#seems like my art and posts have already been scraped which is fucking great

[sinfulhares]

fucks SAKE

tumblr is ACTUALLY about to sell our data to dumb AI companies since they've already begun collecting it. and apparently it includes stuff from private posts, deleted blogs, etc. that seems like one heck of a breach of privacy and i am PISSED because if they can scrape data off a deleted blog, then what point is it of nuking our accounts?

I hope tumblr gets sued to hell, I'm so pissed off that the wonderful, unique community that has built itself here now has to migrate to other places. and there's no similar alternative (like how bluesky was to twitter) so everyone will scatter and it's gonna be hell to find fandom places

I've been here since highschool, I've seen this whole website change from the "cringe" stuff we talked about to actually understanding the world around us. We grew up, we grew stronger, and now we're gonna get torn apart

I want to hold hands with all of you, I want to stay together, I want to keep this unique vibe we've cultivated over the years, the shared experiences and absolute batshit memes we've created. everything sucks, the world is hard on us artists and creators of all kinds. let's stay strong, my friends. tumblr might be burning and crashing but we've done so much together, we'll get through this, and i hope we meet again in other spaces

Kofi || Bluesky || Sheezy || Mastodon || Carrd

#im not leaving just yet #seems like my art and posts have already been scraped which is fucking great #but im deleting everything from all my art account queues #you will not get any new art from me here so please come explore new spaces with me #we'll find something i'm sure #feels like this site will go down any moment if this keeps up #we're going down with the ship but we're singing our rebel songs #they will never stop us #we will support our trans siblings and our precious creators and keep all the joy we've gained through this site in our hearts #we will not be broken up by this #i love you all and i appreciate all the love and support you've shown me #i don't want to ever lose you

[heymacy]

I love all those sentence prompts you just posted.😂 But I feel like the most appropriate one is probably:

“So why did I have to punch that guy?”

Thank you Arrow!! 💗

Ridiculous Sentence Prompts: "So why did I have to punch that guy?"

--

There were only a few things left in the world that made Mickey really, really angry.

The first was their property manager, Melanie, and her stupid-ass dog with its stupid, stupid diaper.

The second was the fact that a single can of beer cost four times more on the West Side than it did back in their old neighborhood. What special brand of bullshit were these crunchy granola hippies trying to churn out at the Wine, Etc. store, anyway?

The third thing, and probably the only one that would stick around after he adjusted to his new life above the poverty line, was any time that anyone disrespected, hurt, or even mildly annoyed his husband.

Every time they dealt with an irritating client or an overzealous new employee, Mickey would clench his teeth and fight the urge to knock them on their ass. One hit was all it would take, he knew that for certain. He'd taken down Ian's exes, family members, hell, even Ian himself on a few occasions, with a single punch to the throat.

Now, he was an adult, a business owner, a husband and partner that needed to play by society's rules if they were ever going to crawl out of the gutter completely.

The very idea made Mickey's teeth ache.

He bit his bottom lip while they sat side-by-side in their booth at the Alibi, waiting for some schmuck to meet them for an interview.

"We need to start interviewing the guys we hire, Mickey," Ian had said one night while cooking dinner. He chopped the carrots and celery on the wooden cutting board while Mickey sat slumped on the couch, nursing a beer and watching a TikTok Mandy had sent him earlier that day.

He looked up at his husband as he watched an orange and white cat chow down on kibble after his automatic feeder malfunctioned.

Mandy 🌻 (6:09pm): plz tell ian this is him in cat form

Mickey snorted at his phone, barely registering Ian's comment.

"Mick?" Ian tried again, and Mickey looked up from his phone.

"Hmm?" he replied through a mouthful of beer.

"I said we need to start interviewing the guys we hire," Ian said again, using the knife to scrape the carrots and celery off of the cutting board and into the giant pot he had boiling on the stove. Mickey wasn't sure what he was making, but it smelled amazing.

"What for? Those resumé things ain't good enough for you?" Mickey's mouth quirked up on the side as he tried to hide a smirk.

Ian rolled his eyes and used the comically oversized wooden spoon to stir his soup.

"No, Mick. So we don't have another Connor situation."

Mickey snorted. Connor was a dipshit they'd hired back in April to help with pickups, a dipshit that had cost the company almost $2,500 after he "forgot" to make the deposit with Ian and Mickey at the end of his scheduled route.

"I mean, his name's Connor. Kinda feel like you should've known what you were walkin' in to with that one."

"I'm serious," Ian said. "Interviews. We gotta do 'em." He stirred the soup vigorously, the spoon clanking against the side of the pot with every twist.

Mickey sighed deeply and rolled his eyes.

"Fine, we'll interview some new guys. But we're not doing it at a Starbucks or some shit. I'm not ready to go full West Side." He scrunched up his nose and made a face, to which Ian just chuckled.

"Glad you're on board," he teased, getting back to work on his soup, which had started to bubble.

--

Kev and Vee had moved to Louisville a month before, transferring ownership of the bar to Carl and Officer Tipping, who promised to keep everything just as it was. It gave Mickey a sense of calm knowing that even as the rest of his old neighborhood was slipping away, his adolescent stomping grounds now littered with coffee shops and yoga studios, some things remained the same.

He ran his fingers along the familiar crack in the table, a sharp sensation prodding the pads of his fingertips and helping him forget, even temporarily, what they were there to do.

Ian smacked the back of Mickey's hand gently.

"Stop it," he said, referring to the way Mickey was two seconds away from giving himself a splinter.

Mickey huffed and rolled his eyes.

"What's this guy's name again?"

Ian looked at his phone where he had an email pulled up. He glanced over the message then scrolled to the bottom.

"Derek," he said plainly.

"Derek," Mickey mocked, and Ian whacked him in the chest with the back of his hand.

"Knock it off," he said, and Mickey rolled his eyes again.

"Whatever. He's late anyway, let's just bail and go get some pizza."

"He's not late, Mickey. It's only..." he looked at his watch. "3:58. He's got three minutes until he's late."

Just then, as if summoned by Ian's voice, a tall, lanky, blond man walked through the front door of the bar and made his way towards the back corner booth where Ian and Mickey sat.

"You guys Ian and Mackie?"

Ian snorted as he tried to hide his laughter. Mickey rolled his eyes a third time, this time so hard that it was honestly impressive he didn't snap his optic nerves in the process.

"Mickey," Ian corrected politely. He nudged his husband with his elbow and the two of them climbed out of the booth to meet with their interviewee.

Ian shook his hand firmly.

"I'm Ian, and this is my husband Mickey." He smiled and turned to Mickey, who was standing with his hands in his pockets and giving Derek, all six feet two inches of him, an intense once-over. Elbowing his husband for a second time, Mickey relented, pulling his hands from his pockets and reaching out to shake Derek's hand. His giant palm was cold and clammy but also somehow uncomfortably hot. Mickey grimaced.

"Hey," he said gruffly. "Mickey."

"Derek," the other man said as they shook hands. "So you two are married?"

Ian nodded.

"Little over a year now, yeah."

Derek nodded.

"Cool, cool, cool," he said, nodding and looking around. "So this place is...interesting."

The judgmental and condescending way Derek said "interesting" wasn't new or unusual to either of them, but tall lanky blond bitches with North Side energy and a terrible fade saying "interesting" like they wanted to say "disgusting" made Mickey's blood boil.

He clenched his fist without even realizing what he was doing. Ian noticed immediately when Mickey's shoulders tensed up, stiffening in a way that reminded Ian of a startled cat, and he turned to climb back in the booth. He squeezed Mickey's arm once, twice, and dragged him down into the booth with him.

"It was a family friend's place," Ian said, nonchalant, eager to move the conversation away from the Alibi and towards their business. "So, Derek, on your resume, I see that you worked--"

Derek cut Ian off mid-sentence.

"Have they ever thought about turning this place into some sort of art installation or something? Just with the open floor plan and the exposed pipes, it's very pseudo-industrial-chic."

If they hadn't already assumed before by his distinct vocal fry and the smell of coconut hair gel, Derek's use of the term "pseudo-industrial-chic" solidified what the other two already knew: there were three gay motherfuckers in this booth.

Ian stuttered for a second, surprised by Derek's interjection and resistance to changing the subject.

"Don't think so, no." He grabbed his phone and opened up the Gmail app again. "So, anyway, your resume says you worked at--"

"You know what would be really cool in here? A movement class. I went to one in LA once that was hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow and it was liberating."

Mickey snorted and Ian elbowed him in the ribs.

"I bet it was," Ian said, unamused at Derek's refusal to talk about his work history. "So you worked at--"

"Have you guys ever been to LA? Oh my god, it's the best. So chic. I mean, I'm from Evanston originally, so basically anything is chic in comparison. I mean, not here, obviously, but you know. Other places."

Ian sighed.

"Totally," he said. "So, your work history, it says--"

"Hey, do you guys know what the best dispensary is around here? Preferably something upscale, with those iPads you can order on. I need a few new carts--"

"Dude," Mickey cut in. "Can you shut the fuck up for five seconds?"

Derek looked surprised, and Mickey could hear Ian's sharp, apprehensive inhale.

"Excuse me?" Derek said, holding his hand to his chest.

"He's been trying to ask you the same question since we sat down, and you won't shut the fuck up about chic cities and weed, so if you could just answer our questions, that would be great." He looked over at Ian, whose eyes were wide and hesitant, unsure about how things were about to unfold.

"You're very rude," Derek said to Mickey, giving him a scowl.

Mickey snorted.

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know."

Derek's eyes narrowed and his forehead wrinkled up, agitated.

"You should be nicer to the people you want to hire." He crossed his arms over his chest like a petulant child.

Mickey laughed out loud.

"Dude, who says we wanna hire you? I'm pretty sure if you worked for us, I'd blow my brains out in the first two minutes."

Ian tried and failed miserably to conceal his laughter, covering his mouth with his hand and looking down at the table. Mickey leaned over towards his husband.

"I kinda wanna punch this guy in the mouth," he mumbled, and Ian side-eyed him from where he sat beside him.

"Please don't," he replied in a whisper before composing himself and turning back to Derek.

"Look, Derek, you seem like a nice guy, but I don't think this is gonna work out." He held out his hand to signal that the interview was over, but Derek didn't return his handshake. Instead, he pouted like a toddler that had just been scolded for bad behavior.

"Your husband's a dick," Derek said to Ian, and Mickey could literally feel Ian's body stiffen next to him.

"Hey," Mickey said, putting his hand on Ian's knee. "Forget it. Let's go get pizza."

"No," Ian said sternly, turning back to Derek. "Listen, dude, you're also kind of a dick, so why don't we just call this a wash and you can go track down your carts or whatever."

Mickey bit his lip, fighting a smile. He secretly loved when Ian got defensive, as long as it wasn't directed towards him.

"You're both dicks!" Derek said, slamming his hands down on the table. He slid out of the booth and stood up, and Mickey and Ian did the same. The three men stood there, Derek facing the husbands with a pissed-off expression.

"You should go," Ian said, pointing at the door.

Derek snorted.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When the ad said South Side, I knew there was a good chance the owners were a couple of trashy, ghetto assholes. But him?" He pointed at Mickey. "He's a world-class dick."

Before Derek could say anything else, he was cut off by a fist to the jaw and dropped to the floor, unconscious.

The ambient chatter and loud clacking of billiard balls came to a halt as the regulars that sat scattered around the Alibi turned in unison to see what had happened. Once they identified the source of the loud "thud" as one of the Gallagher-Milkovich boys knocking out some blond giant, they immediately turned back to their various activities.

Just another day on the South Side.

Ian cupped his right fist in his left hand and turned to Mickey, bewildered.

"I just punched that guy, Mick," he said, genuinely surprised. "I knocked him out. Shit."

Mickey shrugged.

"He kinda deserved it."

Ian looked at Mickey with a really? sort of expression and shook his head back and forth.

"Still," he said, turning to look at Derek, sprawled out unconscious on the floor like a rag doll.

"C'mon man, it's fine. He'll come to, and when he does, we'll be long gone." He grabbed Ian's upper arm and gave him a tug, but Ian just sat back down in the booth.

"Why did I do that?" he asked, but Mickey knew he was talking only to himself. He sat down beside his husband, stepping over Derek's long ass leg on his way back to the booth.

"I mean, you kinda had to."

Ian looked over at Mickey, eyebrows raised. He stared at his husband for a moment, puzzling, before breaking into a smile.

"What?" Mickey asked, confused as to how Ian could go from having some sort of moral crisis over knocking out a hipster to grinning gleefully at his husband in a half second. Ian reached over and put his hand on Mickey's thigh. Immediately, the mood shifted. Pool cues squeaked as they were chalked up and glasses clinked on the countertops. The distinct chhh-chhh sound of a spray bottle punctured Mickey's ear drums as he looked down at his husband's hand on his thigh.

"So," Ian said, voice quieter than before. "Why did I have to punch that guy?"

Mickey smirked. He could be honest, and say the obvious reason, which was that Derek was a total douche canoe and deserved to be socked in the mouth by someone his own size. He could lie, and say it was because Derek seemed dangerous and Ian was just following his instincts, but that would have been the lie of the fucking century.

Instead, he said neither, and opted for something he knew would make Ian smile.

"Because you love me."

Ian's face broke into a full grin and he giggled, leaning over to kiss his husband once, quickly, well-aware of Mickey's hesitancy towards PDA when they were out and about on the South Side.

When he pulled back, he was smirking, and Mickey knew his cheeks were flushed. He hadn't been expecting the kiss, however brief it was, and his stomach felt a little fluttery.

"I mean, I'm not the kind of guy that just stands by and lets people talk shit about the man he loves." He grinned and Mickey rolled his eyes, remembering Ian telling him about the last words he'd said to Glittery Twink Byron the night they'd gotten engaged.

"You're a fuckin' sap, man."

"True," Ian said, standing up from the booth and stepping over Derek's leg as Mickey had done minutes before. He reached out his hand and pulled his husband from the booth. The two of them stood there momentarily, staring at Derek's lump of a body on the sticky, peanut-shell covered floor.

"Should we like, do something?" Mickey asked, kicking Derek's foot with his own boot. The man didn't move a muscle. Mickey wondered for a second if he might be dead, but the shallow rise and fall of the douche canoe's chest let him know that unfortunately, for all of humankind, the asshole was still alive.

Ian shook his head.

"Nah, he can sleep it off."

He reached down and took Mickey's hand in his own.

"C'mon," he said as he dragged them both towards the door. "Let's go get pizza."

#writing prompts #sentence prompts #ficlet #the husband energy is strong with this one #shameless

[direnightshade]

Inferno

Warnings: Violence / Gun Violence, Post-Apocalyptic Themes, Angst, Unhappy Ending, Death / Major Character Death, Pandemic, Major Injury Word Count: 6,705

As always, you can find this over on AO3.

----------------

An arid landscape stretches as far as the eye can see. The familiar rows of brownstones and businesses of Brooklyn have long since vanished, replaced by a sun-baked desert. On the horizon, two figures stand facing one another, their muscles tensed and their focus solely on the other. Neither notices Sackler’s advance toward them.

The leather palm of the fingerless glove that the gunslinger wears creaks with the brief flex of fingers. You are itching to reach for the weapon holstered at your hip, eager to pull the warm steel from its confines to unleash the fury that you’ve been waiting to deliver for years now. But now, you know, is not the time. You will not be the first to make the move. No, this is dependent upon him , the man dressed in all black who stands opposite you with a look of smug determination.

The rough terrain crunches beneath Adam’s shoes and the dust that kicks up clings to them with each step forward that he takes, but as he draws nearer he notes how the sky grows increasingly darker. Large, grey clouds, swollen with an impending storm darken the sky and blot out the sun until a familiar rumble in the distance can be heard. It isn’t long until the first bolt of lightning strikes, effectively halting his steps. The electric current crackles and sizzles on its path downward and it’s then that Sackler realizes the strangest thing: the bolt does not disappear into the ground but rather into the fingertips of the man in black who now holds his hands upwards towards the sky.

Adam’s gaze shifts to where you stand. Your hand has since migrated to the gun at your hip and your thumb has lifted the leather snap of the holster, making for a quicker, easier draw of the weapon. It’s like slow motion, watching the scene unfold before him as your head swivels while your hand grips the gun and lifts in one fluid motion. With a squeeze of the trigger, a bullet rips through the air, the bang of the gun mirroring the echo of the thunder that accompanies a second bolt of lightning that careens down towards the parched Earth.

The moment that the bullet nears the man in black, it’s as if someone has flicked a switch and time has resumed its correct rate of movement once more as the man lowers his hands and faces his palms out towards you, both deflecting the bullet and sending a stream of electric current in your direction. Your eyes widen and just as the current reaches you...

The familiar blare of an alarm clock startles Sackler awake, immediately causing his eyelids to part to now take in the sight of the stark white ceiling above him. Gone is the dry landscape of some foreign desert; he has found his way back to the comfort of home. A large hand settles atop his chest and he takes a moment to puff out his cheeks and exhale a long breath whilst he feels the steady rhythm of his beating heart beneath his touch. This is not the first that he has dreamt of you and the man in black, nor does he suspect that it will be the last, but this time, he realizes, was different. This time the man in black had seemed to have the upper hand, something in which he’d never managed to in dreams prior.

Sackler had never believed much in astrology or dream meanings and the like, but the brevity and the sheer vividness of each one chipped away at his stance little by little until finally he’d found himself up and out of bed, pouring over page after page of varying dream meanings. From the cracked, barren wasteland of the desert to the storm that raged above, every meaning—if Sackler looked close enough— could feasibly be tied back to one problem or another in his life. But even with the research and the meanings loosely tied to reality, he still found the tiniest seed of doubt sprouting in his gut—a little flutter of worry that something just wasn’t quite right .

The scrape of a wooden chair across the linoleum floor sounds out into the small apartment when he rises up from his spot at the table, suppressing the unease for the time being. Sackler grabs his backpack and slings a strap over his shoulder before making the short stroll across the space to retrieve his bike. He’d forget about this for now, chalking it up to nothing more than a dream. Because that’s all it could possibly be...couldn’t it?

***

“You’re coming tonight, right?” Shoshana stands beside Adam, her hand gently swirling the wooden stirrer to mix her cream into the coffee that she holds.

The noncommittal hum that she receives in response isn’t to her liking, however. She huffs and nudges Adam’s ribs with her elbow, careful to not waste a single precious drop of the still piping hot liquid.

When Adam turns his head to look at her, she speaks up again. “You have to come! Marnie already said you’d told her you’d be there.”

“Yeaaaah, yeah. I’ll be there,” he replies, eyeing the board overhead that contains a multitude of hand-written items available to order. A brief moment of silence follows and then: “Wait, what time does it start?”

“Adam!”

A pinch is delivered to his side, eliciting a dramatic yelp in response to minimal pain. “Wh— ow! What?!”

“It’s six o’clock. And don’t be late,” Shoshana says, pausing momentarily to blow gingerly across the heated surface of her coffee before taking a long, thoughtful sip. “You know how Marnie gets.”

Sackler’s lips purse, thumbs hooking around the straps of his backpack while his eyes continue to peruse the board overhead. Another moment passes before he feels a nudge, this time another elbow, in his side. “Why bother, just get it black like you always do.”

He huffs out an amused breath and smiles down at Shoshana who mirrors the expression prior to excusing herself and pivoting on her heels to make her exit. He watches as she steps out of the door, the bell overhead ringing to signal her vacation of the premises; when the familiar blonde head of hair disappears among the crowd on the other side of the exterior wall’s windows, Adam’s gaze slides over to the clock that adorns the nearby wall. One thirty.

With a sigh, he turns back to face Ray who is already in the process of sliding him the usual: one black coffee in a plain off-white insulated cup complete with lid. Tossing down enough money to cover both the coffee and tip, Adam flashes Ray a grin and turns to follow Shoshana’s path back out onto the street.

***

The unassuming brick building that sits on Willoughby is lit by a pair of skyward pointing spotlights, illuminating the red brick against the dark backdrop of nightfall. Inside, the stark white of the walls and grey concrete floors reflect the blinding fluorescents overhead. Art is dotted sparsely along the walls, ranging from geometric abstraction to realism. Hushed tones fill the space as would-be patrons, guests, and painters alike all speak to one another among the art.

The soles of a pair of scuffed tan leather boots carry Adam further into the gallery while his gaze sweeps the area, roaming from one piece to another. The hands that are shoved deep into his one good pair of pants flex within the stiff material of his pockets as he stops in front of a painting by someone with a name he doesn’t recognize. Like nearly every other piece of art in this place that he’s laid eyes upon, this one is loud; bold, bright colors are splashed across the canvas in such a way that it almost appears angry, as if someone had been in the throes of being upset when making this. Though, what the fuck does he know about art?

Adam snorts to himself and pivots, stepping away from this piece and moving on, one after another until…

“Hooooly shiiiiiit,” he murmurs quietly to himself.

“It’s a masterpiece isn’t it,” says a familiar voice abruptly to his right. “I’d say it’s my best work yet.”

Sackler’s gaze slides over to the nameplate that sits beneath the painting, though he doesn’t have to. He knows precisely this belongs to by their voice alone.

“I call it The Duality of Life and Death,” says Booth with an air of smugness. “You see, the Gunslinger, they’re the embodiment of life; all light and warm tones, whereas Death here is in all black, being kept at bay by the Gunslinger’s trusty weapon.”

He cannot believe what he is seeing. In fact, he is so focused on the painting before him that Sackler fails to register any and all words that leave Booth’s mouth. It is as if this artwork has been pulled straight from his most recent dream. Everything, right down to the bolts of lightning, tinged purple by the storm, is an accurate portrayal of the vividness of the dream he’d lived through the night prior. Impossible. And yet…

“Shut up,” Sackler mumbles just loud enough for Booth to hear.

“Excuse me?” Booth balks at the audacity of Adam’s sudden intrusion upon his well-rehearsed pitch and not so modest boasting about his talents.

“How much?”

The conversation lapses, and for a moment, all that can be heard is the sound of the murmurs of the other patrons. Booth huffs out a laugh, unsure of whether or not this is a genuine inquiry.

“Too much for you.”

“How much,” Adam asks again, this time more forcefully. His head turns and, for the first time since Booth’s arrival, he directs his full attention to the man beside him.

Another brief silence follows. “Fifteen hundred.”

“I’ll give you seven,” Adam counters.

A scoff follows the attempted negotiation. “Absolutely not. Fifteen hundred and not a penny less.”

Sackler’s jaw twitches in irritation and he knows without a shadow of a doubt in his mind that Booth is taking him for a ride with the price, but he simply cannot walk away from this. Not when the coincidence is far too great for him to ignore.

“Fine. You have yourself a deal.”

***

Hours later, Adam finds himself back in his apartment fifteen hundred dollars lighter and one painting in hand. Having disrobed down to the grey pair of boxers he still dons, he settles his weight heavily onto the edge of his mattress, his eyes fixated on the acquired painting that now hangs on the wall directly opposite of where he sits.

It’s uncanny, he thinks to himself, unable to shake the familiarity of it. Just as in his dream, the Gunslinger— you —are looking at him, and from even this great distance, your stare seems to pierce right through him. He stares and he stares and he stares until finally,  sleep begins to wrap its tendrils around him, pulling him further down into a groggy state until he gives in and lies back against the mattress.

His eyes slowly slide closed, thoughts still on the painting, on his dream, on you . In the distance, an impending storm rumbles.

***

‘As many of you in the city have noticed, there has been a rather unusual weather pattern that’s settled over us, bringing with it an unsettling amount of rain and near hurricane level winds. Our storm tracker seems to indicate that this weather pattern is swirling in place, only delivering more debilitating rain that’s quickly turned to flash flooding in the area. The Hudson and East Rivers have both begun to breach their respective banks. But this isn’t the only unusual thing to come from the storm. There have also been strange electromagnetic pul—’

The nearby lamp flickers and then shuts off just as the television screen turns black, cutting off the meteorologist mid forecast. This has been, provided Sackler’s been keeping count accurately, the twelfth time this morning that the power has cut out. If this time is like the others, he can expect it to come back within the next five minutes.

He puffs his cheeks out prior to exhaling a deep breath, his eyes casting downward towards the phone in his hand—the very one he’d only just allowed himself to be talked into purchasing a mere three days ago. A large thumb taps the darkened glass screen to bring it to life. Twenty-eight percent, reads the small battery icon at the upper righthand corner. He sighs, opting not to waste more of the battery life by calling anyone. There’s no use, he knows. Instead, he tosses the device to the side, watching as it bounces against the worn cushions of the couch he sits on.

Outside, the storm rages on.

Rising up from his spot on the couch, the old wooden floorboards creaking beneath his weight, he crosses the small space of his living room to approach the window that gives him the perfect vantage point of the street below. Rain batters against the window, blurring his view, but below he spots a figure striding with purpose down the street.

Behind him, the microwave beeps and the light of his lamp clicks back on with the sudden return of electricity. Static sounds from the direction of the television and then:

‘In other parts of the world we’re seeing an emergence of a previously unknown virus. To date, there are no cases that we are aware of within the United States, but the CDC is urging anyone with the following symptoms to make a report—’

The story fades into the background as the figure draws closer and grows more visible even through the streaks of water that continue to distort the view from the glass in front of him. His eyes widen in recognition of the long, brown leather duster that hangs down nearly to the pavement. The holster isn’t visible beneath it, but the gun held firmly in hand is a dead giveaway.

“You,” he murmurs to himself in complete disbelief.

Without hesitation, and without allowing his mind to catch up with the actions he now takes, he pushes himself away from the window and makes a break for the apartment’s door, leaving behind the nearly dead phone on the couch.

***

ONE YEAR LATER

Plants of varying nature have long since begun to sprout through the cracks in sidewalks and pavement alike, their tendrils crawling up brick exteriors of buildings and brownstone homes. The hustle and bustle that the city is known for has quieted to a deafening degree; where once there were horns and shouts, now there is nothing more than the occasional whipping of the wind and, if one were so lucky, the rare sound of another survivor’s voice.

The illness that had swept across the globe crippled economies and decimated nations, including this very one. Businesses shuddered, families suffered, and in the end, no hope for a cure had been found.

Except for you, that is.

Ever since your arrival to the city where the man in black has taken up residence, it has been claimed by you that you are the only one who can put a stop to the man who’d brought a near end to civilization as Sackler knows it. Back in the realm from whence you have emerged, you have failed to stop him once, but this time, you vow, you will not falter in your mission.

The unmistakable metallic sound of a can being opened can be heard nearby. Sackler turns his head to look over at where you sit, your body curled over the pot that sits atop the lit tabletop burner. His face scrunches in distaste when he watches you dump the tin of beans unceremoniously into the empty pot in order to heat them up. It is the involuntary sound of displeasure that emanates from the back of his throat that captures your attention.

“What,” you ask as your head lifts to look in his direction.

He huffs out a breath and rolls his shoulders into a nonchalant shrug just as his attention shifts to the window of the apartment you find yourselves in currently. His head shakes once, twice, and then: “I don’t think I have it in me to eat another can of fuckin’ beans. At this point I think my blood’s made of it.”

The soft snort that emanates from where you stand pulls his attention back to you. He hadn’t heard you pick up the wooden spoon that you now hold, but he watches as you gently stir the warming beans, bringing them up to the desired temperature.

“It’s not like we have many options these days.”

Sackler notes how you refrain from looking in his direction, and instead direct your reply downward towards the soon to be meal. He grits his teeth together, jaw muscles ticking in visible agitation at the remark. It’s been one year, three hundred and sixty-five days, since the man in black’s arrival to Earth and only you, or so you’ve claimed, are the one that can stop him—only you can stop the sickness that he’s wrought on the planet and its people, and yet here you stand in his shitty apartment’s kitchen of all places, cooking some fucking beans.

It’s enough to drive him mad.

“We might not have options, but you sure as shit do,” he snaps, now having lost his patience. “That man, or whatever the fuck he is,” he says, pointing a finger in the direction of the window, “is out there. We know where he is, where he’s been for the last year and still you haven’t done shit about it!”

The wooden spoon once held in your hand now clatters against the side of the pot, the beans forgotten as Adam watches you twist off the flame and turn to face him with a sneer.

“I told you, it isn’t that simple. He’s dangerous , and he’s stronger than he’s ever been. And in case you haven’t noticed—”

“All the more reason to get it done, Kid! No use standing around here wasting time.”

“—I’m the last one of my kind left!”

Silence fills the space when your respective outbursts subside, and it isn’t until then that Sackler notices that you’ve taken steps to bring yourself closer to him. He wonders if you’ve noticed it too. Adam watches as your lips press together into a thin line, evidence of your displeasure with him and the situation the two of you find yourself in.

In a moment of seemingly perfectly choreographed movements, the two of you reach for one another, hands grasping at fabric, skin, anything and everything that you can reach. A groan of satisfaction tumbles from Sackler’s mouth the moment that he draws your body closer until you are firmly pressed against him, the sound greedily inhaled by you amidst a clashing of lips.

***

Hours later, when the light sheen of sweat covering your bodies has cooled, and the warmth of your skin is pressed against his, Adam turns his head and deposits a kiss to the crown of your own. In immediate response, you exhale a barely audible sigh.

There is a palpable energy that fills the space now; it is not the same explosive kind from earlier, the very one that led the two of you to the mattress you currently find yourselves on, no… This time it is different, uncomfortable. Sackler’s lips press together briefly, his jaw working in the familiar way you’ve come to notice in the short span of time that you’ve known him.

“I can practically hear the gears grinding in that head of yours, Kid,” he murmurs.

In reply you hum, though a moment of silence elapses before you respond. “We can’t,” you begin, the two words spoken with a quietness to rival your earlier sigh. Quickly, you lapse into more soundless thought.

Sackler’s arm tightens around your form, holding you closer to him; it is a wordless response that speaks volumes. Don’t , it says. Let us have this one moment of peace before the inevitable storm comes raging in and one of us finds ourselves swept away .

“Adam…” His name is a whisper, spoken so softly that if there were any other remaining souls in this building, not one would hear.

“Don’t,” he exclaims more forcefully than he’d intended. The words that follow are quieter, mournful, even. “Just don’t…” A shaky breath is inhaled and Sackler closes his eyes, an all too familiar ache beginning to make its home in the depths of his chest.

Beside him, bedsheets rustle as you lift yourself up out of the warmth and comfort of his embrace. Slowly, Adam’s eyelids part to look up only to find that you have propped yourself up by your elbow to peer down at him with a pained expression etched onto your features. A hand lifts and his eyes flutter closed once more when the sensation of your fingertips delicately tracing his cheek can be felt.

Such a tender touch only seems to feed the ache.

“We can’t be together.” The pain that he feels seems to be echoed in your own statement. It is a realization that drives the proverbial knife deeper and then twists. Your fingertips skim along his lips which now quiver with unshed sobs for a love that has died before it has even had a chance to bloom. “It’s too dangerous.”

A large hand wraps around your wrist, keeping you in place so that he may press kiss after kiss into your open palm in what feels like a desperate bid to prevent this moment from fading from existence. Adam shakes his head and slides your hand over to rest against his cheek, nuzzling into the touch before opening his eyes once more. This time when he looks up at you, he can see the tears that have gathered at your waterline, threatening to spill over onto your cheeks at any moment.

You exhale a trembling breath and when you close your eyes, the tears fall freely. Sackler lifts his hands, thumbs wicking away the moisture from your face as best he can. With a gentle hush, he guides you down to lay against him again, this time with your cheek pressed against his chest.

“You understand that, right,” you ask through the sobs that now begin to rack your body.

In response, Adam wraps an arm around your back, his other hand now cradling your head as you rest against him. “Yeah, Kid… I do,” he whispers in reply, his own tears now blurring his vision.

***

A rustling of wrappers can be heard, followed by the unmistakable sound of a zipper. When Adam cracks one eye open, it’s to find that the light of an early dawn has begun to creep its way through the sheer curtain draped across his window, spilling in to illuminate your form as you work to close his backpack. He groans and lifts a hand to rub his palm against one eye, working the grogginess from it whilst he begins to sit upright.

“Whasssgoin’on,” he slurs, voice still thick with sleep.

He’s met by the thump of the backpack as it lands against his chest, and coughing out a breath, he wraps his arms around the material in immediate reaction.

“Get up,” you say, now turning your attention to your own gear, ensuring that you have everything that you need. “Get dressed and make sure you take that with you. We’re heading out.”

“Out?” The sleep that had laced his voice has dissipated entirely, now replaced with a brief bout of confusion. “Out where?”

Sliding your gun into its holster, you pivot simultaneously, the soles of your boots scuffing the old worn hardwood floor. “We have a stop to make. I need more ammunition and then we’re headed into Manhattan.”

It takes him a moment, but when the weight of your words hit him with full force, it’s impossible for you to miss the look of recognition that passes across his face. He scrambles from the bed, momentarily discarding the backpack in order to grab his clothes from the pile he’d discarded on the floor just a day earlier. At long last, after everything he has endured over the course of the last year, after everything that you have endured, as well as the two of you together, the day has finally arrived. And yet…

There is a small seed of hesitation that has sewn itself into the depths of his belly, sprouting up into worry.

***

Brooklyn remains as quiet as it has been for this past year; a gentle breeze cuts through a brownstone-lined street, rustling Sackler’s hair and causing the near floor-length duster that you wear to billow in its wake. The soles of your boots scuff along the pavement, kicking up pebbles that have torn up from the once heavily-traveled road. Beside you, Sackler adjusts the strap of the backpack that dangles precariously from his shoulder.

“You know you aren’t going to find any ammunition in any of the stores around here.” The words leave him matter-of-factly, as if he knows this to be true.

Your head swivels to look over at him and your eyes squint slightly as if to ask for further elaboration on the subject at hand. In automatic response, his hands lift, palms facing outward as if in defense though the two of you carry on walking alongside one another.

“Gun laws,” he says. “They’re super strict here.”

You huff out a grunt in reply and mutter a barely audible ‘that’s fine’ in return to which Adam quickly follows with: “T-that’s fine? What do you mean that’s fine? Hey! Hey , where are you going?!”

Stunned into momentary silence, Adam watches as you veer off course and make a beeline for one of the passing brownstones that sits vacant. ���I don’t need a store,” you call out from over your shoulder.

With a swift, solid kick of your boot to the center of the door, you manage to dislodge the lock and allow yourself entry. The interior of the home is dark in spite of the sun that hangs high overhead just outside—a byproduct of city living. Upon further investigation, the home looks tidy, orderly, as if whomever used to live here locked up and left long before the sickness that swept the nation one year ago was able to settle in and take hold of the building’s occupants.

“Up here,” Adam says, the sudden boom of his voice cutting through your thoughts.

He is already halfway up the wooden staircase that leads to the second floor by the time you look over, taking the steps two at a time to reach the landing. It isn’t long until you are close behind, following him into one of the spacious bedrooms. Sackler’s backpack falls to the floor with a light thump just as he all but dives to the floor, his lean body stretching out as he peers beneath the bed. A hand reaches under, retrieving a small black case along with two boxes.

“Check these.” He rises up from his spot on the floor and immediately pivots to make his way into the large walk-in closet.

The sound of hangers sliding along metal rods can be heard as he pushes row after row of clothes aside in order to hunt down what he suspects will be a second weapon. By the time that he re-emerges, it is to find that you have scattered the boxes of ammunition from beneath the bed on top of the duvet. Beside the discarded ammo sits the black box, now opened to reveal Glock.

“This isn’t what I need,” you reply before turning your head to look over at where he stands at the threshold of the closet. “But that is.”

Just as you nod your head to the boxes of ammunition belonging to the very same revolver that sits on your hip, you stride across the expanse of the bedroom to approach him. Sackler hands the boxes to you without hesitation, watching as you squirrel the individual bullets away in the bandolier that sits snugly around your waist.

When the last of the ammunition has been tucked away, you lift your gaze to find Sackler staring back at you with an expression that you can’t quite pin down. There is an air of wistfulness about it and something else you cannot put your finger on.

“Ready,” you ask, lacing the question with an enthusiasm that is so manufactured that it feels bitter and foreign in your mouth.

Sackler nods but does not respond verbally. Instead, he turns and makes his way out of the bedroom first with you following close behind. Back by the bed, still lying on the floor, remains the backpack that Sackler had brought with him on the first leg of your journey.

***

Even from the Brooklyn Bridge, it is impossible to miss how the tallest residential building in the whole of the city looms above all else. But here, now, standing just beneath it on Park Avenue, makes all other vantage points pale in comparison. The front wall of the building that once housed luxury accommodations is all glass, pure and pristine—not a single pane disturbed or broken, unlike the remainder of the buildings that have gone neglected since the planet’s downfall.

“This is the one.”

“Yeeeeah.” Adam’s head tips back, eyes squinting to peer up at the sheer size of the building. “I figured.” When he rights his stance, head turning now to look over at you, he rolls a shoulder into a shrug. “Nothing says ‘the villain’s in here’ like the only untouched building in all of New York, and my guess, the world.”

You hum out an unintelligible reply—a grunt of sorts, something that requires no retort from Sackler, but receives one nonetheless.

“Hey,” he calls out, a hand snapping out to grasp your upper arm just as you begin to take steps towards the building’s front door. Only when you turn to face him again does he ease his grasp and then release it entirely. “Whatever happens in there—”

“Adam…”

“—whatever happens in there…” Sackler pauses, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows harshly, eyes searching your own. “That son of a bitch is dead, yeah?”

He watches as your head nods, albeit a bit more slowly than he’d like. When he says nothing, you nod again, this time with more conviction. “Yes.”

In turn, Sackler nods and utters a ‘ good ’ before following you through the front door. The lobby of the building is just as the outside stands: untouched and in good condition just as the day that it had been prior to the man in black’s arrival to the city. Despite the lack of people in the space—security or otherwise—it’s impossible to miss the hum of anticipation that shoots through the air like electricity. Every hair on the back of Adam’s neck seems to rise with the feeling, and his eyes dart around the room whilst he continues to follow your lead to the nearby staircase.

“Woah, hold on,” he whispers as the stairwell’s door clicks shut softly behind him, his hand once again reaching to grasp your arm to effectively stop your advance towards the stairs.

“What?!” The words that you hiss out in reply echo slightly against the concrete walls and floor alike.

A gentle tug pulls you closer, and though you don’t resist, it isn’t lost on Adam how your eyes narrow ever so slightly at the abrupt halt of your plans. “Something’s... off … It,” he starts, sighing and releasing his hold on you to run a hand through his hair in exasperation. “It feels wrong.”

When your brows crease in momentary confusion, he elaborates.

“You don’t think it’s weird that no one’s here? There’s no, I don’t fucking know, evil henchmen or some shit to stop us?”

A huff of air is expelled just as you turn your gaze upward as if to look to the floors above where you will undoubtedly find the man at long last. Adam watches as your lips press together momentarily before you look back to him and whisper once more. “Does it really matter? He’s here,” you insist, your own hand reaching to grasp his forearm. “You feel it. I know you do.”

When silence fills the space between you, Adam nods once in affirmation to your statement. He does feel him, it’s impossible not to. The crackle of electricity in the air has only grown more intense even only having moved a few hundred feet upon entry into the building.

“Come on,” you say, loosening yourself from his hold just as your hand slips from his arm simultaneously. “Let’s finish this.”

***

Thunder rumbles beyond the panes of glass that makeup the exterior walls by the time the two of you reach your destination and the final floor of the eighty-five story building. The door staircase’s door leads to a small hall that in turn leads to a solid black door complete with a tiny peep hole that the former occupants undoubtedly used to peer out at any visitors. Sackler surmises that now such a peep hole is useless and unused.

The feeling of unease that has settled into the depths of his stomach only seems to grow when you reach for the handle, turning it without resistance and finding that the door is unlocked. It’s a trap, he wants to call out, but that—he knows—would only serve to verbalize the obvious. You are just as aware as he, and yet…

The two of you push onward, stepping into the penthouse apartment that overlooks the entirety of Manhattan. Beyond the panes of glass that makeup the living area, Central Park stands empty, bathed in the purple light of the rapidly impending storm. To your left, movement captures both yours and Sackler’s attention and when your heads collectively turn to find the source, a sweeping sense of dread drapes over Adam like the heaviest of blankets.

“I see you’ve finally found me.” The soles of the boots the man in black wears, land heavily against the cool marble tile that covers the floor where he walks. “It only took you, oh,” he pauses briefly, pretending to check his watch, “a little over a year now. I thought your tracking skills were far superior than that, Gunslinger. Perhaps I give you too much credit.”

“You don’t give them enough,” Adam sneers, taking his place beside you.

The man’s gaze slides from you to Sackler and back again. There is a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth before his lips part, stretching wide across his face in a toothy grin. Laughter fills the space as his head is thrown back momentarily. Though the sound fades, the amused grin remains when the man’s attention is turned to you, effectively dismissing Sackler.

“Who is this? Is this the reason you’ve taken your sweet old time?” The man tuts in disapproval, his gaze flitting to where Adam stands, sizing him up with a single sweep down and then back up again. “You always did have a weak heart,” he mocks. “It’s a wonder you are the last one of your kind standing.”

The clouds that roll in now block the sun entirely, casting a dark shadow over the city that spills over into the living room and draping itself across the three of you. Outside, lightning strikes nearby as thunder rolls ominously overhead. The hand that rests at your side twitches in eager anticipation of the quick draw that will undoubtedly occur sooner rather than later.

“You’re wrong.”

The man’s gaze once again slides over to where Adam stands, hands balled into fists as if in preparation for the fight to come. The charged air seems to thicken to an uncomfortable degree and for a fleeting moment, Sackler wonders if this sullen energy is radiating from the man himself.

Another strike of lightning illuminates the space, followed rapidly by another that seems to pass through the nearby floor to ceiling length windowpane. With a wave of an outstretched hand, the man sends the bolt in your direction, seeking to put an end to this before it can even begin. Your hand lifts to retrieve the gun from your holster, but quick of a draw as you are, not even you are quick enough for the event that unfolds before your very eyes.

Whilst the bolt comes careening towards you, a large body steps in front at the last possible moment, absorbing the blow.

“No!” You cry out in disbelief, pulling the gun free and firing off three shots in rapid succession, two of which hit their intended target.

As the man in black clutches at his torso, stumbling back behind a nearby piece of furniture for cover, you collapse down onto your knees beside a wounded Sackler.

“No, no, no, no, no, Adam.” The gun in your hand clatters to the floor heavily whilst your hands now roam over his body frantically. You know that there is nothing you can do, the blow has been dealt and the damage has been done. No amount of wishing can save him now.

Sackler chokes, splutters, and wheezes as he struggles to catch what little breath he can. “Kid,” he manages to gasp through labored breaths.

An anguished sob sounds from the back of your throat upon hearing him. Tears begin to fill your vision, spilling over onto your cheeks as your head tips forward to rest your forehead against his shirt near the blackened edges where the lightning bolt made contact with his chest.

“Kid,” he rasps again.

A large hand settles at the back of your head when you lift it just enough to peer down at him. He’s gone impossibly pale, and the realization makes your heart shatter into the smallest pieces imaginable. He is, you know, on the verge of death.

“I—”

“No, Adam. Don’t,” you hush softly, bringing your own hand to his hair, brushing it back from his clammy forehead. “Just rest, you’re going to be okay.” The words taste bitter in your mouth, like ash after a fire has decimated everything in its wake.

There is a slight shake of his head, and the hand at the back of your own presses just enough pressure for you to follow his lead, allowing him to draw you closer. Weakly, he lifts his head up from the ground to meet you on your descent. The tears come effortlessly now when your lips meet, and the hands that once roamed his form now hold his face as you kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.

“Kid, I—” A series of coughs wrack his body as you help to lower his head back down to the ground. “I. Kid.” Sackler’s eyes roll as he inhales an arduous breath. “I lov—”

The breath leaves his body in a rush, chest stilling and body falling limp.

The golden rays of the setting sun part through the black clouds and cast themselves upon the scene as if to highlight the tragedy that’s just unfolded. But now is not the time for mourning; there will be a time and a place for this later, though every fiber of your being screams for you to stay with him now.

Rapidly you blink, seeking to dispel the tears from your eyes and rid yourself of your blurred vision. Slowly, you push yourself up and onto your feet, grabbing your gun as you go, your gaze still focused on the now lifeless body that lies in front of you. This mission, the one you’d been on solely for yourself and the realm from whence you have traveled from, is now a quest for the man you’d come to love so completely. For him you will do this. For him you will see to it that the man in black will be no more, that order will be restored to Adam’s world once more and that things will revert to the way they once were.

This will be his legacy.

-------------------------

Tagging my fellow Sackler lovers!

@livelongdolan @daydreamsofren @crimsoncounties @caillea @candycanes19 @gurl-ly @duty-isnt-always-honour @exit-goat @little-laamb @themuseic @kylosbitch @caelum-phyriina-vermillon @desiraypark @mariesackler @millenialcatlady @mazeltovcocktail555 @historyandfandoms50 @leatherboundbirate @fathersonandhouseofgucci @xxcatrenxx @alpha-lobito @cornmousequeen @tashastrange89 @10blurredsmoke10

If you'd like to be tagged on works going forward, give me a shout!

#Adam Sackler #Sackler #Adam Sackler x Reader #Sackler x Reader #Gunslinger!Reader #Adam Sackler x Gunslinger!Reader #Sackler x Gunslinger!Reader #Dark Tower AU #cw: violence #cw: gun violence #cw: angst #cw: unhappy ending #cw: pandemic #cw: major injury #cw: death #cw: character death #adcu fic exchange

[morgana-ren]

I just read your latest shiggy piece and it was so good. I also saw your note at the end. Obviously do what’s best for you but I’m going to miss your writing lol. And if it’s not too personal, can I ask why you’re done with it? Are you falling out of interest with these characters? Of course you don’t have to answer and you’re valid no matter what. But thanks again for the great stories!!!

Thank you! I’m really happy you liked it! 

So basically, there’s a few reasons I’m thinking of calling it quits, but most of it condenses down into my own self confidence issues and self esteem. I’ll put more under a cut cause frankly most people aren’t going to care about my self pitying tirade and I don’t wanna put some long ass thing they need to scroll past. 

I’ve been writing fairly consistently for a few years now. I don’t always post everything I write but on average I usually write at least 5,000 words a week. That might not seem like much but those are during the weeks where I’m still working full time and taking care of shit like cooking and laundry and other adult responsibilities. My googledocs is completely full of my bullshit and half baked ideas, and so is my drafts and the notebook app on my phone. It’s been a very large part of my life. 

Problem with that is that I don’t feel like I am where I should be as a writer despite it being such a large part of my life. I’m one of those exceedingly obnoxious people that doesn’t do things they’re not good at. I gave up guitar after two years because I got so frustrated of hearing myself suck. I don’t draw anymore because I hate my shitty work in comparison to other people’s amazing art. The same is starting to be said for my writing. It doesn’t make me feel good anymore. It just makes me feel bitter and frustrated.

I was able to ignore it for the past two years largely in part to the weird euphoria of finding characters I loved, but that’s quickly starting to wear off. The fandoms I write for are filled to the brink with amazing and talented authors, some of which have been writing for exponentially less time than I have, and already their work far surpasses mine. For some reason, it feels like my brain just is not wired to improve past a certain point, even if I make active efforts to do so.

Now don’t mistake that for me blaming other folks for anything, this has to do with me and me alone. A lot of it can be attributed to some of my illnesses and the fact I just flat out don’t like myself. I just feel like given how much time I spend doing this bullshit, I should be much, much better than I am. I essentially feel like I improved a little bit early on and ever since then, I’ve just been stagnating. My work doesn’t have the originality it did (if it ever did) and people don’t seem to enjoy it as much. 

There’s a lot of incredible authors out there who write the same topics and characters that I do, and when my work is put up against theirs, mine is basically just scraping the bottom of the barrel. I’m essentially throwing out these stories that have already/could be done better by other people and I’m just taking up titles and ideas that could be used for better pieces or concepts that could be done better by anyone but myself. 

I know that we all say “I write for myself” and for me, that’s true on a level. If I truly wrote only for myself, I wouldn’t be sharing it here on this platform or on Ao3. Sometimes when there’s a lack of positive feedback or any sort of acknowledgement at all, it feels like I’m just yelling obnoxiously into the void and cranking out this shit that no one wants and no one even asked for. I’m not entitled to people’s attention or time, and I don’t want to spam people’s tags or feeds with shit they have to roll their eyes and scroll past every few days when I post some bullshit no one really wants. 

I guess it comes down to the voice in my head every time I write or get ready to post something that’s steadily getting louder that says “Why fucking bother? It fucking blows and so do you and you just wasted _ days doing something that fucking sucks.” It feels like I’m just wasting time that I should be using on something, anything else to write these stories that no one gives a fuck about.

And nobody fucking @ me with some shitty insult like “lmao youre so self pitying” or some shit because #1) I am aware. My mental state, especially right now, is not great. I’ll be self pitying if I want, and if you don’t like it? Unfollow/block button is free. And #2) This is something I do mostly for free. You are not paying me to do it, so your input means exactly nothing to me. Start paying my bills or for my medication and I’ll start giving a single fuck.

#Anonymous #Morgana whinings #literally

[taltos-seidmadr]

On spirit communication

(art by galactic-castle)

Before I really start making my point, please allow me to make a short prologue about where I’m coming from and why I’m writing this post.

I’m a Heathen, in terms of religion, and in my practice I do some things that can be construed as “spirit work” according to the understanding of the greater community, but I don’t really consider myself to be a part of that community, and I’m pretty much off doing my own thing that is closer to my understanding of my own culture and/or Heathen traditions rather than what I see circulating on the internet most often. There are two reasons why I wanted to bring this up. One, I don’t feel myself qualified to give advice on anything and this might end up the only advice post I ever write, especially regarding this topic. And two, I apologize for occasionally using some terms that might be more specific to me than the actual jargon of the wider spiritworking community, because I’m not in it, but I hope it will be understandable regardless.

One of my spirit worker friends approached me with an issue they were having. It made me realize what a huge underlying issue it is, and it is indeed one that I also used to have, so I told my friend what I did to resolve it - and after their encouragement to do so, I’m telling you all now hoping that it may help some. I think to some degree it can apply both to the spiritworking community and to those pagans who keep in contact with their deities in some sort of way that involves trance work and/or resembles verbal communication. I obviously have no idea whether it’s applicable to every practice or not, so take it with a pinch of salt, but Hungarians have a pretty insightful and witty folk tale about the importance of a pinch of salt in the right place and the right time, so pretend that I made a reference to that and hear me out.

I want you to imagine the following situation:

You are a beginner practicioner of whatever you are doing. You start talking to some spirits, establish relationships with them, and maybe even start making friends. (While I do believe that a god is a type of spirit, right now I’m just including deities in the category of “spirits“ for the sake of convenience, and just know that the overall advice is still applicable if you don’t believe the same.) But real life also demands your time and energy, and so do real life people, so you begin to pay just a little bit less attention to your spirit fam than you would like. And then you maybe spend a little too much time on the hellsite dot com, and you read a post about how if you don’t actually pay enough attention to your spirit fam, then you are one of Those™ spiritworkers, which is Bad. And you barely even notice it, but somewhere in the back of your mind you start feeling guilty. Then the little behavioral psychology mouse that lives in your brain learns that talking to spirit family=electric shock, and thus you start avoiding your spirit fam even more, and you feel even more guilty, and so the cycle keeps continuing with increasing returns (on the guilt, or diminishing ones on the communication end).

My friend was there. I’ve been there. A lot of us have been there, probably. Maybe you didn’t even have to imagine this scenario because this is exactly where you are at.

And this entire guilt-avoidance cycle (just according to my unofficial armchair observation) goes back to an idea that nobody really says out loud but everyone seems to imply, which says the following:

“You should spend exactly as much time and energy on  spirit relationships as you would on human relationships”

and I’m not even going to argue outright with this statement, because in some ways I kinda agree, but this post is already taking me 84 years to write so just allow me to cut to the chase and lampshade something that I don’t agree with.

This statement seems really wise and unassuming... until I remember that in order to spend time and make meaningful interaction with a spirit on that side, I need to tune in.

This is the point where I feel a bit on shaky grounds because I don’t have much to go off of other than my own practice, but maybe some of this will sound familiar. Take this from someone who has just never been completely tuned out probably since birth, that in order to tune in in a truly meaningful way, I still have to expend a LOT of energy, and I’m not even talking about anything magical here, I mean the completely everyday mental energy that I have a limited amount of at any given point. What this means in effect is that if I wanted to treat my spirit relationships exactly the same way as I do my human relationships, I would have to spend about half my life in a highly concentrated trance state, which is

a) probably impossible, b) even if it were possible, it would probaby serve as a serious detriment to my ability to navigate the real world, not to mention the active harm it would do to my physical and mental health on the long run.

You need to keep in mind that regardless for your metaphysical beliefs, you are a physical being and you have an extremely important responsibility to take care of your physical manifestation. And keeping this in mind, instead of allowing myself to run the guilt-avoidance cycle like a hamster runs a wheel, I could do two things that lead to healthier results:

1. Make a healthy, honest and realistic assessment of what you can actually manage

For me it’s kind of a go to, that no matter how little time or energy I had during the day, and no matter how stressed/anxious/whatever I feel at the end of the day, I pretty much always can do at least a little bit of trance before I fall asleep, when I can have a little contact with the spirit family, and it actually helps me fall asleep too, so it’s kind of a win-win-win. I’m bringing this up because I don’t have the scientific receipts on the matter but I’ve heard that something about the state of the mind when it’s getting into and out of sleep is special and that makes trancing easier. Don’t quote me on it, but I’ve experienced that to be true.

2. Involve your spirit family in ways of communication that either don’t involve trance at all, or don’t require tuning in fully

As for the first half, the most straightforward example that comes to mind is divination, or literally any sort of randomized thing that you could use to communicate. The second half is a little bit harder to explain but I will try to give my own personal example.

I want you to imagine a spirit phone. This is metaphorical right now but visually speaking, I really want you to imagine an actual phone, the object. For fun. It has a screen you can read texts on. You don’t even have to imagine it very hard or in great detail, you exactly know what a phone looks like. There are many days when I cannot hold an entire environment in my mind’s eye in great detail, but there is no time when I wouldn’t be able to put so much energy in that I wouldn’t know what is written on an imaginary screen as text. Of course communication like this is a bit limited, but this way you can text your spirit fam any time you want. If you are saying rn, but Sithi, that is the stupidest fucking idea I ever heard, texting my gods?! This is too modern for me! then you need to understand that the point is not whether this is an actual phone you are holding, but the limitation through which you channel the finite amount of mental energy that you have. The point is the focus. That you are only imagining so much that actually carries information value. If you want, imagine a word wall from Skyrim, a magical book, a burning forest floor on which you scrape your message into the smoldering ashes with a holy stick, I don’t know man. Use your imagination. Come up with something that fits into your inner world and makes you happy. Similarly if visualization is not your strongest suit, just work out something that builds on your strengths instead. (Funny thing about the phone is that it’s very good for making voice calls too! Hmm? Hmmmmm? Wink wonk!)

Just keep in mind that just because you cannot do everything that you planned or can even think about, it doesn’t make you somehow inferior or less than a human. It can be good to stretch your limits, to an extent, but knowing where those limits are in the first place is probably THE most important thing you can do for yourself in your spiritual practice (or in anything for that matter) and it’s a piece of knowledge that will make your relationships healthier and easier, no matter what layer of reality you are on. That was pretty much my hot take and I hope this will help you let go of some unrealistically high standards and be a little bit easier on yourselves, because we all need that a lot. Especially right now. 🔥👁️‍🗨️✨

#spirit work #spirit communication #spiritworkings #sithi's posts #text #spooky tips

[pythosart]

A big ol 2019 end of the year update

I felt somewhat compelled to write my end of the year/decade thoughts, but a warning before you read: This one’s going to be heavy, intensely personal, and long. If you don’t feel up to reading that, it may be best to skip it. I promise I’ll go back to shutting up and posting art afterwards. I’m profoundly incapable of being concise, ever, so apologies for the length of this.

2019 was a nightmare.

Some background: In mid 2016, my mother was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer. She was given a few months to live. She was given weeks or months to live multiple times, for almost three years. In that time my mom was in and out of the hospital, but spent all her good days living life to the fullest, starting and finishing dream projects, and keeping all of us going despite her own situation. Even when she was bedridden, hooked up to tubes and bags and god knows what, she found time to prop up her loved ones and pursue her hobbies. She even managed to develop new hobbies and interests while otherwise imprisoned by her physical state, something I struggle to do at the best of times even in my young and relatively healthy form. If there’s anything I can make of this experience, it’s that I hope to grow into even half the woman my mother was.

I ended 2018 with my final quarter at SCAD. I spent the entire quarter terrified my mom was going to die while I was away from home. It was horrific, I barely scraped by my last few classes (bless my professors’ endless patience), and immediately left Savannah for home as soon as the quarter was up. I never had room to celebrate finishing college. Any other year it would be a huge milestone, but I barely even care.

This past May, my mother passed away, after three years of petrifying suspense. It happened in the dead middle of the night, while my best friend was visiting for a con, and it still feels like a bad dream. It’s also one of the only vivid memories I even have of this year. 

I wish I had more to say on that, but I genuinely think the drawn out suffering and fracturing of my whole world left me unable to fully unpack everything that’s happened. It’s hard to even think about for long, and at times I even half-forget she’s gone. I think of things I want to show her, or tell her, or cook with her. Just the other day I kept thinking I’d tell her how much I liked endive after she showed me how to make it. I found a historical Italian cooking channel that, every time I see it, I just think of how much she’d love it. I knew she’d love Hot Fuzz but never got to show her. Little, stupid things that shouldn’t matter, but they do. They just do.

My mother and I were close, much closer than I am with my dad. Especially towards the end of her life, we had gotten closer, and I felt like I was only just really getting to know her as an equal. I still want to share my life with her, but that chance is gone.

This holiday season has been especially rough in her absence, because not only was my mom the motivational and creative force behind a lot of holiday activities here, it’s the first everything without her. We had Thanksgiving with friends and a catered dinner, instead of spending several days cooking and polishing family silver and setting the table. I won’t be making handmade tortellini with her for Christmas like we did every year. It’s the little things like that.

We’re a tiny family, with over half of us in Italy and lacking much communication due to the language barrier. Family holidays were always small, but there’s just a huge hole how, much greater than the cold numeric value of “one fewer participant.” My mom was always a driving force and a keystone in our support networks, not to mention the main line of contact with the Italian-speaking side of the family, so now the family feels so much more scattered and isolated than ever.

My girlfriend was close to my mother too, and as she’s been living with me for years now and is practically part of the family, I think she took it just as hard as anyone. Cel saw everything I did, and dealt with many of the same uncertainties and traumatic experiences I did.

A month after I lost my mother, I lost my cat too. Galileo was twelve years old, a spry old man who yelled instead of meowed, and just a wonderful cat. I got him when I was in 7th grade, after begging my parents for years to get me a cat. It was my mom who eventually overrode my dad’s hesitations, and from then on Leo was part of the family. He went through a very sudden decline over the course of a week or two, and we learned it was cancer. Feline lymphoma, I think. I had to make the call to put him to sleep, and it ripped what was left of my heart out.

Not that it needs stating, but fuck cancer.

A few too-short months later, I cut ties with a “friend,” which despite how fucking much it hurt, was really for the best. At a certain point one simply can no longer afford to waste energy on a certain kind of person. Unfortunately I’m a persistently optimistic idiot, and it took me too long to cut my losses before deep damage was done. Done to me, my close friends, and even barely involved acquaintances this “friend” dumped on relentlessly and tried to harass into spying on me. Really, if any part of this is unforgivable, it’s that.

All this was, however, a valuable reminder that it’s no good to have any tolerance for habitually dishonest people, even if they think they’re doing it to look “nice.” Chronic liars will gaslight you whether they know it or not, and trying to navigate that in an already damaged mental state is inadvisable. It was an important lesson in picking one’s battles, albeit one learned too late. I’m still holding out hope I can find it in my heart to forgive this person, if only for my own selfish sake so I can move on. I have a lot of experience living on spite, and I don’t want to make a further habit of it.

Naturally all of the above did little to curb my already inflamed pessimism about the state of my country and the world at large, but I need not expand on that, I imagine.

I suppose it would be unfair of me to leave it all at that and only mention the negative, though admittedly positivity is hard to muster these days. A few bright spots of note:

Graduated from SCAD with my BFA in Sequential Art (technically last year, but I did the ceremonial bit this year)

Tabled at Animazement with Woods. We barely broke even, but it was a great time and I plan on doing it again in the new year.

Spent literally an entire month hanging out with my two best friends, which was amazing and exactly the kind of healing experience I needed around that time of year.

Properly did Halloween for the first time in years. I made a costume I’m proud of and we went out on the town… for like an hour, because it promptly started pouring. But fun nevertheless

Started therapy. As of writing this, I’ve only had an introductory session, but it’s a start. Should have started six months ago, but didn’t for reasons to be addressed...in therapy

Started volunteering at the local natural history museum, where I spent like half my childhood. I’ll be doing data entry in collections, but that’s still cool as hell

Got a start on figuring out what I want to do with my life. It’ll involve going back to school for science within the next five-ish years, but it’s nice to have a goal. More of a goal than I’ve ever had, in fact.

Played some extremely good video games (shout out to The Blackout Club and Control)

Made a shitload of unnecessary yet endlessly fun and good AUs with my friends and my one (1) OC

Got an iPad Pro and started learning Procreate, which has gotten me drawing more

Learned a bit of needle felting

2019 was a year of getting much closer to my two best friends, and I genuinely owe them my life at this point. I don’t know where I’d be without them. Nowhere good, certainly.

Woods and Dross kept me talking to people, kept me creating, told me when I was being unreasonable or needed to cool it, heard me out when I needed it but always kept me honest. They helped me keep some creative juices flowing when otherwise I’d have been at a frustrated loss and might have given up for good. If it seems like I’ve kept up my usual art output at all, and if you’ve enjoyed the Lou content (or not, whoops... apologies to everyone who followed me for monster content) you have both of them to thank.

Even moreso, I owe my girlfriend a great deal for being there for me through all of this while she herself was suffering similarly. She and I have had our ups and downs, and been through a lot in the five-ish years we’ve been together. We aren’t the most outspoken couple, but I think our mutual understanding and pain mitigated a lot of the damage this year has done. I don’t think I could have handled it alone.

Furthermore, I really need to thank a lot of other friends and acquaintances I’m not quite as close with, but still talk to. These people especially were willing to call me on my bullshit when necessary, or just talk to me at all, about anything. Even if these acquaintances didn’t know it at the time, there’s a good chance they were dragging me out of one of my frequent existential despair spirals.

I also, weirdly, owe a lot to helping my hen Julia recover from her dog attack. That was around the time that my mom’s health was in its final decline, when I felt the most helpless and despairing. I think having even some tiny something I could do to help was like, the only feeling of control I had in life for a bit there. Julia’s fine, by the way. Still queen of the yard, top chicken boss bitch, etc. Julia was always a kind of kindred spirit with my mom, in a way. Little but not to be underestimated, gray, big personality and commanding presence… Not to mention, she was one of the first in our flock and was always my mom’s favorite. 

It would be too much to say I have high hopes or plans of any kind for the upcoming year, but I do have a list of things I want to try and do. Some of which will involve art, and the posting thereof.

Big if on this one, but I’ve also recently started therapy (only took me half a year to work up to making a phone call after the first failed attempt took all the wind out of my sails) and I have…maybe not high hopes, but hopes, for that doing something to help. I should have started therapy two years ago, but the second best time is now, etc etc.

I have a lot of New Year’s resolutions, beyond the usual “get in shape, drink less coffee, blah blah” that I’ll try and write up a little list of separately. Most of them are art-related, so you all will be there to watch me swing and miss I PROMISED I’D TRY TO BE LESS NEGATIVE. New Year’s resolution #1: Maybe don’t make so many self-deprecating jokes.

Anyway, I don’t know how to end any wall of text, be it an OC worldbuilding screed or something serious like this, so... I guess, love yourself, cherish your friends, know when to put your own needs first and when to put your friends’ needs firster. One of the things my mom taught me in this past year or so is that relationships are what you make of them, and that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes. Be generous, be genuine, don’t be a doormat and don’t lie to people you care about, even if it seems kinder in the moment. Savor the time you have with those close to you, and spend time doing things you love. Cliché, maybe, but cliché can still be true. Happy new year, everyone. I sincerely hope it will treat us all better. 2020 may just be an imaginary change of numbers, but I like to think it really does wipe the slate in a way, and make room for all of us to do what we can to be better. Speaking of which, vote. For the love of all that is good, vote.

--

A little bullet list of New Year’s resolutions, because it’s nicer to look at

Try to get back in shape (of course) - That 30 days of strength thing was good while it lasted, despite my joints hating me

Learn some new recipes, preferably with fewer carbs, you Italian ass

Keep a physical calendar and stick with it for at least a few months

Learn at least one new skill by the middle of the year, whether it’s art-related or something else

Start writing more. Don’t have to share it, but try. Write down ideas somewhere other than Discord where they’re easy to lose

Either reopen Patreon or figure out how ko-fi works. Even if it’s for no money, just to have structure and goals.

Do Animazement again and try out some new product types

Go to SCAD career fair with a decent portfolio

Get better about spending, by whatever method works

Attend some art classes at the local collectives, doesn’t matter what

Play more video games. I swear I only played like three new things this year 

Read more classic literature and nonfiction, at least one book per month. I’ve been really enjoying Agatha Christie’s works and am about to start Guns, Germs, and Steel

Read more comics. Basically just consume more media

Do Halloween again, better this time

See friends in person more

Practice accepting whatever shitty thoughts show up and then letting them go, rather than dwelling on them

#not art #text post #death cw

[bakugou-protection-squad]

Okay so...

I feel like KiriBaku will just became The Ship™️ of My Hero Academia, mostly because I see most everyone accepting it based on their interactions.

But just in case there are any reservations, I personally want to point out some things.

First and foremost, I would like to mention I am certified to make these claims because I have a degree in "Everything is a dick, and everything is about sex, and everyone is gay." In other words, an English degree where I have spent hours and days on end analysing every single line of a book and come up with an interpretation of it (The door was not red because it signified red-hot passion. It was red because it was just god damn red, for fucks sake!)

Anyway. Now that my unnessesary but nessesary egotistical claim is out of the way, here is why KiriBaku is (at least) the most narratively canon gay ship. ***Obligatory warning that this will get long***

*Spoilers*

1) Concepts to Canon. Kirishima was originally said to apply to UA to impress Mina. But as we can see, that changed. We see very minimal interactions between them. Even in the manga (I am a manga reader fyi) So honestly, I don't think Horikoshi kept that interest interest as part of Kirishima's character. Hell there are more cute interactions between Mina and Aoyama than Kiri and Mina. And coming from the writer's perspective, someone who is in the process of writing and drafting her own material for publication and creating her own characters, I can see Horikoshi's own writing process when designing the characters. I can especially see a reason for ditching the interest in Mina. I can sum it up I four words: It simply didn't click. Something I had experienced 1st hand was scraping the idea of a female love interest for my main character because I something just didn't feel right about it. It would have been forced and I would have gotten nowhere with my story. So when I discovered that my main character was gay, everything fell into place and I was able to move on with a concept that worked. So that may be had happened with Kirishima towards Bakugou.

2) World Building. I know this is Shonen, so romance is not the main focus. But honestly, MHA could be considered a slice of life/school life anime at times. And what do normal school-age students do? Have crushes and date. To the MHA crew, this is their normal. Their life. It's not like, say, Assassination Classroom where the idea of training to kill their teacher is a normal concept. No. Those kids were thrown into it, so their mindset changes a bit to adapt to that special situation. MHA, being a hero is just another profession they can study to become. Just like a doctor or lawyer. Yeah they get roped into the something big, but under everything, this would be their life once they become heros. One thing I have particularly noticed is Horikoshi's attention to detail when it comes to his world building. The way it appears to me, it seems as though the story moves forward based on his complex characters interacting with their world rather than them jusy being placed into it. Probably doesn't make much sense. But it's there (Kiri ordering night vision goggles for a rescue mission, a kid being turned into a meme in response to Endeavor's fight, Todoroki and his brother savagly slurping noodles, Recovery Girl offering a Snickers to students after training. Those types of things.) These little things are unnecessary, but are still included. Long-winded way to get to my point. Whose to say that the MHA kids can't find a chance to go on dates on off days, develop crushes organically based on hanging out with each other and training? Their world allows something like that to exist simultaneously with the danger they face.

3) Horikoshi's subtle progressiveness. I always use this point every time I talk about KiriBaku. There are already two confirmed Lgbtq+ characters who are legit characters and not written off as joke characters. Tiger and Magne are both trans. One is a hero. One is a villian. Horikoshi seems to include that fact to show that a trans person can be either side, instead of either being simply good or simply bad (or a joke that so many series tend to do.) I'm not going into the problematic part of Hori killing off Magne, because that's a different rant. The point of this is saying that there is a possibility, based on that point, that someone from the main cast would be gay. Because, like I mentioned in the previous point, this is their normal world. I know homosexuality is usually played off as comic relief, but I feel as though Horikoshi wouldn't do that, based on the world he's built. Tiger and Magne were accepted by their peers with no one saying anything about it. So I doubt any homosexual moments will be treated like comic relief. Which brings me to my next point.

4) Kirishima and Bakugou's steady relationship build up. I am not going to go too into detail about their relationship, but I will give a general gist. These two have had the most character development between the two of them. Even more than Bakugou and Deku. It's slow, but natural. They go from negative first impressions to being pretty much joined at the hip. Bakugou, as we've seen, presents us with a certain way to determine his opinion of characters: names. If he doesn't care for them, he calls them nicknames or "extras" yet when he has respect for them, he calls them by name. Kirishima is arguably the first one to gain Bakugou's upmost respect. Started from the USJ, then the sports festival, all the way to Kamino and post that. This is a fact Deku, good old insightful, analytical Deku, has pointed out when they rescued Bakugou. Deku knows how Bakugou is, so the fact he picked up on how Bakugou has changed says something. Not to mention all the promotional art of them (Google some. They are always paired and next to each other.) They are so close that Kirishima seems to know Bakugou's SUIT-SIZE. Listen. I talked with the guys from my friend group. And even if they act gay around each other all the time, they all agree that Kirishima knowing Bakugou's measurements is a bit too much for them to just be best friends. It's one thing to get matching t-shirts. It's a whole different monster when it comes to to formal wear. And if that doesn't say anything, the fact Kirishima got himself a normal looking suit yet took one look at a vest covered in white roses and thought "gee that would look great on Bakugou" says something. And the kicker is he didn't even do it ironically. He didn't do it for a joke to humiliate Bakugou, he was serious about it and got it because he KNEW Bakugou wouldn't bring one. They've only known each other for half a term at this point, and Kirishima already knew what to expect. THAT says something. Without going too much into it, the moments when Bakugou shows concern for Kirishima. Bakugou is still an ass to his classmates, yet shows he does deeply care about his friends.

Thanks for reading my little word vomit post. Where was I going with this long-ass response? More or less, KiriBaku has the most narrative support for the ship and it is because of the world in which they live in. Hopefully it made sense 😅

#kiribaku #kirishima #kirishima eijirou #bnha kirishima #bakugou x kirishima #bakushima #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakukiri #bnha bakugou #bakusquad #my hero academia #bnha movie #bnha spoilers #bnha #mha #mha bakugou #mha spoilers

[coffeewithjoywave]

Long Ass Post Regarding The Bastille Fandom and how it's really Not As Great as it's made out to be

okay

so ive seen a Lot of posts lately praising the bastille fandom for being so “nice and sweet and chill and tolerant” etc etc. and they bother me a lot.

I have nothing against the people making these posts. they’re happy with the corner of the group that they associate with, and that’s fine.

what I do have a problem with is the posts themselves.

they make out like this fandom is so nice and peachy and perfect when if you look even a tiny little bit further away from your own friend group within it, if you scrape a tiny bit under the surface, it’s obvious this is certainly not the case, and nobody acknowledges this. no fandom is perfect, especially not this one.

we have our fair share of sketchy disgusting shit going on. it may not be to the level of certain others but it is there and it’s bad, and the mentality of glossing over that completely is worrying me.

I have a few points I’m gonna go over, mostly relating to this fandoms treatment of Dan, and their treatment of each other.

•1 Treatment of Dan

this is probably mostly in reference to the twitter group of the fandom but it’s bad on tumblr too hoo boy.

to put it bluntly

y'all are fucking THIRSTY and it’s disgusting. because Dan doesn’t have a partner that we know of publicly everyone seems to take that as him being free range and make some pretty Ugly and Disgusting comments towards him- and even worse y'all do it on twitter too, on his tweets, which he can see? the way you talk about him really rubs me up the wrong way.

he’s a human being for god’s sake and i don’t wanna sound like your mum but ACT LIKE YOUD WANT TO BE TREATED YOURSELF.

he is not free for you to treat like you do- and a good mirror for my point of the fact he doesn’t have a partner we know of is: you don’t make those kinds of advances toward woody, do you? y'all know he’s married and you respect that, which is great. but you can’t show the same courtesy towards Dan? (and don’t try to say that woody isn’t as attractive as Dan that has nothing to do with this.).

Even worse is your harassment of anyone involved with Dan’s life like his friends especially his female friends - the AMOUNT OF TIMES i have SEEN speculation about one of his friends or a crew member or anything being his girlfriend- and then you go and harass the poor girls?? what the fuck??? it shouldn’t matter to you if he has a partner and if he does you DONT HARASS THEM LIKE THIS. i find it really hypocritical especially after the whole glory thing.

•1a Treatment of the boys on twitter

I’ve said something about this before but the twitter fandom is SO bad. I’m not very involved with it so i won’t make claims but they’re some of the worst i think mainly because due to the nature of twitter they have direct contact with the band. anyway, twitter fandom is awful, not going further bc y'all know

•2 Treatment of others within the fandom

oh boy! y'all are not all nice as someone who floated around Heaps before i settled within the space I had within the fandom when I was a somewhat active participant in it, I can tell you that a Good Percentage of you in the tumblr section of the fandom are demons. I’ve seen people bully and harass others, send anon hate, more and more and more and i think maybe it’s gotten worse since the second album? the main problem is I think you’re all too overprotective of the band as a whole.

•2a Treatment of the creative side of the fandom

this place is the WORST when it comes to art theft of various incarnations Holy SHIT you steal and repost other people’s edits, their art, their gifs, with no credit and that is Bad. You know it’s bad but do you stop? no. do you check sources? no. you follow and reblog from accounts that repost gifs and you dont give a shit- even when the original watermarks are Right There

And let’s get back into how y'all treat Greg shall we?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it as many times as possible- STOP STEALING HIS PHOTOS. how have you not learned? why do i still see leaked photos going around? why do you not check the source before you reblog? why do i, to this day, see photos from the photobook online when you’ve been specifically told not to post them? it’s ugly and disgusting how you treat creators in this place, especially Greg.

• in conclusion

there’s more to this but this is long enough already. what bothers me the most is how nobody seems to see this? how you praise each other for being so Great and Cool? there’s some great circles of people in here, i agree, a lot of you are really great but there’s still the other side to it there. no fandom is purely nontoxic!! you know that!! it’s worse here than you think it is and that’s what i want you to take away if you got through this long ass terrible post.

sorry for being the one to crash your party but it’s the hard truth and I wish more people were aware of it because this ignorance worries me.

(thanks to joyce for talking with me and helping me think out this post a bit)

#this really bothers me and i needed to make a post about it not sure if it's that good but #bastille #dan smith #will farquarson #kyle simmons #chris woody wood #charlie barnes #long post / #uhhh what else can i tag this with #dunno #anyway i hope to take smth away from this it took me half and hour to write

[lordsireno]

SOUL EATER AUs

As the title says, a collection of all the AUs I came up with but never got around to writing. See under the cut because oh shit there’s a few thousand words! Warning for violence/injury/death.

Build God, Then we’ll talk AU

               In a world built on secrets, a mad scientist is commissioned to build god. (Years ago people took down Death, the main god of power in the world, and witches, weapons and humans were free to rule themselves. They built a city on towers with networks stretching beneath. Some foolish people used a fragment of Deaths soul to create a weapon, however only made a beast of madness that escaped into the depths of the city. Years later and the skilled scientist and soul expert Franken Stein is commissioned to build a weapon with a smaller fragment of Deaths soul. He works and develops a vessel, but cannot awaken the soul he had sewn to it. Students Maka and Soul use their demon hunting to explore the underground, and discover the vessel. They perform a soul resonance, and Maka enters the souls room, a black void with a white skull mask. For waking him, he gives her a number and says to summon him whenever she needs. They leave, but Stein knows what happened, and now with an awake vessel he can present to the council. Other notes; Mare works as Steins assistant to keep his madness in check, but she’s fallen for him. The council is kinda upset with being presented a limited power child, but he insists it was the only way to make the soul bond and guarantee it doesn’t turn to madness, since it can be taught. Not wanting to spawn attachment, or simply call it ‘A fragment of Death’, they end up calling it Kid. They agree to the terms, giving him private tutors and letting him stay with Stein for observation. He does at one point leave from a lesson to assist Maka, who is struggling in a fight against a Clown. Once he helps in destroying it, they talk, Maka and Soul surprised at the appearance of their powerful friend. Kid returns to find his tutor mopping about how he’ll be fired. Stein learns of him running off, and when Kid states ‘He had a promise to keep’ Stein figures it was to help Maka, her being the only other outside contact. He threatens that he could disassemble him if he shows too much free will, but Kid counters that while his mind is blank, his origin and desire to help Maka is engraved in his soul, and that if they tried with a new fragment they wouldn’t have the same success. ????? Marie secretly just want this child shapped being to be treated as a child, so she does things that mothers would do and Kid is like “? Um yes uh thank you?”… ????? It comes to a major battle against Asura, and he and Kid are in a tug of war with their souls, each trying to absorb the other for power. The most drama would come from Kid losing, his soul fusing with Asuras and his body being left limp. The battle continues, but an internal battle of Order and Chaos goes on. )

“Breaking the Rules” AU from tumblr

It’s the dystopian future, and all forms of music/dancing/art/etc. have been banned due to its strong influence to lead people down ‘dangerous’ paths of life. Character A has always been a model citizen, but there’s something alluring about the artsy, suave Character B that’s making Character A reconsider the rules. (A:Maka, B:Soul)

Dark city Glory AU (Audio: Glory by Panic! at the Disco)

               Death City, the dark pool of gathering that hosts both evil and its hunters. One of the main gatherings of Demon hunters, searching for posts on the latest targets. Maka is the new kid in the city, teaming up with the strange man Soul Eater in an attempt to prove she’s as good as a hunter as her mother was. But the strength of witches is growing and the latest power trip drug ‘Black Blood’ is turning people mad, it takes a lot to survive in the cities confines. (Maka and Soul have just started as partners, and quite often team with the God hunting BlackStar and Tsubaki. They take job from mission boards to hunt down demons and witches, keeping corrupted souls and returning good ones to the pool in the town square. Pure souls corrupted by BlackBlood are getting common, giving people madness boosted power. During a mission Soul is infected when injured. Liz and Patty are deep into the cities black market and deal drugs and weapons. Death is trapped beneath the pool, collecting souls. Kid and Asura keep the balance between Order and Chaos, however after being infected with BlackBlood, Asura gains enormous power boost and takes out Kid and a massive section of living quarters. Survivers are gathered and Natsuki got to Liz for backup medical stuff. Liz personally deliveres it and gets asked to help change a patents bandages, but it’s Kid and in a delirious state he rants about what happened. Liz knocks him out and just nopes on outa there, but later Maka comes asking for information on Black Blood. “I was simply aiming to be a great demon hunter, and now I’m working with a bunch of misfits to reinstate a god. Not where I saw my career going.” )

Road Trip for Gods AU

               BlackStar convinces Maka and Soul to go on a road trip to the rare event of Gods entering the mortal realm for a few months. (Maka researches how to identify a god, Star just wants to fight one. They encounter Kid, who has already recruited Liz and Patty as his weapons and is currently just checking out how mortals live. Star goes at him, but can barely keep up, even when its Kid’s first fight with his new weapons. “You just fought a god with new weapons who has only existed for 17 years. My brother is 800 years; my father is thousands of years. Do you really think you could take on an actual god?” Anyway they both kinda stop fighting, but they start following Kid because a) Star wants to meet real gods “Not just some BABY god” and Maka and Soul are just like “Dude this happens so rarely like hell we’re not learning all we can from you” and they actually all happily travel. So then at one point Kid is meeting with his brother, so the others hide a little way away, but as Kid talks to him it seems Asura has embraced his madness and decided to actively rule the humans. Kids like “bro nah lets get you home” and Asuras like “FUCK OFF YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO YOURE NOT DAD” and snaps Kid’s neck, throwing him onto the ground and running off. Everyone is all OH SHIT. And they’re all in shock. They set up camp and take Kid with them, but Patty feels uncomfortable about the angle his head is at, so despite Liz’s protests she twists his head so it sits normally. A little while later and he starts to move again, one eye opening and looking around. Turns out his body just need to be properly aligned for it to heal. “Alright which one of manage to figure out how to fix me? Patty? Well, good job, your promoted to my fight hand. Liz your demoted” ”This is no time to joke around! We thought you were dead!”)

MMORPG AU

               The worlds biggest and longest running MMORPG has started a new major event. (In the game you can choose from Meister, Weapon or Witch, with some mixing exceptions. The easiest way to get stronger is to pair a meister and weapon and take on missions that way. Maka and Star are childhood friends and play the game with their internet friends Soul and Tsubaki (Soul makes fun of Maka for using her real name) they also befriend Kid along with Liz and Patty. A new story event starts with the escape of the Kishin, and subsequent missions tracking down those who let it escape, helping NPCs with madness incidents etc. Most of the main events are time based. At some point the team fails a major event and they decide that with the amount of time left on the event they wouldn’t be able to train up to a decent level. Kid is furious they’re giving up, for which they joke (“I bet you’re one of those nuts who does nothing but spend time on their computer”) and all log off. The server rolls over. When they log in the next day the world landscape has changed. Flooded by madness, the NPCs are dying and going insane. Everyone is confused and goes to the head NPC, Death, who issues all the main missions. He laments how everyone failed to stop the witches and the Kishins power has grown. A new timed mission shows up and no one can contact Kid. Asking players who were on during the server switch, the claim they saw him enter the last mission but not return. They enter a mission and fight a madness creature, the fight is tough but they scrape through. The remains reveal Kid, who had been infected himself. He admits to being an NPC, and that this isn’t just a game to him, but a literal fight for his home )

Consult with you (not so) local doctor AU

               One day Maka finds her father has been missing for a while. Being informed of his whereabouts at the local hospital, its discovered he’d had an encounter with a kidnapper who takes their victims, performs surgery and then leaves them back where they found them. Like a curious sod, Maka tells her school friends, and then convinces Soul to go out looking. They two are attacked but some random hobo, leaving soul badly injured. A man comes along and offers to help, taking him back and stitching him up. Maka is thankful and discovers that this is the kidnapper, however he only kidnaps people he thing have medical problems, such as taking her father to fix his poisoned liver. They’re free to go so long as they dont out him. They agree, however do tell their friends of the tale. BlackStar is sad it wasn’t aliens, but wonders if the doctor would give him a free check-up. Kid is dumbfounded they’d even gone out looking, and refuses to go along with their antics, however does somehow get dragged along for a visit. Stein agrees to give BlackStar a look over, and the other three meet Marie, who Stein helped, then allowed to stay so long as she helped around the house. Stein returns and does a bit of a creep, pulling up Maka’s top to remark about her skin, running his hands down Soul’s chest saying that he’ll need a check-up in a while, and grabs Kid’s head which he freaks at (“I didn’t know you were afraid of Doctors.””I’m not afraid! I just prefer to keep visits to a minim around people of those…dispositions.”) but everything is chill. Later on Soul convinces Kid to come along to his check-up, since Maka is busy. Due to the late night visit, Kid closes his eyes for a moment, only to open them and find the Doctor leaning against his chest (“?!””Is this…how your heart always sounds?”) The doctor gets excited about finding out why his heart beats at a slow rate, and promptly knocks him out, pushing Soul off the table and starting the experiment. Soul eventually wakes up to a covered body on the table, is organs laid out and even hanging from the lights. He freaks and runs from the room, finding Stein rummaging in the shelves. He asks wtf is going on, and Stein says he got a little excited with his latest subject, who had an oddly simplified organ system. When Soul wants to leave, he realises Kid isn’t there, and Stein says he can’t leave, considering what he’d done. Scared, Soul threatens with the fact his family or friends will come looking. Later, Maka and co do visit, but Stein says he hasn’t seen them. (He’s just hidden them away) more time passes and they’re being questioned about anything that might lead to where they are. Maka and Blackstar eventually admit to knowing the Surgeon, and the police go out. No one is there. (Stein moved, and eventually have comes across Maka, saying he’s disappointed she outed him. He takes her to Soul and locks them in together. Soul explains what happened and they try to think of a way to escape. Later, Stein shows up and after a “what are you planning to do with us?!” he like “Im letting you go.” He says he’s no killer and would have to release them eventually and shows them that Kid is back in one piece, they just have to promise they’ll never out him or he’ll “make them a permanent fixture of the lab”. And they leave. And a while down the road Soul freaks like what the fuck we were held prisoner by a madman and we’ve gotta pretend like nothing ever happened. And Kid doesn’t even speak he just stares and everyones freaked out. )

Fallout AU

               Soul thought he’d be stuck in his boring little life inside the boring little vault. That is until an odd group of raiders break in and take him to the outside. (His vault is filled with talented socialites, but the test was to see if weapon blood could create better people. Raiders, with Sid the ghoul at the front, come in looking for people with weapon genes. They take a few including Wes who have inactive weapon blood, but mark Soul as he had recently discovered his weapon abilities. Theyre taken to Death City, and while most are locked up, Soul is taken and spoken to by Asura and Spirit. The tell him that theyre group trains weapon, and that his options are to stay and train, or go out in the wilderness to find his way home. He’s pretty quick to decide to stay, getting away from vault life exactly what he wanted. If the other vault dwellers don’t show to be weapons, they can either live in Death City or try to make their way home. Maka is asked to show Soul around, and shes excited that she’ll get to train with an actual scythe, having dabbled in other weapons. (Okay so the conflict is the Gorgon sisters experiment on humans to create weapons. Medusa’s latest experiment gives remote control over the young reaper Kid, tapping into his soul perception to target, and then commanding him to involuntarily reap their souls. Liz and Patty work for the witches, at one point trying to recruit Soul to their side but escaping from the fight. Their other job is to guard Kid, who they befriended. When they discover that they’re planning on using Kid to attack Death City, Liz and Patty go there to ask for help, the others obviously suspicious.) 

From Tumblr: You are Death, and you have just accidentally taken someone before their time. In order to hide your mistake, you decide to live in the person’s place until the day they were supposed to die.                (Kid thought he was doing his best to lighten his father’s load, but was still just an inexperienced Reaper. He didn’t mean to reap the boy, but a taken soul was a taken soul. So now he was stuck masquerading as the boy until his death date in several weeks, however his roommate was much too clever and much too observant. (Kid has to pretend to be the cool leather jacket wearing, motorbike riding, only-if-it-interests me Soul Evens. He finds that Maka, the boys roommate, is an intelligent student who may have been questioning her feelings for Soul. He does his best to avoid people, but Maka gets nosey, and Star gets loud, so he finds himself having to befriend the boys friends. And Maka actually starts falling for the new Soul whos actually interested in hearing about her studies and who obsesses over the symmetry of their house. At one point he comes up with the lie of having hit his head when out biking, and having trouble remembering things. He keeps living and does make friends. The day before the reaping date Maka kisses him, and the next day she finds a letter asking her to meet in the park. Feeling conflicted, Kid reveals himself and tells Maa the truth, before leaving .) He convinces himself to say by thinking that having him disappare would cause to much havoc, and he refused to admit he messed up to his father. He keeps the soul on him, being able to gleam feelings and mucel memory from it. The next day, after Maka yells at him and rushes from the house he analysies the house, studing the room, the phone and computer, Makas room and then outer location he find Souls goes to. He sees its his turn to cook dinner, and does what he can with the contense in the fridge. Maka returns and is slightly surprised. He says he’s not talking due to a sore throat, and after checking for a tempriture, she berates him for staying uot late. They eat while Maka talks of her day, and Kid listens intently. ) Soul was doing online classes, so Kid des his best to get average grades, and also has to deal with his job.

#Soul Eater #AU #Soul Eater AUs #Story #Maka Albarn #Soul Evens #Death the Kid #liz thompson #patty thompson #BlackStar #tsubaki nakatsukasa #Prompts #fanfiction #writing #MonkeyWrites

[lifeonashelf]

CLARKSON, KELLY

Since we’ve already tackled a fairly diverse musical sampling in this tome, it may not shock you to learn that I sincerely think Kelly Clarkson is awesome-sauce. And I’m not just referring to her talent (which is obviously abundant) or her register of great songs (which is also obviously abundant), I’m referring to her essence—the authenticity she embodies, and how much more fundamentally likeable she is than any other pop star of her stature or epoch. I have not met Kelly Clarkson, yet her entire vocational ethos has been so blessedly free of pretention that I kind of feel like I know her, even though the only thing I know for a fact about Kelly Clarkson is that she is a singer named Kelly Clarkson.

I never viewed one episode of the American Idol season she won and I have never seen her interviewed as far as I can recall. The impressions I have of her character are intrinsic, based on nothing more than the calmative sound of her voice and the traits I instinctively suppose a person whose voice sounds like hers must surely possess (certain voices are just like that—I don’t think anyone on the planet assumes Morgan Freeman is a dick, for instance). By that criteria alone, I am led to believe Kelly Clarkson is a kind human being, the sort of gentle soul who gleans authentic happiness from making other people happy. I am led to believe she is a humble human being, the sort of grateful and unaffected luminary who lends her resources to numerous charitable causes without requiring any fanfare for it. I am led to believe she is a wonderful mother, although I am merely presuming she has kids since I don’t actually know anything about her personal life. And I am so innately certain of these things that if someone told me they have it on good authority that Kelly Clarkson bathes in the blood of kittens to preserve her youth, I wouldn’t believe that person for a second, even if they had pictures (conversely, if someone told me the same thing about Taylor Swift, they wouldn’t even need photos to convince me).

I have an anecdote which supports my hypotheses, even if the anecdote isn’t my own. My cousin Lauren worked at a restaurant in Hawaii for a few years, and on her last day at this café, a vacationing Kelly Clarkson happened to stop in to eat there. Since it was Lauren’s final shift, her co-workers were scribbling farewell messages on her uniform with magic markers throughout the day, inscribing it like the pages of a yearbook. My cousin’s engraved vestment drew the notice of the eatery’s eminent visitor, who amiably asked about its significance; when Lauren explained the circumstances to this world-renowned superstar in her establishment, Clarkson proceeded to gush about how delightful she thought the gesture was and asked if she could add her signature to the shirt. As a result, my cousin is now the proud owner of a decidedly unique piece of apparel which is autographed by a slew of her former hospitality industry peers… and Kelly Clarkson. When Lauren told me this story, I was acutely charmed and—yes, I admit—a little envious. But I was not a bit surprised, because that is exactly the sort of genial exchange I imagine everybody who meets Kelly Clarkson probably has with her (conversely, if Lauren told me that Taylor Swift came into her restaurant, wrote “fuck you” on her t-shirt, then defecated on the floor, she wouldn’t even need the signed garment to convince me).    

While artists like Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj have allocated periods of their careers to embodying post-apocalyptic femme-bots or community-theater sorceresses or whatever-the-fuck, Kelly Clarkson has exclusively devoted her career to embodying a performer named Kelly Clarkson who doesn’t come across as markedly different than the self-effacing lass named Kelly Clarkson who curls up on her tour bus after her concerts to watch old episodes of Friends (granted, I have no idea if Clarkson is a fan of that particular show, but she sounds like she must be). The only way I would ever recognize Lady Gaga in the wild is if she walked up to me and said, “Hi, my name is Lady Gaga”—and after I nodded and remarked, “oh, that’s kinda neat for you,” I can’t imagine I’d have much else to say to her. Yet if I happened to be at a craft store and I spotted Clarkson browsing the yarn aisles (for some reason, I also presuppose she knits a mean sweater), I would instantly know who I was spotting because she would probably look exactly like Kelly Clarkson always does, and I’d feel duty-bound to approach her, shake her hand, and thank her for being all of the things I assume she is. And if she wanted to hang out for a little while and chat about patterns, I would totally hear her out, because listening to Kelly Clarkson extrapolate on the textile arts sounds like a perfectly pleasant way to spend an afternoon. I have a strong sense that if I were to meet up with Kelly Clarkson for coffee—actually, now that I think about it, she probably prefers tea—we would totally get along; I also have a strong sense that Kelly Clarkson is precisely the kind of celebrity who actually would meet up with a fan for tea (not me, obviously, because I clearly sound like a lunatic right now).  

“The Girl Next Door” is such a tired trope (especially in my case, since the girls who live next door to me are a Goth lesbian couple), but that is indeed the model Clarkson educes: an ingenuous small-town gal-done-good who spent her teenaged weekends canning homemade jam with her grandmother and reading YA romance novels on her porch with a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade beside her (again, I’m not sure Kelly Clarkson did any of these things; regrettably, my insights into small-town living are limited to the saccharine tableaus represented in the Lifetime Original movies I’ve watched over the years—which, consequently, I presume Clarkson also enjoys). Her comportment evokes a high-spirited yet enduringly sweet kid sister you impulsively want to protect from the leering eyes of the world, and while she is certainly a beautiful woman, my attraction to her has never ventured anywhere near the realm of the erotic (my pop chanteuse crush is Demi Lovato, whose open struggles with bi-polar disorder, depression, and substance abuse—perhaps unfortunately—make her way more my type than Clarkson is). Honestly, I can’t envision making out with Kelly Clarkson; any fantasies my brain might entertain about her would be more likely to involve tracking down whatever scoundrel inspired the fervent pathos in her performance of “Behind These Hazel Eyes” and defending her honor by punching that fucker in the face.

I guess the word I’m really looking for here is “refreshing.” While Clarkson built her renown in a realm of play-acting, her career has been defined by an absence of artifice, which is ultimately a much more substantive thing to define oneself by than prowling around in spangled booty shorts. At her peak, Clarkson’s implicit message to the young women in her fanbase seemed to be, “you don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not; just be who you are and great things will happen.” I’m certainly no prig, but if I had a music-consuming daughter who looked to pop idols for guidance, I’d much rather her absorb that philosophy than the one proffered by, say, Rihanna—whose well-publicized turbulent coupling with Chris Brown would instead tacitly edify my fictional offspring that “ride-or-die” means sticking by your man even after he beats the absolute fucking shit out of you.

Of course, Kelly Clarkson’s ascent was predominantly reliant on her faculty—I doubt millions of people bought her records solely because she’s a nice person—yet in that respect also, she handily outshined her contemporaries. While most of the circa-aughts female pop icons were essentially sonically interchangeable, Clarkson’s soaring vocals always had enough distinctive character to render them unmistakably hers—surely, no amount of Auto-Tune could have endowed the bottom-scraping likes of Fergie with enough juice to do “Because of You” justice. She was also savvy beyond her years, and it was her refusal to let her handlers dictate the course of her career that ultimately allowed her to flourish when so many of her fellow American Idol graduates floundered.

Clarkson’s sophomore album—2004’s Breakaway—turned out to be the best-selling entry in her discography, and will likely forever remain her most iconic opus. But she had to fire her manager and battle just about everyone else in her camp to make that disc happen on her terms. After riding the wave of Idol worship which lifted her safe and satisfactory debut Faithful to its logical ceiling, she was tenacious in her resolve to transcend that threshold and announce herself as an artist capable of achieving far greater heights than triumphing in a televised popularity contest. As preparations for Breakaway began, Clarkson insisted on being heavily involved in the songwriting process—disregarding the protests of her mostly-male producers, who myopically deemed that a twenty-something woman couldn’t possibly possess any insight into what the twenty-something women who comprised the largest audience for the record they were making wanted to hear. She was also adamant about integrating more diverse and dynamic elements into her sound instead of simply settling upon another cycle of tepid pop-contemporary numbers. The result was a monster of a record that offered up five chart-igniting classics and a supporting cast of remarkably strong deep cuts. As evidenced on Breakaway, Kelly Clarkson’s vision of her craft encompassed something much weightier than a series of Pez-dispenser singles and shark-costume dance numbers. She clearly wanted to make a cohesive album that never gave the listener occasion to reach for the Track-Skip button, and she succeeded brilliantly. Commencing with the anthemic title cut, the feisty “Since U Been Gone”, the masterful “Behind These Hazel Eyes”, and the show-stopping apogee “Because of You” in immediate succession, Breakaway is surely a front-loaded disc, but it’s nevertheless one that continues delivering gems long after it exhausts its radio bait: “Addicted” is as solid as anything else on the record, “Walk Away” brims with irresistible quirk, and despite being buried near the tail-end of the track listing, “You Found Me” is more indelible than most other artists’ biggest hits.

This, too, illustrates a refreshing component of Clarkson’s mien—she made an entire record worth listening to, a feat which regrettably few artists on the pop landscape ever seem to bother themselves with. None of the tunes on Breakaway resonate as throwaways; each has something to offer beyond a hummable chorus, and each is solely Clarkson’s domain, firmly entrenched in her esthetic wheelhouse and blessedly devoid of any posturized pandering or blundering Ja Rule cameos. Even at this early stage of her artistic development, she possessed a seasoned understanding of the clear difference between making a song marketable and making a song memorable, and a keen awareness that those two things are not mutually exclusive. Surely, Clarkson was just as aggressively promoted as any of her peers, but her product wasn’t aimed at the audience hungry for gyrating, hypersexual caprice—peddlers like Christina Aguilera already had that demographic covered. Kelly Clarkson wasn’t selling her navel, she was selling a much more durable commodity: fantastic songs performed by an exceptional singer. And the grandeur of her vocal acumen elevated her wares beyond the disposable and into the timeless—indeed, as of this writing, Breakaway remains a thoroughly satisfying listen; meanwhile, nobody would bother spinning an Ashlee Simpson album from start to finish today, not even Ashlee Simpson.

And unlike far too many of her colleagues, Clarkson didn’t require a force-field of studio trickery to bolster her transmission. The organic nuance and passion in her voice floated atop the reverb rather than drowning in it, and the intricate, exquisite descants she conjured revealed hours spent mining her soul for the best way to communicate the emotion each track called for instead of pondering what shoes to wear in the eventual video. Which is probably why “Since U Been Gone” still makes me pogo around my apartment every time I put it on, while every Katy Perry song sounds like it was specifically written for a lipgloss commercial.

Clarkson’s output has waned in the last decade or so—though “Stronger” is a notable high-point—but even if her most significant work is destined to remain behind her, the legacy she built for herself transcends her standing as the first and most successful American Idol victor (at press time, that is; I’m willing to entertain the possibility that Lee DeWyze or one of the seven other winners whose names nobody remembers might still create the most amazing record ever made). After weathering an era replete with shameful moments like the skinhead meltdown of Britney Spears, The Pussycat Dolls pledging the drooling males in their litterbox echelons of filthy sluttery their lowly mortal girlfriends could never aspire to, and Lindsay Lohan being Lindsay Lohan, Kelly Clarkson emerged with her class, her dignity, and her career intact. The reality-TV platform that introduced her to the world is now a footnote, but her catalog continues to stand the test of time. And even though I actually shook Randy Jackson’s hand when he ate at the restaurant where I work (take that, Lauren), Clarkson will always be the American Idol alumnus I feel most closely connected to.

Speaking of… Kelly, if you’re reading this: my last shift at Eureka is on Monday, January 28. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Claremont that night and feel like swinging by, I’d be honored to have you sign my shirt. Just don’t invite Taylor Swift, please; I heard she does some really gnarly shit to kittens.

 January 17, 2019

[horrorinreallife]

Matilda found herself living in a small Midwestern town, just barely scraping by, after a failed attempt at running a craft, organic, gluten-free, multigrain cracker home delivery service. She had mistakenly built her business model with international distribution in mind but without the preservatives found in non-gluten-free and non-organic multigrain crackers, her product became stale prior to arriving at a few of her larger warehouse facilities in Taiwan.

“It’s fine, Matilda! Those people eat dog over there anyway. Have you even tried our Salsa Cheddar Snapbacks the R&D kitchen came up with last week? Literally no difference in taste, stale or not!”

Those were some of the last words of advice she heard from her business partner before he sold his shares in her company and ran off to Albuquerque to start a pop punk band with his buddies from college.

After distribution started dwindling and stock value plummeted, she was forced to liquidate assets to pay off debts and moved to a studio apartment to try to find a job and get back on her feet. She had done a lot of research on different communities and chose the small Midwestern town that she did because numerous reports had projected an influx of business, industry, and population growth to be able to support plenty of potential job opportunities and, maybe eventually, a social life again.

She attended networking events and applied for a number of things in between part time jobs but wasn’t getting many interviews for anything substantial, long-term. She started to really begin to rethink her plan.

“I should have gone to a larger city. This was a big risk. I am going to get down to nothing and be stranded! Should I start another business? No! I’m not going to go through that again!”

One day she got a call from one of the gentlemen she had met at the last networking event she attended.

“Matilda! Darling! It was such a pleasure meeting you last week! I am very, very impressed with your prior experience and I feel like you’d make an invaluable addition to our team.”

“Thank you so very much! I’m extremely greatful for the opportunity. I truly apologize. Could you give me just a quick refresher on the industry in which I’d be working and also, what I should expect during the interview process?”

“Oh honey, you’re already hired.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“Welcome aboard! You will be receiving your new hire documents in the mail on Monday. FedEx. Do not hesitate to reach out with questions! I’ll see you on Thursday night for our first event.”

“I’m sorry but what event are you referri...”

*dial tone*

At this point she really didn’t have any other option, so she patiently waited for Monday to arrive so she could see what the actual fuck was going to be in the FedEx package.

Monday came and went and by 6:45pm she metaphorically kicked herself square in the cunt bone for having wasted a day waiting around for something so intangible. Just as she was about to pick up the phone to order Papa John’s she was startled by a knock at the door.

“I am so sorry, your package fell between my seat and the center console! I’m so glad I just so happened to glance down and see this before heading back to the warehouse.” said the young FedEx delivery driver with a sly smile and a wink.

“THANK YOU!” Matilda screamed, quickly signing for the package and slamming the door in his face.

She ripped open the package and pulled out the stack of documents:

WELCOME TO FUN INDUSTRIES.

YOU ARE A VALUED MEMBER OF THIS TEAM.

SEE ENCLOSED FOR DETAILS ON YOUR ASSIGNMENT THIS WEEK.

DON’T FORGET.

HAVE FUN!

She rifled through the papers just long enough to see that she was to attend a wine tasting at an art gallery opening in the Letterbox District that Thursday for the record release show of an electronic foursome named Jezoos Chemosynthesis and the Rainbow Unicorn Trout out of Rehoboth Beach, DE.

“This is so cool!”

The week passed quickly and Thursday arrived before she even realized. She decked herself out in her tightest, most tapered-leg, ankle-length, dark washed jeans, and a color-coordinating layering of two flannels over a concert tee and stopped briefly to check herself out in the mirror before heading to her first assignment.

“I look good and I am going to make this new job my bitch.”

When she arrived she realized she’d perhaps misjudged her outfit. Also, she forgot the packet of papers with the instructions in her haste to get to her first day on the job. Who was she even supposed to be looking for and where did she check in.

“Maybe my name is on the list.” she thought to herself.

She walked up to the door man.

“Hi! I’m here with Fun Industries. Do you happen to have my name, Matilda Greer, on the list?”

“I have it right here. The cover is $15.32 for you, instead of the regular $35.”

“Um, ok...”

She paid and entered the club. The sounds of what can only be described as someone overturning a set of dishes, like the cute coordinating sets you find at WalMart for a fairly decent deal, and letting them tumble out of thier box from a great height and smash onto a tiled floor repeatedly filled the air.

Great base line though.

She made her way to the bar. In her FedEx package she had been given two drink vouchers. No goddamn way she was going to forget to bring those!

As she waited for her Pabst Blue Ribbon a man dressed in all black with almost-a-Hitler mustache leaned into her.

“Matilda?”

“Oh! Hi! Um... who are you?”

“Well, my name is Eamis, but you can call me ‘Bozz’.” he replied with a chuckle.

“Oh, um, ok. Cool. So... uh...”

“You May be wondering what your job duties entail, yeah?”

“Kinda.”

“Just. Have. Fun.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“Your job is to have fun.”

“That’s it? This is awesome!”

“All the time.”

“Wait, what?”

“You need to be having constant fun and don’t let up because I am watching.”

Matilda started to feel a slight twinge of discomfort. She couldn’t tell if this gentleman was joking or not. However, as a prior entrepreneur she was trained and accustomed to ‘living outside her comfort zone’ so things were probably just fine. Besides. Fun... well, it’s fun!

“And if you stop having fun, for more than 3 minutes consecutively, I will kill you. Toodleooooooooo!”

The man almost seemed to float on his heels as he disappeared into the crowd.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO POOR MATILDA!? WILL SHE GET A W9 OR WILL SHE HAVE CONTINUOUS FUN OR WILL SHE BE BRUTALLY MURDERED?!

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT BLOG POST WHERE I WILL CONTINUE THIS STORY!

JUST KIDDING I AM GOING TO TRASH THIS BECAUSE NO ONE READS THIS NOR GIVES ANY FEEDBACK WHATSOEVER SO IT LITERALLY DOES NOT MATTER!

HOPE MATILDA FIGURES IT OUT THOUGH! I’M SURE SHE WILL BE JUST FINE!

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Educate Yourself in the Subtle Art of Fucking Off

Content warning: I’m about to explain, at great length, why I probably don’t care about everything you’ve ever held dear.

You know what phrase I really, really hate that seems to be making a fucking comeback lately? “Educate yourself”. I’m not sure how I feel about the phrase in general, but I get pretty fucking irate when anyone from any side of the political spectrum says it to me. About anything.Let’s get one thing fucking clear here, Internet peeps: unless one of you is secretly sexy astrophysicist Brian Cox in a cunningly-crafted Mrs Doubtfire-esque disguise I am definitely smarter than you. I usually try to avoid saying things like that, because it’s hard to objectively prove and it makes me sound like a knob, but I think it’s about time I laid some things out plainly for all of you to wrap your tiny, fragile mind-melons round. I have written proper short stories that have received positive attention from the professional literary world and silly online pieces of erotic fiction that rose to become the most viewed things on the niche sites where I posted them. I am in the process of writing a novel which has already attracted the attention of a number of reviewers. I have mastered the art of sleight of hand. I develop videogames in my spare time, which requires an understanding of level design, basic programming and a high degree of graphic design proficiency. I’m currently learning Origami just because I get bored if I’m not absorbing or perfecting a new skill and I once wrote a piece of performance poetry so unsettling that it silenced a room full of drunk poets. Oh, and I got a history degree from a respected London university without even trying. Literally all I did was turn up and sit there sucking up information like a sexually frustrated vacuum. Of course, I could be lying about all of that, but I’m not. I’m just really, terrifyingly clever.

Let me fucking assure you, Internet: when you tell me to ‘educate myself’ about this or that storm-in-a-clitting-teapot, you’re wasting your time. Either I’ve already thought about your thing (whatever it is) and drawn my own conclusions or I’ve taken one look at it and decided it’s not worth caring about. And given some of the trivial things I choose to get in a tizz over, you must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if I’ve fucking decided your cause, ism or public outrage isn’t worth a tin shit. If your thing is worth ‘educating myself’ on, I will have done so long before you slithered onto one of my multi-media outputs to start demanding that I give a crap. And if it isn’t, tough titty to you, miladdo.

I’ve been around long enough to see controversies and causes come and go like the fucking tide. I elect to give a shit when I think something’s going to stick around long enough to make a difference. If it isn’t, then why would I bother involving myself? Don’t answer that: it was a rhetorical question. You can fuck off now.

#secret diary of a fat admirer

[thatawkwardnerdytomboy]

Happy Broke Millennial New Year!

So I keep seeing my Facebook friends posting subjective statuses as if they’re objective about 2017 as if the things they’re posting about apply to everyone and I know that they don’t but still...I don’t think they understand that not everyone had the same year they did. 2017 might have been fantastic for some people but for others, it wasn’t. So, my 2017 was pretty terrible. How? Why?

1. Donald Trump’s Inauguration! Yet another reminder of how shitty this country can be. Congrats, America! You voted for a rapist who believes that Climate Change is a Chinese hoax, who wants to go to war with North Korea, is racist, hates Muslims, wants to make the poor poorer, the rich richer and wants to outsource more jobs to other countries than any other president and wants to build a wall that Mexicans can just fly over on a plane. Congratu-fucking-lations...

2. I lost 2 jobs! Funding for the arts has been getting cut so much because Republicans hold the majority of the house and senate that arts programs like the ones I work for don’t have enough funds to pay their employees. So, one of my jobs on 4 occasions since 2017 started couldn’t pay us on time. And I drained my savings account and nearly maxed out my credit cards trying to get to work and feed myself while I was working for this organization and I decided that it wasn’t worth it to go into so much debt anymore and I had to quit. The other arts organization I was working for laid me off without even telling me. So luckily, and I use that word lightly, I got a job at the community service program I was in while in high school which leads to my next one...

3. Got a new job and I hate it! Working over the summer at this place was a fucking nightmare. It was my first summer camp job. There was so much shit to do and know. I was managing a group of 6th graders and the guy I was working with was an insubordinate asshole who gave me an attitude whenever I asked him to do anything. He kept breaking rules, he would leave me to do all the planning for each day when we were supposed to be planning things together, he did inappropriate things with the kids and whenever I pulled him aside to talk to him about these things in private, he started raising his voice at me like he doesn’t know how to have a private conversation. I talked to my boss about him multiple times and she didn’t do much. He didn’t change. Oh, and he ever yelled at her once too. I was so stressed at this job that I had a panic attack after work and had to be taken to the hospital. And when I texted this guy to tell him that I wasn’t going to be in that day and told him where to find everything we needed for a field trip, he yet again gave me an attitude. What fucking human being hears from their co-worker that they had to go to the hospital for a panic attack and responds with “oh, that’s your job?” I was so fucking livid. And eventually, when one of the kids’ parents called to complain about him touching her daughter inappropriately, he quit. Wow, child molester in the making...fucking creep. So I still work at this place but with less hours because it’s just an after-school program now. The kids that I work with are the worst group of kids I have ever had to work with in my 7 years of working with kids. They make racist and homophobic comments all the time (try hearing these things when you’re black and gay), they start physical altercations with each other, they’re blatantly disrespectful to staff, one girl even called my co-worker/friend a racial slur. There’s not enough time in the day to get our work done and me and one of the other staff are always having to stay late to get things done and we don’t get paid for the extra hours that we stay. I really want to quit this job and I don’t wanna work with kids anymore. It’s grating on my mental health. If I can’t get a job in my field (animation, comics or other commercial arts) then I rather just work in an office somewhere as a data clerk because I spent 3 years in college doing that as a work-study job. But apparently, I’m not qualified to do that either. No one wants me to do anything other than working with kids. 

4. I’ve gone into more debt this year! Yay! $600 from going to the hospital for a panic attack, about $450 from credit card debt from my jobs not paying me on time and whatever interest I have accrued from my deferred student loans plus the $50K in loans that I owe. I’m trying to save up to move out because my living situation has become more crowded. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, mom, her boyfriend and my brother. My brother sleeps in the living room which is attached to the kitchen which means that when he goes to sleep, we can’t go out into the kitchen to get food or throw trash out and it’s really fucking annoying. Also, I have to share a bathroom with 4 other people and I have a disease (hypothyroidism) that causes gastro-intestinal issues and I’m also a girl so that means that often I can’t get into the bathroom when I really need to. My girlfriend and I applied for a low-income housing lottery and I really hope that we get called. I’m scraping by with what I make at my job and I have to help my mom with rent and bills and it’s just really difficult trying to pay any debt off and save money. Like wow, I live in a country where poor/low-income college grads may have to go on welfare to survive and can’t get a break with student loans and the fucking president wants to help out the rich people and screw the poor over more. Oh, and fuck Betsy Devos for wanting to make life harder for people like me. 

5. I lost one of my closest friends. I had a friend in college who I was very close to. She was always there for me when I needed her, she helped me with my assignments, we hung out with each other outside of school and we always confided in each other. I got to meet her family and even after graduation and she had to move back to Florida, we still kept in contact. She was supposed to come back to NYC with her mom but she was having some family issues and had to stay. I haven’t heard from her since 2016 in November. I’ve been trying to contact her ever since. I called, texted, e-mailed, I’ve messaged her brothers on Facebook with no response, I contacted her friend and asked if she’s heard from her and she hasn’t...I’m pretty worried. For all I know she could be dead or her family could have been deported since Trump has ramped up ICE’s tyranny. I miss the hell out of her. I just really want to hear her voice. If I had the money, I’d go to Florida and try to look her up. I was thinking of sending a letter to her address to see if anyone replies to it. 

Despite how terrible this year has been for me, here are are a couple of positive things that have come out of it. 

1. I made 3 years with my girlfriend and we’ve been talking about getting married in the future. Which means that when we have the money and our own place, we’ll most likely get engaged which I’m really excited for. We’ve been through a lot together, good and bad and we’ve always remained by each other. I feel like she’s the girl of my dreams; she’s everything that I want in a girl. She’s sweet, nerdy, affectionate, sensitive, open-minded, we have so much in common and we want the same things out of our relationship. We both want to move to California someday, travel, adopt kids, have pets and have the lives that we’ve always wanted for ourselves growing up. I hope that our relationship remains as great as it is now. 

2. I may, someday soon, actually get to live out my dream of being a filmmaker! When I was in high school, I was taking a comic book illustration class with Ivan Velez Jr. a former writer for Marvel and DC comics and ever since, we’ve remained in contact. A few months ago, he contacted me and some of his other former students and said that he wants to work on a film project with us and that he has connections with Netflix! I’m not going to get my hopes up because this is a really big chance and a lot of things can change or possibly go wrong but so far, it seems like things are going well. I can’t talk about what we’ve been planning but he has to speak to his Netflix connect and see if we can get funding for this project before anything else happens. But yeah, I’m super excited! He says that we might be able to start filming as soon as later this year if we get the funding. I already worked on a script for the short film I want to make and I have other things planned for this story as well. It’s funny, I was just ranting about how disappointed I am with some films I’ve been seeing and not too much later, he contacts me. So I’m hoping it works out!

So I hope that all my fellow struggling millennials and non-millennials have had a better 2017 than me and that your 2018 comes with more hopes and positive life changes. Hope everyone can take better care of themselves and keep fighting though things are really difficult and seem hopeless. 

Happy New Year!

Please reblog if you’ve had a tough year and let me know about it so we and all the other struggling millennials out there know that we’re not alone! 

#Millennials #millennial generation #stuggling millennials #broke millennials #broke #struggling #new year #2017 #2018 #new year 2018 #rant #money problems #the struggle