floor staring at it, and I explain about the Angry Box, and then he! Proposes!!! Kind of.

He definitely didn't have anything prepared, because by 'propose' I mean 'ugly cried & rambled at me for several minutes before I figured out it WAS a proposal', but once I got on the same page it was amazing. I said yes, and he had to admit he didn't have a ring for me because he was CONVINCED he'd win and I'd do it, so I grabbed mine because, yeah, he was right. He was like "this is the ugliest ring I've ever seen" and I was like yeah well the plan is to replace it later and he went "No. You can pry this off my cold dead fingers. After I'm buried with it." So I guess it's not a temporary ring anymore.

I'm just gonna go ahead and skip to this morning. I pointed out we still have the reservation, and he said I should propose there anyway because "We can get a free dessert. They have those creme brulee shot glasses you like. And for love, or something" and I said ok deal, but that means you gotta get me a ring to keep it fair, and his eyes LIT UP. When I swung by his work for lunch he was still on the phone with a jeweler and he had a whole page of notes on three other ones. Pray for me.

OH PS: I was RIGHT that he'd been the one behind the cat biting me, but it wasn't about the proposal stuff, it's because I paid my baby sister three dollars to shout 'fuck you' every single time he enters a room she's in for (if you ask me, he should be madder at my sister for charging so little), and he did it by giving her a bunch of treats for biting his hands too, so now neither of us can pet our baby girl without oven mitts on. HOLY SHIT I love this man.

Oh my goddddddd I love everything about this <333 I awwww'd out loud on a voice call, like, six times while reading. You two are friggin perfect for each other and so obviously smitten with each other and I wish y'all all the happiness in the world

PS Are y'all planning to have a big wedding? If so oh boy I can't WAIT to get that one in the inbox

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#aita #am i the asshole #aita update #the saga of proposal anon

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writingwithciara · 4 months

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Broken Bond ~Chris Sturniolo~

summary: the stupid reason chris stopped talking to his best friend

pairing: chris sturniolo x reader

word count: 4.3k

notes: allusions to sexual content, nearly toxic chris, sweet baby matt

masterlist

y/n and chris were inseparable from kindergarten all the way up to the summer between freshman and sophomore year. it was as if chris just decided he didn’t want to be in her life anymore. and that shocked everyone. but unfortunately for him, she was always going to be a permanent fixture in his life, whether he liked it or not because she was still close with nick and matt. they never felt the urge to get up and abandon her like he did.

but he believed he had a good reason.

the summer between 9th and 10th grade, chris noticed that y/n changed quite a bit. she had gone to florida to visit her grandma for a week and when she came back, her shorts were shorter and her shirts seemed to be tighter. every time chris saw her, he had an over abundance of unfamiliar thoughts. he didn’t like them so to cope with the change, he stopped talking to her altogether. he started going out of his way to make sure whenever she was at the house that he wouldn’t be.

and it broke her heart.

she spent the first week alone, afraid that matt and nick would also change their minds and leave her too. but on a cold rainy saturday morning, when matt showed up to her house with movies and snacks, she knew he wasn’t going anywhere. and for the rest of that summer, y/n spent all her free time with nick and matt, almost completely forgetting that chris even existed.

when the boys announced they were moving to la to move their career along, they invite y/n to come with them. she was supposed to go to school there anyway so she figured it would be easier for everyone. so they packed their bags and headed west.

when they got to town and the boys began their career, y/n found herself feeling alone again. especially when the boys had to leave to film a video. or when they went on tour. she joined them when she could but most of the fans were never happy with her presence, despite her blossoming career as a youtuber.

it was never matt or nick that made her feel alone though. they publicly defended her against the fans & spent whatever time they could with her. it was always chris who would make her feel unwanted. he just didn’t seem to care.

but he cared so much.

he could tell that basically abandoning her in sophomore year had really hurt her, both physically and emotionally, and he wanted to go back and change it all. but he couldn’t do anything about it now, nor could he get rid of the impure thoughts that littered his brain whenever she was around. she used to be his best friend and he shouldn’t have been feeling that way to begin with.

he couldn’t take back what he did in the past but he could try to make up for it in the present.

whenever he would see a fan comment something mean about her, he would send that person a message, completely defending y/n. but nobody ever knew about it.

so when the hate started to die down, chris felt like he did a good job. y/n was confused at first as to why she was getting fewer and fewer hate comments but brushed it off, happy they weren’t being mean to her anymore. it started taking a toll on her mental health. luckily for her, she still had matt. he helped her through her first everything and they were suddenly the inseparable ones. probably even more so than y/n and chris once were.

---

y/n was sitting in her room when nick called her. although she was confused, she picked up her phone and smiled. “why are you calling me when you live right upstairs?”

“y/n, i tested positive for covid so i'm stuck in quarantine until i'm better. and seeing as how you were just with me earlier today, i feel like you should get tested too, just in case.”

“oh okay.” y/n grabbed the text from her nightstand and sighed. she took the test and waited on the phone with nick. when it came back negative, she was relieved. she didn’t want to be stuck in her room all day every day. “i'm sorry you have it, nick. do they boys have it?”

“matt does but chris keeps testing negative.”

“so i can’t hang out with my 2 best friends but i'm gonna be stuck with chris? i would much rather have covid, honestly.”

“the week is going to fly by. i promise.” y/n smiled at her best friends optimism.

“i could always pretend i have it so i can avoid him.”

“that’s true.” nick chuckled. “but why would you do that?”

“i can’t be around him, nick.” y/n sighed.

“girl, it has been 6 years. it’s about time you bury your grudge.”

“i tried. but you can’t just get rid of several years of feeling every emotion. i loved him at one point and the fact that it was before he ditched me really hurts.”

“if it makes you feel any better, i could tell you why he ditched you, even if it is the most ridiculous reason ever.”

“you know?”

“not entirely. but i did read his journal entry from that date and although it lacked detail, it’s pretty obvious why he did it.”

“tell me.”

nick decided to describe the reason in as much detail as he could create. he painted a vivid picture for y/n but she didn’t seem to believe that was the reason chris stopped talking to her.

later that day, y/n was in the kitchen preparing a meal for the boys when chris decided he was hungry. he walked up the stairs and stopped at the top when he saw y/n at the stove. he could’ve turned around and headed back down to his room before she knew he was there but his stomach rumbled so he decided to walk to the fridge. y/n turned at the exact moment chris was reaching for the door, causing her to nearly slap him with the spatula she was holding.

neither of them said a word as they silently stared at each other. the tension was palpable and seeing y/n dressed in sweats with her hair up in a messy bun, caused chris to cough awkwardly. he shifted slightly as he tried to look anywhere but her face.

y/n was the first to break the silence. “what are you doing out of your room?”

“was hungry.” chris shrugged nonchalantly and opened the refrigerator. “need food too you know.”

“yeah but i figured you would’ve seen me and went back into your room, seeing as how that’s the way it’s been for 6 years.”

“my need for food was too strong.” chris turned but avoided her gaze. he looked down at the food in front of her. he went to grab some off the plate but she smacked his arm and pushed him away.

“this is for the 2 brothers who didn’t abandon me.” she looked at him.

“can you make me something too?”

“no.” she grabbed the plate and walked to matt’s room first. when she walked in, matt noticed she wasn’t wearing the mask she was supposed to.

“where’s your mask? i don’t want you to get sick too.”

“matt, i keep telling you that i don’t care. i'll be fine. and even if i do get sick, i know you’ll take care of me.”

“what makes you say that?” he asked, jokingly raising an eyebrow.

“okay fine. guess you don’t want this wonderful & delicious food i made you.” she picked up the plate and went to walk towards the door but matt’s whines stopped her.

“you know i'd take care of you. in sickness and in health.” he chuckled. y/n set the plate back on his desk and smiled.

“the way you’re talking sounds like we’re making a wedding vow.”

“that’s the deal, remember?” matt smirked, causing y/n to think back to their junior year of high school.

she had been in a relationship with a member of the lacrosse team for quite some time so when he abruptly dumped her with no explanation, she began to wonder if there was any hope for her. matt found her after a game and they had made the promise to marry each other if neither of them were in a serious relationship by the time they were 25.

“yeah i remember.” y/n smiled. “but i highly doubt that’s going to happen, matt.”

“and why do you say that?”

“because look at you. you’re…good looking and you have a great personality. plus, you’ve dated way more than i have. i think it’s safe to say that you’re more likely to be in a serious relationship at 25 years old than i am.”

“don’t sell yourself so short. you're good looking too, obviously. and you have the biggest heart out of anyone i know. your personality rocks and you’re going to find the right guy someday. gary just wasn’t the right one, of course.”

“you’re my favorite triplet, you know that right?”

“oh i am fully aware.” he chuckled and took a bite of the food she made. “don’t worry. i won’t tell nick.”

“i'm sure you will eventually.” y/n kissed his head and walked back to the kitchen. she ignored chris and took nick’s plate to his room. he was asleep so she left the plate on his nightstand and went back to the kitchen.

she had only been out of the room for 10 minutes and chris had somehow managed to make a huge mess.

“what the fuck are you doing, chris?”

“i'm trying to make myself some food since you won’t do it for me.” he rolled his eyes and focused back on the grilled cheese he was trying to make. or burn, y/n wasn’t sure what the endgame was.

“holy shit, you’re helpless.” y/n rolled her eyes and moved him out of the way. “go to your room and i'll call you up when it’s ready.”

“i don’t get room service?”

“don’t push your luck.” she pointed the spatula at him threateningly and smiled to herself as he retreated to his room in defeat. she began to cook his food and questioned why he was even talking to her, eventually chalking it up to the fact he was probably lonely without nick or matt.

when she finished cooking, she decided to bring it down to him. she knocked on the door and opened it slowly when she heard the faint ‘come in’. she set the plate down and was about to walk out when chris called out for her.

“wait, hold up.” he turned around in his chair and looked up at her. “thank you.”

“no problem.” she stood awkwardly as he stared at her. “can i go now? got a big mess to clean up.”

“yeah you can go. but, um, don’t worry about the mess. i did it so i'll clean it.”

“okay?” y/n was more confused now than she was earlier. she walked out of the room as chris resumed the game he was playing.

chris' eyes roamed the computer screen in front of him but his mind was running rampant with thoughts again.

“how am i supposed to get her out of my head?” he muttered to himself. he could hear nate laughing on the other end of the headset.

“still can’t believe you stopped being her friend just because she got boobs.”

“she got boobs and she got hot. all it took was one week.” chris sighed.

“and you’ve been in love with you since you were 8. in case you forgot, that was before she was hot. so why did her, um, development have to change the dynamic between you two?”

“i don’t know. it just did.” chris sighed frustratedly and looked down at his phone, suddenly coming with a way to get rid of the thoughts that wouldn’t leave. “i'm gonna go now. play later though, okay?” nate said his goodbyes before chris hung up. his attention turned to his phone. he picked it up and opened instagram. the first post he saw was a picture of y/n and he thought it was perfect. he took a screenshot and added it to his album filled with pictures of her through the years. chris swiped a few times until he settled on a picture of y/n that he always loved. he knew matt had taken it but he didn’t care. she was smiling and wearing an orange fresh love hoodie. it was right after he launched his brand and he gave them each a hoodie, purposely giving y/n the orange one, even thought it would drive him crazy.

and it was certainly driving him crazy. he hated that it didn’t take much for him to get excited but he also loved that it was only y/n that could do it for him.

y/n was watching netflix in the living room when she just happened to glance over at the kitchen. it was still a mess and she hadn’t seen chris in a few hours.

curiosity got the best of her and she found herself slowly approaching chris’ bedroom door. it was slightly ajar and she could see a faint light coming from the crack, along with some low music coming from his speaker. his voice could be heard but he was muttering something y/n couldn’t hear. she quietly pushed the door open a little more and her jaw nearly dropped at the sight before her.

chris was facing away from her but from the way his arm was moving, y/n knew what was going on. that didn’t bother her though. it was what he was getting himself off to that bothered her. there, right on his screen, was a picture of her. it took every ounce of self-control not to scream out loud or go over and berate him for using a picture of her.

she stood there, unable to move, and watched as chris finished himself off. he rolled onto his back with his eyes closed and y/n found herself finally able to make a run for it. too bad she suddenly lacked the coordination to do so and crashed into the wall. chris' shot open and he looked at y/n. she was trying to look anywhere other than him. he pulled the blanket up to cover himself and couldn’t find the words he needed to say.

“i just….i’m just gonna head out now.” y/n almost slipped as she stood up and rushed back up to the living room. there was no way she just witnessed that.

the week that followed was even more awkward than it had been before. y/n never went out of her own way to avoid chris before but how was she supposed to look him in the eye after what she saw?

when nick and matt both tested negative and were able to come out of their rooms, matt was the first to point out the tension in the air. nick brushed it off and told y/n she was going to be in their car video, giving her no time to argue as the 4 of them piled into the car.

matt took them to mcdonald’s to get food then drove them to an empty parking lot and they began to film. y/n wasn’t sure of what the topic was and the only thing she could focus on was chris.

“how are you guys feeling today?” chris asked, keeping his gaze on matt, fearing that if he looked to the backseat, y/n would disappear.

“i'm feeling fantastic actually.” nick threw a few fries into his mouth. “so glad i can actually taste things again.”

“yeah me too.” matt smiled and shoved some fries in his own mouth. “i'm also glad that you two didn’t kill each other or burn the house down while we were stuck in our rooms.”

“chris almost burned it down on the first day.” y/n stirred her mcflurry and looked at matt. “after i brought you your food that day, i returned to the kitchen and this kid was wither trying to consume a charred sandwich or was intentionally trying to burn the house down.”

“hey now.” chris spoke directly to y/n but caught himself and looked at matt. “she refused to cook me a meal.”

“i don’t blame her.” nick rolled his eyes and looked back at y/n. “but you should’ve known letting the kid in the kitchen unsupervised would result in a disaster.”

“did you end up making him food anyway?” matt chuckled.

“of course. couldn't let him attempt it again.” y/n attempted to joke and looked up to see chris looking at her through the rearview mirror. he looked away quickly. nick witnessed the awkward interaction and he shared a look with matt. matt stopped recording so they could address the tension in the car privately.

“what’s going on with you two? one minute, things are back to normal between you two & the next second, it’s like you guys were never friends at all.”

“yeah. what happened?”

“nothing happened.” y/n and chris said at the same time. nick shook his head, clearly not buying it.

“that’s fucking bullshit. the tension, as strong as it was before, has never been this intense. why is it so awkward? did someone see something they shouldn’t have?” nick chuckled and when they didn’t respond, his eyes widened. “wait, what?!”

“you’re joking, right?” matt glanced between them. “tell us.”

“i’d rather not. it was kind of embarrassing.” y/n looked out the window behind nick.

“so did chris see something?”

“no. y/n saw something.” chris sighed and looked back at y/n. “and i'm sorry.”

“it’s okay, chris.” y/n avoided eye contact and opted to look at matt.

“well, what did you see then?” nick questioned, getting more and more invested in the story.

“she caught me, um…..” chris glanced down at his lap, hoping his brothers would pick up on the hint. they did, immediately going crazy.

“what? no way!” matt couldn’t contain his laughter. nick on the other hand was too grossed out to even speak.

“told you it was embarrassing.” chris glanced out the window, hoping nobody would bring up what he was using to satisfy himself and thanking y/n for not mentioning it.

the rest of the video went by rather smoothly after the revelation. when they got back to the house, y/n and chris were in the kitchen while the other 2 went to shower. chris was focused on his phone and y/n was finally ready to ask why.

“i know it’s a week late but i was just wondering-“

“no, i'm not going to tell you why it was your picture. i don’t need you to hate me anymore than you already do.” chris sighed, not even taking his view off the phone as he answered the question she never finished.

“chris, i don’t hate you. and as much as i have tried to do it in the past, i just can’t. you may hate me but we’re clearly going to be in each other’s lives forever, whether or not we want to be. so maybe we should just start at the beginning.”

“i don’t hate you, y/n. that’s the fucking problem.” chris set his phone down and finally looked up at her. she was scared of the sudden aggressiveness in his tone.

“then why the fuck did you stop talking to me before sophomore year?!”

before chris could answer, matt came out of his bathroom. his hair was still damp and he was attempting to dry it with a towel. he looked up and could feel the tension again. “what just happened?”

“nothing.” chris picked up his phone and went down to his room, slightly slamming the door.

matt just turned to y/n with an apologetic look. “i'm sorry.”

“not your fault.” she sighed and walked over to him. “let’s just go to your room.”

matt didn’t argue with her as they both climbed into the bed, passing out shortly after.

chris was not as lucky. he stayed awake for most of the night, trying to come up with a valid explanation for the picture.

when he finally managed to get to sleep, he was woken up by a soft knock on his door frame. he looked up to see y/n standing in the shadows. he sat up straight and looked towards her.

“we need to talk, chris. so please don’t brush this whole thing off. i'm being serious. don't change the topic when you know i want a clear answer. got it?”

as rare it was, chris loved it when y/n would get a little bossy. thankfully, it was dark and the blanket was hiding everything from view. “okay.”

“first, i need to know why you ditched me that summer. then i need to know why it was my picture you were jerking off to. and please don’t lie to me, chris. i know your tell.”

“if you know my tell, then how come you couldn’t figure out that i have never once had a bit of hatred towards you in my life? how come you didn’t figure out anything from the past? i don’t think you know what my tell is.”

“fine. i don’t. but i want to know the reason you dropped me like i meant absolutely nothing to you. are you gonna tell me or am i just going to have to go tell matt what you were using when i caught you?”

“fine. i'll tell you. just please don’t tell him. he’ll kick my ass for being a ‘pervert’ and i would rather that not happen.” chris shifted himself on the bed as y/n walked closer. she was wearing matt’s blue fresh love t-shirt and her legs were bare but chris knew she had shorts underneath. “the reason i stopped talking to you that summer was because when you came back from florida, you changed.”

“changed how? my tastes and personality were exactly the same.”

“no. i mean, um…” he hovered his hands over his chest and gestured them outwards. y/n quirked an eyebrow before catching on.

“oh.” she looked down at her feet. “that’s the stupidest excuse i have ever heard.”

“i had to stay away from you as much as possible because when you came around, my mind was fully clouded with very impure thoughts and i didn’t want to keep them. plus, i didn’t want to be around when all the guys came out of the woodwork to ask you on a date. i figured with distance and time, i could stop myself from wanting to kick the crap out of every guy that suddenly decided you were interesting, just because you had boobs.”

“chris-“

“and then gary, the only guy i ever truly felt jealous of, asked you out and you guys dated for a while. i hated that so much. he didn’t treat you how you deserved.”

“oh, and you did?” y/n felt angry at this revelation. “you don’t get to stand there and tell me how i deserve to be treated when you didn’t treat me any better than those guys did. it's complete bullshit, chris.”

“i was a stupid teenager all jacked up on hormones. i didn’t know how else to deal with the feelings that were bubbling up inside.”

“that’s still no excuse, chris. do you have any idea how many nights i cried myself to sleep after, thinking i just wasn’t ever going to be good enough to be your friend? every fucking night, chris!” y/n tried to keep her voice down but she kept getting angrier. chris pulled her into his room and shut the door.

“will you keep it down? you're gonna wake matt.” chris let go of her shoulders and sat back on his bed as y/n began to pace.

“the way you’ve been treating me for 6 years is not fair. do you know how hard it was to get over you? it seriously fucked with my mental health.” y/n paused and looked over at chris. “so, were my boobs the only reason you stopped talking to me?”

“yeah. well that, and the fact that i had a terrible crush on you since we were 8. you should know that i'm not the best at expressing how i feel. i do stupid stuff all the time. for instance, i have an entire album on my phone filled with pictures of you and since i'm being honest, i use them sometimes.”

“for what?”

“seriously?” he looked up at her and noticed she was standing at the end of the bed. he could see the look of realization flash through her eyes.

“oh. right. that thing.” y/n shifted on her feet before sitting on the end of the bed, facing chris. “so why did you use my picture? why not use one of the other girls you find attractive?”

“i literally don’t find any other girl attractive.” he looked away from her and missed the look she shot him. he only looked up when he felt the mattress move beneath him. when he finally looked back at her, she was sitting in front of him.

“you’re lying.” she looked into his eyes and held the eye contact as he swallowed nervously

“no i'm really not.” he shook his head and his eyes flicked down to her lips. “you’ve always been the only attractive girl i know. and i'm sorry i could never find the proper way to tell you.”

“well you’re telling me now.” she looked at him. “the next time you need to ‘take care of yourself’ please come find me. i would be more than happy to help.” y/n climbed off the bed and made her way back to the door. “good night, chris.”

she walked out of the room, leaving chris no opportunity to beg for her help.

taglist: @worldlxvlys @carolinalikesthings @fearfam69691

#chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo x reader

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lover-of-mine · 2 months

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could you please tell us more about why you think chris would freak out? 😊

Okay, I have been thinking this since 4x08 with Chris freaking out about the idea of Eddie dating in general. But the bottom line is, Chris has a delicious shade of abandonment issues. Eddie wasn't there when he was a baby, Shannon left, and then she died, his grandparents were as constant in his life as his mother and now he only sees them every once in a while, Isabel was constant in LA but she's back in Texas now, you can even make an argument that he felt left by Buck during the lawsuit, because while I do think Eddie was hiding behind Chris to say he missed Buck, Chris was attached enough to Buck to feel the fact that Buck suddenly disappeared a for a while (I like to believe Buck showed up at the house with a pile of legos and a bear like the one they won before the tsunami after, but, well, from a kid's perspective as month is a year, it might've been enough to create something there anyway), especially with everything that had happened to Christopher that year, Shannon dying, the tsunami, Chris worrying about Eddie's state of mind, Chris was at the barbecue and we have no idea what he saw or didn't see about Buck throwing up blood, so he had enough traumatic experiences in quick succession to do something to his brain before he was even 10. We also have a layer to play with if the show decides to go there, but the long-term effects of lockdown on a child were a lot more intense than in someone with a fully developed brain because their lives shut down and they didn't have the tools to deal with it and a child needs the interaction with other people and they were not getting that, and if adults struggled with it, imagine how a 10 yo with a first responder parent who couldn't stay with him felt, ykwim? We see that manifesting in season 4, Chris is scared that dating means leaving, he thinks that Eddie bringing someone into their lives just means someone else who will leave him. And we saw at the beginning of the season that he still believes that to be true. He has that moment of it's okay to play around because it doesn't matter if they love you, they will leave anyway. Chris most likely doesn't remember most of life in Texas with Shannon, and even when he's old enough to understand the circumstances around Shannon leaving, it will still have scarred him forever. And that kid has lived through one parent dying, the other in a hospital when he wasn't allowed to visit due to covid, and a constant safe adult he literally saw in a hospital bed. It doesn't matter if the show ever states Buck in a parental position for Chris before he becomes "stepdad Buck", Buck is one of the two safe adults Chris runs to in a crisis, exemplified by the way even though he's being raised by two first responders, his instinct when Eddie had his breakdown was not to call 911, it was to call Buck. We have enough to speculate that yes, Chris sees Buck as a parent in some degree, but we do know for a fact that Buck is an adult Chris trusts.

So, we have Chris with the mother of all abandonment issues of the show, which is saying something considering who he's up against, we have Eddie and Buck being the two constants when it comes to adults, and just the general concept of safety that he has had in the past few years, so Eddie and Buck are the two people Chris is scared the most to lose, Eddie for obvious reasons, and we see that reflected with Buck with him forcing Eddie and Carla to let him visit him so he can beg Buck to come back. But Chris is also watching both Eddie and Buck FUMBLE through romantic relationships. Like, they are BAD at romantic relationships, and, like, even Taylor was brought into Chris' life and then vanished, I'm not saying he got particularly attached to Taylor, but she was in his house, she lived with Buck, for an 11 yo that's as serious as it's gonna get, and then that ended too. So what Chris is picking up here is that romantic love means people leaving. Like, that was literally the conclusion he reached on his own when it came to dating. He understands that Shannon loved them and that there was love between Eddie and Shannon, but he only thought about the way she left that love. We also have everything about Marisol. Everything about her is about babysitting Chris, so he has a decent relationship with her, and she was moving in. I doubt that Chris didn't know that, but that's another development that got canceled and we know Marisol is not here to stay, so yet another relationship Eddie completely fumbled.

So take all that and put it next to the idea of Eddie and Buck becoming a couple. We know buddie is endgame. We outsiders with all the information watching as all-seeing gods waiting for them to just get their shit together know that when they get together, there's no separating them, that's it. Chris doesn't know that. He knows he loves Eddie. He knows he loves Buck. He knows none of them ever managed to make a romantic relationship work. And he thinks that romantic love means leaving. So Eddie and Buck dating means losing Buck. The only conclusion Chris is gonna reach here is "Buck is gonna leave" so he's gonna freak out. He's a teenager. Half of being that age is feeling things too intensely and the other half is reacting as intensely. He reacted like that to the idea of Ana and it wasn't even about someone he knew yet. Chris having The Tamtrun about Eddie dating someone he loves makes perfect sense. Because Chris doesn't know what a successful relationship looks like, sure, there are his grandparents, but he's not around them enough, and even then his grandfather travels a lot for work anyway so what would he have seen when he was kid, and a kid learns love from their parents. Eddie and Shannon were a disaster from Chris pov. They loved each other but she still left, so what does it take for a relationship to work? Because isn't it the thing we teach kids with fairytales and stuff? That love conquers it all? But he understands enough to know that's not true. Chris may know Buck and Eddie love each other in some degree, the same way he knows he loves Buck, and the same way he knows Buck loves him, but the instinct there would be to fight the change in their relationship because he doesn't want Buck to leave. If everyone Eddie or Buck dated disappeared from his life, what's stopping Buck from leaving him if they break up? Most likely scenario is that he would get big mad at Buck because the change in the dynamic will trigger his abandonment issues, and he's 13, so he's not gonna be rational about it. And that would create some interesting tension in the way that when Chris is mad at his parents, he opens up to Buck, if he's mad at Eddie and Buck, who is he gonna open up to? This is absolutely the type of thing that would make their dynamic stronger in the long run, but it would take a minute for Chris to get to the point where he's ready to talk about the fact that he's scared of the change, it would even take him a minute to probably get to that conclusion himself, because again, the horrors of being 13 are real. Chris himself might struggle to figure out why does the idea make him mad. And Buck and Eddie can't reassure him if they don't know what's wrong. They can't promise they won't break up either. So how do they navigate that?

Because Chris is the priority, they would never do anything that would hurt Chris intentionally, but I also think they would be like "I don't want to break up because he's mad" because that would be proving Chris' fear that they won't stay together right. And I kinda think this is the only route they can go with Chris' reaction because this isn't some "my divorced parents are getting back together" situation, Chris has no reason to hope for Buck and Eddie to get together, so I don't see how he would've already processed that. Sure, if they had gotten together when Chris was 10, he probably would've been a lot more chill about it, but Chris as a teenager? He's gonna freak out. That's literally the only logical conclusion here. And considering the beginning of the season, and the way he was handling dating, AND the way he opened up about it to Buck, all the pieces for that to happen are on the table. Buck has a relationship with Chris outside of Eddie, and obviously, Buck and Eddie are, yk, *motions vaguely* but actually getting Buck and Eddie together would add tension to the existing dynamic between the 3 of them. And it is a way to add conflict to buddie without adding the idea that they don't love each other or don't know how to handle the switch or might not be good at being a couple, because navigating this situation would just prove how solid they are. It's all there. The question is if they are gonna go for it or not.

#jesus this is long #aoskaoksaoksoaksa #but yeah #this is why #911 #911 meta #911 speculation #anon 😌#i really need a tag for asks

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sirfrogsworth · 6 months

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The Pretty Average Trump Trauma

I really picked the wrong week to have a controversial post go viral.

The appeal deadline for my disability case is very soon and we just recently got the last of the medical records. My lawyer can get very busy and hard to reach. And I have been freaking out trying to get a hold of him to make sure everything is ready to be submitted. Thankfully he just emailed and said everything is on track and will be sent in for the appeal.

But having this weighing on me behind the scenes while also dealing with the blowback from my "vote for Biden" post caused me to enter into some unhealthy arguments and lose my temper on several occasions.

I didn't actually think about what would happen if that post went viral. Sometimes I write things and a hundred people see it, and it serves as a catharsis because I was able to get my thoughts and fears out of my brain.

And sometimes it gets reblogged 6000 times and I can forget I have a platform where that happens from time to time.

I wish I had written a better initial post. I think my thoughts in subsequent posts, along with the inclusion of what I think is a better strategy, would have gone a long way to help people understand my point of view. Looking back, that original post feels incomplete.

The post that ended up going viral was not inspired by reason or logic and it was never really meant to convince anyone of anything.

I thought I was preaching to the choir.

It was a representation of my fears. It was the result of two years of panic and trauma from the pandemic which ended in my mother's horrible death.

Let me explain...

On November 9th, Shaun, a YouTuber I respect, posted this.

And it scared the hell out of me.

A very popular leftist with a huge platform wrote this to 5 million people and I freaked out.

Shaun wasn't necessarily saying not to vote for Biden at the time. But he thinks people should all say they won't vote for him unless he calls for a ceasefire. I get the strategy. But I feared that nuance would be lost on many people and they would only see it as "don't vote for Biden... no matter what." Which was an accurate prediction on my part. The guy from Eve 6 has been going nuance-free for weeks now.

The one thing I greatly disagree with Shaun about is this...

Before the pandemic, I might have understood his argument. For the first two years, Trump was mostly an ineffectual goof. He had trouble getting a lot of his worst ideas to manifest. Most of the border wall he built ended up being repairs of existing barriers. And Obama droned civilians and kept kids in cages too—though Trump kept them in cages indefinitely and made up a rule that we can't actually know how many civilians he was droning.

So, a lot of the same, but turned up to 11.

But nothing about the pandemic response was pretty average.

There is something I have been choosing not to say during all of these discussions. I felt like saying it would be poor timing. I was worried people wouldn't actually agree with me. I worried it would make people think I was turning suffering into a competition. I didn't want to make it look like I valued certain lives over others. But then people accused me of all of that anyway. I was called evil and a collaborator and a supporter of genocide.

So I'm going to talk about it. Because the fact that few have mentioned it in these discussions has been bothering me. And the fact that the majority of society does not mention it makes me feel very alone in this belief.

I have long believed Trump and the majority of US conservatives committed a genocide of the disabled and elderly. I was never really comfortable calling it that word. I wasn't really sure how a genocide got classified as such. So I would just say things like, "40% of people who died during COVID should still be alive" and "Trump is responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths" and "Trump killed my mom" and hoping people would make the connection or at least see it as mass murder. I mean, this country judges everything by how many "9/11s" something is, but not the pandemic?

Donald Trump was the leader of the Republican party. When he refused to wear a mask due to vanity, his followers looked for something to excuse him. And I feel that directly birthed the "masks don't work" movement among conservatives. Donald Trump, having enormous influence among his acolytes, refused to correct this dangerous rhetoric. And he probably welcomed the cover so he could continue going maskless and not smear his makeup—even after he nearly died.

It is my belief this was the beginning of a genocide of apathy, deliberate and accidental incompetence, and non-compliance. And the reason for that non-compliance was not freedom as many claimed.

Conservatives did not like being inconvenienced.

They didn't like having to consider others.

And if competence requires effort and vigilance, they'd prefer doing the bare minimum.

Trump was famous for not filling vital administrative positions in the executive branch. Not only that, his turnover rate was 5 times higher than previous administrations. People were asked to do the job of several people because they didn't staff properly, and so those people quit. Thus creating a cycle of inexperienced new-hires that were out of their depth and asked to do much more than they bargained for. There is no way they could succeed in their jobs.

I think people forget that part of the role of the executive is the day-to-day boring administrative shit that is required to run a country. And when this day-to-day work isn't valued, it creates a crisis of incompetence. Which then creates things like not enough tests, not enough testing, Trump saying "if you don't test, it doesn't count", botched vaccine rollouts, rampant misinformation, poor education of the populace, and abysmal improvised press conferences where the President does a quick riff on injecting bleach.

This competence aspect is one of the hugest reliefs I had with the Biden administration. Not Biden. Not his policies. I'm talking about the regular workers getting shit done. This is the reason I am desperate to get my shit worked out with Social Security before the election. I once called Social Security during the pandemic and I literally got a recording saying to try calling back the next month.

Trump didn't care. People criticized him for not hiring people. He was aware of the problem. He just did nothing about it. And many conservatives praised him for "trimming the fat" or whatever. This idea that all of these government workers were useless burdens on the taxpayer fell apart during the pandemic.

There is incompetence caused by ignorance but it can also be a deliberate act. Trump was extraordinary in all forms of incompetence. He wasn't qualified to manage a pandemic. But he could have easily appointed experts and then gotten out of the way. But his narcissism would not let him cede power to anyone. He has always been convinced "only Trump can save you" and so his ego helped kill nearly half a million people.

Once the incompetence ball got rolling, that's when malicious apathy reared its ugly head. It was time to choose who they cared least about dying—who they felt was most useless. Conservatives decided it was time to devalue lives and start making sacrifices to save politicians' money laundering fronts small businesses.

Popular conservatives were going on TV and saying it was okay if Grandma died. It would be a worthy sacrifice to protect our freedoms.

The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, basically offered up the elderly for sacrifice all while claiming that he spoke for them and was also willing to die. Though I don't take his personal willingness very seriously, since he has the money and resources to get the best medical care and probably had no expectation he was in any danger.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ But if they had? If that is the exchange, I’m all in. So my message is let’s get back to work. Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

But you cannot just sacrifice the elderly. You may justify it by saying they have lived a long life, but many of the same health risks were shared by the disabled. Many of whom still had normal lifespans, but just needed extra care and protection.

There are countless elderly who cannot "take care of themselves" but they are still of value to our society. They are still loved. They watch and teach their grandchildren. They are the keepers of the family stories. They bake cookies and give you two dollar bills. They have random bowls of butterscotch all throughout their house.

But some need help. Some are sick. Some can't drive. Some can't walk. I guarantee not all of them were prepared to die for the cause.

And none deserved to die for a sports bar.

Oh, didn't I mention?

Dan Patrick owned a chain of sports bars that were losing money from the lockdowns. Did you really think he was sacrificing old folks "for the children"?

Thankfully Dan's sports bars are gonna be okay. He ended up receiving a $179,000 PPP loan... that was forgiven.

Then they started saying COVID deaths weren't COVID deaths.

"Well, they had a bad heart." "They were obese." "They had cancer."

They dropped the elderly excuse and began to openly devalue the disabled as well. If you were sick, what good were you? They considered us the next sacrifices for their convenience. If we wanted to survive, we shouldn't have gotten sick. It didn't matter that we could survive for years or even have a normal lifespan as long as we were protected by our communities.

And then began the non-compliance.

Trump's followers ignored masks and lockdowns and eventually vaccines. They were unwilling to protect the vulnerable and so many of us just... died.

Again, 40% of the US COVID deaths could have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands of people should still be here. Malicious apathy, incompetence, and non-compliance were the direct cause of this genocide.

The United Nations Genocide Convention identified 5 acts that typically constitute genocide. Only one act is required and in the pandemic 3 of the 5 acts happened.

Killing members of a group. Causing members of a group serious bodily harm. Imposing living conditions on that group that would destroy them.

I'm looking at that third one just now and realizing why we have advocates to remind us of vulnerable groups that need protection. I was thinking about how the elderly and disabled were trapped in hyper-contagious nursing homes and care facilities, but I completely forgot about prisons and the concentration camps at the borders.

I am not trying to diminish the awful things happening in Palestine right now. This is not a comparison of suffering—but a reminder. When a current terrible thing is happening, it can be hard to focus on anything else. But I do wish more people recognized what happened as a genocide and that the leader of that genocide, the one with the power to stop it, was Donald Trump. If we are going to base this voting decision entirely on acts of genocide, why is this not part of the consideration?

It is an awful moral calculus we have to figure out. One president is supporting and asking for funding for a genocide and I feel the other was the direct cause of another genocide. That's why I said both choices sucked. And the only way I could resolve this moral calculation was by asking what path would cause the least harm for everyone involved.

And the most disappointing aspect of all of these debates was the ableism. People told me if Trump was elected and I lost my benefits I should grow my own food and learn about medicine. They said I valued disabled lives above those in Gaza. They told me to imagine myself in Nazi Germany as a collaborator despite the fact I would have been euthanized.

But I felt like they weren't considering the disabled at all.

I am a disability advocate. So of course I am going to remind people to consider us in their voting decisions. But I'm tired of hearing I value lives differently just because I speak on behalf of a vulnerable group more often. I'm tired of continually having to justify my existence. And I'm tired of people dismissing the very real trauma caused by Trump.

It was not pretty average.

I'd like to tell you the full story of my mother's passing. All of the details. Even the ones I can't bear to type. But this isn't just my story. This is the story of countless others who had to watch their loved ones slowly die behind glass or over the phone or on an iPad.

I spent two years in constant anxiety trying to protect my two very sick parents. It was always assumed that my father was the most at risk. And that he was probably going to die long before my mother. But she had started a treatment for her psoriatic arthritis that turned the volume down on her immune system. Something that would normally not be a huge risk... but a pandemic changed that. A vaccine needs a functioning immune system to protect someone.

She could either accept the agony of stopping treatment or risk getting COVID. If people would have been willing to protect her, it would have been an easier choice. And she would still be around today. And I wouldn't have to worry about being homeless right now.

I don't know for sure when she was infected. I kept her inside as much as possible. But she needed those treatments and we had to pile into a crowded waiting room every time. And I remember a man in his fifties who seemed preoccupied with having to wear a mask. And when he thought no one was looking, he'd pull it down below his nose. A few days later she was being taken away in an ambulance.

A few weeks before my mother died, she called me on the phone. She was heavily medicated and they had two different breathing devices assisting her. The nurse was holding the phone up to her ear and she was trying to speak over the volume of the air rushing into her face from the masks. I could not hear her no matter how loud she yelled. So she asked the nurse to take the masks off for just a second so we could talk.

Her only concern was for my father. We all contracted COVID and she was so worried he would end up just like her. Thankfully the vaccine worked for him and he was okay at that moment. But she kept yelling, "Is Dad okay? Is Dad okay?" And I kept trying to tell her he was fine, but she was hard of hearing and the phone could not be held very close to her ear.

Unfortunately, the yelling made it harder and harder for her to breathe. She started gasping for air. The nurse kept insisting she put the breathing equipment back on, but my mom refused. "I want to talk to my son! I need to talk to my son!"

I knew there wasn't much we could do to communicate. And so I kept trying to yell "I love you, Mom. Everyone is fine. I love you!" I then asked the nurse to tell her that. And when she finally understood what I was saying, she burst into tears.

Her oxygen levels were getting dangerously low and she was fighting the nurse. And she just yelled out, "I'm so scared! I think I'm going to die! Tell Dad I'm sorry I can't take care of him! I don't want to die!" She kept repeating that over and over. The nurse had no choice and had to put the masks back on. My mom screamed and shouted "No! Please no! That's my son!"

And those were the last words I ever heard from my mother.

Gasping for air. Scared of dying. Worried about her family.

This moment has intrusively popped into my brain on a regular basis since it happened. It happens when I'm awake. It happens in my dreams. I have no control over it. I just have to keep experiencing it like it is happening for the first time.

After I saw that tweet from Shaun and then many others expressing the same thing (without the strategic aspect), my dread and trauma resurfaced with a vengeance. I've been reliving my mom's final words in my dreams. That moment keeps popping into my head. I feared the man I feel is most responsible for my mother's death may regain power and kill me and the last of the family I have left.

I keep asking myself the same questions over and over. What if there is another public health emergency? What happens to my trans friends if he turns the US into Florida and Texas? What will happen to the migrants at the border?

All I have is my two best friends. Katrina is gay and Delling is trans and disabled. All of us are vulnerable.

I wrote that post to help deal with the nightmares. Writing is part of my coping process. I didn't really expect it to go super viral. I just needed to get that out of my brain. But when people pushed back and started calling me evil and a collaborator and that I was valuing my life above those in Palestine, all with a huge heap of ableism, I found myself unable to let it go and not respond. I couldn't choose the healthy thing and step away.

While I feel I made some good arguments and put forth some solid ideas for other ways to handle this, I also got angry and lost my temper and stayed in arguments for way too long—all to my mental detriment.

My little world felt like it was collapsing and the world at large also felt like it was collapsing. I had personal horrors in my mind mixing with the horrors of this global conflict.

It was too much.

I don't regret what I posted. Many felt the same as I do. And I think my subsequent posts did a good job of expanding on my thoughts while also offering hope for alternate solutions.

But I do regret the timing and I wish I hadn't lost my temper. Especially in a reply I left with a lot of cussing.

People might disagree but I am hoping that people can understand the fear and trauma that influences my point of view.

I am actually willing to risk quite a lot to protect other people. Even people in faraway lands I don't know.

But I refuse to offer up the vulnerable to be sacrificed if it won't actually help anyone. That's what a Texas Lt. Governor would do.

#trigger warning #death mention #genocide mention

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boo8008 · 8 months

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Three Months - Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x Fem!Reader Chapter 02: Mince

Prologue | Chapter 01: Quadriller | Chapter 02: Mince

Series Summery: Its been one year since The Bear's soft open, and with everything running smoothly, Carmen's lost in his thoughts, until the final table of the night is seated.

Chapter Summery: After the minor introduction of you and Carmy, your about to prepare the first dinner post Covid and before Stevie and Michelle leave, one Carmen is also coming to. Only cooking dinner is not going as smoothly as you'd hoped.

Mince (v.) - to finely divide food into uniform pieces smaller than diced or chopped foods, prepared using a chef's knife or food processor

Word Count: ~3,865

My Notes bb: Hey….. How yall doin? Sorry this took so long to get out, work and life suddenly got busy and I didn't have time to write. I hurt my back though so it kinda forced me to write and crank this out. Hopefully its not as bad I as I still feel like it is but yea. Again sorry this took so long to get out. Hope you enjoy! (ps my therapist thinks this is a decent outlet though lol thanks Sandra)

2021 (December)

Carmen hardly ever came to dinner after those first few weeks, and Michelle said something about him working at Eleven Madison Park. While you were happy he head ended up at the high end restaurant, you knew he was working under one hell of an asshole. He seemed to be doing fine enough though. Granted, you would only catch small glimpses of him on nights when you stayed later than intended and he walked only into his room to sleep, with just a small mumbled ‘hi’ thrown your way. Eventually he managed to move out on his own and only came to dinner about once every two months when Michelle would insist on it.

Once covid hit though, you'd basically lost contact with him. Michelle even rarely managed to drag him into group facetime calls with you. They were mainly her or Stevie recounting their last two weeks of quarantine in a dramatic fashion and you and Carmen would be listening half heartedly. If Carmen was there, he seemed to just sit out on a fire escape in his building and smoke, thinking about other things. Everytime you picked up though, missing being around the two people you actually liked. You would use it as a little reprieve from writing yet another ‘easy recipes for quarantine’ article, or to have company while you organized and re-organised random spots throughout your apartment.

Mostly though you would use it to get away from the depressive thoughts of ‘what am I doing with my life?’ or ‘if something happened to me, only Michelle and Stevie would really know.’ you didn't realize how much you missed being around people until you couldn't anymore, just stuck with yourself and your cat in your apartment. You missed the mindless chatter from coworkers at your office and in person interviews with cranky chefs because they gave you more to think about than yourself. All you began to think about was how bad the piece you were working on was, even if your editor said it was great. You felt tired and tired of being tired. All you wanted was to have a nice dinner with Stevie and Michelle, and fuck even hearing from Carmen would be amazing even if it was another awkward conversation with someone you just barely knew.

In short covid sucked ass and made your already anxious brain even worse. Not to mentioned your sense of time became fucked and all of your normally scheduled daily things also hard to keep track of. While quarantine had somewhat ended, you all found yourselves too busy trying to get back into the groove of ‘normalcy’ and offices to have dinner again, canceling for meetings or being too tired. Leading to today, when after months of planning and rescheduling you had completely forgotten that dinner was not only being held at you place, but you were also cooking because Michelle and Stevie had nothing in their kitchen because they were leaving two weeks early to isolate before Christmas in Chicago, and to top it all off, Carmen was (for once) coming to dinner. You remembered only when Stevie sent you a text asking what time worked best to come over, and not wanting to cancel for the tenth time, you told them 7:00. So you left work early to run for the subway, then run to the grocers to get real food, and then ran home to start cooking.

Only cooking was not going as planned.

It was 6:30 and dinner was nowhere near done. It was like you had forgotten everything you knew about actually cooking, and you’re a food journalist for Christ's sake! This should have been something you could do fairly easy! You write about things like this all the time! Yet here you are, chicken suddenly burning in the oven from when you stepped away to check your recipe to make sure everything was going okay and you that were good to start the pasta. You quickly removed the now pucks from the oven and turned it off. You resolved to just sitting on the floor across from your oven and crying, thinking about where it all went wrong-not the dinner but everything. Quiet sobs racked your body as you sad down on your kitchen floor, forgetting about your phone and the fact your last text said “doors unlocked when you get here”.

Carmen didn’t want to go to dinner but knew he wouldn't hear the end of it from Michelle if he didn’t show up. And to be frank he wanted her to stop calling him a hermit too. So he grabbed his jacket after lunch service and headed home to shower and change, doing his best to not think of his shitty boss saying he was worthless for taking one evening off. He hadn't done that even during covid, constantly asking what the plan was or if the kitchen was open. He decided to head out early to your place sending a quick text and leaving. As he approached your door he could definitely smell burning, very unlike the pre-covid dinners you made. While not Michelin level, what you made were perfect home cooked and leftover meals to him. A nice change from his go to PB&Js with Doritos and a Coke. He checked his phone again making sure the apartment number was right and reread your last text again. He still knocked on the door before he opened it, out of habit.

“Yo its me,” Carmen called out, peeling off his jacket as he looked around the entryway of your small apartment. You jumped at the knock and stood up as the door opened, and as Carmen called out, you turned to face the sink in your kitchen.

“In here!” your voice was wobbly but you preyed he wouldn't notice. Carmen followed the sound and walked into the kitchen, seeing the blackened chicken on the stove and the mess of the rest of the kitchen.

“Jesus, the fuck did you try to cook?” he said it without thinking, and immediately you broke again. Crumbling in on yourself and to tired to try and hide it. Tears raining down your face and carmen short circuited, watching as you again sunk to the floor in a puddle.

“Shit fuck I-I’m sorry. Fuck! Wh-what can I do? What do you want me to do? Fuck sorry I-I’m bad at this.” he panics as he looks down at you crying. “Wh-want me to go? I-I can go- I should go. Shit, Sorry again.”

“S-s-stay?”

“What?” Carmen's pretty sure he heard wrong, after all he just caused you to meltdown from his social awkwardness.

“S-stay?” you say more clearly. You don't know why you ask it, let alone how it crawls out of your crying, shaking self. Its been so long sense you've been near someone else even a little close to you so maybe that's it. He stops for a minute looking down at you as you look up at him still crying. “Please?”

“... O-okay.”

He isn't sure why he stays, or why he sits down next to you while you cry, but he does. The apartment is quiet outside of you sniffles and the occasional sob but carmen stays put. Neither of you realize how much you've started leaning towards each other until your head is lightly lying on his shoulder. You’ve mostly stopped crying now but your face is still wet and your eyes are puffy.

He isn't sure what to say, with his mom asking if you were okay was off limits. It made everything worse. It lead to screaming and yelling and throwing things. He thinks about what someone normal, someone like Stevie, or Pete, or Natalie, what they would ask someone they hardly know if they saw them having a panic attack and decides to just do it, praying you’d be somewhat normal compared to his mother.

“You-you okay?” you'd almost forgot he was there, even if you were leaning on him, and sat up straighter, wiping your face.

“Yea, I’m-I’m sorry dinners ruined and for getting like that,” you say. Tears of embarrassment springing up at knowing that this (basically) stranger saw you cry.

“No no your fine-your cool,” he can feel panic rising again at making you cry again. “No no no offense but I-I was kinda in the mood for pizza anyways.” He's only partly lying, he wanted a home cooked meal but the pizza place he passed on his way here smelled greasy and amazing on his empty stomach.

“Are you sure? I still have the kitchen to clean and I just don't want you all to think that I don't care o-or anything that i-its our last dinner before you guys go back to Chicago for Christmas and I just-”

“Yea, your fine , its fine if we have pizza, I’ll text Michelle to grab it on their way over, they wont mind.”

“Okay…” you mumble, caving in on the choice of pizza and leaning your head back on the cabinet behind you. Carmens already pulling his phone out of his pocket when he spots the new texts from Stevie and Michelle on his lock screen.

Stevie: ‘Sorry gang, we dont think we can make it tonight, we still have a lot to pack 😕’

Michelle: ‘Yea I’m sorry i know its so close to dinner but maybe you two can get along without us????’

Michelle: ‘Sorry again lovelies xoxo 😘’

Michelle: ‘Dont be a dick carm 💛😘’

“Well fuck,” Carmen mumbled. He was now on his own to make conversation. “Looks like its just us for dinner. ‘Said they still have packing to do.”

“Oh,” was all you could think to say. Of course the universe would have the only two people you could actually converse with busy on the one night you were meant to see them.

“Yea…” Carmen wasn't sure how to proceed. Does he leave cause the only bridge between you both isn't showing? Does he stay because he already committed to dinner? God he feels so awkward.

“Well we could still get pizza?” you ask. “I mean you came all this way so it kinda feels like a waste.”

“You sure?”

“Yea, I mean I still gotta clean the kitchen but theres a place around the corner thats amazing after crying,” you say with a bit of a laugh to help bring up the awkward mood.

“Let me help you and we can go?” he suggests, already rising to his feet and offering you a hand.

“Are you sure? I mean the chicken I think is welded on there at this point,” you say. As your taking his hand and he pulls you to stand from your floor, you see his forearms flex and your mind short circuits as you look probably a second longer than you need to at the muscles and veins there. Luckily he doesn't notice because he's already turning and grabbing the now cool baking sheet with the chicken on it.

“Yea it’ll go faster, I think I can get this off too,” Carmen quickly took charge of washing the bowls, cutting boards, and other kitchen utensils you had pulled out in your frenzy to cook dinner on time.

In nearly no time at all the kitchen was clean and the two of you had left for the pizza parlor a block away. While yes the cleaning was a little awkward, the noise of the city on the walk made making any conversation difficult, meaning neither of you had to talk or struggle to make conversation.

“Pepperoni good?” Carmen asked as the two of you stood awkwardly next to each other, both of your jackets zipped all the way up thanks to the near unbearable cold outside.

“Y-yea, they make bomb garlic knots too if you want some,” you responded, skimming over the menu even though you already knew what the plan was.

“C-cool, um,” Carmen looked around the small shop, there was just the counter and a cooler for drinks, no seating. The place reminded him of the beef, dingy, and not that healthy, but god damn was this about to be the best food he could ever get. “Did you want to go back to your place? Cause… cause there's no tables and stuff…” Carmen cringed at the awkward way the words came out.

“Yea if that's good with you?” you said taking a step forward, the two of you would look at each other before looking away, as if the tiled flooring was so interesting. You decided to take a page out of Stevie’s book, he was better with people than you were so you prayed the attempted joke would land. “I mean we could eat out in the cold if your more comfortable?” A smile pressed its way onto Carmen’s face and you considered that a victory.

“Yea no, I love eating outside when its about to snow,” he snickered. “Reminds me of home.” You both shifted closer as the people in front of you pushed pass you both to leave with their pizzas. As you both stepped up to the counter Carmen was faster than you in not only placing the order, a large peperoni with a side of garlic knots, but also whipping out his wallet and paying, you on the other hand had barely stumbled out a hello and barely started shifting your bag to get out your own wallet by the time he was done.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you mumbled as you both stepped off to the side to wait.

“Yea well, its cool I got the money,” Carmen added. You only partly doubted it, he worked at the highest rated restaurant in the world but also lived in New York so it kinda balanced out. You both distracted yourselves for a few minuets looking at your phones, you taking to a word search game and Carmen playing the fun game of ‘who is this and why do I have their number?’ with his contacts. It felt a little more relaxing compared to earlier, more like the same air you both got when Stevie and Michelle would leave the room at your normal dinners, not pressured to talk but liking the fact another person was next to you.

“Order 447!” you and carmen both jumped as the number was yelled through the small shop. Carmen stepped forward and took the box and bag from the worker, turning to you, where you grabbed the bag and began to head out before he got up the words to protest that he's got it.

Luckily the only awkward part of the walk back to your apartment was the elevator ride up. As you both stepped into your apartment you were both greeted by the loud yelling of your cat as she rounded the corner to yell at you for leaving for a whole 30 minuets.

“Yea yea your fine baby,” you told her as you took the pizza from Carmen. “You good with just sitting on the couch? I don't want to do anymore kitchen cleaning.”

“Heard,” Carmen carmen said as he took off his jacket. He was looking down at the feline weaving between his legs and bent down to let her sniff him so he could pet her, instead she smelt him and abruptly ran back deeper in the apartment and he smiled a little at the cat, following it with his eyes to you coming out of the kitchen with two cans of coke, paper plates, and paper towels. Something in him stirred at the mundane and domestic sight but he waved it off as more anxiety.

“Wait-shit-your not allergic to cats are you?” you asked panicked.

“N-no,” Carmen's voice broke a little as he said it and he cleared his throat. “No… My, um, my mom never let us have one when I was a kid, something about the furniture. I always wanted one though.” Why’d his voice break like that? Why’d he bring up his mom? Fuck now he's gonna have to explain everything.

“Cool-cool,” you were turning to head deeper into the apartment again and Carmen followed, getting a better look at the place now that he wasn't rushing to the kitchen. “That's Mince, cause when I got her she was tiny and I wasn't thinking ahead.” He took in the living room, a nice, small sectional couch with a blanket over the back was against one wall, and a tv with bookcases full of nick-nacks and heavy looking books with holiday lights around it. The center of the room had a buttery carpet and the coffee table with the pizza and garlic knots on it.

“Make yourself at home,” you added. You’d never felt more aware of your actions than now, as Carmen looked at more of your space with posters and pictures around it and you were just trying to tell yourself to act normal. He took in the dining table with four perfectly mismatched chairs that was tucked into a corner on the other side of the wall from the kitchen. Mince catches his attention from the couch, batting at his hand from her spot on the arm rest. He again goes to pet her only for her to skip off and run to the opposite end where you are. Carmen finally takes a seat on the couch, the two of you as far as you could be. You both dig into the pizza and Carmen can’t help but think about how good it is.

“Fuck,” he groaned. It definitely compensates for the shitty morning he had and the rollercoaster of emotions he felt around you.

“Right?” you said through a smile. You were turning on the tv and poking around for something to watch.

“‘S so fucking good,” he said through another bite. “Chicago is still better though.” he mumbled.

“Fuck off,” you finally settled on Bobs Burgers that you left off on. You both ate in a mostly comfortable silence, focusing on the show and avoiding looking at each other. Once you felt you were full you settled back into the couch, and glanced at carmen sitting in your space, he had made himself more comfortable, and he looked nice there, leaned up against the arm of the couch with one arm draped over the back of the couch fiddling with a part of the blanket and his legs spread wide. You shifted your focus back to the television not wanting to make it more weird.

“So… did you finish packing already?” you settled on conversation to distract you from the thought of crawling into his lap. “For Chicago I mean.”

“Oh um,” Carmen was a little startled by the sudden conversation, but fuck it you already cried in front of him today, it was his turn to share. “N-no I’m just staying here, rather not watch my mom drive the car through a wall and my brother fight my uncle again.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Steve had told you some of what happened that Christmas, mainly summarized as a big blowout of a fight between Michelle’s cousin Mikey and her kinda-uncle Lee, and her aunt Donna driving her car through the living room. God why'd you bring this up? He probably didn't want to talk about it. “Did you have any plans then?” Please let this be a decent change of topic you think.

“Just work, go home, smoke and eat, sleep, just like the last two years,” he says with a sigh. “Wh-What about you?”

“No, I was just gonna stay in and watch some movies.” Carmen answers with an affirming ‘hm’, not wanting to overstep and ask more questions. Even with the both of you wanting to talk more, neither of you know how to go from here. You turn you attention back to the television as Carmen turns his head a little to quietly observe you.

Curled up in the corner of the couch in a cozy, old, and ratty sweatshirt with some leggings and fuzzy holiday grippy socks, hair down, and face still a little puffy from the winter air and your tears, but still beautiful in the darkening light of your apartment, mundanely so. Not a supermodel ripped from the cover of vogue, or an unobtainable influencer with hair and makeup perfectly placed for pictures. You look like you belong there. You look real. Cozy and warm on your couch with the lights from the streets down below hitting you just so. Home he thinks, before quickly turning his attention back to the tv. Its not like he’d ever have a shot with you anyways, he’s always too busy, or too angry, or too much of an asshole in general. Where’d all of those thoughts even come from? He hardly ever felt at home with anyone, especially outside of the kitchen.

As the show plays on the two of you get lost in it and enjoying the act of being alone together, occasionally steeling glances at each other. You find yourself kind of liking being with him, not necessarily talking or interacting but the feeling of another person in the same room as you feels nice. Carmen won't say it but he's enjoying himself too. The show and coziness of your apartment make him feel relaxed more than his barren dingy apartment ever could, and the abundance of stuff artfully placed helps give him something to look at and think on rather than get lost in his anxiety and self doubt. Why does she have a Halloween decoration out its December…right? He thinks. Your both trying to think on how to ask for what you want but you beat him too it. Probably because you grew up with Steve and his weird ball of encouragement always on your side.

“Did you want to hang out? On Christmas I mean,” you finally get the courage to ask. Phew, not that bad.

“I mean I-I don't want to intrude,” Carmen starts. “Plus I have work the next day.”

“You could sleepover? If-if you want,” you prepose. “We can still smoke, eat, and sleep if you want. All the traditions you enjoy, a-and I don’t think I’m far from the line you need?”

You definitely aren't. In fact your apartment is somehow on a faster route to work than his own. The only reason you know is because of the Bake It Nice pop up bakery Eleven Madison Park does once a month that you always try to make time for. Carmen thinks on it for a second, and your sure he's looking for a way to let you down nicely.

“You sure your okay with me leaving at 5:00 in the morning?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” you say with a smile, and something in Carmen stirs. “Plus I can pass the fuck out again when you leave anyways.” he smiles at that, still unsure what feeling he's having right now, but he likes it.

“Okay,” he says and you both return you attention back to the show smiling like children. Your legs a little more outstretched towards carmen and his body begging to sink further into your couch. Relaxing to the feeling of you.

#carmy berzatto #carmy x reader #carmen berzatto #carmen berzatto x reader #the bear #the bear fic #the bear hulu #the bear fx #carmy x you #carmy x fem!reader #jeremy allen white

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wistsandmagic · 8 months

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People think I'm joking when I say something like "Be proud! I actually got my bed made after washing the sheets!" (other than my roommate, bless her, she knows)...but I'm really not joking.

Able-bodied people who also don't have severe brain fog and executive dysfunction don't get what a big deal that actually is for me. On good days, making my bed from the ground up with freshly-laundered sheets takes about half of my spoon allotment for the day, and that is only if I have the brain function to remember that I need to go from 'washing the sheets' to 'putting sheets back on bed' without some severe prompting and breaking down of the steps so that I can do it without having a meltdown because I can't remember the steps in the right order.

On bad days? If I can manage it at all? It takes everything I have.

Simply making my bed, which is not a difficult task, exhausts me normally, and when I am having a bad day (bad pain, bad brain fog, bad fatigue..take your pick or add all of them) it exhausts me to the point that I physically cannot get up from MAKING the bed for at least 20 minutes after I am done, because I do not have the energy to stand up.

This has only gotten worse since I got COVID back at the beginning of the year. Now we get to add the random status debuffs of a flying heart and sometimes being unable to catch my breath.

My roommate has offered to make my bed for me after laundry. Which I vastly appreciate, but she already does so much for me that I simply cannot do any longer that I don't want to add this one to the list. I love her dearly and I don't want to add more to her. I want to keep making my bed, for myself and for my own sanity, to prove that I am still capable...even if it takes me 3 literal days to do it.

So. Be proud of me. Today was laundry day.

I made my bed.

#chronic pain #chronic fatigue #autism #ADHD #executive dysfunction #neurodivergent #chronic disability

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inchidentally · 6 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/zokinus/735072052697006080/i-dont-know-how-to-make-proper-gifs-so-a-video?source=share I don't know why, but I could stare at this few-second video for hours :)

have got to include @zokinus caption and tags bc <3

I genuinely do not know what to do with Lando in moments like this?? probably because it looks like Lando also has no idea what to when he's like this??

I am such a gd broken record but like. I've said before how Lando needs to know where he stands with the men in his life. and with honestly every man in his life (that he's not related to) that I've seen has practically fallen over themselves to get that VIP pass into his fan club. there are no "typical" male friendships in Lando's life because Lando isn't remotely typical. the relationships men have with him range from protective and intensely fond (ex. George, Alex, Max F, Carlos) to baffled but adoring (ex. Daniel, every popular male DJ) to straight up horny (too many to list).

but then there's Oscar who has worn his "crush" on Lando on his face and in his eyes without any hestiation and we've all ??? kinda just had to go yeah there it is. the history of likes and replies to and about Lando got found out later and they're adorable but like. no one has to do any special edits for Oscar's eyes tracking Lando's face it just happens every time. and we've seen him comfortable around the Prema boys so we know he can be chummy and physical with guys no problem (he even gave Arthur a COVID protocol kiss on the lips). and plenty of guys hug him and show him affection. but he just won't casually touch Lando like that. they'll even sit extremely close but genuinely we watch every video of them together wondering is he going to initiate touch with Lando? the Silvo video of him pushing his arm around Lando was so incredibly rare that even Lando looked surprised and threw himself into it.

and ofc Oscar is such a Just a Guy that he doesn't do anything special using his words either. give the boy a handy soundbite and he'll repeat it for as long as he can. even someone like Dax Shepard can't get Oscar to dish out strong feelings or opinions.

and Lando is genetically incapable of lying so if behind the scenes Oscar was being withholding or distant then hot-blooded Lando wouldn't be able to hide how cold their relationship was. but no! he knows Oscar is fond of him and admires and respects him! so why won't he use grabby hands with Lando's body?? why won't he go for the easy fanservice of innuendo? why won't he pick up the soft ball prompts for bromance moments and roll with them? why hasn't Oscar stopped doing the staring thing when a)he'll definitely have seen comments on McLaren content about it and b)it can't have just been Oscar being nervous about media duties bc he did just as much content for Prema and also he got comfortable with McLaren socials after just a few months. why does Oscar always stick around for every part of Lando's celebrations without fail no matter what's happened for himself? why isn't Oscar falling neatly into one of the three categories that Lando is already comfortable with? is it really just that Oscar really really likes everything about Lando and doesn't expect a single bit of return from Lando?? who DOES that????

(I feel like that last part is sort of what's going on in Lando's poor addled end of season brain as he looks at the rookie teammate he still cannot quite understand)

#inchreplies #landoscar

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ducktracy · 3 months

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Hi!! I'm a young adult (23) who has been interested in the animation industry for as long as I can remember. Do you have any advice on how to get yourself out there when first starting out? I haven't had a professional storyboard artist job, or have been hired for anything, and I don't feel like I would be good enough/know what I'm doing, given the chance. Sorry if this is a lengthy message, your art is just so inspiring and I'm looking for advice! Thank you so much.

do you have any advice for breaking into the animation industry? your work is really inspiring me to become a storyboard artist but I'm not sure where to start

HI HI!! THANK YOU BOTH (and anyone else who has ever asked me this) FOR REACHING OUT! it’s super kind of you and genuinely flattering to be considered enough of an authority to answer something like this 🥺

i’ve answered this a fewwww times (or at least asks similar), so i’ll link back to this post, which, tangentially, links to another post! i generally stand by what i stand. the short of it is that i didn’t go through a formal hiring process, i was nabbed from social media and it was a series of chain reactions that basically amount to “right place, right time”… BUT! also! i definitely wouldn’t whittle it down to luck and luck alone, i was picked for a reason, etc.

BUT if i had some advice, my main bullet points to reiterate are:

being easy to work with is probably one of the most important priorities. put that ego aside, be willing to learn, willing to make sacrifices, willing to make mistakes. a deadline is a deadline and you can be the most amazing artist that’s ever graced this earth, but there is no room for ego.

reach out! a lot of my animation connections before being in the industry were from me being a pesky fan lol. obviously respect boundaries and understand time and place, but if you like someone’s art? compliment it! say so! engage! share what you like! i’m not saying to bribe your way through (be genuine with your compliments obviously), but i made a lot of friends in the industry this way and that helped get more eyes on me and my work

practice makes perfect! the most trite saying of the century and the one people hate to hear the most is the one that’s the most truthful. a big reason why my storyboards have improved as they have is because i’m always doing them! i’m always drawing! you develop muscle memory, you develop shorthand, the mental blockades slowly go away—you have to be consistent, but it really does work

leading into the above point, study! make mock-up storyboards! board out a scene from a TV or movie you like and analyze it. i did it with Tom Turk and Daffy a few years back and it was such a great learning experience! i thought i knew everything there is to know about that short and yet i noticed so much more by doing that. it’s also a nice way to reduce any formalities or intimidation of storyboarding by doing things you’re comfortable with

…i swore i was just gonna do a few condensed bullets LOL. i’d still recommend going back to the link at the top of the post, as i’m sure i’m missing some things since i’m still covid-brained, BUT! just be ready willing and able to learn, practice practice practice, and keep a positive attitude! YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!!!!!! BOTH OF YA’S!!!! i believe in you!!!!! LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!!

#anonymous #asks

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arliedraws · 4 months

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Hiii I really love your art! I'm always impressed how ppl like you are able to simplify drawings like this and still get the emotion across! I'd like to ask how long you've been drawing/how long you've been drawing cartoons and how you learned designing your own characters/style and drawing all those face expressions?

🙏🏼🧡

Hi! Thank you so much!!!

Lately, I've been really frustrated with my art and style and technical abilities, so honestly, thank you for giving me a minute to reflect on where I've been! I'm annoyed at the obvious mistakes I am noticing in the things I've posted over the last few weeks but I realized during this that it's always a process and growth is forever.

This got longer than I intended, so I'll put the rest under the cut.

I've been drawing for a very long time, probably for most of my life. And for most of it, I have not been very "good" at it. I had friends who were very serious about drawing in middle school and high school, and in college, I used drawing and fandom to deal with depression and anxiety. Then I started dating late in college which took up all of my spare time for drawing, and then I had a really nasty breakup with my first (emotionally manipulative) partner. I was really depressed (not because of being single but because I didn't know who I was anymore), so I didn't draw or write for yearssssss (I did somewhat but not seriously and loathed everything I was creating).

Then Covid hit and I felt like drawing again.

This was four years ago that I made this comparison of my art. I genuinely like what I was doing in 2012 more than what I put out in 2020. So it's not a matter of how long you've been drawing but consistency and a willingness to take risks (and learn from failures).

You can see I wasn't thinking as 3-dimensionally in 2020 when I started to draw again. The character's expression is really bland and you can see I was focused more on aesthetics than character. I think I even recognized it at the time, and I was really pissed about it.

I guess it's been four years since Covid started, and four years since I really jumped back into drawing regularly. I won't pretend that I know a lot--I very much do not, but here's what has helped me in the last few years.

Think in terms of volume and shape. I always warm up with perspective exercises. I often use posemaniacs' 30 second drawing practice for about 10-15 minutes, or I draw a ton of 3D boxes and spheres and triangles. I like to draw stacked boxes at various angles just so I can get my brain to wake up and see 3-dimensionally.

Know what you want to draw and draw with intention. This sounds obvious, but sometimes, I pick up my pen and just. Draw. Like I'll draw a face or a body but it's just completely soulless and boring because I don't know what I want. Draw with emotion, and have a purpose. Otherwise, your drawing will be lifeless and boring.

Ditch "aesthetics." Seriously. Focus on character. Draw that person ugly. If it's a sexy character and you're focusing on their emotions rather than how attractive they are, it will turn out sexy regardless. For example:

This was supposed to be scary, but people got horny for it anyway.

Anyway.

Your character will determine "aesthetics." Your character wears ripped tights because THEY think it's cool (or they trip a lot and scrape their knees), not because YOU like ripped tights. This is not a hard and fast rule, it's just what works for me.

For example, I don't draw Sirius wearing band t-shirts because I don't think he'd care about Muggle bands (at least, I don't think he'd care enough to advertise that he did). Consider why YOU wear band t-shirts. My partner wears his death metal shirts because he wants to support small bands and talk to strangers who like the same, obscure music (I hate those fucking shirts but he needs to live his truth lol. Some are ok and have beautiful art, but others are gross and weird).

Point is, focus on character.

Side note: If you want to draw a hot character (or if you want to BE a sexy real person honestly lol), you need to internalize this: Sexiness is a state of mind. If you are a sexy, confident person, it doesn't really matter what you look like--people will want to be you or fuck you. This applies to characters as much as it does to real people. It's about being you, focusing on your strengths, recognizing your own worth, keeping boundaries, and giving people your full attention when they speak to you. Seriously. That's basically it. Ask me how I know.

4. Make faces while you draw. I use photo references to understand how the face works, but what helps me the most is when I physically make the same face while I'm drawing. That way, I can feel which muscles are moving in my own face. Plus, I love acting and playing pretend, so I get to "be" that character while I'm drawing. I'm a naturally expressive person and communicate with my eyebrows way too much, and I think you can see that in my drawings.

5. Study other artists. Do this all the time. I particularly love to watch process videos and observe sketches. Here are some videos, books, and artists that I regularly visit or study:

TBChoi -- this person is my favorite artist stylistically. Just search their name + expressions and study. They just understand the way muscles work in the face so well.

Aaron Blaise -- okay, full disclaimer, I've heard some weird things about this artist, so I don't purchase their materials. However, I have practiced with his videos for years and found them exceptionally helpful.

Artists on Instagram I tend to look at: sleepy_kc, krosrios, starbite, rhiwynter

And artists who have influenced me since I was a kid are Tealin, Rufftoon, Shoomlah, Makani, and so many more.

6. Oh. And also, draw things other than people. Draw animals, draw landscapes, draw that weird building. Play with shape and perspective.

And look, I'm not a professional. I am an underpaid English teacher with ADHD, an Intuos Pro, and a horniness for a particular fictional character. Take this with a grain of salt and just do what works for you.

#asks #art process #and a small bit of advice for becoming sexy #lol i am not a professional artist so don't take me too seriously

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amassofhumanity · 3 months

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Some items of note…or not.

My car finally died about two weeks ago. I think it’s just the battery, even though new battery was installed a little over a year ago. It’s behaving the same way (won’t start, not even turning over) as it did on the previous replacement. This is kinda good news because I was thinking it might be a bigger and more expensive problem.

The really bad news is I don’t have the money to fix it right now. I won’t have the money to do this until April 30th when I do an early withdrawal from my retirement account that I have through working for the American Red Cross for 10 plus years. Yes, I know there are a lot of taxes (penalties) that come with an early withdrawal. It’s necessary for me to do so I can get the car repaired and to get a new-to-me car.

The really good news is that I got a job! I’ve been looking since mid December. I haven’t worked since 2015 because of a severe depression and anxiety diagnosis. It’s a little daunting and downright scary. I’m worried I won’t be able to remember everything I learn in training. As my parents used to say, “Getting old is not for wimps.” How true. Why did I come in this room? Why did I pick up my phone?

The job is an independent contractor for a company that provides customer service agents for a variety of companies. The first job is providing technical support for a certain well-known tax preparation software. I won’t be providing tax advice.

I had my first orientation meeting today via a Teams call. Hoo-boy do I get it now. I have a much greater appreciation for what people have been complaining about since Covid lockdown. “Why are people asking questions via chat during the presentation even though it specifically said wait until the end of the presentation?” Geez. People! Am I’m right?

The presentation was a lot of technical stuff. The job is to provide technical support. However, the number of really dumb questions about technology blew me away. How did these people get hired. Along those lines, how did people with very thick accents make it past the voice audition?

End of brain dump. Thanks for stopping by!

Peace, Love, and Rock ‘n Roll!

#about the blogger #get to know too much about the blogger #I don’t know post that often but when I do it seems like a lot

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platoniclokiimagines · 2 years

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Could you do a fic where reader has a massive migraine and loki is just there helping them feel better and yknow just being like all parenty

A/N: ....sorry for disappearing for, like, ever. I got COVID mid-July, and am only just now feeling clear enough in my brain to focus on writing and editing, so have this fic that I’ve been working on for literally a month. Thanks for hanging in there!

WC: 1504

Rating: G

TW: None

You heaved a sigh, picking up your pillow and putting it over your head, as though the fabric and feathers would block out every bit of sound and light that was currently making you feel as though you’d been hit by a train that kept looping back around to run you over again and again.

It wasn’t often that you got migraines. You’d never had them with the same consistency that you knew some people did, nor were they something you’d ever particularly been worried about when discussing with a doctor at physicals or exams, but when they did occur… It was rough.

This particular migraine, you’d decided, had already taken the cake for the worst one you’d ever had, with an intensity that had set in as soon as you’d opened your eyes that morning, and it only seemed to be getting worse as they day went on. You hadn’t even been able to make it out of the bed to get breakfast, and you were certain that had been hours ago, or maybe days ago, you weren’t entirely certain, at this point.

All you knew was that your head was pounding, the light hurt, and every single sound, no matter how quiet, felt like it was splitting your head right in two.

“You’ll suffocate yourself if you fall asleep like that, you know. Can I watch?”

You’d recognize Loki’s teasing lilt anywhere, and while you didn’t appreciate their jab at you, you couldn’t help but to be relieved that someone had noticed you hadn’t come out of your room yet.

You weighed the pros and cons of trying to sit up, or even just remove the pillow from your head, but you couldn’t seem to get your arms to move one way or the other, and a small part of you figured that was probably for the better.

“Go ahead. It’ll end my suffering, and you’ll get a fun show in the process.” You spoke in the softest voice you could manage, and even that felt entirely too loud.

Loki remained silent for a moment, and you could practically feel Loki furrow their brow before they spoke.

“Suffering? Is something the matter?”

You gave a pitiful groan that came out more of a whine. “I have the migraine of the millennia.”

“Wow, the whole millennia, huh?” Loki had softened their voice to match yours, and you appreciated it, even though you still winced at the sound of it. You heard the soft padding of their feet against the carpet, and then the next moment you felt the bed shift as Loki presumably sat next to you. “Have you eaten anything? I’ll go get you some food, and a glass of cold water. But first let me close all these curtains and make sure it’s nice and dim in here for you. Yes?”

Loki was babying you, and it was almost enough to make you laugh, if you weren’t certain the sound would feel like a screwdriver digging into the base of your skull. Instead, you gave another pathetic little whimper.

“Alright. You just stay here. I’ll fix everything right up for you.”

It wasn’t that you’d never seen Loki act like this before. It was sort of law that, out of everyone at the Compound, if Loki was going to act parental to anyone, it would be you. And while you appreciated it immensely, it felt a little weird, having them take care of you like this. Usually you were the one being obsessive over everyone’s wants and needs. But you had to admit, it felt nice to let yourself be taken care of, for once.

You laid as still as possible in a meager attempt not to jostle yourself and make your migraine worse, and you were able to listen as Loki shuffled around the room, fiddling with the blinds and curtains and then closing what you assumed was your bedroom door.

“There we are… It’s quite dim in here now, do you want to try moving the pillow and seeing if you can manage?”

You nodded, and then realized that Loki most likely couldn’t see you doing so. “…yeah.”

“Yeah? Here we are.” You felt Loki put a gentle hand on your arm to help you sit up, and you let them guide you as pushed yourself up, letting the pillow simply fall down into your lap.

It wasn’t bad. Actually, they’d managed to get your room surprisingly dark. The only light in the room was the small lamp on your desk, and even that, Loki had turned so that it was facing the wall and instead giving off a much more dim glow rather than a direct source of light.

“Better?”

You nodded, and then winced when that only made your head feel worse, and Loki nodded along sympathetically.

“Now, you just wait here and rest, and I’ll go get you some food. You’ll be alright.” Loki patted your knee gently, then, and got up from the bed, and you closed your eyes to avoid having to deal with the light from outside, and didn’t open them again until you’d heard the door close behind them.

You heaved a quiet sigh and looked around the room, glancing at the blackout curtains that Loki had drawn closed over your windows, and you silently thanked yourself for whatever foresight had led you to getting them for your room. You sat there for a few long moments before you realized that you couldn’t hear… well, anything. No noises from outside of the room, no ticking from your alarm clock on the bedside table. Nothing.

You briefly wondered if you might have finally lost it, and then resolved to ask Loki what was going on when they got back.

You didn’t have to wait very long for them to return, and when they announced themself quietly, you only grew more confused at your ability to hear them and not anything else.

“How did you get it to be so quiet in here?” you muttered as you gingerly took the plate of food from Loki, who proceeded to sit down on the opposite corner of the bed, watching you intently.

“Oh, I cast a simple noise muffling spell. I should be the only thing you can hear, correct?”

You nodded once, because it still hurt your head to do anything more than that, and looked down at the sandwich, realizing that you were somehow both starving and completely nauseated at the very idea of eating food.

Loki seemed to pick up on this immediately, and gestured to the glass they’d set on your bedside table. “Perhaps the water instead. Do you need the wastebasket, just in case?”

You shrugged a shoulder, only because you knew that would hurt less than shaking or nodding your head, and Loki waved a hand so that the rubbish bin relocated from your desk to your bedside in an instant. You managed a weak smile in response, but still made no move to either eat or pick up the glass of water.

“Drink. You’ll feel better.”

“Oh, you’re a doctor now?” Sick as you felt, you couldn’t not take an opportunity to jab at Loki, who only smiled placidly.

“Just an educated guess.”

“Mm.”

You sat in silence for a few moments longer, looking down at the plate in your lap, and then finally, hesitantly, reached for the glass of water with a sigh. Once you started to drink, you found yourself unable to stop, and within a minute, the glass had been drained entirely.

“There we are.”

You sat the cup back down and looked back at the plate, wondering if you could brave at least a bite.

“Maybe let the water digest for a bit before you try to eat. Cleaning up your vomit is where I draw the line at caretaking, I’m afraid.”

You rolled your eyes, huffing out a soft laugh that you were slightly surprised to find didn’t hurt your head. “Wow, such dedication you’re showcasing. Truly, I’m blessed by the Gods to have someone so set on taking care of me.”

“Oh, you must be feeling better, if you can dish out the sass.”

You grinned. “Maybe just a little bit.”

Loki nodded, but they were smiling, as well, and after a moment, they took the plate from you and set it on the bedside table. “Why don’t you rest some more, and we’ll try eating in a little bit. I’ll stay right here. Alright?”

You huffed out another soft laugh at how Loki was disproving their own insistence about caretaking, and decided not to argue with them, gingerly laying back down and curling up so that you were in the most comfortable position with the least amount of light to bother you. You felt the covers being tucked around you, and couldn’t help but to smile, knowing that Loki was still babying you, even as you closed your eyes and let yourself begin to doze.

“Rest now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

#Loki imagine #platonic Loki imagine #Loki #Loki Laufeyson #Loki Odinson #Loki x reader #platonic!Loki x reader #anonymous #ask #answered #fluff #comfort #thank you for the ask!

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omarandjohnny · 2 months

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GETTING TO KNOW MEME!

Tagged this time by @callipigio <333333333333333333333333333

do you make your bed?

My bed doubles as my couch, so no. Most that happens is the blanket becomes a prop for my pillows during the daytime.

what's your favourite number?

"69, DUDES!" (had to)

what is your job?

caregiver

if you could go back to school, would you?

Absolutely not. Loathed every aspect of school, even more so because I had 'behind the curtain' access to everything (mom was a teacher, and I ended up being her PA towards the end of her career)

can you parallel park?

I cannot drive so nope! (same)

a job you had that would surprise people?

I was a part-time nanny through highschool, then a data collector for a day trader, and then a licensed insurance rep, then a PA for mom, which transformed into caregiver as she got older. Out of all of those, I'm not sure which would surprise people more. I was at least a corporate goth during my insurance years, let that mental image sit with ya for a minute. (I wasn't as cool as Richmond, unfortunately)

do you think aliens are real?

Somewhere there's probably something <-

can you drive a manual car?

Can't drive, full stop.

what's your guilty pleasure?

Can't say I've ever felt guilty about anything that's given me pleasure, never understood that concept.

tattoos?

Filthy with 'em! From the tummy up anyway- haven't started on my legs yet, unless you count my very first tattoo (a stick and poke inverted triangle I gave myself freshman year of hs)

favorite color?

Suspiria red and slime green! Tho, I have been favoring purple quite a bit these days.

favorite type of music?

I grew up in a house that was constantly filled with music, 50-60s pop, to 60s-70s motown, to 70s glam, to anything 80s that was currently on the radio. I jump all over the place, but my constants usually drift towards that stuff, as well as all the goth and numetal I picked up as a baby bat.

do you like puzzles?

I get frustrated too quickly, hence why I never got into gaming of any sort.

any phobias?

Not a phobia per se, but I still have some issues with boiling liquids (old burn trauma). I do all the cooking so I kinda have to push that stuff to the back of my mind, but yeah.

favorite childhood sport?

I loved basketball the most (tallest kid in class, heh) I liked volleyball as well, and was on a soccer team for a bit, but basketball came naturally to me.

do you talk to yourself?

Not much anymore. Long Covid brain fog has made a lot of things much quieter in my mind, a weird and rare upside XD

what movies do you adore?

Derek Jarman, Gregg Araki and John Waters were my honorary film uncles in late teens-early twenties. My life revolved around Wolfe Video and TLA Video back during the catalog ordering days, so I have MANY favorites there. Stephen King and Clive Barker were my horror uncles, and then you've got my childhood faves- Lost Boys, Monster Squad, Beetlejuice, etc. There's also this film called My Beautiful Laundrette that I mildly enjoy as well ;)

coffee or tea?

I do enjoy just regular ol' black coffee when the mood strikes (or my asthma's kicking up)

first thing you wanted to be growing up?

Wanted to work in the funeral arts, quelle surprise. Would've done it too, had I the patience for maths and sciences (I very much do not)

#memetiemz

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erinthesails · 5 months

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Inspired by @getmean, i did a little writeup of the books i read in 2023, and a little blurb about my thoughts! read 37 total, which isn't bad considering how busy it was, this past autumn especially.

organized roughly by genre because i thought the breakdown of what kinds of things i ended up reading was interesting, and marked my faves of the year with *s!

Novels

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Did not start strong in this category, this book was truly awful. Like, I wanted to be able to just turn my brain off and at least enjoy a fun sci fi adventure but it was like. God. the worst parts of detective/noir novels and the worst parts of sci fi bound together by an interesting concept that the author had no idea how to handle. Im getting mad about this book again just thinking about it

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

Really really liked this! I love Oyeyemi’s prose and the way her writing always feels surprising. Read this in a group, with people who didn’t really enjoy it, which was unfortunate, but it compelled me a lot! I think i liked White is For Witching better, but still a really lovely interesting story

*The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss

This was probably my favorite new book of the year, and it came as a total surprise! Picked it up on a whim at a used bookstore and didn’t actually expect much of it, but was actually stunning. Super super highly recommend for anyone who likes sci-fi and thought experiments and the mundane realities and sacrifices of creating a livable future for everyone. It reminded me of The Dispossessed but like, a lot tighter and with characters who felt more distinct. Which is high praise because i fucking love The Dispossessed. Ursula Le Guin stans read immediately

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Soooo good, soso good. I was skeptical at first because like. A whole book where you never hear from the same character more than once is a very tough sell. Each chapter is from a different character’s POV, displaced in both time and space from one another, but Gyasi weaves the stories together so well, I felt newly invested in both the collective tale being told and the new people we were meeting every chapter. Another absolute banger

*The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

This was a reread, because I assigned it to my students and wanted to get it fresh in my mind before discussing in class. Tearing my hair out, collapsing to the floor in tears, etc etc etc. Book of all time forever

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

This one was a shocking disappointment! I absolutely love Celeste Ng’s other work but this one fell so flat. I’m not sure if it’s because she felt uncomfortable writing a child’s POV—but that wasn’t the problem, because the chapters from the Mom’s POV were just as flat—or if she was feeling self-conscious about the fact that it was speculative fiction (despite not being marketed that way at all) or if this was just a COVID project that got pushed into the world before it was ready… I’m really not sure what happened here, but again, conceptually interesting, but so unexciting in execution. Not enough to rattle my faith in her though, I’ll be back again next time Ms. Ng…Everything I Never Told You really was just that good

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Glad to have finally read this one! One of those books i’d always meant to read and expected i’d like but just never got around to until now. And I did! Love a story where the house is haunted by the people who live in it, love fucked up sibling relationships, love a child with murder on the mind. I kept expecting it to like. Do a little more with the conversation about class and historical power. But maybe that’s just because i’d read White is For Witching recently

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Thought I’d like this one more than I did, but it wasn’t bad. There were parts where the metaphor really started to get muddled in a way that uh. Felt like it undercut the more interesting parts of the story. Like yes cannibalism is imperialist capitalism, but also it’s maybe factory farming? Which is a less interesting way of framing things? Imo? Also the actual descriptions were so visceral I kept getting queasy and having to set the book down, which doesn’t usually happen for me with books. So sign of effective prose I guess! But ultimately it didn’t feel like it was for me

Monkey King by Wu Cheng'en

WOOOHOOOO SUN WUKONG, EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR SUN WUKONG

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

This one reminded me of Our Missing Hearts in a lot of ways, primarily that a) it felt like it was trying harder to be Important than to be complex and interesting, and b) it features a child narrator who Does Not sound convincingly like a child. It was fine tho, read it with my mom because it’s her favorite author, so that was kinda nice!

Nevada by Imogen Binnie

I always have a hard time with Coming Of Age In The Big City books, even and especially queer ones, but I did kinda like that this one felt So aimless and frustrated. I’m not sure if that was the author’s intention, as I think it was written as sort of autofiction, but I was compelled by how completely misguided the main character is, while still being sympathetic. Like you can watch her thought patterns taking her the wrong way realtime and still understand why they went there, and clearly see the core problem she’s avoiding, with it still being believable that she wouldn’t be able to see it. I like a character who has no clue what’s going on, what can I say! Unfortunately I’d also just read Zami which made this book feel lesser by comparison, but that’s not Nevada’s fault. I cannot hold it against Imogen Binnie for not being Audre Lorde lol

*The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

This was the year of finally reading books that have been on my shelf for years!! Really liked this one a lot. It has a lot of the best parts of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s storytelling, with a bit of a thicker layer of realism, which sometimes serves it, sometimes doesn’t. Delightful overall, definitely a fave of the year! Favorite part though was reading this book with a friend who, when we met to discuss it, opened with “okay i didn’t actually expect this guy to spend the WHOLE time in the trees”

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I happened to be reading this at the same time as Baron in the Trees, and i felt like the two resonated across each other in really interesting ways! I love when that happens, and it happened a few times this year, which was exciting. Woolf is always doing the most, of course, but a lot of the emotional landscape of the story really stuck with me, as well as the meditations on “what is art and the pursuit of creative fulfillment for, anyway?” Me too, Orlando, me too

Novellas

The Employees by Olga Ravn

Really interesting little book! Never would have heard of it if it wasn’t for a friend from grad school, but i really liked the structure of it and the way it used lots of different voices without having to necessarily make characters out of any of them

The Tale of the Unknown Island by José Saramago

Not sure if this can really be classified as a novella as I think it’s like less than 5,000 words long, but i bought it as a book, so a book it shall be! Lovely little parable and a strange moment in time captured on the page!

*Present Tense Machine by Gunnhild Øyehaug

Another total surprise picked up at random from a used bookstore! I thought the cover looked interesting and the book was too! This is like. The platonic ideal of a novella. Not too high concept, doesn’t work too hard to explain itself, but includes enough additional detail and character to allow the ideas to resonate further than it would have as a short story. Seriously, go read this is so good

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

We love a strange library! We also love an artbook! Honestly the design of the book was more compelling to me than the story itself, but it was a nice book to sit with for an afternoon and let yourself settle into the world of it

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada

Ohhhh the tension and tone of this one is so well done…I know some people who felt like it was too slow and never got around to anywhere in particular, but I felt like the feeling it evoked while leading us by the hand was so clear and so unsettling it was worth it. It felt like the feeling was the goal, the suffocating, dead-end feeling of being locked out of the world by the expectations of motherhood and wifehood and the way suburban survival exists only to perpetuate itself…it’s good, it’s really good!!!

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

Marquez is so good every time always. Another really excellent use of the novella form, telling a really dense story that feels like it’s meandering while actually packing in so many essential details. We’re running really hard in circles in a field and marquez is dragging us along and it feels like what the goddamn hell are we doing, what are we running towards is this anything or am i just being taken on a little adventure for no reason. Then you stop and look down and realize you’ve trampled the corn stalks down in a perfect fibonacci spiral that points neatly toward the solution. Or something.

Permutations Among the Nightingales and The Gioconda Smile by Aldous Huxley

Combining these two because I don’t have too much to say about either and they both came from the same collection. I liked Permutations a lot better than Gioconda because cyclic story structures always scratch my brain, but neither were too compelling. I’m beginning to think i just dont like Aldous Huxley

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Hmmmm I feel like…there is a certain kind of smug, sweetiepie speculative fiction that no one acknowledges as a particular movement in the genre, but that is really notably There and that Doesn’t Work For Me. Okay that sounds really mean. I didn’t hate this book! It just felt very self conscious about its project of like. “Queering the gothic.” And ended up feeling very sanitized and boring as a result. I don’t know, I felt about this book similarly to how I felt about Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. Like, the Concept is good in theory, but it’s expected to do way too much heavy lifting in a story that, ultimately, feels more self-congratulatory than complicated or engaging. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels like a story that was solved before the author sat down to write it. Not objectively bad by any means but just wasn’t for me

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Another instance of finally reading stuff I’d always meant to read! I know this story is often cited as the kind of “original” weird fiction/cosmic horror, so it was interesting to see how that played out. Definitely not quite either of those genres as I know them today, but there was still a subtlety to it that felt really satisfying. It was good! I’m glad people have drawn from it and written even better stories in its style! I can definitely see the way stories like Annihilation have roots (lol) in this story

Fiction Collection

*So Long Been Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson

I often tend to meander through and not finish fiction anthologies, which is weird because i love short stories, but I almost always gravitate toward single-author collections and lit mags when I want them. But I’m really glad I finished this, because almost every story in it was excellent! I really love Nalo Hopkinson’s writing, so it was fascinating seeing her editing sensibilities at work

Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

Just okay! Had some winners and some losers, as all collections do, but pretty much puttered along at a solid “fine” throughout. Nothing really stood out as particularly bad or particularly good, which is a shame because it seemed like exactly the kind of thing I’d be into. The title story was probably my favorite, but other than that, I honestly don’t even remember most of them

Afterglow edited by Grist

Another anthology, this one that I picked up because it had a cool cover and compelling premise (sci-fi climate optimism). Unfortunately most of the stories had the same sort of smug self assuredness that i disliked in “What Moves The Dead.” I’ve ranted about this at length but i always have mixed feelings about cli-fi, especially the subgenre of climate optimism. A story that has its tone and outcome so neatly pre-determined by definition has to work pretty hard to do anything unexpected, and most of these did not, HOWEVER, there were two standout stories I loved so much they made the whole collection feel worth it. Everyone read “The Secrets of the Last Greenland Shark” by Mike McClelland and “Broken from the Colony” by Ada M. Patterson!!!

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

A pretty solid collection that, again, didn’t have too many stories that really stuck out, though, again, the title story was the most memorable and it lingered with me much more closely than Fruiting Bodies

Memoir

Tranny by Laura Jane Grace

Yayyyy, Laura Jane Grace! I always see that quote from this book going around Tumblr and wanted to read it myself. I liked it a lot! It also got me to listen to more Against Me! because I’d really only listened to Transgender Dysphoria Blues before this. Which has been delightful!

*Zami by Audre Lorde

Major standout of the year, even though it took me a long time to read the whole thing. Each chapter is such a perfectly crafted, bite sized piece that I was just kind of meandering through one or two at a time, turning them over in my head as i went. I also read it right before reading Nevada, so unfortunately I already had the perfect Lesbian Coming Of Age In New York book on the mind that i couldn’t help comparing it to. We all know Audre Lorde is amazing, but this book is really truly gorgeous

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Not sure where to classify this lil book honestly, as it fits here, and under novella, and under nonfiction topic, but it felt like there was a core of memoir there that stood out as i read. Another book i bought years ago and only just got around to reading, but it was extremely vivid, i love Kincaid’s voice

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Whewwwww this book was a lot. It is as good as everyone says it is but definitely hard to read at times. Not much to say other than it’s definitely worth reading

Nonfiction topic

Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino

Love the ideas in here, but imagine it would have been a lot more engaging to listen to them as lectures than to read them all together. Love Calvino but he does tend toward the abstract, and these were a bit dry. Got me thinking about a lot of literary goals and challenges though, which was interesting

*A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

I liked this a lot! I tend to avoid “writing advice” type books because they’re so often preachy and not useful, but i really liked the format of this as a breakdown of what’s working in each of these stories and why. I also haven’t read many of The Russian Greats, but really enjoyed most of these ones he selected! My main takeaway is that Checkov kinda rules and Tolstoy kinda sucks. And i stand by that

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

Interesting collection of essays about climate change! It definitely had the journalist’s stink of “neutrality” at times, but gave some really fascinating accounts of people doing cool things in the climate change world. I really don’t read much nonfiction like this, so it was refreshing and informative and i learned a lot about carp

*Ezili's Mirrors by Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley

Okay so i really love Theory, but I never read it outside of class. I guess i always worried i would feel too lost without being able to check in with all the PhD people who are more versed in academese, but i decided to give it a go and i’m really glad i did, because i absolutely love this book. Such a fascinating mix of theory (she does open the book by saying “don’t read this as a book of theory” but like. Yeah there’s theory in here) and lived experience and history and mythology and storytelling and the myriad ways that gender is a story we tell and a story that’s inscribed onto us and a reality written by histories of colonialism and survival pushed into shape by self-expression and community……i liked it a lot!!! And if you’re interested in learning about anti-colonialism and gender, you’ll like it too!

Graphic novel

New Masters by Shobo and Shof Coker

Got this after dropping in on a panel by Shobo and Shof Coker at Emerald City Comic Con! Loved the way they talked about creating this world and you could really feel how much detail and care went into every part of it. Enjoyed it a lot, I hope to read more from them!

The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm

Evan Dahm!!! My beloved Evan Dahm!!! He is always at comic cons and I was so obsessed with Rice Boy as a teen, I’m always a little starstruck by the fact that i can just walk up to his booth and talk to him lol. But I did and bought this book from him, and got it signed even! This book is so fucking cool and moody and manages to make it a story about Jesus in hell without it being. You know. The way it could be with that as the subject. Just a genuinely compelling treatment of Jesus as a character and person, with very cool art too. I also read it while i was listening to Unreal Unearth which i know is extremely. Uh. i don’t even know. Baby’s first Dante’s Inferno. But it absolutely contributed to the vibe and made it a great summer evening activity

#if yall read any of these lmk there are so many i have thoughts about

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catboii · 6 months

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((just a "little" (ha) update I guess, nothing major, just a note that I'm sorry if I post alot this week with seemingly no regard for my/my muse's vast presence on the dash, or if I end up writing alot of short weird drabbles to vent.... if there's questionable stuff it'll be tagged like always <3

I understand if you need to unfollow me to keep your dash clear for other people if you're mobile etc. or if you need to blacklist my muse's url for a bit if it's overwhelming

After xmas everything may have settled and if you wanna refollow then I'd welcome you back and wouldn't ask any questions. your comfort (whatever that may classify as in the context) is my utmost priority!

normally I try not to clutter, and I try to keep general post reblogs minimal and just queue most of them. I'm just... not doing too good rn

then again it's a 50/50 that I'll be posting nothing at all, just making my muse's presence known if it wants to sorta wave at someone from the depths of my brain hell jail.

I'll still be checking in around xmas stuff bc this muse gives me v happy bubbly vibes whenever I write it and that's honestly what I need rn.

I'm sorry if your muse reblogs/replies to one of mine's posts or smth and I seemingly glance over it. I genuinely just didn't see it. I always try and respond to stuff, or if it doesn't know how to reply I at least acknowledge that my muse saw it by liking it. but I might not have the mental capacity to actually keep up w stuff

...

BASICALLY I'm either gonna be kinda quiet or rly hyperfixated on not being in my own head for the next week or so.

I'm obv stressed anyway bc I need to do xmas shopping still and it's a struggle bc online it probs won't come in time. we're going "late night shopping" on thursday though so hopefully we can get a bunch of stuff then

but mainly an old work friend of mine passed away today. He's been unwell for a few years, and I dunno if he knew what it was and was just keeping it quiet, or if they genuinely couldn't work it out. last I heard he was getting MRIs.

I had a complicated relationship w him (positive) bc he was either bipolar or had BPD like me (although he wasn't diagnosed with either, but it was obvious he at least had bipolar), and if you know anything abt BPD you know what an FP (favourite person) is, and we were sort of each other's when we were working together? I think. like I say he wasn't diagnosed, but it felt like that. we hit it off really quick and were both really comfortable with each other, and he was just the sweetest most supportive person. he was one of my FPs, which basically means my brain was cursed to be in intense friendlove with him. He would tell me that he loved me and appreciated my friendship, was always saying you need to tell people you love them, however you can, however you mean it, because you don't know if you'll ever get to tell them again

he always showed off the little things I made him and made sure everyone knew exactly where he got the silly little origami animals on his desk, or who made his juggling balls that were his favourite thing in the whole world bc I made them for him by hand, and picked the fabric out specifically for him.

One time around xmas, bc of covid, we had these big plastic screen dividers between our desks and I used posca paint pens to draw him a HUGE Robin in a scarf and santa hat (his name was Robin and people always got him little Robin themed things, he loved them) on the one by his manager desk, like a name tag, but Facilities told him he needed to clean it off and chastised him thinking he did it, and you're "not supposed to vandalise work equipment" even though they're literally washable and it was xmas. we were sticking decorations everywhere, how is it any different? but he played along but he was really mad. He didn;t wanna say it was me that did it, because he thought I might've gotten in trouble, but he also wanted to argue that I'd put alot of work into it. I hadn't put that much in, it was just for fun and I liked drawing it, and he got to see it! That was the important part. and I said so. but I cleaned it off and drew him a new Robin on a piece of paper and he kept it at his desk like a retired picket sign, and told the story to anyone who would be polite enough to listen

mostly though, he gendered me correctly (and he was in his 60s so being so passionate abt they/them pronouns was just really sweet, though he was clearly bi but still in the closet, so it was maybe a little projection, in a way, or just straight up quiet queer solidarity), and literally agressively made sure everyone else did too, when he realised I'd been just letting people at work use whatever pronouns, he got really proactive and made sure all my paperwork was marked as "them" officially (with my permission). if anyone misgenered me he would get visably annoyed or disgusted, and there were a couple people who "forgot" (every time) and he actually got angry at them about it and reported them for harassment, which might've been a little extreme, but I honestly felt so validated, and I'm tearing up thinking about it. I don't think anyone's ever fought that hard in my corner, especially after only knowing me for, at that point, less than a year.

We worked together in a couple different parts of the business for a couple years, until some stuff happened that I shouldn't say bc I need my rp blog(s) to stay far away from my professional life, but we were gonna be working together doing something else, but it wasn't his thing, it was stressful and there were other reasons, but he just lost it and walked out.

we had a little joke when we were training before he left, he had this soft toy robin that he let me borrow because I was really anxious, and I gave it a little notepad and pencil and wrote something silly on it for when he got it back each time. usually some out of context joke on what we learned that day, so we could both laugh about it. but when he left I still had it, and I messaged him saying I would get it back to him sometime, but he said to keep it to remind me of him.

I put it away to keep it safe, but I'm gonna have to go and find it, because it's one of the only physical things I have left of him.

#ooc post.#.vat file #rl illness ment-#rl death ment-#readmore.#I think I'm ok for now. I'm sorry about the stuff mentioned at the top but I'm not sorry this post is so long. for once.#you don't have to read it. but if you do? then hey. thanks. we're besties now.#I had a little rant about him and it's cathartic but I'm trying not to break down tbh #I think just expressing how much I loved him helps. he was just. so pure and wholesome in reality.#always showing how much he appreciated people...

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