We’ve got Bracken Fern coming to YouTube in a couple hours, but the last part of Ghost Files: Alone Together is up on WatcherTV now!
If you’re not a member yet you can use a 3-day free trial to watch, get a monthly sub OR use the codes SHANIAC or BOOGARA to get 35% off a year subscription (the guys are competing to see who gets a bigger share of the codes lol) and get some perks like...
  • Bonus content (Road Files, bloopers/outtakes, Ghost Files Extended Editions, Ghost Files Evidence Room and more!)
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Going through the likes, drafts, and queue to see how blackfemmecharacterdependency is doing on preparation for Disability Pride month, and we're down pretty bad, even for Tumblr rep. I am very sorry about this. A shift has occured in which I am pre-e-e-e-e-ty sure that my seasonal depression had shifted a bit. BUT, that's not important right now. What is important is we do not have much to showcase for Black female characters with disabilities for July.
Here is my request: If you know of any such characters, please submit them! And, if you know any blogs that feature disabled characters and you have good rapport with them, remind them that making a tag for Black characters helps accessibility. Throughout the years, there have been a few blogs that I scrolled for HOURS in order to find 0-3 Black female characters on their pages. Pages specifically made for canonically disabled characters rarely make a Black tag, if any do at all (let me know), and of those that don't have a tag, they then also rarely have Black characters (which means even less Black female characters).
So, I am asking those who know and can see this to please give me the characters that you already know of that can be highlighted this July. I have zero grieving in July, and won't be activel beginning my October drafts and queue until August. I have time set aside to try to build the Black femme disabled. I will be trying to update the very tentative disabled characters masterlist this week in my off time, if I'm not too tired.
But, if you see that a character known to you is not on the list, send them to me, please. It can be a submission from you or even submitting a post that is on another blog. But, submit them. I don't know if my messages are open fully, so I might not get them any other way but if they are submitted to the blog.
okay one more thought for the day (i will be back) about mr fireman đźš’đźš’ is that her and nat become such good friends that one day bradley's wandering around the station after getting a cat out of a tree or something and she's just there chatting with nat having a great old gossip and he's like ????? why are you here?? and she's just like it's lunch time i'm on my break nat and i always do this... sir is perplexed
HAHAHAHA i love that
nat is thrilled that former manwhore bradley has finally found somebody that she likes
i did consider nat being the friend that sets them up, but i think maybe girlie should be friends with like ice's daughter or something and it happens through that channel
but she and nat get on like a house on fire and bradley is often called out to pick them up from girl's night
he always does so with zero complaints, because when girlie's drunk she is insanely clingy - he can't get enough of it
i am obsseeeeeessed with your toxic unrequited lestappen i must have reread the snippet multiple times… may i ask for more 🙏
ask and ye shall receive 🙂‍↕️ i was torn between this & the instigation moment for the whole thing- when charlie was still full of hope and excited that it'd end well for him (not that i've written it, but i could easily be persuaded...)
Charles kept his eyes downturned as he slid into the passenger seat of Pierre’s car. He didn’t need to look to see the white-knuckled grip his oldest friend had on the wheel, or the tightness in his expression. They’d performed this song and dance enough times for him to have the steps etched across the backs of his eyelids, a permanent reenactment of his own failures.
He swung the door shut; the locks clicked, and his buckle snicked into place. No other noises split the silence- not even the rumble of the engine. Pierre must've turned the car off while waiting for Charles to drag himself outside. How long had he been here?
Another beat passed.
Nervously, Charles began. “Thank you for picking me–”
“Don’t.” Pierre’s voice was jagged, ripping through any superficial pleasantries. He was justified; there was no need to pretend, not between the two of them. “Tell me, Charles, what’d he do this time?”
“Nothing,” Charles denied. The response was as reflexive as it was false. His spine ached at the base, his long sleeves did nothing to hide the faint redness encircling both wrists from where Max had pinned him down, and now that he was seated he could feel a dull throb from where Max had sharply smacked him across the ass for speaking out of line last night. The crack echoed through his mind as he glanced over to see Pierre wasn’t even looking at him, instead staring furiously at the dash of his car. “At least, nothing I did not ask for,” he amended.Â
That, at least, was true. When he and Max had started their… not arrangement, necessarily, since Max was adamant that it deserved nothing so official as a title. But when Max had first invited him back to his hotel room under the guise of a few drinks, a commiseration over a jointly awful race for them both- Charles had admitted, bent over a hotel table and thrilled beyond belief that he finally had him, that he didn’t mind a bit of pain with his pleasure.
Max had been happy to oblige.Â
“Then what did he say?” Pierre gritted out. He jammed the keys into the ignition and started the car, simultaneously focusing his hard stare on Charles’s face. Charles turned away, unable to stomach the visible aggravation edged with concern. He knew he looked a mess: eyes swollen from crying, red blotches of emotion smeared across his cheeks and down to his chest, a bruise forming along his jaw where Max had possessively- affectionately, perhaps? -nipped at the skin a touch too ferociously. “There must have been something, calamar. Normally you are not so much of a wreck- at least, not so obviously.”
It went unspoken that nights with Max always shredded him emotionally. Typically, though, Charles had the presence of mind not to reveal just how deeply he was affected.
Charles closed his eyes, recalling the evening. Max, picking him up from the club to take him back to his hotel. Charles, leaving behind his team- his team, who’d been there for him, for his win -to go with Max, in hopes of cheering him up from yet another DNF.Â
He still wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded. He’d thought he had, but then, this morning…
Max had promised to return him to his own hotel room, but when they’d both woken Charles had ruined it by presenting the idea that they get breakfast together first. He’d chattered away, still high on the effervescent joy from his win as well as the illusion of togetherness that always came from waking up next to Max. He’d once again been oblivious to Max’s building irritation the longer he spoke.
I will even cover the bill- I think the bonus from Ferrari for my win will be more than sufficient to feed us both, oui? And since I did not get to finish celebrating properly last night, I thought- mimosas! I have already found a place for us, if you wish–
Why would I want to do that? I didn’t let you crash here for us to go on some... breakfast date. If you want to stick around, make yourself useful. Otherwise, it's time you leave.
And, well. When presented with the choice of either walking away alone, or another half hour with Max… the answer was obvious. Charles had offered himself up once more, and Max had carelessly flipped him over and pushed in, taking advantage of how loose Charles still was from the night prior. He could’ve used more preparation, honestly, but it hadn’t been that bad. Certainly not the worst; they’d both gotten off. There was no question if he’d enjoyed it.
No, that wasn’t why he was crying.
That honor belonged to the dismissive way Max had shut him down after Charles reminded him that he was supposed to deliver him back to his own hotel.
You’re a driver, Charlie. How’d you manage a race win if you can’t even get yourself home? Go on, show me how you ended up on that podium, don’t make excuses now. Unless you’re telling me you can’t figure something out for yourself? Need others to do it for you?
How, indeed. He hadn’t even been wrong; Charles had needed his team to make the call that had saved his race, as well Pierre to come rescue him from the back steps of the Hilton. He could have taken a taxi, but he was unwilling to crawl into the backseat of a stranger’s vehicle and have them bear witness to the beginning stages of his breakdown.Â
Charles couldn’t bring himself to admit all that, though, not that he thought Pierre actually wanted to hear it. Instead, he settled on a murmured, “I allowed my hope to get the best of me again,” before dropping his forehead against the window.Â
“I hate what he does to you, how he treats you.” Pierre said. The frustration was evident, plain as day even though Charles’s eyes were still closed. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard such sentiments from his friend. With more vigor, though, Pierre continued from a slightly different angle: “He is using you, calamar.”
“He is not,” Charles croaked out. He could even almost believe it. “Max could have anyone. He does, when I am not– he chooses me.”
Everyone else gets one night, Charles thought. I have as many as I can stomach, as many as I can earn.
That made him different. Max had to think better of him than anyone else- why else would he keep pulling Charles back in, even if he cast him out after every encounter?
The car turned, much sharper than necessary. “Only when it makes him feel better,” Pierre spat. There was a conviction there that had never been present before, despite expressing similar sentiments in the past. It made Charles open his eyes and sit up straight.Â
With a confidence he didn’t feel, he fired back, “If I am the only one who can make him feel better, then I will gladly step into that role and do it for him. He deserves joy.”
Pierre’s shoulders slumped as a sudden sadness radiated from his direction. His tone was much softer as he quietly asked, “And you don’t?”
Charles’s head dropped limply back onto the glass of the window, sudden fire put out with a wash of exhaustion. “I have joy,” he mumbled. “For a night or two at a time, I have it.”
“You do not. Not in a way that means anything, not in the way you truly want.”
There was no mistaking the desperation in his tone as Charles responded, “I do.”
A hand landed on Charles’s thigh; Pierre squeezed, dragging Charles’s gaze back to him. His eyes were firmly fixed on the road, but there was no mistaking where his attention truly laid. Quietly, he said, “It is not joy Max gets out of sleeping with you. It is satisfaction.”
Charles scoffed. Was now truly the time to debate semantics? “Is it not all the same?" he asked, a touch derisive.
Caustically, Pierre replied, “Charles. Think. He only fucks you when you place ahead of him. He only chooses you when he thinks he needs to put you in your place. Albert Park, Shanghai, Jeddah–”
“Stop, pear, you’ve said this before.”
“–Miami, Montreal–”
“Stop, Pierre!” Charles cried. “So he calls on me more frequently than he used to, that is not bad, that is good, he does not think like that and you are assuming the worst–”
Coldly, Pierre cut him off. “I am not assuming anymore. He said it himself.”
Charles felt acid slide down his spine, a burning sensation; he jerked his head to stare open-mouthed at Pierre's twisted, frigid face. “He… what?”
The hardest part of accepting uncertainty in OCD for me to accept is the idea that I have to accept my pOCD. I feel like people who don’t have OCD don’t have to accept the fears of potentially acting on obsessions, and I just wish I could have that certainty. But I have to accept it’s just not in the cards for me.
I eventually want to have kids, but it feels impossible to have kids with my pOCD fears. I feel like no matter how much work I do in therapy, I’ll never be able to accept the uncertainty, because I feel like accepting uncertainty means I am accepting the idea that I could hurt children.
Any pOCD sufferers have any tips for getting through it?
I was just talking abt this with friends! Idk for sure. I feel like I have a little bit of sheepdog energy, esp with this haircut, even if I’m not dog aligned otherwise
