Not news to anyone but consider it replication of known findings: the most productive writing time of your life is three minutes after you were supposed to be out the door and on your way to work.
losing the courage of my convictions what am I even doing, this is 1000 words of guys saying "yeah," to each other but, get this, sometimes they DON'T REALLY MEAN "yeah" at all, never mind, I got this, I've herded my convictions mostly back into the henhouse #myyeahs, #myconvictions
Forgot the real Oilers existed and was just living in my head with the pretend Oilers and then I’m perusing the Edmonton Oilers reddit and they’re all upset about scapegoating the coach and writing all this frankly juicy as hell stuff about McDavid and Draisaitl “calling him out” and how he needed to “hold players accountable” (mm-hmmmmm) and how fucked up management is and I’m like damn this is real good stuff is anyone else experiencing this??? Love your work oil country reddit, frankly I’m normally too tender-hearted to deal with it but sometimes you just want something gritty and raw.
I am at the UPS store to drop off a package and the woman who runs it has had surgery, her arm held immobile away from her body with a plastic brace, a thin plastic tube dangling from beneath her shirt.
"I had surgery yesterday," she says. She's bustling around, trying to straighten floor mats with one hand. She can scarcely bend down. "oh I look terrible."
"Yesterday!" I said. "No, you look great, are you kidding? I'd still be on the couch." We don't know each other really but I recognize her in the way you recognize someone who notarizes all your documents. Good grade in social interaction, I tell myself.
"Can you throw my hair up for me before you go?" she says, to the tall young woman who's behind the counter. "Sorry," she says to me.
"Don't worry about it," I say. "It's really tough when you can't--" I gesture vaguely, meaning, "do anything for yourself."
"She can't take a shower for three days," tall young woman whose name, I have learned, is Lena, says.
"Oh no," I say.
"And she takes five showers a day--"
"It's not five," she protests. "This is my son, by the way," she says, gesturing at the college age guy who unlocked the door.
"Hello," we say to each other. He says to her,
"You're gonna be stinky."
"Sometimes it's five, but--" I'm feeling like part of the family. I'm smiling about how funny it will be that this woman can't take her showers.
"It'll feel great when you finally can," I say, and we all agree yes it will. Everyone--even me--is vaguely surprised when I hold up my package and say, tentatively,
"so can I--"
"oh! right," she says. The son scans my QR code.
"Feel better!" I call as I leave.
"You take care now," she says.
Look at this woman--older, ugly in an unremarkable way, raspy voiced, ratty hair--surrounded by love. Lena's gentle hands combing down through her hair, looping it up. Her son's voice, quiet and fond.
Don't let them tell you love is hard, hard to find, hard to keep. Don't let them tell you to stay perfect or else. It's not true.
if you approach it with an open mind, almost anything (work meetings; decluttering your basement; emails you’re being a big baby about for no reason) can be a type of predicament bondage and thus fun and sexy.
Flowers burst forth, trees green, summer beckons, yet malaise troubles me this day. Oh, no, it's nothing really, the duties of my rule, the dark forces that mass beyond the citadel, these shadows fall over you as well, I know. But trouble yourself not over such matters now—bring forth my court jester to raise our spirits and join us in merriment with his performance of one of my favorite epics of comic poesie--
connor mcdavid always kinda looks like a guy who’s quietly dying of bond sickness because he thinks the guy he’s bonded with rejected him and he doesn’t want to make a fuss. when actually the guy just doesn’t realize they bonded because he’s kind of obtuse
slander, because Connor McDavid would not ever jeopardize the integrity of his play and betray his sacred duty to his team by allowing bond sickness to take hold and weaken him, he would just figure out exactly how much skin-to-skin contact he needs to appropriately manage his condition and maintain his level of play and maybe that's not really enough to feel good, ever, but it's not about feeling good, it's about performance, and a few studies suggest that moderate bond hunger can actually increase reaction time so it's not all bad, it's really not all bad, he's fine, it's just a hookup every 3-6 weeks and that's not enough to really bother or inconvenience anyone, right? Not if he pays attention and makes sure to do what Leon, uh, the person likes in bed. That's not enough for anyone to get annoyed or notice how much he needs it. Don't stay for breakfast.
Silver Linings Playbook (7212 words) by Helenish
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Men's Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid
Summary: ANAHEIM, CA — Back with the team and back in the lineup.
Chapters: 1/3
Fandom: Men's Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid
Summary: So much for international cooperation.
PS I have fixed the huge continuity error, Leon is NOT wearing a heavy black Team Germany hoodie but instead is looking tuff in (checks notes) a pale buttery yellow. carry on.
I hope this is okay to ask. What do you think happens to Arthur and Eames at the end of Here is a Thing That Isn't Happening? Not like, do you plan on continuing a story you wrote a decade and a half ago, more like the helenish headcannon headlines. Thank you
omg yes!!! I know exactly what happened and I even wrote a bunch of it but then I didn't finish and THIS STORY is actually the reason I am very stern with myself about not publishing WsIP because it's just too easy to walk away. (Although I think this one is perhaps maybe a gray area because they were self-contained episodes???? Asking for a friend who maybe has some more self-contained episodes of hrpf floating around that are refusing to turn into a story.) ANYWAY, straight from a working doc named "Drinks!" I can tell you that THE final beats of the story were:
Arthur and Eames get drinks and agree that they are very mature and totally past all of the weirdness from the past
But they aren't.
So first, this is not an age difference that is especially meaningful - I really can't remember if I ever specified, but I would say it's 6 years MAX and probably something like 5 or 4 years 8 months, because even though Arthur seems like this fully formed, mature adult to Eames when he first drags him home from off the street, I'd say he's 21, maybe, precocious himself, and in that stage of life where you still know everything and think you're grown.
So I don't know what the age difference is, but you know who does? down to the DAY? uh, Arthur and Eames, who both know it's this Huge Looming Thing that Can Never Be Reconciled:
Eames who's coming up on thirty and when he sees sixteen year olds they're babies, he can't even imagine sleeping with one of them, and he's retroactively burning with embarrassment about trying to sleep with Arthur, GOD, that must have been disgusting. Or maybe not even disgusting, maybe Arthur just thought it was funny, or something. pathetic.
And Arthur notices that Eames is too careful with him-- takes pains over being professional and friendly and Arthur's not stupid, he understands that this is a Boundary, that Eames is politely (kindly, even) keeping Arthur at arms' distance. and Eames is so perceptive, he probably knows, GOD, he knows that Arthur thinks about him That Way sometimes and he honestly, he tries not to, he tries and it's really difficult because Eames is so--! Oh, tall and smart and built and so gorgeous it makes your eyes water and Arthur knows that it's wrong for him to feel That Way about Eames. (And is so consumed by shameful lust he's oblivious to the fact that Eames knows he's a loser compared to Arthur, who is so hot--beautiful, really--and clever, a genius, knows everything and everyone and--)
So many assumptions and regrets and tangled feelings and they're made for each other, right? The premise of this story is they're made for each other and irresistibly attracted to each other and OF COURSE they start having sex before figuring any of this out and BOTH of them think they're taking advantage of the other one, like Arthur knows he's basically a sex offender and Eames knows Arthur just feels sorry for him and both of them know that if they were a stronger, better person, they would stop, here, I even had this in a section labeled OH JEEZ EAMES & ARTHUR START TO DO IT
“Hey,” Eames says. “You know I’m not a horny kid anymore, right? I know that I’ve been looking at you and I’m sorry. it’s--rude. You’re just. I’m not going to jump you or anything, so you don’t have to keep leaving while we’re trying to get some fucking work done.”
“You’ve been looking at me,” Arthur repeats.
“Yes, I know,” Eames says. “I don’t mean anything by it, I’ll get past it, I just. want.”
Arthur licks his lips. He feels a little light-headed; it’s the most attention Eames has focused on him since that first day. Eames flinches, staring at his face. “And if you could stop doing things like that, it would probably help--”
“Like what?” Arthur says.
“Like licking your fucking pretty mouth, like touching me or, making me think about holding you down and fucking you until you look at me,” Eames blurts out. “Sorry, fuck. I mean, sorry that was really unprofessional.”
Arthur nods in agreement. He needs to get out of here. He licks his lips again, by mistake.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says. He’s rehearsed this, a little, in the bathroom, staring at himself sternly and telling himself to get it together, so it comes out pretty smoothly. “I would never act on--or expect,” he falters, because Eames is looking at him.
“It’s not you making me uncomfortable,” he says, slowly. “It’s me, I’m making you uncomfortable. Right?”
“You didn’t do anything,” Arthur says.
“Stop looking at me like that or I will,” Eames says. His eyes are wide and dark and afraid. “Arthur,” he says, and then he puts one fingertip softly against the exact center of Arthr’s lower lip. Nothing happens for five seconds, ten. Then Eames moves his finger, just barely, drawing it in gentle, random pattern and Arthur licks his lips and his tongue touches Eames finger and without really understanding how it happened, Eames’ finger is in his mouth and he’s sucking on it.
“I--” Eames says. He looks shocked; his mouth is open.
But finishing it would have involved coming up with probably 2-3 other dream jobs for them to do while they were having bad-idea sex and THAT seemed like a lot of work so now I just have fifteen tabs open on my desktop about when the Canadian Hockey Team moved to a five star hotel at the Olympics.
Thinking about song that is a commentary/counterpoint to a story and/or a song played on repeat while brainstorming Scenarios, selecting the Lyrics, formatting them in html, using tables, feeling aware that this is probably an outdated way to manage this, changing the table percentages again but it still looks wrong or wait that looks good but it’s fucked on your phone, so back to the drawing board, maybe a different font? and honestly the fact is whether a song hits is very specific and it’s vanishingly unlikely to actually work in the same way for the reader and might even hit wrong and so okay the story can stand on its own wait can I mess around with the rich text setting to get it to look how I want OOF no that’s bad, how do I use align tags again you know what this lyric doesn’t quite seem the same written out like this you know what forget it, I’m taking it out, yeah that’s better—
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
pixelskylines
stormborns
gummygunk
titsay
areudirty
