#originally was supposed to be until June then may then shit kept happening and we had to be out of our respective places asap

[borderline-off-fangame]

ababa random things about the game that makes me go a. 

-Little Sam is actually a recycled character from a very old creepypasta I made back in the ye olde days of.. 2010-2012. the story was called ‘the girl with a plush toy’ (original i know), I hated that story and after I left the fandom, I ended up changing the character. So she became Sam!

-Max’s original concept was that he was the adoptive child of Enoch with the ability to transform into whatever being he so desired using a mask he would craft. I forgor about that concept until later on when I found my old stash of art. I might use that concept for someone else haha. 

-Aleyes is based on a nightmare I had when I was young. From what I recall, the nightmare was like a movie or some shit, and it had some.. really wacky visuals, with the last thing I see before waking up crying my ass off was a wall of eyes. And that is how Aleyes was born. 

-Human Seneca’s original variant had a lazy/fixed eye which faced right-side up, was also blind in that one eye. That design was a nod at the original Seneca sprite which had a very big gap between the eyes. 

Which meant that even his human form was not spared from deformity. Of course that was later changed to make him appear.. a little bit normal, but malnourished regardless. 

-Max’s birthday is April 23rd, he happens to share the same birthday as Sam.

-Gabriel’s original design was suppose to be a N. Fowleri variant, a humanoid variant of the brain eating amoeba created for.. well.. overthrowing humanity ofc. that was changed during the remake, where Gabriel is now a golem variant, and the N. Fowleri variant was given to Gabi. Both of them are quite self-aware, and they can exist in the same universe without a paradox occurring. 

-While Max’s gender is up for interpretation (even at one point there was a theory that max had klinefelter syndrome), it’s obv known that he’s very gay for his boyfriend Puff. They have been together for almost 2 years in-game.

-In the future, Max and Puff are adoptive parents to 2 kiddos named April and June. 

-Teen/Adult variant of Sam is a prodigy in music, her favorite instrument is the piano. 

-Aleyes’ human variant (the one with the flesh hair) is loosely inspired from the Greek mythology of Medusa, which makes him the first character with moving hair (second is Mariam)

-Shedder’s original design happened to share an uncanny resemblance to another character from another fangame which I won’t mention (the ye olde design is changed a little bit and appears in the game), the second design was drawn by a friend after we were brainstorming for a potential design, and then Chii came in and slapped my ass with a fresh looking design.

In order

First design, dubbed Copy Cat

Second design, now dubbed Covetous

Final design, now dubbed “The First One”

concept art

The Shedder concept now spans further than my mom’s lasagna, that an entire world exists revolving around said creatures. Won’t spoil it’s intentions doe. 

-Seneca is probably romantically involved with @ethaclone​’s Bug. in which he tries to woo the poor guy into going against his newfound friends at first. Luckily Max tells him to piss off.

-Since Aleyes is a notorious storage unit (and a parasite at that), it begs the question of whether he is able to eat or not... the answer is yes. He may look like a walking stomach, but he’s not greedy about food in the slightest. Nourishment is the least of his worries when he’s spending his time running away from Shedder and it’s Servants.

-Terrorizer was known as Rekt Rabbit (those were the wild years, don’t ask, also the excessive bass version of bones’ ok this is the last time was used as a battle track.. help). Still kept the name Erika. Ofc she was suppose to turn against Shedder, but in the remade version I made her entirely irredeemable. 

-Melon head’s name is Orodemus, that name came out randomly from a follower a few years back, and looking up the meaning of the name doesn’t.. show anything. *shrug*

-Despite Emily’s anxious appearance and personality, she can be very cunning, using her sweet talk as means to take advantage of any situation she befalls in.

-Orchid was originally to be named Hepatica (named after a flower) but changed it to Orchid last minute. In both switches and the pictures, it shows her original name which I cannot bother changing without messing something up in-game, and I am NOT in the mood for that. I also changed Roosevelt’s name, as he was originally named James Rose. He still retains his flowery tails.

#Borderline related #Borderline (off fangame) #Borderline (off spinoff) #off fangame #off spinoff #off (game) #off (mortis ghost)

[samuyed]

🐁

#life update! #hot cheeto girl and I moved in together at the beginning of the month #originally was supposed to be until June then may then shit kept happening and we had to be out of our respective places asap #the apartments really cute I am so happy to be living in a new place and living with then #and once again I must say #were literally doing everything a domestic couple #are doing just without the label LOL #which is fine cause neither of us are really seeking out others #in not as good news #everything continues to be an absolute shit show at work #people getting fired on a monthly basis not sure who's gonna show up #and then the one day I need to take off for mental health i still get no less then 4 phone calls from my coworkers #because they no work life boundaries and think I'm gonna pick up the phone on my one off day to talk about work drama #and the only coworker left who is more experienced than I am is all but begging me not to leave and find a different job #because she knows it's understaffed and awful and theres no infrastructure so if I leave #but that's not my responsibility that's the bosses fault for being a micro managing asshole who can't keep staff for more than 3 - 6 months #so I'm just biding my time until I get a job offer then I'm putting in my two weeks to be courteous #on more hopeful news I interviewed for the old position I was doing and will hear back by the end of this week #hopefully #fingers crossed for me because Friday really showed me I deserve so much better than this clinic can give #like yall literally NONE of my other 4 coworkers showed up and I was the only one #i had to do ALL reception duties for 8 hours by myself barely a lunch break and still do my own job on top of it #i need and deserve a better job

[barbasbodaciousbeard]

If You Love Someone, Let Them Go: Part 8

Summary: Since starting with SVU, Sonny hadn’t kept much terribly close to the chest. The squad knew about his family, growing up on Staten Island, the classes at Fordam. What was hidden was why he didn’t date. Sonny Carisi was also separated from his childhood sweetheart, a separation neither ever took to divorce. They had the same haunts. They’d grown up neighbors. Their paths crossed every few months, and divorce talks would turn into reminiscing would turn into a night spent together, sometimes sex sometimes just talking until the early morning. It always ended with one of them waking up alone however. How will that change when the squad finds out?

Pairings: Sonny Carisi x Original Character

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

A/N: I really wanted to write Sonny and conflict with his family in Transgender Bridge so this chapter includes transphobia via his mom and then talk about past homo- and transphobia in Sonny. I think Sonny’s acceptance of things is really interesting, especially given he seems like he’s from a traditional/conservative family. 

June  2015

“Hey, doll. Can we wait and do dinner? I know it’s an anniversary dinner, but this was a bad one.” She didn’t like how his voice sounded. He’d been keeping her in the loop, and there’d been a spirited, to say the least, discussion at the Carisi family dinner that Sunday. His mom had fought him regarding Avery, a transgender teenager, over the phone. The case had been everywhere it felt like, and the traditional Carisis felt that Avery wanted attention. Sonny, for his part, was confused, but between Amanda and Victoria’s reminders he didn’t know a single guy who would wear a dress for no reason, he’d come to realize it wasn’t a choice, just like being gay, straight, or bi.

It was hard for him sometimes. Despite the fact Victoria had always been open and accepting, a result of her mother’s influence and LGBT family members, Sonny was raised that all of it was wrong in the eyes of God. That said, as he grew, he saw how much harder it was for Victoria’s aunts. It started to dawn on him that he didn’t choose to want to be in his body or be attracted to women. Why would he assume someone woke up and chose something that didn’t make their lives easier? He also came to believe that God did make them exactly as they were, and human influence had bastardized the love everyone part of His message. When he stood up to his mother, Victoria was pleased to see the growth in him; usually, he’d have let it lie. 

“Of course it can wait. What happened?”

“She died,” he said, voice tight. “The boy that pushed her is being tried as an adult, but Tor, her parents don’t want it. He’s just a kid. He even drew her this comic apologizing. He got scared because she was different.”

She knew what he wasn’t saying. As good as Sonny was, as much as he’d grown, they’d both been easily influenced at one point. When they grew up, it was easy to get swept into easy homophobia and transphobia. Sonny had said things she knew he regretted as he learned more, and they both knew how easy it would’ve been for him to get swept up in the crowd at that age, trying to prove he was tough and manly and straight.

“How about I pick up the pizza ya like? We can stay in? I’ll tell ma I don’t feel good. I don’t think that visit is what you need right now.”

“Thank you.” They said their I love yous, and she quickly scheduled pick up for the pizza and tucked his favorite treats from the cooler into a box. When she got home, she straightened up the apartment and threw his favorite pajamas in the dryer so they’d be warm when he got home. One pizza and beer run later, Sonny came through the door, and he was visibly exhausted. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, taking his coat. 

“You pajamas are in the dryer.” He let out a grateful groan, changing into them before coming back and dropping onto the couch, arms out over the back. She sat beside him, handing him a beer and opting to sit in silence as he nursed it. Her Sonny was a big softy, but she also knew he’d talk about things when he was ready; that was a change she could rely on. He wrapped his arm around her, caging her against his chest as he laid back. His eyes were closed, but his brow was heavy and his mouth set in a frown. Carefully, she smoothed his hair, and he pressed into her hand. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice barely audible. 

“Any time. Thank you for telling me what you needed.” He nodded, rubbing her back. 

“I saw a pink box.”

“It’s an assortment. I got all your favorites. And the pizzas.”

“I love you so fucking much.”

“I’ll call ma tomorrow to get us out of going there. It’s just you and me all weekend, okay?” 

He nodded gently, cheek pressed against her forehead. This case didn’t sit well, and in this moment he was deeply grateful not to be the ADA for this case. He understood logically where they were coming from, but he was also acutely aware of how little Avery’s parents agreed with trying Darius as an adult. Their daughter believed in forgiveness, and he was a kid. His colleagues liked to pretend they’d always been the cops they are now, but Sonny remembered being sheltered and ignorant. If Victoria hadn’t been there to tear him a new asshole when he was 13 and started using slurs he didn’t fully understand, he could have gotten swept up in this type of accident. Lord knew his mother didn’t think this case was anything but bad luck for the boy. She thought Avery had finally gotten the attention she wanted. That had set him off at dinner, and he swore Mia was proud of him, sitting by Victoria as he defended where this may have been coming from.

Sonny, God made him a him. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Or, ma, maybe all those things you like to call trials? Maybe transitioning and dealing with this kind of ignorance is a part of her trial. No teenage boy would wear a dress if it weren’t real. Avery is a girl, and if you can remember Aunt Rhonda’s new name every year when she gets married again, you can at least call Avery she.

I’m just saying, any of my grandkids pull that, we’ll be taking them somewhere. That’s attention seeking behavior, and needs to be taken care of.

If Victoria and I’s child ever comes out and you are anything but supportive, you will not be a part of their life.

You can’t do that. I’m your mother.

I don’t know ma. Making your own blood feel less than? Sounds like real attention seekin’ behavior to me. Needs to be taken care of.

He let Victoria guide him to the car afterwards, but he hadn’t cancelled the next family dinner. Knowing Avery had died? He couldn’t do it. Meeting her had taken a logical belief that trans people were the gender they identified as and made it more serious. He’d known his mother felt that way, but he’d never heard her articulate it like this. Before the separation and therapy, he’d have bottled up how wrong she was, tucked it away to keep the peace. Now? He couldn’t do it.

“Thank you, Tor. For all of this. And for calling her. I’m still so angry.”

“I know, Dom. I love you.”

“I love you too. And I meant what I told her. If our kid is gay or trans or something else that exists that I’m sure I don’t know about, I don’t care. They’re our baby and I’ll love them and I’ll take them to whatever store to get whatever they need or whatever doctor. I’ll beat the ever living shit out of anyone who makes them feel like they're wrong for how God made them.”

“You’re going to be an amazing father.”

“That should be the bare minimum though, shouldn’t it? Loving your kids no matter what?”

“It should. But that can be hard, you know? Like your mom. She exists in that really conservative vacuum. I’m proud of you for changing when you learn about things, not ignoring it and doubling down.”

“That means a lot, doll. People act like I’m supposed to have been born knowing. Our priest was open minded, and I met you. Otherwise, I may not have turned out like this. And that was scary to realize?”

“Bella, Theresa, and Gina all did it too. You’d all have grown.”

“What if our kid is gay or somethin?”

“We’ll love them. If your mom can’t handle it, we’ll keep them from her.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah. we’ll get close to my family or something. Or have holidays with Amanda and Liv.”

“Good,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t want to, but I won’t subject them to their grandma actin’ like that. The world is so shitty. I want family to be supportive.”

“I know. We’ll be okay. And who knows? Maybe you snapping makes her reevaluate. I had to yell at you to make you start reevaluating things. We didn’t talk for awhile month. That’s years in thirteen year old time.”

“True,” he chuckled, rubbing her back. “One can only hope. You’d have liked Avery. Into photography and comics.”

“She sounds awful cool.”

“She was. And she was so kind. Like she was hurt, but the last thing she did was forgive him, Tor. Can you imagine? He drew her a comic, and she forgave him. Then she died.” He was facing the ceiling with his eyes closed as he talked. 

“Do you want me to be there?”

“Maybe come by at lunch?”

“I’ll be there, okay?”

“Thank you, Doll.”

“Thank you for sharing how you’re feeling.” 

@cycat4077 @fear-less-write-more

#sonny carisi #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi x oc

[lockedstuck]

moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles

April 2021 - Gamzee Makara

You don’t like the way your thoughts proceed on halo, helldog, or haloperidol, or whatever Karbro calls it. After you take it, the world feels blunt, impersonal, and grayscale, like you’re a motherfucking puppet with a head full of straw. Your brother used to love a poem about that, about some guys with straw heads, but mostly about the world ending.

Kurloz liked a lot of motherfucking things before he did nine months in Rikers for cocaine distribution. Originally it was only supposed to be six months, but he got into a fight and got three months added on. When he got out, he was thoughtful and quiet, even a word of acknowledgment seemingly beyond him. You’ll be damned if that ever happens to you, if you let the system hollow you out until you can’t express the simplest serendipity.

Right now you’re sketching your friends, quick sketches with the charcoal set Dr. Levin brought you. One of Karkat having a rare smile for June, one of Sollux and Roxy talking about programming, one of Dr. V addressing the group about healthy coping mechanisms, and one of Porrim braiding Calliope’s hair. You always feel more like yourself when you’re sketching or painting. Fewer thoughts in your head to get jangle-tangled together and create nonsense. You can keep your miracles straight this way.

You’re cool. You’re easy. You’re loose. No snapped strings, heads full of straw, or blasphemies here, no motherfucking way. The ativan caravan marches through your head, sings your sharp edges to sleep. Nurse Dolores knows what’s up, she only makes you take the medications you want to take. Your cognition flies free, like birds in a breeze, a calm going on between your ears.

Roxy turns and grins at you, her face pale as the moon against her dark hoodie and darker lipstick. She has a smile all her own, a knowing smile like the two of you are in on the greatest secret in the world. You wish you knew precisely what that was about, but everyone has their own internal workings. You can’t know and fix everything about everyone all the time. That’s what you were trying to explain to Sollux last night.

He’s a good guy, but he takes too much on. Same for Karkat. They take on everyone’s issues and make them their own. Only the mirthful messiahs should be able to do so much; humans like trying that hard is a minor sacrilege. If the pair of them would just stick to themselves, maybe they wouldn’t be so sick. You’ll fold more flowers for them - paper flowers that banish repetitive, ruminating thoughts.

You like Roxy a lot, though. She dances through each emotion in its totality, riding the waves of her feelings without fear. Okay, maybe not fearlessly, but with more abandon than you would expect. When she looks at you, you feel warmth all the way to your core, the way you are when you’re about to fall asleep all curled up in your sheets.

Speaking of sleep, Dr. V says that if you keep sleeping through the night, and keep what he calls “disruptive outbursts” about the Dark Carnival to a minimum, maybe you’ll get discharged in a couple of weeks. You’re not exactly in any rush to go home. Home means having to fend for yourself, and fewer friends to keep you in good spirits. Besides, Kurloz is home, and for all that he may be your brother, he gives off bad motherfucking vibes. You wish he’d be easy, like old times, but those days are a long way off.

You remember when you used to be able to relax at home. Relax, smoke a joint, sell an eighth or two, and have dinner without having to fend off your brother’s brooding.

Karkat takes the seat next to you, and you clap him on the back. Physical contact may be discouraged here, but there’re no narcs around to encourage law and order at the moment. You think a support team got dispatched to address Feferi wandering around with no clothes on again.

“What’s up?” Karkat asks.

He nevertheless looks preoccupied and far away. That’s unfortunate.

You take another folded flower out of your pocket and hand it to him.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts,” you recall from a play you had to read in AP English a couple years ago. You can’t exactly remember what the play’s about, but stray lines here and there stick out to you like a sore thumb. Except neither of your actual thumbs are sore.

“That’s from Hamlet, isn’t it?” Karkat asks, shaking his head at you. “What’re you, the bard of 3 East?”

Now you’re not certain about that, but you’ll take it.

“Someone’s gotta be, ain’t they? I got more poetry if you want it.”

Karkat sighs. “Yeah, lay it on me, Makara. Dr. Vandayar told me I’m not getting discharged next week so I’m not feeling great at the moment.”

Poor Karbro looks like he’s full of thunderstorms. Maybe a calm vista will quiet him down. You pull a few lines of poetry free from your memory.

“I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach... I have heard the mermaids singing each to each... I do not think that they will sing to me.”

“Go on,” Karkat says, looking all at once pensive and a little sad.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves... Combing the white hair of the waves blown back... When the wind blows the water white and black,” you recite. Now, Roxy, Calliope, and Porrim have stopped to listen to you. You go on, establishing a proper rhythm.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea... by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown... ‘till human voices wake us, and we drown.” When no one says anything, you interject, “That’s the end of the fuckin’ poem, y’all.”

“It’s beautiful,” Porrim whispers. “Did you write that?”

You shake your head in the negative. “Naw, that’s some other motherfucker’s ideas outta my mouth. I wrote a couple of my own lines last night if you wanna hear ‘em, though.”

“Sure,” Calliope says, smiling and clapping her hands once.

“My muse distills my melancholy, pins it to the corkboard with a tack. She presses down upon the pigments, bleeds my blues into the boldest black.”

Even Karkat looks surprised. He narrows his eyes at you.

“If you don’t go study art or literature, or something along that line, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Ain’t no need to resort to murder, brother,” you reply. “And while I’d like to go sit in a motherfucking college somewhere, I ain’t got shit for tuition.”

“If I have to take up a goddamn collection, I am sending your ass to college. Tout-suite.”

You guess now is not the time to inform him that you straight up flunked outta college after you kept forgetting to go to class. You sat in the grass memorizing poetry and sketching the first dandelions of March, which got in the way of your learning anything or taking your exams, or any of the shit college students are supposed to do. You didn’t mean to forget, but you’ve never been great at any routine shit.

And you’ve always had a knack for going where your thoughts take you. When you were a kid, you would leave the house and walk up and down the streets of Harlem unattended. Your grandmother used to read you the riot act for doing something so reckless and nonsensical. Later, during your hospitalizations, you learned that the way your thoughts stuttered and tangled was called schizophrenia, and doctors medicated you accordingly. They called your prophecies delusion, and you beg(ged) to differ.

The medications ground your thought process to a stuttering halt. You hated it. You hated being cut off from yourself. So you stopped taking your meds. And here you are again, with your strange thoughts and remembrances.

“Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio,” Karkat murmurs.

You grin at him. He understands more than he lets on.

June winks at you, and then walks away to the women’s side of the unit, presumably to call her father. She calls him every day at 8 am and 3 pm, like clockwork. Karkat gazes at her as she walks away, the back of her short dress fluttering behind her.

“June looks nice today,” you say to him.

 He stops staring and glances at you for a moment.

“Yeah, um, she looks nice every day,” he replies. “Not that I make it my business to notice.”

You point to the delicate paper flower he has in his hand. “Sometimes the most miraculous thing you can fuckin’ do is give another person a taste of serendipity.”

Roxy smiles her cheshire cat smile from her seat by the television.

“That’s right, Crabby. Dontcha think June deserves her very own miracle?”

Karkat reddens, looks at the flower in his hand, and takes off for the women’s side.

“Hey, Egbert!” he shouts. “I have something for you.”

By the time you see June again, she’s wearing the small red flower in her hair. Roxy gives you a satisfied little nod, then asks you if you’d like her to put your hair in braids.

“I’m not as good as Pomary with hair, but I’m alright, I guess. Your hair looks like some birds took up residence in it, dude.”

“Why, thank you,” you reply. You take a seat at her feet, after she grabs her comb, brush, hair grease, and spray bottle out of sharps.

She’s right. She’s not a thing like Pomary when it comes to braiding. You’re used to the gentle motions of Porrim’s hands as she manipulates flowers into your hair, but Roxy tugs great fistfuls of your hair into twists. It feels nice, like she’s tethering you to the present, to the here and now.

You tell her that, thank her for bringing you back, and she blushes crimson.

“Aw, I’m not tryna do all of that,” she responds. “Just tryna work through my anxiety. Dolores gave me an ativan an hour ago, and I don’t feel it yet.”

Roxy bends low, and plants a kiss on your forehead, right where your skin meets your greasepaint. Her lips are the softest thing you’ve ever felt.

She keeps braiding, manipulating your hair into cornrows. With Roxy near you, you don’t necessarily have to be a prophet or an apostate of the mirthful messiahs. You don’t have to deliver special messages to special people. You can just be Gamzee Motherfucking Makara, doing you as per usual.

#gamroxy #junekat

[packsbeforesnacks]

This is Side One || Ariana & Winn

TIMING: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, Sunset LOCATION: Winn’s car. PARTIES: @letsbenditlikebennett & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: Winn picks Ariana up to have a night watchin’ stars at the cabin. On the car ride over, the two have a conversation about grief, and about the future for Ariana and the pack. WARNINGS: Depression and grief, sibling death mentioned (Celeste). SOUNDTRACK: “Dead on Arrival” by Fall Out Boy

Although she was still a little bit upset at Winn for not giving a warning that he was leaving town, Ariana knew she didn’t want to hold a grudge against him forever. Celeste’s death had been a reminder of just how fragile life was. It was better to hear him out now and work towards getting back to being good again. She’d always considered other wolves family in a sense, even Salva who pissed her off to no end, but now it felt more important to cherish that bond. To hold on to the people she cared about and never let go. She’d given Morgan and Deirdre a wave before heading out the door, backpack in tow, in the same leggings and soccer team t-shirt she’d worn the last two days. She’d been sitting on the steps, weight pressed back in her palms, staring up at the sky until she saw Winn’s car stopping in front of the house. She slowly pushed herself off the step and dragged herself toward the car. Moving in general still took about all the energy she had it in her to muster. She let herself in the car and greeted, “Hey, I’m glad you’re back.” She lightly punched his arm. “Now no leaving town again without telling me, okay?”

A lot had gone on in Winn’s absence, but nothing really made him feel worse than not bein’ able to be there for Ariana in her time of need. He couldn’t have known — or… well, he could have known. Had he just fixed his damn phone, not felt like he had the luxury of waitin’. He knew about the bounty. He should’ve been prepared. But he knew, now. Knew he wouldn’t do that again, knew that his pack, because… well, they were, now, deserved at least a heads-up next time. Noah, most of all, but… well, Ariana and Layla were next down. “I’m glad to be back,” Winn agreed as Ari hopped in the car. “Now, tell me whatcha want for food, nothin’ is too extravagant. And I am not,” Winn added, because it was his lot in life now, “tryin’ to bribe you, I promise. Just worried y’all don’t eat when I’m not around, it’s the southern in me.” He turned the music down a skosh, giving Ari a once over. It didn’t seem, like, great to tell her she looked a bit shit, given the circumstances, but Winn did kinda want to throw her into a shower and give her the fluffiest pajamas. So, there was that. “Um, so,” was there a good way to start this? probably not, “for what it’s worth, I am sorry. For makin’ y’all worry. And for fightin’ Blanche without, like, at least a referee-wolf there. Or in human form. Or somethin’.” He grimaced. “I’m the pack dummy.”

As pissed off as she had been, Ariana was glad to have Winn back in town. More importantly, he was safe. She wasn’t sure she could handle losing someone else right now. It already felt as if somehow gravity’s pull on her became stronger and kept her laying on the ground most of the time when she hadn’t been at school finishing exams. Even when she tried to get up and move, she somehow kept finding herself back on the floor, just staring off trying to cling to her favorite memories in hopes they’d never slip away. She’d been so worried when Winn ran off, that seeing him had washed a huge wave of relief over her. And of course he was trying to feed her. They hadn’t gotten too much of a chance to hang out, but it was pretty much guaranteed that every time they did he was making sure she was well-fed. She forced a weak smile and answered, “How about cheeseburgers? Didn’t think you were. I already forgave you, no bribes necessary.” Her appetite had been pretty nonexistent, so she figured one of her favorite comfort foods would help. Plus, if she knew Winn at all, he’d be pretty set on making sure he was fed. He was caring like that, or at least, he always seemed to be with her. Her grin came a little more naturally when he mentioned being the pack dummy. She chided, “Hey now, you don’t get a monopoly on that one. It’s a title we get to pass around, but yeah, don’t do that again. I don’t know what I’d do if something bad happened to you or Blanche.”

“Mmm. I know just the place for burgers. Let’s ride, kiddo.” Winn turned the key, his car wheezing and coughing back to life. It would be just about his luck for it to give up the ghost (inappropriate?) when he really needed it. Just get me home, okay? His dad had nagged him to replace the car after it had just barely made their trip back up from Philly. Winn really didn’t know how to react to parental nagging, given he’d gone without it for nearly a decade, but his dad was comin’ from a good place. And he was the one havin’ to drive the car most often lately, so Winn couldn’t truly be mad. He swung towards the Outskirts, knowin’ that he and Rio had destroyed some burgers from the joint on the way out of town. Winn wasn’t proud of the way that he’d grabbed dinner from there throughout April and May — and his dad had been appalled at the lack of basics in his fridge, another reason why Winn needed to move out — but it really was that good. Perfect amount of grease. Killer milkshakes. Knew how to make actual sweet tea. “Don’t worry. I won’t. And we won’t.” It felt like a half-promise. Livin’ in White Crest, Winn never felt safe tellin’ someone that he’d be okay. Not forever, not even for a day or two, dependin’ on the week. He spoke quietly, takin’ his eyes off the road probably longer than was strictly safe, to look at Ari. “I get if you don’t wanna talk ‘bout it, but… losin’ someone, ‘specially someone special to you… Well, I don’t want to tell you how to feel. So, how ‘bout you tell me how you feel? If you’re, um, up for it.”

Ariana did her best to focus on Winn’s company rather than the crushed feeling that just couldn’t seem to leave her chest. It felt as if her heart had been trampled on and was left heavier for it. It weighed down her every move, but if she shifted focus long enough, she was sure she could work up an appetite. She cracked a weak smile and joked, “I trust you know your meat.” It made her feel just a little better that Winn would be more careful. She could only hope Blanche would do the same. “Good,” she said, plainly. Not having the energy to push the topic any further. She originally planned on giving him a good smack and giving him some shit about the whole thing, but she was tired and it was pretty obvious he realized the whole thing was a dumb idea now. With the mention of how she was feeling, a clear grimace went across her face. Her lungs felt as if the wind had been knocked out of them as her mind searched for her words. She knew Winn asked that genuinely, but fuck, did talking about it really suck. Not that thinking about it was much better and it had been most of what she’d done outside of finals and the few distractions that could hold her attention if only for a few moments. She looked down at her lap and finally answered, “Honestly? Really fucking shitty.” With another deep breath, she looked to him and then back at the road ahead of them, “Sad. Mad. Empty. You name it. Everything just feels so wrong. We were supposed—” Her voice cracked and she realized this is why talking about it felt so hard. “We were supposed to enjoy freedom together. She never— She deserved better.”

Winn was at a loss for what to say. He couldn’t make it better, this wasn’t a problem that could be smoothed over with money or smooth-talking. Only time. “I don’t have any platitudes for you. I won’t disrespect you by sayin’ that it’ll get better, or that she would have wanted you to be happy. That don’t fix shit.” He sighed. “I will say this, what I’ll always say to you: You have to feel what you feel. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But you can’t keep it inside either. Freedom is…” Okay, this was either going to go well or terribly. “Freedom ain’t just about bein’ free from the shit that’s tryin’ to kill you. It’s mental, too. I— I don’t understand what you’re going through; I can’t understand. But I can tell you that wrappin’ yourself up in ‘supposed’ to isn’t going to help you. I spent a really long time convincin’ myself that I knew what other folks wanted, that I should do x, y, or z, because it was what I was supposed to do. Be a good son, let people go, make it so they didn’t have to worry about me. But that isn’t what they wanted, and that isn’t what mattered. All it did was wrap around me, until the guilt was all that I was. I mean, shit, I’m still workin’ through it, but I don’t want that for you, Ariana. If I can help it. Celeste did deserve better. God, there are so many fuckin’ ways in which she, in which you, in which all of us deserve better than the shit hands we’ve been dealt. Only thing we can change is how we play that hand. Foldin’ ain’t an option, but that don’t mean you have to go all in. Take the time you need, I guess, is what I’m tryin’ to say. Don’t let anybody tell you — hell, even me — how to grieve, or process, or move forward. So long as you know that… Well, so long as you know that we still have to play the game. We’re already breakin’ the rules, just by still bein’ here. And those rules need to be broken. ‘Cause fuck ‘em. Fuck all of it. ‘Cause life ain’t actually a game, and who cares if you win. So long as you’re following your own path, that’s all that… anyone can hope for you.” He coughed, hands squeezing at the steering wheel as they pulled through the drivethrough. After he ordered, he added, “Sorry, I got a little carried away. Just… Don’t feel like you have to pretend, not around me.”

As much as the whole conversation made her stomach turn, Ariana knew he was right in many regards. She’d never been one to avoid her feelings, but feeling her way through this? It was hell. It’d been four days since she’d seen or spoken to Celeste and each one of them felt impossibly long. Her hands were clasped together in her lap as her head was still pressed against the cool glass of the window. “I don’t know, like I am just kind of feeling through this whole thing and trying to accept what I’m feeling, it’s just hard. And I can’t really think too much past each minute as it passes because if I try to look ahead it just feels… wrong. Like we had all these plans for the future and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to just, I don’t even know, figure out what I want with my future now?” She listened as Winn spoke and couldn’t help the tears that welled up in her eyes. They did all deserve better, especially Celeste, but that wasn’t how the world worked. It even seemed disproportionate at that. Like somehow by just being wolves, hunters, or even remotely associated with the supernatural, there was more darkness to overcome. She nodded slowly and shakily replied, “I know. I guess supposed to doesn’t really exist. If things were supposed to be some way they just would be. It just— Nothing feels right. I don’t feel right. I’m sad, I’m mad, I’m lost— Everything feels just like this huge weight that makes it so much harder to do even simple things like take a fucking shower. And I miss her, I miss her so fucking much. I miss hearing her constantly humming some stupid ABBA song. I miss the way she’d tussle my hair when we’d joke around. I miss the sound of her voice and even miss her soft snores that I’d always make fun of.” She sniffled and her voice sounded desperate as she spoke as she spoke as if it would change anything at all. She tried to smile as Winn told her to feel free to not pretend for him or anyone else, but it came off as a pained grimace at best. “I know, I don’t have to be anything for anyone and there’s no right way to deal with this. Everything just feels so— I don’t know heavy. Wrong. Lost. Take your pick.”

“You don’t have to have an answer,” Winn said, tucking the takeout bag behind his seat before pulling out onto the road. “To your future, to your feelings.” There was a milkshake — raspberry lemon — in his hand, and he offered it to Ariana. “It’s... not much, I know. But when we got burgers, that first time, you told me how much you liked these. I tried one, grimaced through the lemon and raspberry, not really my thing. But it reminds me of you. Not sour, not cloyingly sweet. Strong and tart and someone’s favorite flavor, somewhere. A lot of folks’, probably. I’m not... good at metaphors, but we all find our favorite flavors, our people. And we hold ‘em tight. Because we don’t know how long they’ll be there. No one knows.” A sad smile as he turned his attention back to the road. “I love you, kiddo. Ariana. And I’m here for you. You’re one of my favorite flavors.”

#wickedswriting #para #Ariana #This is Side One #Sunshine Riptide

[emisonme]

PR time line.............

Some can't seem to understand, how Shmila could have helped Camila get out of the PR with the con man. Let's explore the time line and maybe you'll have a better understanding of where I'm coming from.

Camila's debut album, had an original release date, of September 2017. She would have signed a PR contract with Ew, probably late August. These PR contracts are usually for a period of time, but the start and end dates, are flexible, because of the release dates of the Artists music being flexible.

Camila probably found out, sometime in late August, that her release date was being pushed, to November. That's why she followed the con man on SM, in October. They were preparing to unleash the PR, after the release of her album, in probably early December. Just in time for the holidays.

But, her album got pushed, yet again. The new date was January 12, 2018. She does the Elvis Duran radio show, on January 11. That is the first time we hear her or anyone else, utter that fuckers name.

The next morning, she does GMA. They schedule Con to appear on the same show. Why? To give us a PUBLIC reason for them meeting and the ensuing "relationship".

Three days later, Camila does Beats 1, with Zane Lowe. That's when we got the "maybe" when asked if she had a special someone in her life. Also, the whole, "I can't say your name without smiling" bullshit.

Then on February 9. 2018, we got the E-News exclusive Mexico beach photo-shoot. That's the day the actual PR began. They had signed the actual contract, MONTHS before, but because the album kept getting pushed, so did the start date for the PR.

That being said, I'm almost certain, they only signed a 1 year contract. I'll explain. We got their one year of public bullshit, but it really got laid on thick towards the end. If you notice, they did the same thing with Lauren and Tyrone. (It stayed pretty much SM until closer to the end, when they started doing red carpets and showing up to Industry events together.)

They did the "family" holiday thing, with both families, in December and January. Then on February 1, we got the pap pics of them leaving the movies, where Camila looks upset, and Con looks pissed. We also get turfers and "fans" taking to SM saying they had been arguing and Camila had been crying. That was the start of the "trouble in paradise" narrative.

The 10th was the Grammy's. After that, they both left for Dubai, and Camila's performance at Red Fest. They spent a few days hobnobbing around the Arabian Desert, taking lots of pics. Supposedly all happy. Then on February 25, Camila took his ass to that Vanity Fair shin-dig. That was their supposed public coming out, together. Camila had zero desire to be there with that fucker, and it showed.

Then, we got Camila's birthday post, on March 3. The things she learned when she was 21. A very interesting post, indeed. Number three, on that list, was talking about how complicated life and relationships are. How the right opportunity comes at the wrong time, and having to do something hard and uncomfortable, to be happy. (yeah, like PR)

Then she talks about how falling in love is the best thing ever. That leads us to number 8. There she says, life is to short, to hang with people you don't like, be in relationships with people that don't make you happy, or do things you hate. (yeah, like PR with an asshole)

Then MFP was released on March 25. In a song, with a video dedicated to people in relationships, Camila tells the world, she dedicated MFP to her favorite person, her little sister. (that's so sweet...but also very telling)

Why are those two things important? Because I firmly believe, the "split" announcement, and the official end to her PR, was supposed to happen in March.

So, what happened? Just like there is no official start date in a PR contract, there isn't an official end date, either. It's just a suggested time frame, of 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc. There are no hard dates built in, because in the Music Industry, everything is about timing.

Here's how I think it was supposed to go down. I think the announcement was supposed to come, just before the release of MFP. That would have explained the dedication to her sister, and would have given that song more promo.

But probably more importantly, It would have been perfect timing for FYA, if things had played out the way they were supposed to play out. She recorded that song with Mark, back in January. I think FYA was the song Mark was planning to release, with the pre-order link, which was on April 12. It would have been the best song to release with the link, and a public "split" would have been perfect timing for the release with the pre-order link. It would have gotten a shit load of media attention.

Instead, Epic got pissed, because Camila wasn't doing what they wanted her to do. It wasn't a damn song with Canada, Camila didn't want to do. She's game to collab with Canada, and just about anyone else who wants to collab with her. It was a PR relationship with him, they wanted her to agree to, but she didn't want to do.

When are some of you going to open your eyes and realize that. Her and Canada are real life friends. She'd probably agree to release a collab a year with him, if that's what he wanted. It's just music. A PR relationship, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

Epic, Island, and maybe Andrew, didn't JUST want a song. They wanted that song, to come with the bullshit we are getting now. Camila agreed to the song, but not the PR. So, what did Epic do? They delayed the official "split" with the dickhead.

Camila bought her house in April. They delayed the announcement of the purchase, until May 13, and had his name inserted into the damn article. Making it sound like she was going to be sharing her house with his ass. Did he ever step foot in her house?

Camila went to Italy in early May. They made it look like he went with her. He may have been there, but he didn't go "with" Camila. He was there to promote one of his books. She was there to get away from all the bullshit. They did have her walk through the airport with him, when they arrived back to LA, on May 12. The 13th, we got the article about the house. May 14, was the last pics we got of the two together.

On May 20, Camila posted one of the saddest pics, I've seen. You could tell, she was anything but happy. That's the day they want us to believe Ewmila "broke up". So, what could have happened between their supposed happy romantic trip to Italy, and the 20th? Absolutely nothing...with Ewmila. They were nothing to each other. Camila just wanted that motherfucker out of her life.

On May 24, we got the post saying, "the calm before the storm, with the 6 tornado emoji's. 4 days, after that very sad looking pic, she warned us this shitshow was coming.

On May 27, we got the pics of Camila and Canada eating outside, and the first media hits, asking "are they dating". Publicist planted that shit. May 30, FYA was released. June 8, Camila went to perform on stage with Alejandro Sanz, with no con artist in sight. June 18, she went to have her little chat at Cannes. She posted a pic, with the caption, "looks put together on the outside, but a mess on the inside". (or something close to it) That's also the day we got the first teasers of Senorita. The song and video was released on the 21st. Nothing but PR bullshit after that.

That's the time line, of how all this shit went down. That sad emotional pic, on the 20th, was a genuine sadness. She was an emotional mess, and NOT because of a "break-up". I think, that is the day, she gave in to the pressure, and made the decision to do the PR with Canada.

She wanted out of that PR shitshow with dickhead. The Label could have kept it going, as long as the dickhead agreed to keep it going, and why wouldn't he. It was getting him the attention he wanted. He didn't give a shit, it was causing her anxiety and emotional distress. (Matthew Hussey is a NARCISSISTIC PRICK, that's all about himself. The Label didn't give a shit, either. They just wanted their artist to do what they wanted her to do. IN MY OPINION!!!)

It really doesn't take that long to record and master a single. By the time they were seen eating together, on the 27th, they had probably already recorded the song, and were discussing the visuals for the video. They filmed it the first week of June or so.

I'm pretty sure, in my thoughts, that Camila only agreed to do this shit, if it was the song of her choice, the video visuals of her choice, and her team doing it. The song she chose, was HER song, Señorita. It wasn't difficult to figure out who that song was about. That's why Epic wouldn't allow her to release it, on her own. But, in a duet with Canada, they were fine with it.

This was all decided on, and done very quickly. That's how they were able to keep it a "secret". From agreement to roll out, it was all done in a months time.

So yeah, that's how I came to my conclusion, that Canada actually "helped" her get out of her PR shitshow with the Con man. How it was her song that was chosen. Her Label was pressuring her, to do this PR stunt with Canada, since 2018. Island and Epic, both wanted it. The song was just the pathway to get the PR started.

Camila is getting shit on, for something BOTH sides were pressuring and down right manipulating/coercing her to do. SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT!!! Canada didn't really want to do it, either. But he's so damn scared of getting publicly outed, and it ruining his career, that he was willing to do anything to keep that from happening.

The only BAD GUYS, in all this shit, is Epic, Island, Andrew, and Roger. THEY are the ones so hell bent on keeping their clients "straight", and making a shit load of money off them, while they are being locked in their glass closet.

Roger should have put his foot down, and told Epic to make the public announcement, of the "split" back in May. Hell, he should have "leaked" the shit himself, on the 20th, when Camila posted that pic, if nothing else. That's why I place blame on him, for the way Camila is being portrayed by others.

The Sun, had the information for a while. They were told to sit on that information, until Epic was ready for the public announcement to be made. That's why the report started with, "I can reveal ...". Not, "this just in", or "Sources have confirmed", but "I can reveal".

The definition of reveal, for those who aren't sure...reveal: make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others....Yep, they sat on the info, until they were told to "reveal" it.

Agree or not, believe or not, that's my take on all this shit. This is how my mind connected all the fucked up dots.

[wcstlcys]

it me june, back at it again here with my third trash child. honestly dunno what im doing but we out here anyways. throw this post a like && i’ll hit you up for plots !! pls give this garbage boi some love pls and thnx ily all.

( CLAYTON CARDENAS. THIRTY THREE. CISMALE. HE/HIM ) in texas, NICOLÁS MARQUEZ is known to most as NICO/NICK. they have been riding with the DIABLOS for FIFTEEN YEARS. they originally from NEWTON and the SOLDIER is known to be very BLUNT & CYNICAL but the other club members will tell you they are INTREPID & RESILIENT. as the years go by, they’ve gained a lot of respect in the club and around town. they rarely ever drive a car but when they do THE WORST IN ME by BAD OMENS is usually heard blasting. ( blood stained blades, scar tainted skin, words that could cut. nightmare plauged memories ) [ hello it me ]

[ blood, violence, assault, prison, ptsd trigger warnings]

✘ it was always just nick and his mom growing up, he never really met his father and honestly never cared to either. all he needed in life was his mother and he was perfectly content with life with only just the two of them. sure, he had his mom’s side of the family in his life as well, but when it really came down to it, life always seemed to just be the two of them. his mom worked hard and he’d always appreciate everything she did for him.

✘ he grew up in newton his whole life, and for the vast majority of it he always seemed to be a trouble maker. he never acted out for a specific reason, it was always just within his nature. he enjoyed the rush he felt whenever he got into trouble, the adrenaline that came with running away from the authorities. hell, even getting caught was fun in his eyes. everything always seemed to be some sort of game to him, what he could do and how far he could push things. what he could and couldn’t get away with -- and the longer he went on the quickly grew to learn that he could get away with a lot of shit.

✘ his delinquent past was exactly the reason he decided to join the diablos, he often ran into them whilst he and his buddies were getting into their own trouble. so why the hell not, he could gain a whole new family who catered towards his lifestyle. it also gave him a sense of belonging, something he didn’t know he was lacking until he joined the club. the diablos added both the love and violence he kept abundant in his life. life was good, it was fun and dangerous and exciting. he truly could not get enough of it. nick always seemed to be the fun, laid back guy that was willing to go along with anything. his spirit always energetic and vibrant. until that light was suddenly shut out, however.

✘ it wasn’t meant to go down like this, a brawl quickly got out of hand and before he knew it his hands were soaked in blood. he let his anger take control of him, landing himself in the back of a police car with cuffs slapped on his wrists, facing serious prison time. he was more focused on ensuring none of the other members got caught, that he landed getting himself caught instead. none of this was supposed to go down this way, none of this was supposed to happen.

✘ the law wasn’t kind to him. considering he had already racked up a pretty hefty criminal record for himself, judge and jury weren’t exactly lenient on the biker. his ‘gang affiliation’ payed him no favours either. his only saving grace was his lawyer, who got his time lowered drastically on a plea deal. while he wouldn’t end up spending the rest of his life in prison, he still had to serve time. so off they shipped him, to repent for his crimes in prsion.

✘ he will never admit how much prison ruined him. hell, he wasn’t expecting it too. he put on a tough face and insisted that everything would be fine. mostly for the sake of his mother and club -- but god how he snapped. it didn’t help that the guards seemed to have a vendetta against him, or the constant fights that seemed to surround him, but nick managed to get himself thrown into solitary confinement far too many times than he could count. the whole ordeal was torturous, and once he was finally released -- the nick everyone once knew seemed to be gone.

✘ his once light and energetic nature had died out, leaving behind something dark and hollow. a vast majority of his views became cynical, nothing in life having much meaning anymore. he developed an incredibly blunt nature to everyone around him, seemingly uncaring of how harsh his words had become. everything was replaced by pain, no matter how much he denied it.

✘ he’s always been an honest man, never finding the need to beat around the bush and hide away his feelings. however, back then his whole demeanor was a lot more nonchalant and chilled. while he still has remained truthful, expressing his feelings for what they are, his emotions are always tainted by dread. nothing seems to excite him anymore, nothing holds any meaning, as if he never truly escaped the hole the law shoved him into. the solitary he was forced into, having nothing but his own thoughts to plague and torture him, has ripped his very soul to shreds.

✘ nick nearly left the diablos once he was released from prison, but he was somehow talked out of it. the diablos being the only thing keeping his head above waters these days, keeping him from completely losing his shit and giving into his adopted reckless behaviour. nick is now quick to jump into any situation, no matter how dangerous or deadly it may be. his own mortality no longer a concern of his. his own well-being unimportant, he needs his club to reel him back in from the deep end and save him from his own damn self.

✘ he’s slowly picking up his broken pieces, attempting to mend the many cracks and flaws that have changed him, but it’s been a long and grievous process. remnants of his old-self seem to glimmer through every now and then, but even those moments seemed to be dulled by the fog that envelopes his very being. 

✘ he finds himself spending a lot of time at deseo. he likes the company and a place for him not to be confined to his own thoughts. he needs the distraction. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

✘ first love [ open ] -- i imagine this as someone he fell head over heels for, a love that has always been pure. this person means the world to him, even if what they had was damaged by his incarceration. ever since he was released, he’s been attempting to push them away. even going as far to as breaking things off between them before he was sent off. it’s his way of keeping them safe, wanting them to do better than him.

✘ exes [ open ] -- i imagine he’s tried to get his life in order, date and settle down but he just fucks everything up and pushes everyone away.

✘ deseo dancers / workers ?? [ open ] -- since he spends a lot of time there, gimme connections for it. i can see him developing a bit of a ‘protective’ nature around the dancers. he cares about them a lot, even though he won’t admit it.   

✘ hookups / fwb [ open ] -- he has needs alright. a mans has needs.  he’s biromantic / bisexuals ofc.

✘ ride or die [ open ] -- i imagine this to be mostly likely someone from the diablos. someone that he really connected with and trusts with his whole heart. he would do anything and everything for this person. i imagine this is the person who convinced him not to leave the club as well !! 

✘ lawyer / legal help [ open ] -- please for the love of god gimme someone who will help this idiot keep his life together. he makes a lot of dumb decisions and gets himself into a lot of shit. the boy doesn’t need to go back to prison.

✘ club friends [ open ] -- even though he’s been fairly dark and gloomy, he still loves his club with all his heart so pls gimme all the diablos love.

✘ unlikely friends [ open ] -- just some people who you wouldn’t expect he’s befriended, but somehow over the years they’ve grown quite close. whatever works here honestly. 

✘ enemies [ open ] -- give mah boi someone to hate pls and thnx

UHH THIS IS ALL I CAN THINK OF FOR NOW OK PLS GIMME ALL THE PLOTS IM OPEN FOR ANYTHING HONESTLY

#rideintro. #ya yeet here comes the trash #its late and im tired idk wtf this is #im warning yall i proof read none of this lmfao

[ctrl-shift-esc]

Home Surgery

House renovations not only feel like a bomb went off in your home but a bomb went off in your head too. It’s like the Hunger Games in a relationship. Good luck, may the strongest couple win… 

Hello fam,

long time no talk (unless you’ve been following along on the ol’insta stories).
Even then, I haven’t been keeping up as often as I used to (Sorry bout it?). So let me bring you up to date on everything and all that is Veronica & her shenanigans…

We moved into our home last April which is now, 7 months ago! We’re still knee deep in renovations. Surprised? I’m not! Who am I kidding…yes I am… I mean I was hoping we would’ve been done by now (epic wishful thinking on my part). Things have moved slowly since April.

It’s to be expected I suppose, I hadn’t really spent any consecutive time at home before June. Once I got back, I was exhausted and didn’t feel like taking on any huge projects. I’d worked full time on set for over 10 months followed by months on end of travelling. I was craving some stand-still time. I wanted to enjoy my summer and not be a slave to home renovations. In lieu of my laziness we chipped away at projects only on weekends. At first, my boyfriend was the one trying to kick me in the ass to buckle down and get the work done. Fast forward 4 months later – here I am, getting impatient so I’m doing the kicking of the ass…

Going into this, I kept saying that I’d be fine gutting a place to its bones – that I’d done this kind of thing before and the mess didn’t scare me. Which is fact, but what I’d ignored was my need to have a home – a sanctuary – a safe haven. I didn’t realize a gutted house meant a gutted sanctuary. Going into this, I also kept saying ; I need a place to call home. So I’m not sure what I was expecting… maybe I expected things to magically get done on their own, or somehow still have a livable space in the midst of dust and chaos?! How could I’ve missed this? I am not sure…

Everything happened so fast, we’d been casually house hunting for a few months when we discovered what would be our future home. We didn’t think too much of it until the idea of owning it slowly crept in. In fact, at first the house gave me a weird vibe. Something didn’t flow but I was determined to find out what… We agreed to go for a second viewing, at this point we were already talking about our demolition plans. Next thing you know; we put in an offer, we negotiated and closed — It’s ours!

We knew right away we wanted to update the two upstairs bathrooms (they haven’t been touched since the 70′s). Painting was a non-negotiable. We also played with the idea of blowing out the entrance wall to open the space up. Also, the mudroom slash laundry room could use a face-lift. The master bedroom lacked closet space and bathroom space. Needless to say, we had to get creative with the designs to maximize every inch of this place and I’d be lying if I said we had it all figured out. You get the point; the list of projects is never ending.

We tackled the main living areas first. While I was away my boyfriend started by removing the popcorn ceiling in the main living room. This was our first setback. It took weeks to properly remove it all, then, weeks to properly sand & paint. Soon after we decided to demolish the entrance wall (best decision ever). Later we painted the whole main floor… Never underestimate how much painting can do to a space – also, never underestimate how long painting with a roller can take…

Now that we were knee deep in our reno’s, we decided to make our lives even harder by redoing the floors in all main living spaces; main living room, kitchen and TV room. 

The current floor is acacia hardwood flooring. A color that is now outdated, with plank sizes that are also outdated. The lower TV room is covered in a light beige carpet but also has a backyard access. Oh & the hardwood? Scratched to shit. There isn’t one ounce of flooring that isn’t damaged. So here were my thoughts; Why have carpet in a room where you’d be accessing the outside from? If our floors are already damaged & outdated how would that affect us in the long run, for resale value? So first, I tried to match the TV room floor to the acacia wood… Once we started digging to find a matching floor we quickly realized we were most likely never going to be able to match it. Like a salesman once told me “you’re chasing a leprechaun”. Cool cool cool cool…So cool. It would never be a perfect match, in other words — it would be noticeably different. Uh, No. I’m not okay with that. There’s nothing more frustrating and disorienting than walking into a home that lacks cohesiveness. We toyed with the idea of sanding and restaining, until we found out it would cost more than replacing the whole floor.

Thanks to my Design firm, I’ve got access to flooring I otherwise wouldn’t have found on my own. I was suggested an alternative type of flooring that is in theory a Vinyl plank, but in reality, is its own type called SPC flooring (stone plastic composite). It looks and feels like wood. It has no expansion or contraction since its made of stone & plastic. It’s waterproof and highly scratch resistant. This sounds like the perfect floor for a home that would resell to a young family with tons of kids and dogs that may ruin a beautiful hardwood. Want proof? come over and look at ours.

The tricky thing about this flooring is that the planks are quite thin. It offers little to no flexibility, so your subfloor needs to be leveled near perfect to prevent any cracking… In a high-rise or newer house this is easier to accomplish. In a 70′s home where the foundation can and most probably is uneven, not so much. Our challenge was to find the right installer who knew this floor, who’s worked with it before and who understands the leveling specs. We interviewed 3 or 4 installers, one of which was convinced he could not only match our existing floor (ya! right!) but could also sand and restain it a different color. Which fyi, I’d been repeatedly told would be close to impossible to do with acacia…?!… A risk I wasn’t necessarily willing to take. Especially if it’d cost more than installing a brand new – scratch resistant – waterproof flooring! The other installers came in really confident about having worked with the floor before until I started asking questions… Slowly they started hesitating & pulled back from wanting to level our floor. I lost interest in hiring them 1- I couldn’t understand the words that were coming out of their mouths and 2- if there was any chance that they were talking themselves up only to make a quick buck, when in reality they know jack squat about this floor & risk damaging it – That’s gonna be a hard no from me… At this point I was losing interest in the whole ordeal. Let’s keep our damaged floors and move on! Losing hope over here! Just let me buy a couch already!

Let’s back up for a second… All the while this is happening, keep in mind, our house is not furnished. Decorations (the ones we have) are put away. Walls are bare, clothes aren’t put away. It’s a total dissaray. Well maybe dissaray isn’t the right word, but it’s a tiny shit show & it’s getting old.

We couldn’t do anything else until the floor situation was dealt with. Finishing the second coat of paint is now on hold, since installing the floors might damage the walls, we might have to repaint everything anyway. You wouldn’t catch me repainting 1200 sq ft with rollers A THIRD TIME! No way Jose.

Since everything else was on hold. I wanted to start the master bedroom project right away instead of waiting until spring like we’d originally planned. Let’s at least get one room over with, my gosh! So we decided to take the closet project head on and not look back. Our plan was to finish it the weekend we started. Wrong! say hello to our second setback. We are now 3 weeks later and we’re still working on the bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, we got 75% done on that weekend, but we encountered technical difficulties that have lingered since then, including the purge of my closet and organizing it all… this is a project in itself. One that may or may not take just as long as painting a whole house by hand…

The room is essentially done, I’m hoping we can officially wipe our hands clean from the renovations of this bedroom by this weekend and get started on the decorations! 

They say you find what you’re looking for when you stop looking — once we stopped looking for floor installers, we finally got a hold of the supplier who’d recommended someone they’d worked with before. Hallelujah! He was easy to communicate with & he agreed to come over that weekend to give us an estimate. I tried not to get my hopes up, for all I knew we may have invited an overrated installer into our house just to tease ourselves…

Once we met, it was clear we all got along great. He’s clearly worked with the floor before and I knew this because he answered questions I didn’t even get a chance to ask. He knew the specs and explained the process without being dodgy. That’s our guy, I don’t care how much he costs hire the guy! We all know my boyfriend put a stop to that real quick — we stick to the budget, he said. So here I was, crossing my fingers to death. He sent us his estimate the next day and it was within our budget!

YUUSSSSS!!! We finally found our guy, This is so exciting! We have a bit of prep work to do before they come to install, but for the first time in months it feels like the work we’re doing is going somewhere! Floors will be installed by the first week of December!

The best news of all; phase 1 is almost complete! That’s right, we decided to do our renovations in phases. Because we need a break y’all! We will hibernate through winter and get back to it in spring…We will focus on the fun stuff over the winter, like beautifying our home. The rest of the renovations like the mudroom and bathrooms can thankfully be quarantined so we don’t have to look or live in a hot mess for months on end! Home stretch folks! One more month and we can relax for a while.

We have a few fun trips planned over the holidays. We booked a mini getaway in a cabin on Galiano Island, at Bodega Cove, at the end of December (board games for days!). Saying we’re excited is an understatement. We will be hosting a House warming holiday cocktail party right before new years, then, we will head to Victoria to ring in the new year in style! We’ve got a good few months ahead & I’m damn well looking forward to it!

We shed blood, sweat & tears over the last 7 months. I’m not lying when I say it’s been a process, (now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel) I can finally start to appreciate the journey! 

I’ll keep you posted on all the progress, dontcha worry!

Notes to remember from a fellow renovator to you:

* If you’re doing major renovations or are thinking of renovating - try to do it before you move in. Renovations are stressful enough as it is, there’s no need to add stress by living in the mess. So if you can avoid it, I recommend it.

* Renovating can and most probably will stress you out – healthy lifestyle habits like eating properly, exercising and proper sleep patterns will do wonders. Don’t give up on yourself.

* Try to remember that it’s temporary and keep in mind things will get worse before they get better (yes you read that right... It’s something I somehow didn’t realize). It’s only part of the process. Keep your eye on the prize! If you’re having trouble visualizing it with the walls gutted, create a vision board and put it up in a space where you can see it clearly and daily.

* If things get too intense, walk away from it and go do something that will reward you emotionally. Self-Care is knowing when to walk away. 

* When taking on a renovation project as a couple, it’s an added pressure to the relationship. Relationships are already a lot of work as it is; worrying about work - day to day responsibilities - and having to take care of your family life (if you have kids). Adding renovations to the mix can make you feel overwhelmed. Your schedules will be overflowing with To Do lists – but remember that romance also needs to be a priority. Date nights & relationship time needs to be allocated. Set aside some time to focus on watering the relationship. You’ll need it. Don’t let the To Do lists come between you two. The lists will always be there, time together is precious.

* most of all – try and have fun! (taking my own advice on this one!)

Until then Ctrl+Shift+ ESCAPE but Stay tuned for a closet reveal :)

[smartgirlsaremean]

The Wedding Planner - Chapter 5

Fandom: OUAT

Pairing: Rumbelle

Rating: T

Summary: Wedding planner Alan Gold doesn't have much faith in romance, and little to none in marriage. A chance encounter with sweet librarian Belle French has him almost reconsidering his beliefs until he receives a nasty shock: she's the bride in the most important wedding of his career.

AO3

Chapter 5 - Gold accompanies Belle and Gaston on a tour of a possible venue.

Just off the top of his head, Gold could think of about half a dozen places he’d rather be than in the backseat of Gaston Lefleur’s shiny black BMW with the happy couple. The X5 had pulled up outside the office building at precisely nine o’clock, both driver and passenger fresh and bright-eyed and youthful, and Gold had felt an unexpected twinge. How he could have imagined that a beauty like Belle was not only single but interested in him was now a complete mystery to him. She was sipping from a coffee cup and perusing a tablet, and she gave him a small smile when he took his seat behind her; he only just managed to respond in kind. The car was blessedly silent for the first twenty minutes, but when Belle set her tablet down, Gaston seemed to take it as his cue to speak.

“So I was thinking yesterday, and I realized we don’t have a wedding song. Something to dance to? I got this CD - it has a lot of popular wedding songs on it. Maybe there’ll be something we like.”

“It doesn’t have to be a wedding song, does it?” Belle asked. “Can’t it just be a song we both like?”

“Just give the CD a try, okay, babe?”

At Belle’s nod, Gaston slid the disc into the player, and Gold held back a groan as the all-too-familiar twangs of Clapton’s electric guitar echoed in the car.

It’s late in the evening, she’s wondering what clothes to wear… 

“What do you think?” Gaston asked.

“I don’t know,” Belle hedged. “The woman in the song has blonde hair - doesn’t seem appropriate.”

“Fair enough.”

The song stopped abruptly, followed by melancholy piano chords, and Gold wished he could open the car door and leap to his death.

Heart beats fast, colors and promises, how to be brave… 

“Isn’t this song from Twilight?” Belle asked.

“Oh, yeah. That one’s out.” Gaston shuddered and smacked the button.

Some day, when I’m awfully low, when the world is cold…

“No,” Belle said decisively. Gold tried not to smirk.

“What?” Gaston yelped. “It’s ol’ Blue Eyes! You don’t get more classic than this!”

“He spends the whole song asking her to stay young and beautiful,” Belle said frostily.

Gaston sighed.

Whoa, my love, my darlin’, I’ve hungered for your touch alone…  

“Hey, this one’s good!” Gaston said, turning the volume up slightly.

Belle was silent.

“You love this song, Izzy...you used to play it all the time. I like it too, and it’s easy to dance to. It’s perfect.”

...and time goes by...so slowly...and time can do so much…  

“You’re right,” Belle said at last. “It’s perfect.”

“If you don’t like it we can…”

“No, I do like it.” Her voice was softer, warm and sweet. “I do love this song, and I think...let’s use this one.”

“Awesome. Hear that, Goldie? We’ve got a song!”

Gold’s scoff was completely unintentional but not, unfortunately, inaudible.

“What?” Gaston asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Nothing.”

“Is it a bad song?”

“No. No, it’s...absolutely perfect.” If this marriage lasted longer than six months it would be a bloody miracle.

“So, Goldie, not to change the subject or anything but...what happened with that woman?”

Belle, who had just taken a sip from a bottle of water, choked, splattering the dash and coughing violently. Gaston reached over and patted her hard between the shoulderblades a few times until she calmed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Belle croaked. “Just...swallowed weird.”

“Be more careful, babe. So, the girl,” Gaston said as Belle turned and stared out the window. “Did you see her again?”

“Ah...it...didn’t work out.” Gold watched Belle’s reflection in the window, but she was staring directly ahead, her face a calm mask. He tried to keep his voice neutral.

“How is that possible? I saw you two days later and you were still all shiny-eyed and sappy.”

Belle caught his eye at that moment, and he reddened and looked away. “Well, as a matter of fact, she turned out to be the bride in one of the weddings I was planning.”

There was a heavy pause. Finally Gaston turned off the music and breathed, “No shit.”

“Yes.”

“That’s...wow, that sucks.”

Gold saw Gaston reach for Belle’s hand. “I bet the poor bastard doesn’t even know. I’m lucky I’ve got my Izzy - some people are real jerks.”

“You are a very lucky man indeed.”

He didn’t have to try that hard to sound sincere, which was worrying on its own. Gaston kept Belle’s hand in his, and Gold averted his eyes, feeling old and sad and very much alone. After a few minutes one of them must have let go, because the radio snapped back to life and was tuned to a sports station, and they were all saved from having to make small talk.

They were met at the front of the vineyard’s event hall by a smiling woman who began to lead them through the hall, pointing out the breathtaking views from the windows and the spacious room that allowed for five hundred people. Gaston grinned widely at that, but Belle looked a little shaken.

“Five hundred? Surely we don’t need that much room.”

“Mom and Dad were looking over the guest list the other day and it’s getting pretty close to that,” Gaston said. “You know them - just five hundred of our closest friends.”

Belle smiled weakly, and Gold turned to their guide.

“I don’t suppose Mr. Walsh is available?”

“Oh...Mr. Walsh left the vineyard a few months ago. Ms. West is our event coordinator now.”

“Ms…” Gold felt the blood drain from his face. He noticed that Gaston and Belle were both looking at him with concern, but before he could pretend he was sickening for something and decamp, a dreadfully familiar voice rang through the hall.

“Goodness, Alan, is that you? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today?”

All three of them turned as a tall, lovely woman made her way to them, her red hair gleaming in the sunlight and her smile glittering.

“Zelena,” he responded, not bothering to duck away when she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Well, this is wonderful,” she chirped. “I love it when you surprise me.”

“Do you know each other well?” Belle asked.

“Oh, yes, we a fair bit more than know each other,” Zelena laughed. “How long has it been, darling? Six years or so?”

Gold winced at her implication, and then felt a surge of indignation when Belle’s eyebrows rose. Was it really so shocking that an attractive woman would claim him?

“Or so,” he murmured.

“Huh.” Gaston grinned at him. “You’re kind of a dark horse, aren’t you, Goldie?”

“Not exactly.”

Belle folded her arms and continued to study him, her eyes gleaming. “You didn’t mention a woman in your life, Mr. Gold. I’m so glad you have someone. Everyone should, I think. Someone they can trust, someone they can be faithful to.”

“Yes, well, Zelena, we’re actually on a bit of a time crunch,” Gold said. “If you would be so kind as to begin our tour…”

“Oh, I think Miss...French, wasn’t it? Miss French and I can be trusted to look over the bridal accommodations and ceremony site while you and Mr. Lefleur talk business. These things don’t really require a gentleman’s input, after all, do they?” With a coquettish smile, she looped an arm through Belle’s and led her away.

“I guess Movie Girl isn’t that big of a loss if you’ve got that woman waiting in the wings,” Gaston said with a suggestive grin.

 “Ms. West and I share a very cordial professional relationship,” Gold lied.

“I’ll bet.”

Desperate for a change of subject, Gold waved a hand at the window. “Care to see the actual vineyard?”

Shrugging, Gaston looked dispassionately around. “We should wait for Izzy. Didn’t I see a sign for a gym? Where’s that?”

With a small sigh of relief Gold led him away to the fitness center. With any luck, they could avoid discussing Zelena or Belle or anything at all related to either until the women rejoined them. Thankfully, Gaston was instantly captivated by the state-of-the-art gym equipment - though why such a thing would matter at one’s wedding venue was a mystery to Gold - and talked of nothing else until lunch.

After  lunch Zelena insisted on having the groundskeeper join them as they toured the gardens - “He knows so much more about the plants than I do, after all!” Gold disliked the man on sight: tall, lanky, a heavy jaw, and eyes entirely too fixated on Belle.

Nott spoke at length about the plants in the garden, their origins, their meanings - it did not escape Gold that he stood a little too close to the bride-to-be and drew her attention to flowers with romantic or suggestive meaning a little too often. Gaston, however, had long since stopped listening to the impromptu lesson in floriography and was instead much more interested in Zelena’s monologue about the grapes in the vineyard and the wines they produced. They broke off into pairs, Gaston and Zelena in front, Nott and Belle behind, and Gold walked between them, wishing he were anywhere else in the world.

“May I ask when the big day is?” Nott asked Belle when she didn’t respond to his hints that she might like to walk away from the group and explore the rose garden.

“June seventeenth.”

“Not much time left, eh? Have you sown all your wild oats?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Gold’s hand clenched around the handle of his cane and he stared hard at the back of Gaston’s head. The young man was several feet ahead with Zelena and getting further away, and it was really not Gold’s place to step in.

“Well, you know...before you sign your life away, I hope you’ve had time to live it a little.”

“I don’t plan on signing anything away, and I have every intention of living my life to the fullest after I’m married.”

“Is that so?” The tone of Nott’s voice made Gold’s skin crawl. “Got an open relationship, have you?”

“That’s - that’s not what I said.” Belle’s voice faltered.

“Why wait til after the wedding to live life to the fullest? We could…”

“Mr. Nott, let go of me!”

The note of panic in her voice made something dark and ugly rear up inside Gold’s head, and he turned to see that Nott had taken Belle’s arm and was looming over her.

“I believe the lady made herself clear, Nott,” Gold snapped, walking back to meet them.

“Not your business, is it, old man?” the young man tightened his grip on Belle’s arm and Gold’s temper snapped. He shifted his grip on his cane and brought the handle down hard on the man’s forearm; Nott shouted and jumped back, fire blazing in his eyes. “You stupid little…”

“Careful, dearie,” Gold said softly. “Ms. West is not known for her forgiving nature, and you’ve just assaulted a customer. Do you really want to make things worse and go after me?”

Belle had inched away from Nott and now stood slightly behind Gold. Nott glared at both of them in turn and then shook his head. “Not worth it,” he muttered. “She looks like a frigid bitch anyway.”

Red flooded his vision and he’d lifted his cane again before he even realized it, this time high enough to hit the man’s head, but a gentle pressure on his arm and a soft voice in his ear banked the fire in his veins.

“Don’t,” Belle whispered, tugging on his sleeve. “Please, it’s not worth it.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“He’s not worth you getting arrested for manslaughter,” she said. “Come on, Gaston and Ms. West must be wondering where we are.”

Baring his teeth, Gold dropped his cane and glared at Nott, then deliberately turned his back on the taller man. Offering Belle his arm, they left the red-faced groundskeeper behind to fume.

“Thank you,” Belle said after a few moments of silence.

“It’s no matter.”

“I didn’t - I swear I wasn’t encouraging him or flirting or…”

“I know. He doesn’t seem your type.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Belle sounded taken aback. “I’m engaged to Gaston...why would him not being my type matter?”

Gold shrugged, slightly ashamed of what he’d implied, but unable to recant completely.

“You have some nerve, y’know. You were so indignant that I went to a movie with you while I was engaged, but you’re not exactly single yourself, are you? Ms. West talked about you nonstop on my tour, and I know you’re more than just colleagues.”

Part of him wanted to defend himself, but the larger part was intrigued that he most definitely heard a note of jealousy in her voice.

“My romantic life is really none of your business,” he said calmly.

“It is when you’re pretending you have some kind of moral high ground! Are you really going to keep throwing that night in my face for the next two months?” She shook her head and dropped his arm. “What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem?” he scoffed. “I’d worry about your own.”

“My…?”

“I have been a wedding planner for a very long time, Miss French. Perhaps even since before you were born. I can predict down to the week how long a marriage will last. What color have you chosen for your bridesmaid dresses?”

She looked slightly thrown at the abrupt question. “Um...teal.”

“Teal. The color of gangrene.” He shook his head with a smirk. “My last bride who chose teal got her marriage annulled after twelve days.”

“The color flatters my bridesmaids!”

“And ‘Unchained Melody’ for your wedding song? Might as well commit matrimonial suicide right now.”

“Alright.” Belle stopped and turned to face him, hands planted on her hips and eyes sparking. “Do you want a confession? Is that what will get you off my back? Yes. That night at the movie...I was attracted to you, okay? I admit it. I wanted to sit next to you and watch a movie in the dark, I wanted to walk with you under the stars, and I wanted to kiss you. Is that what you want to hear?”

Yes. No. His brain felt fuzzy and he’d forgotten how beautiful she was when she was angry.

“Maybe I was feeling a little...stifled. Maybe I wanted to do something rebellious for the first time in years. I didn’t think I would ever see you again, and when it comes down to it, nothing happened, and I am still sure that marrying Gaston is what I want.”

His chest and throat felt tight, and he struggled to meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and he winced. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I think you will find, Miss French,” he said heavily, “that by and large, intent is meaningless.”

She was silent for some time. Glancing up, he found her eyes were wide and dark and sad, and his breath caught in his throat. He took a step forward, and a thrill went through him when she did too. She was so lovely and so captivating and so close…

“There you guys are!”

Belle started and backed away, blushing furiously, at the sound of her fiance’s voice, and they both turned to see Gaston and Zelena approaching them. “Sorry, Gaston,” she said shakily. “I wandered away from the path and got a little lost, but Mr. Gold found me.”

“So gallant, Alan,” Zelena smiled, wrapping her arm around his. “A regular knight in shining armor.”

“Thanks, Goldie!” Gaston threw an arm around her shoulders. “She can get kind of lost in her own world sometimes. What do you think of the vineyard, Izzy?”

“It’s lovely.” She turned away from Gold and focused all of her attention on Gaston.

“You think? I don’t know...I was kind of hoping for something a little bigger. Dad just texted me and said he’s thought of about fifty more people he’ll have to invite.”

“Well, if it’s not big enough, we should definitely keep looking,” Belle said. “Of course you know we could always cut the guest list.”

“Nope, can’t do that. Too many VIPs...once you invite one, you have to invite them all or they get offended. So I guess we keep looking.” He grinned at Gold. “You guys hungry? What do you say to dinner and some of that fancy wine Zelena was telling me about?”

“That sounds great,” Belle said with a smile.

Gold forced a similar expression onto his own face, as if he couldn’t imagine any greater pleasure than breaking bread with the obnoxious barnacle on his arm, the woman of his dreams, and said dream woman’s fiance.

No more Blue, he reminded himself. No more venue tours or band auditions or terrible food. A shop of my own. Freedom. At the moment, he wondered if his freedom was worth the price.  

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle #the wedding planner

[sorryidosedoff]

Coming back-chapter I (Tom Holland x Original character story)

Summary: These months apart from Tom made her realize how much she really cared for her best friend. These months apart made her realize just how much she needed him on a day to day basis. Anna wasn't happy without him.

and so the chapter begins

She opens her laptop the second she awakens from her second nap in the day. What else was she supposed to do in these lonely summer days? Her 2 friends were at camp where yes she could have gone but her cousin’s wedding got in the way of that. And so she watched TV shows, took naps making the time pass by as quickly as possible.

Half-asleep she opened her browser and Skype. Facebook, tumblr and YouTube. She closed tumblr after a few seconds into reading a text post against “Hugh Mungus”. She typed into YouTube- “Where Is My Mind” inspired by her re-watching Fight Club the day before. Logged onto Facebook and took her attention to Skype. 5 messages from Tom

At least he still remembers me-she thought. She opened them.

Hey Anna, I miss you… I’m coming back in a few days and I can’t wait to see you again after these months. We’re leaving tomorrow night aka the night of today it’s 2AM here, so we’ll probably be in London the morning of the 15th. It’s so boring here. Agh, I have to go sleep. These time zones are shit. I have two more interviews tomorrow, if you catch me online call me please. Bye – delivered 10:06 AM

Oh, well great. At least she would get up from her bed more often. Anna smiled. She looked at the clock: 02:48 PM. Oh shit-she cursed, her mom was about to come home. She ran downstairs yelling her brother’s name.

“Austin! Austin god damn it, where are you?”-she ran to the backyard where Austin was playing in the sand box with his neighbor, Emily. They were both 7 years old. “What is it Anna?”-asked Austin busy making a sand castle with his friend. “Why didn’t you wake me?” “Well, we tried but you said a bad word to us and we decided to leave.” “Agh, did you even eat breakfast?” “Yes, Aunt Liza left us sandwiches on the kitchen island. We ate yours too, because we were really hungry.”-said Emily. “Okay, at least you ate. Where’s Ethan?” “He left with the motorcycle with Olivia.”-answered Emily finishing up the sand castle. “Great.”-with that Anna left to make lunch. Cheese, bread, butter and a cucumber. Everything needed for grilled cheese and a salad.

Her mother got home as she was flipping the last sandwich. She put it in the pile where the other five were and said hello to her mom who had collapsed on the couch.

“Yeah, hi. Where are your brothers?” “Austin is in the backyard with Emily and apparently Ethan is with Olivia on the motorcycle.” Liza palmed her face-“Agh, why did I ever buy him that motorcycle…” “Sh, mom it’s okay, you did what you thought was right.”-Anna hugged her mother trying to reassure her. “If only your dad were here. He’d know how to deal with Ethan”-sighed Liza “Yeah.”-Anna said pursing her lips together.-“But look, you can do it just as well. Call him.” “Okay, thank you.”-she kissed her daughter’s forehead. Anna went to call the two kids for lunch. Liza rang her son. He picked up after the 6th ring.

“Ethan, honey where are you?”-she asked worried. “I’m downtown with Olivia.”-he didn’t lie. “When are you coming home?” “I don’t know, later.” “Ethan Fray-“-she was cut off by his son. “Mom I’m fine, we’re fine. I’m not hungry, I’m not tired. I need to go now. Bye.”-and he hung up. Liza fought back the tears; she didn’t know what was going on with her son.

Ethan was downtown with Olivia. The 17 year olds were in the flat of Beau, a 20 year old college drop out with a cocaine addiction. The building was in the outskirts of downtown London, a pretty shitty one at that. But cops stayed away and big drug dealers lived there. The couple was snorting cocaine as well, developing their own addiction. After lunch Anna closed herself in her room once again. 04:02 PM, Tom was online. And so she called him.

Tom had just finished his 1st interview for the day. It was 8 AM and his mother had been preparing breakfast for him, she cared dearly for her son. He had an hour break until they had to leave for his second and final interview of his time in LA. He couldn’t wait to get back home. Tom used his time to scroll the net and so he opened Skype hoping to catch Anna. And he did. He answered her call.

“Oh my god it’s so good to see you Anna. I miss you so much.”-said Tom smiling from ear to ear. His mother Nicola heard Anna’s name and ran to Tom. “Oh my lord Anna it is you, honey I miss you and your mother so much, how are you?”-said Nicola in excitement. “I’m fine, quite fine. How are you Nicola? I miss you both so much. It’s been too long.” “I agree but we will see each other in a short time, could you tell your mom to call me in the next half hour if she’s free?” “Of course, I’ll go and tell her now. I’ll be right back Tom.”-she smiled at him Anna was fast, she got back within a minute. She could hear Nicola’s phone ringing from the other end of her Skype call. –“Damn Tom, I don’t even recognize you.” “Oh please, we haven’t seen each other in a long time but not that long.”-Anna smiled sadly. “I think we both know that’s not true.”-Tom smiled sadly and looked down at his hands.-“At least we’re reuniting soon.” “Yeah, tomorrow. I can’t wait to see you all again.”

The next half an hour Tom and Anna talked about anything and everything. Tom talked about every scene shoot with Marvel as Anna was a geek, a fangirl for everything Marvel. In turn Anna talked about all the shows and movies she watched. She talked about how she didn’t know what to do with her life. She gave up on dancing but was thinking about starting once again if she got that inspiration back. The last thing she did for dance was the couple of commercials she did after finishing her first year at art school.

“You know, I have to go back to LA to shoot Spiderman on the 20th June, maybe we can go on some holiday until then?”-Tom proposed. “I’d like that sure, but just you and me?”-she had to admit, the thought was nice. “Well, Tessa I miss her and I’d like to go with her on holiday. Also I could take Mark and you could take Penelope and Marge.”-he half-smiled having doubts about if this holiday were to ever happen. “Penelope and Marge are on camp until 22nd and I don’t know what your mom would say about taking Tessa on holiday. Then again she is your dog. I don’t know.”-she felt sad that the odds for this holiday weren’t looking too good. Anna wanted to cheer both of them up-“But we should go. Even if it’s just you, me, Tessa and Mark I’d be fine. I just need to get out of this house.” “Why?” “I’m beginning to circle back to a state of depression. As I told you all I do is movies and TV shows. I’m alone and I feel so lonely I feel like dying. As melodramatic as it may sound.” “Then I Tom Holland promise to take you on the holiday of your dreams.”-they smiled at each other. He had always kept his promises, no matter how big or seemingly impossible. “Thank you Tom. Just come back already.” “Tomorrow. And the first thing I’m doing is taking you to on a great day out. Surprises to you and me cause I don’t know where to take you.”-they both laughed.

Anna’s house had been quiet. Austin was having a nap and Liza was on talking with Nicola. In the distance just faintly Anna could hear the sound of a motorcycle, she thought it was Ethan. The motorcycle sound became louder and louder until what followed the motorcycle sound was a scream and the sound of a motorcycle swerving and crashing into god knows what. Oh no.

“What was that?”-Tom heard the crash. “Ethan.”-said Anna and ran outside, her mother following her asking her where she was going telephone in hand still talking to Nicola. Anna looked left, A few meters after the neighbor’s house was a jeep that had crashed into the Miler’s tree. Anna looked right and there both unconscious Ethan and Olivia lay on the asphalt with the motorcycle crashed into the neighbor’s car.

#tom holland #tom #holland #peter parker #spiderman #spider-man: homecoming #civil war #captain america civil war #fanfiction #tom holland fanfiction #coming back

[rhysford]

A bit about Rhys Ford’s upcoming Urban Fantasy Romance, Dim Sum Asylum…

Okay, let’s talk Dim Sum Asylum. Or rather, let me ramble. About urban fantasy romances and well, a bit of world building. Or rather, species building.

Back in the beginning of this story, I was contemplating what to do with the urban fantasy aspect of it. I wanted something different but still familiar and as I kicked around a few ideas, I realized I’d never actually explored the idea of faeries.

And I’m talking full on insect wing, human-sized faeries. We have them in our stories, usually tiny sprite things intent on haranguing Lost Boys or stealing things right out from under your nose or even cobbling together shoes in the wee hours of the night. But nothing more involved in that. I’ve got the Sidhe and Unsidhe down over in San Diego and Kai’s world but that’s a pretty gritty, hard-scrabble life. I wanted something a little bit softer but with a hell of a lot more magic.

So, Roku MacCormick was born. And so were the faerie clans.

By the way, I’ve gotten some shit about Roku’s name from more than a few people. In a teasing way. Mostly because it was oddly used for a television box. Don’t know the reasoning behind that but hey, sometimes words just fit a situation and you run with it. In the MC’s case, his full name is Rokugi but shortened to Roku, it means six. More importantly, it also is a slang word for “rock” as in rock music and was a bit of a shout-out to Hyde, a Japanese musician I adore. His 666 (roku, roku, roku) album is fantastic and one of my mainstays. There’s odd things that happen along the way when naming characters. So there you go.

Back to the faerie. I wanted wings. I didn’t want my main character to have wings—although I debated it—but rather him to be marked as faerie through his eyes and some markings. There really isn’t a lot of differences between the humans and the fae in this world other than culture and a bit of language…okay and wings and magical ability and eyes looking a bit like insects but small things *grins*. That was important. We needed to be a species to the left and to the right in this. There’s some species tension but not overtly so. Undercurrents, some riots and pretty much a civil rights movement but nothing on the scale of the Human-Underhill wars in Kai’s world. I wanted something closer to our current situation but with a shit ton of magic and well, faerie clans.

It seems silly to base an entire story on wings but at the time, I really wanted to run with it. There’s a lot of… suppose this happens… in urban fantasy. I like having that little bit of shift off of the normal, mundane world to build from and in this case, the faerie were the perfect fit.

So much to play with.

The fae ended up having some pretty seriously cultural shifts, very different from what I’d originally imagined. One of the build about including an other race into a UF story comes at you from very odd angles. When writing the short story, I could sort of skip over them but in expanding out the story into a novel, I ended up having to dig through funeral practices, worship, symbology and keep them based on the cultural anchors the fae originated from. So, while the fae have a common wing rite following a death, its incorporation had to make sense for their ethnic origins. Scottish fae are still Scottish and so on. Complicating things are clan connections so an Odonata fae like Roku is connected to another Odonata even though they are ethnically disparate. That was a complication I needed to account for. A thread in the weaving of a world tapestry. And oddly enough, these are questions that are answered in the background of a book—in its bible—and may never ever see the light of day in the actual text.

I had wings and death rites and well, a bit of a tension between natural fae and kids who’d been spliced with fae DNA. There was a bit of questioning on why I introduced that into the original story but to be fair, I thought it was something humans would do. We like tinkering with our bodies. Let’s face it, some people would want butterfly wings. Or rather they would want their kids to have them. It’s what we do. We’re an odd species. Now the wings can’t support flight but still, someone would want them. I bowed to the logical humanness of who we are when I wrote that in. And well, the backlash that would soon follow. Because tinkering sometimes leads to odd, bad things.

This tells you nothing about the book. Okay. Something about the book.

I kill a few people but there are reasons! And honestly, there’s a bit of Roku’s life that’s more than a little bit out of control. He’s trapped between who he is to himself and who he is to other people. He’s kept himself a bit apart from life because he’s a shit storm waiting to happen and he’s doing the best he can to keep the people of his city safe, happy and able to live their lives because he can’t really live his. Then he’s given a new partner and this guy… Trent Leonard…challenges him. Pushes him to do more than live, eat and sleep. Up until Trent, Roku’s marking time, waiting for the other shoe to drop because really, he lives in a centipede wearing clogs kind of world.

Dim Sum Asylum is about that reboot, about that re-energizing and re-engaging in Roku’s life… and I had a hell of a lot of fun filling in all of the spaces I’d wanted to write about in the original. Hope you like it and it’ll be out in full, expanded wording on June 9th!

Dim Sum Asylum by Rhys Ford Welcome to Dim Sum Asylum: a San Francisco where it’s a ho-hum kind of case when a cop has to chase down an enchanted two-foot-tall shrine god statue with an impressive Fu Manchu mustache that’s running around Chinatown, trolling sex magic and chaos in its wake.

Senior Inspector Roku MacCormick of the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division faces a pile of challenges far beyond his human-faerie heritage, snarling dragons guarding C-Town’s multiple gates, and exploding noodle factories. After a case goes sideways, Roku is saddled with Trent Leonard, a new partner he can’t trust, to add to the crime syndicate family he doesn’t want and a spell-casting serial killer he desperately needs to find.

While Roku would rather stay home with Bob the Cat and whiskey himself to sleep, he puts on his badge and gun every day, determined to serve and protect the city he loves. When Chinatown’s dark mystical underworld makes his life hell and the case turns deadly, Trent guards Roku’s back and, if Trent can be believed, his heart… even if from what Roku can see, Trent is as dangerous as the monsters and criminals they’re sworn to bring down.

Grab Dim Sum Asylum at Amazon (http://ift.tt/2pUm3Nm) and Barnes & Noble (http://ift.tt/2pVMlg6). Dreamspinner Press link to follow.

from A bit about Rhys Ford’s upcoming Urban Fantasy Romance, Dim Sum Asylum…

#A bit about Rhys Ford’s upcoming Urban Fantasy Romance #Dim Sum Asylum…

[oldmangrant]

       I guess I should tell this wonderful place about myself. My name is Grant, 24 and I was in the navy for five wonderful years. The navy made me grow up in ways that I never could have imagined. It made me change from a immature child, to a semi-adult. I still have my childish ways, but I’ve grown up a lot. I’ve seen the world, places I only dreamed of. I went on three deployments out of the five years I was in, and those memories will never go away. I’ve seen the worlds tallest building in Dubai, I’ve been inside of Vatican City, I’ve been insanely drunk with my closest friends in Bahrain. But that story had to come to an end, and I honestly wish it hadn’t.

       I was married for two years, but all together I was with her for three years. Was I loyal that entire time, no. I was an idiot for most of the marriage, and I regret everything that I did to her. I stopped being disloyal September of 15, but that doesn’t erase everything I did. The guilt drove me to a bad place, somewhere I didn’t want to be in. I felt so bad about what I had done, that I put a gun to my head but I talked myself out of it when I realized what it would do to everyone, that was attempt number 1(number 2 comes later). So when June came around of 16, I left for a seven month deployment. Things were rocky between her and I, the sex life was non-existent and we were fighting constantly, but we tried to keep the marriage alive. When I left she told me that she was afraid of meeting someone else, and or that she would fall out of love with me..silly me for not listening.

       The day that I left I was put on night shift, 7pm-7am, and it was my time to run my own shift of 15 people without anyone watching over me. I immersed myself into work, and I put everything else on the back burner, including my marriage. I made excuses as to why I couldn’t call, I would ignore emails, or I would respond with a few words and get back to work. Now don’t get me wrong, we were busy for all 12 hours, but I could have made time to talk to her, and I didn’t. We would stop in a port, and I would hangout with friends and not talk to her, and if I did talk to her I was distant or distracted. This went on until September, and that’s when everything changed. Originally when I left, we talked about starting a family and she was going off of birth control, but then I get an email saying she was going back on it, and I didn’t think anything of it at the time. A week or so before that I get an email asking me if I ever thought anyone I worked with was cute, of course I said no. The signs were all there, I was just too wrapped up in work to notice that someone else had slipped into the picture. She met this guy at work and he told her all of the right things, and bumped me out of the picture. When I noticed things were going wrong, I started to step it up, emailing her more, calling her more..but it was too late..she wanted a break. Now you don’t take a break in a marriage, you just don’t, but she insisted on it, and me being like anyone else knew that she wanted to go on a break to see other people. I protested it, fought it tooth and nail, but I finally gave in and agreed to it.

       We hit a port sometime October time frame and that’s when everything went wrong. We fought the entire time, she accused me of cheating(which remember I did) and all I did was deny deny deny. She became a very vindictive person, she wasn’t the same person that I married. She would put me down constantly, bring this other guy up all of the time, it was a shit show. Well I finally admitted that I cheated on her, and that’s when she admitted that her and the guy had been sleeping together. I lost it, I couldn’t hold myself together. I explained how long ago it was that I cheated on her, but she didn’t care. She started putting me down even worse, saying I’m going to die alone, I’m white trash, started talking bad about my family..the people that were nice to her the entire time everything was going down. I went to marriage classes, talked to the chaplain, I did everything in my power to fix things. I would call her three time a day, I would find work to do on the computer just so I could stay on and email her, but it was useless. She was “in love” with this guy she met at work, and she was done with me. About that time, my mental state wasn’t the best. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating, I lost ten pounds just from depression alone. I had to pull myself off of the flight deck because I was afraid I would do something stupid. Anxiety started to kick my ass, and she would just make fun of me for it. So I went and got prescribed sleeping pills since I couldn’t sleep. One day she just went off on me, talking about their sex life, how much better he is than me, started talking about getting rid of my dog, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. So I locked myself in the bathroom at work and took about ten sleeping pills and gave up. When I was starting to feel everything, I kind of had an ‘oh shit what are you doing moment’ and ended up throwing everything up. At that moment I knew that I needed to get my shit together.

       So I call her and we talk, and she tells me ‘either you get out of the navy, or I’m gone’. I had orders to an amazing squadron in Florida, I finally made E-5, and I pulled my enlistment and said I’m done. I left the greatest job I’ve ever had for a flimsy maybe, but I didn’t care I was dead set on making it work. So as time went on, things were always an up and down slope. Around Thanksgiving time we were the best we had ever been. We talked normal, we started to fix things, she said she was going to leave the other guy to focus on our marriage, and I was so convinced that she was telling the truth. Well she didn’t cut things off, and I was left there trying to put the pieces back together myself with duct tape and glue. December came around and things were still up in the air, we talked about moving to Ohio and living with her mom to get back on our feet, and things were starting to look up yet again..silly me for getting my hopes up. I was supposed to fly off the boat about beginning of December, that changed. Then I was supposed to fly off mid December, that changed too, and she was convinced that I had been lying to her about flying off, there was no convincing her otherwise. So we hit France mid December and things are shit, fighting constantly, keeps bringing up the other guy and I was on my last leg of trying. She calls me while I’m in port, and it’s the other guy. He starts trying to talk to me, convince me he’s better for her and blah blah blah. I loose my shit on him, threaten his life a few times, it was just an all around bad idea for him to call me. So when I pull back out to sea, she tells me she’s done and filing for divorce.

       At that moment, I realized I fucked my whole life up for that flimsy maybe. She moves off with this dude, leaves me with every bill known to man, and expensive apartment and doesn’t have a care in the world that. I continued to try to fix it, but there was no use. Anxiety was kicking my ass, depression kept me away from my friends, I just was not in a good place. She would continue to toy with my emotions why she was with this other guy and I let it happen. Then the say came when she got her stuff from the apartment, and that was the day I couldn’t handle. She took everything, and left me with a dining room table and my office full of stuff, that’s it. I had the worst mental breakdown of all time that day, and I just sat in the middle of an empty apartment bawling my eyes out because I lost everything in my life, and I had to start over from scratch. After that day, I wouldn’t hear from her as often, so I started to get back on my feet again and feeling normal. I immersed myself in the gym and focused on that every single day. Then I get a text from her freaking out on me about insurance. She accuses me of taking her off of the insurance that neither of us have anymore because of the divorce. At this point in time my feelings for her are non-existent and I was pretty annoyed by the whole thing. She starts attacking me again, saying I’m being heartless about why am I being so mean when she doesn’t deserve this. Then she brings up the tax return I’m getting(which being deployed means I get bubkis back this year), and says she needs some of it because we are both “starting over”. Let me remind everyone that she has a trust fund she can dip into anytime she wants, I have a jar full of coins I have to use to make ends meet. So I calmly explain to her that we both don’t have insurance and that she isn’t getting my tax return that I need. She doesn’t like that answer and gets her mom involved. I have to explain to both of these women that when I separated form the navy we both lost insurance, but that wasn’t good enough.

       Where I’m at now in life is a shit show, but I’m on the road to being a better person. She is completely out of my life, I’m moving home to be with people that I know care about me, and I’m finally getting a house. My past will forever haunt me, and will always bring me down. My mental state still isn’t stop notch, but that takes time. The gym is the only thing that helps me anymore, even if people don’t understand why, but that isn’t something they need to understand. I know this may seem like a lot of rambling, but it’s my life and it is what brought me to this point.  

#life