Your suitcase is almost packed; I roll your socks into a ball, tuck them into a corner, and snatch at the pair flying at my head.
I miss. They catch in my hair. Rebellious strands cling hungrily to them.
You drape your warm weight over my shoulders, all angles and elbows and the soft cotton of your long-sleeved tee. Your hair tickles my nose and I push you clear of my sneeze, even though you honestly earned being sneezed on.
“So organized,” you say admiringly, leaning back over my shoulder again.
I sigh. “I’d show you organized, but then you’d nap through the ted talk and I’d be wasting my breath--”
You giggle, eyes half-lidded. “You’re italicizing your speech again, built-in metaphysical speech bubble function--”
You are organized, actually, but it really only comes out in your meticulous research process and the spreadsheets you make when spreadsheets need making. You taught me to fold lotus petals, for the little wooden altar we put up in the apartment, but you stuff clothes haphazardly into suitcases like a barbarian and we both managed to respectively lose our shit over making too much and not enough of a thing out of it before learning our lesson. I do the packing, these days, and the laundry--but that’s also because I love laundromats, and you cannot for the life of you fathom why. You do 70% of the grocery shopping, when no one’s going anywhere, and cook; I clean.
We’ve repainted the kitchen three times already--the mustard didn’t go great with the tile, but we did the mint green months ago and it still makes me giddy, standing in it to make your coffee every morning.
I puff a breath of hot air into the curve of your neck to make you squeal and then push to my feet, staring down at my work with my hands on my hips. “You don’t need pajamas, right? Momma’s got plenty--”
“--folded up somewhere, yeah.” You’ve sprawled back on the bed, rolling over to prop your head on your arms. “Shirts too, honestly, but dressy stuff, I dunno--”
Elderly Lilit, pottering and imperious, pads through the door and announces her presence just as you roll back to your feet and pad absently out. I leave the suitcase open; toiletries will have to be packed in the morning. The bed beckons, the blanket thick and rumpled, but I sit back down on the floor for Lilit and she rrraow’s approvingly, setting her chin in my palm.
You reappear with a tub of that coconut-chocolate ice cream you like; I made faces for weeks but ended up thoroughly addicted, it’s very unfair. You hand me a spoon, and fairness suddenly seems less important.
“Checked you have copies of everything?” I ask, and you mm-hm distractedly, checking your phone. I drape the file on top of the screen and you sigh at me but pick it up, immediately palming a paper clip to fiddle with.
We rescued a peregrine falcon off the side of the road yesterday, though we didn’t know what she was at the time. You said she was big, and remarkably beautiful, and looked thoroughly sorry for herself, and I defer to you for these sorts of things. A lady with paint-splattered jeans and motorcyclists’ gloves volunteered a giant cardboard box and a deft pair of hands, and we drove her to a bird sanctuary in the backseat of my car--you sang to her the whole way, holding the box steady. You said she liked Duran Duran better than Everything But The Girl, unlike Lilit, but then you don’t sing Duran Duran particularly like Duran Duran. So maybe it’s a melody thing?
“I hate bureaucracy,” you announce--to the ceiling, presumably. You’re lying on your back now, flipping through papers with their manila file balanced on your belly. “If we can’t swing the press release I don’t know how publicity is ever going to work for this damn thing, but rescheduling again is going to piss like five different people off for six different reasons…”
“All day tomorrow?”
“I mean, yeah, probably, with the wait, but I’ll take mom to that burrito place if we’re lucky…”
You and your mom both work in media & comm, but you chase stories, and your mom makes sure they get told. You commiserate over phone calls more than you really technically work together, but you fall brazenly, inquisitively in love with things and she shines steady light on cobwebby corners. I wonder when the world will learn to tremble before your unified charge.
“We need to get to the airport by… what, five-thirty? Ew.” I look at the clock. It’s nearly midnight; if I drink enough tea, I should be able to run on five hours of sleep and still string sensible sentences together, but I’ll also harbor immense rage at things that rattle and it’s really not ideal.
“You don’t have to drop me off, I can get a ride--”
“At five in the morning, hell no. I’m driving you, no arguments--”
Your smile is equal parts fond and wickedly mischievous, and I groan and toss a pillow at you; revenge for the socks from earlier. So maybe I’m a terror when sleep deprived; you can laugh, you won’t be around to listen to me curse bean sprouts to high heaven.
“Gotta shower,” you mumble, having face-planted into the pillow.
“Shoo, stinky,” I agree, which gets the pillow flung back at me. I swapped out our towels for fresh ones when I came in; the clean, sunshine-y scent is familiar and comforting, the warm lights of our bedroom unnecessarily bright and lighting the soft lines of canvassy curtains and mostly-folded clothes.
You get up, retrieve your towel, soft pajamas, softer underthings, your comb and phone, and then dump them all back on the bed and flop bonelessly beside me instead. I groan and poke at your ribs.
“Sweets, seriously.”
You groan back, louder, and then tuck your head against my shoulder. With easy, unthinking motions, you scoop Lilit off the floor and tuck her between us. She gives that old-cat chirp of hers and settles in for the long haul.
There’s a quote, I don’t know where from, about how love is found and seen in hospitals and airports. In goodbyes. It might be from some grand poet somewhere, or from Love, Actually; I don’t know.
I know I’ll kiss you silly by an airport stanchion at the ass-end of tomorrow’s morning, pretty shoes on ugly carpet. I know I’ll hold your hand under the neon lights of some sad Dunkin’s, drink the last of your bitter, oily coffee down when you inevitably abandon it with me to rush for the gate. I know our cloud-soft scarves will try to out-ugly the airport carpet and lose; I know I’ll hold your hand ‘til I can’t any more.
You sigh and rouse yourself, take my face into your hands and kiss me something soft with that old one for the road in your smiling eyes; the journey is long, apparently, to the shower and back. I smile against your mouth; unable to help it, unwilling to try. Your wiry, clever hand slips down to curl around the soft round of my shoulder. Steadying.
“Anybody ever tell you you're beautiful?”
“The mirror. Your gorgeous girlfriend ever say a thing about you really needing to take a shower?”
“You,” you trill, sing-songy, swinging to your feet, “could give masterclasses on taking compliments, sweetness--”
“High glucose content,” I agree, straight-faced. Flavor-based pet names have been a thing since we were. You tossed mara at me once--bitter gourd--when you were mad and then had to spend fifteen minutes explaining it.
“Sourpatch.”
“Hey.”
You thumb through a well-loved playlist as you go, trailing music over your shoulder. You land on The Smiths; flip a cheerful bird at the screen without missing a beat, specifically for Morrissey. You blow me a kiss; I snatch it out of the air, because ridiculousness never did a bad thing to anybody, because your laughter is a lantern bright enough to read by.
The ridiculous, mopey, melodramatic lyrics of the unironically beloved song ring through the bathroom door. I sigh, settle Lilit against my chest, and close my eyes.
The words sail through tile and plaster, as the day blinks and flutters to a close. Through the sound of running water and your shower-loud singing, the song’s triumphant, concluding refrain pitter-pats around me like warm summer rain, and I believe it, I do:
hi cool art dude :]] here is some things about the sea !! (with added emojis because I found it boring to just read a wall of text. also there is a readmore because it is very long)
well a large part of the sea is unexplored !!! which I find funny because . I mean come on it's right there but also it's understandable!! it makes up a lot of our planet 🌏 !! I usually focus on animals and things in the sea so i will tell you about that instead :]
the deep sea is very interesting!! there is little to no light 🔦, but the creatures down there either make their own, find the scraps of light they can, or do entirely without it !!
bioluminescence , which is the when organisms produce their own light , is very common in deep sea jellyfish , cephalopods (a class including octopi 🐙, cuttlefish, squid 🦑, and nautili), as well as other small creatures !!
there is a concept called deep sea gigantism, which describes how animals living in the low low depths🌡️ of the ocean tend to be much larger than average! examples of these animals include the giant squid, the colossal squid, the sea spider, the oarfish, and the spider crab 🦀 (this emoji is not accurate, spider crabs are much, much leggier than their cousins).
it's been proposed that these animals become larger and larger 📈 when depths get lower 📉 because of multiple reasons including lower oxygen/temperature, less food availability, or less predators.
the regular ocean 🌊 is also very interesting! did you know that the acidity and temperature of the ocean keeps rising due to absorption of cardon dioxide !! global warming is real, and a bitch. you probably already know that this affects coral reefs 🪸, but it also harms other organisms with hard shells such as sea snails, crabs, and oysters 🦪
as a reward for reading through the whole thing (or not), here are the names 📋 of some of my favourite marine animals !!
- narwhal (yes, they are real! i adore them, their tusks [not horns, their tusks are a large dental growth stemming from their teeth] are amazing to see)
- strawberry 🍓 squid (very, very pretty creatures!! they look as though they're covered in rhinestones)
- vaquitas (highly endangered relative of the porpoise, beautiful animals) 🐬
- flamboyant cuttlefish (very cool to look at, and toxic too!)
That's probably enough for today !! this has been a very long post 📜 on the ocean, and I haven't even covered some of my favourite parts :]
So probably many of my followers doesn’t know that my biggest passion is actually drawing, and I’m planning to get better and better since next week I’m finally going to put my hand on the wacom cintiq 13 HD, so I can finally switch also to the digital format.
This is why I actually decided to create an facebook page, since I find it easier when it comes to reaching people,considering I want this to become a job also (maybe, it will be good lol ><). Well this and becoming a lawyer ofc, since I can’t go back anyway at this point haha
So yes feel free to check them out if you have some free time and don’t know what to do
Oh by the way my hobby is to recreate the art of my favorite mangaka and anime, but if you are interested in some ooc characters, then this is my style
August update coming in a little early this month! I’ve got some exciting events going down and it’s almost as busy as July!
Next weekend is Texas Furry Siesta!
It’s August 4-6th at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. I hope to see some of y’all there if you’re local to the area. I’ll be in the Vendor Hall at table 20!!
I have new merch for this convention that will also be available on my kofi shop after the 7th. It includes keychains and prints! Prints will be a new edition to my shop and they will only be available as physical copies. Maybe I’ll add mystery bags to my shop too if y’all are interested.
Read more below!
NEW EVENT ALERT!!
On August 18th, I’ll be vending at a local night market in Houston! It’s my first night market and I’m super jazzed to have secured a table! It is indoors which is super nice considering it’s been extra hot at night here. Admission is free and there will be food trucks and alcohol! See below for details (:
WHEN: Punk Rock Garage Sale - August 18th 7pm-11pm
WHERE: Bad Astronaut Brewing Co. - 1519 Fulton St, Houston, TX 77009
If you're local come on by! I’ll most likely be in the back of the venue where the smaller tables are as I don’t have a large setup! I’m super excited to be participating in Insomnia Gallery’s monthly PRGS event!
I hope to do more events like these in the future! Now that I’m getting into some smaller markets I can finally start getting vending experience and applying to other markets that have more restrictions. A lot in this area require prior experience at markets among other things. I’m so happy to finally have a foot in the door to get this going and I’m extremely grateful for how well things are going right now. I’ve been working SUPER hard to make this happen for the last 2 years. Really happy it’s all finally coming together and starting to pay off (:
As always thank you all SO MUCH for sticking around and supporting my work. It means a hell of a lot to me.
god i am. trying very hard to try and reorganize my relationship with the word modesty and what it means for different people because i know that it's really important to lots of women in lots of different places, and i don't want to unfairly judge them or their decisions. and tbh i already dress decently modestly anyways, i very rarely wear shorts or crop tops, its mostly long stuff and nothing super tight anyways. but the word itself triggers so much about how my body was policed since i basically started puberty lmao. being a tall Black girl was hard all throughout middle and high school because everything I wore that was okay on a tiny white girl was automatically too revealing on me. and even if they never explicitly said the word modest I could feel that that's what they were implying about my body even though I couldn't help the way I was shaped at all. and I still can't. and I still prefer not to wear tight and revealing things anyways. conceptually i can understand going to events and wearing things that are knee length and wearing a little sweater (?) if my shoulders are bare and I really have no problem with it until someone brings in that fucking word, then I just feel like shit cause it's like "oh great here i am just being a sexual being against my own will" and I want to wear something else entirely.
and i think of like the social implications of it. and im american living in a christian society, im ex christian, so this is all from that social context. but like that word just never applies to men. ever. men are wearing shorts that are shorter and shorter without being accused of being immodest. men will be wearing croptops or sleevless shirts or mesh shirts or something and nobody says that they're being immodest and they should cover up. and i know that a lot of what's determined to be modest or immodest is entirely based on heterosexeual men's desires are cause dudes will wear tight shit to show off their pecs and arms and no one says "that's immodest wear something looser". and a lot of the arguments surrounding modesty just make men's sexuality women's problem to handle and deal with, which is just sick cause ive had men harrass me when I was 17 in a McDonald's uniform lmao or 21 sweaty dusty and covered in paint in a polo and khakis.
and a huge part of me sees the appeal in the more modest stuff. lowkey i hate that everything is form fitting and cut low and super short and tight and see through. I hate it! i hate having to be aware of the fact that now there's new places I need to shave and I hate always seeing peoples ass cheeks everywhere (I dont go to beaches lmao).
i guess I just wish there was a more nuanced divide than just modest/immodest. like something that shows skin isn't automatically immodest. cause ive noticed that immodest and sexual go hand in hand and then with cultural connotations people think that if then can see your legs or shoulders or god forbid a boob its because you're doing it for horny reasons.
idk maybe if we recontextualized modesty away from a purely sexual definition then i'd have a better relationship with it? like shorts and a tank top isn't "modest" but its not automatically "immodest" and therefore sexual. sometimes skin is just skin. idk. i keep having thoughts about it.
i was tagged by my girl @stmkos to answer 11 questions and make up 11 questions of my own
favourite quote? “You miss all the shots that you don’t take.”
your last google search? jonathan toews speaking french
favourite sport other than hockey? football
something that everybody loves but you hate? peanut butter
celebrity crush? do i even have any.. i mean i don’t really know. i’d have to think about this but a lot of actors are hot idk
favourite nhl rivalry? flyers and pens even though i hate both teams
last place you travelled to? ottawa
languages you speak? FRENCH!!!!!! and english
dc or marvel? marvel
hockey (br)otp? 1988
thoughts on las vegas expansion? i don’t know what people have said about it but im really excited to see how this turns out even though im really fucking mad they didn’t give Quebec the team....
ok here are my 11 questions:
favorite hockey player?
dream place to travel to?
teams you don’t like?
have you ever been to a hockey game?
left handed or right handed?
favorite meal?
favorite song at the moment?
your biggest pet peeve?
your favorite book?
any pets? (if not, which pet would you like to have?)
if you had to switch bodies with anyone, who would you pick?
i tag @obviouslylinked @cmonpeeksy @lilpeekaboo and @toes-eh but please don’t feel like you have to answer these questions :)
She didn't apologize at all though? Not once. She claimed she was taken "out of context". She won't even admit she said it at all, let alone that she shouldn't have said it. It wasn't an apology, it was a lecture to us for daring to be insulted.
So? Like, honestly, I rather care than write some stuff I’ve already seen on my dash. Saying that she’s ignorant, or stupid, or I don’t know what is not okay. We don’t know anything about her, or what she’s been through because one showrunner decided to put his fantaisies in priority of his own show, and ruined everything. Like, okay, sorry, but Eliza was literally THE ONLY ONE who had to publicly face the issue: for months, JR never showed up and never said anything to adress any issue. Yes he aplogized, and yes he restrained himself and that’s good. But Eliza, having all these cons by herself? That wasn’t okay, I can’t even dare to think the pressure she had to go through. There are literally yes, bullshitty people who relied on her to say what they wanted to hear about Clxa, but also sensitive people, living a hard life because of something that is part of who they are (their sexuality) who were really hurt about what happened on the show. I know that Bob, and Jarod, and Lindsey, and Adina (but heck EVEN ALYCIA) were the main victims of what happened because the social media literally turned against them. Still, in terms of communication, Eliza was the face who had to “settle things” for these sensitive people who needed reassurance and for the rabid jerks who acted like… hey, jerks. Jarod and Bob and anyone else were entitled to state their real, harsh opinions (whether they received hate for that or not doesn’t matter, everyone stating their opinions on the internet gets hate and/or anon asks: just look at your ask! Just because… I stated my opinion?). Eliza was the one supposed to “save the show” in terms of publicity after this mess, she was ALONE (with a shitty PR) and I’ll never forgive Jason for that. I don’t care if he vents a lot and talks a lot and whatever-gifset says the cast hates him. He wrote that episode 7 he should have been the one to handle it, not Eliza because she was playing half of the ship. She’s still 26, and with literally NO KNOWLEDGE of the struggles LGBT youth is going through, because she’s not LGBT. She just PORTRAYS Clarke who is a bisexual: and still, it’s in a society where it isn’t even adressed, so that will NEVER be an issue for Clarke as well. Okay I’m gonna say this for the people in the back, of the antis, or anyone living in their own world: STOP EXPECTING STRAIGHT ACTORS TO BE THE VOICE OF THE LGBT MOVEMENT, they won’t satisfy you, because they don’t know what you’re going through. Just like me, for example, when I talk about something regarding the LGBT community, I get tons of hate like “shut uuuup u straight ass” so why isn’t it the same for ACTORS who STILL ARE straight, even tho they portray LGBT characters? Outside of his/her work, that actor/ress is still straight. Heck, nobody among the antis said anything about that, but Eliza actually spelled “LGBT” wrong once in an interview, and Alycia didn’t know anything about the Trevor Project before a journalist brought that to her. They learnt after that, still, they weren’t MEANT to be the spokewomen of a movement they’re not belonging to. And I mean, I literally can’t even imagine the level of pressure she’s had. And I’d still like to remind people that yes, Eliza didn’t say anything about Bob being bullied, or Adina, or Lindsey, Jarod and everything. She didn’t say anything about Alycia’s privacy being violated either: guess why? Because she had enough to deal with already, attending to a con almost alone every week or something like that - and even when she’s not alone, it’s still a Clxa con. Stop saying she’s not defending her castmates because she hates them or whatever, she has her own problems, and I think they are taking a lot of her energy and making stress out a lot as it is. She doesn’t need to fight the other’s battle, they did it on their own. I know Lindsey, Jarod, Sachin and Bob kinda sticked together, but they also… bailed or weren’t on most of the conventions this summer? I don’t know what to tell you?? They have their life? We don’t fucking know! Maybe they talked over the phone about that over and over again: and that’s not out business. Still, it looks like that Bob/Arryn and Eliza hung out A LOT together this summer. So hey, they don’t hate each other, amazing, surprisiiiing. Like okay, I’m tired of this fandom or THE OTHER ONE putting words in an actor’s mouth. I bet her words WERE taken out of context by some people on twitter and/or instagram (people are CRAZY out there). And that came from both sides: like honestly, I was ready to think “meh she said ‘shit’ like she would have said ‘stuff’“ because that’s what she meant, it’s kinda obvious. But then THE FANDOM made it all like “shit” is shit. Yes the word wasn’t appropriate, it’s still one word, compared to dozens of interviews she’s made before all that drama where she stated that she LOVED Bellamy and Clarke and their relationship and that she loved working with Bob. Like, I’ve seen on my dash people insulting her, and saying “she hates Bob so much” because she said “Bellarke shit” how does that even relate to BOB??? Bob isn’t Bellamy, you know. To me, the way the antis took that sentence, and put it in gifsets to mock us and sending us anon asks mocking Bellarke fans was WAY MORE offensive than anything Eliza said. And that’s totally what emphacizes her words and pushed everyone to make a fuss about it. Guess what, she also rolled her eyes several times when talking about Clxa, and two minutes before saying “Bellarke shit” she said that Clarke would move on, and when she said Clxa she said it like “Cleeee/EEEE/EEE/exaaaa” in a kinda “offensive” way you may judge. But yeah, since the other part of the fandom is so eager to mock us, we just keep little stuff she slips out about Bellarke. Yet, in interviews with journalists, she just seemed tired of talking about SHIPS in general.
I’m tired because “duh Eliza talks only noww” yes because she defended HERSELF after going through a horrible summer where she had to come after all that mess. She said it on her message, she just came to watch her twitter pics and all she saw were horrible comments. And we KNOW there was horrible hate about her body, more than what she said! She said “Bellarke shit” and on twitter, there were TONS of body-shaming tweets sent to her. How does that relate to Bellarke? Guess what, people are petty and horrible, that’s just it. We don’t know what she answered to: was that people being offended by what she said or was that people being MEAN to her because she slipped up? I don’t like the fact that yes, our fandom is now the “mean one” when we all know which one is the most horrible of the two. And yet, she didn’t even say “You bellarke fans are meaan”. She said SHIPS with an SSSSSSSSS. I’ll be honest, to me, the communication around Bellarke is so TRANSPARENT (and stupid) and BLATANT that just for that it’s SO CLEAR that Bellarke is meant to happen (and even be endgame?). They started addressing to bellarke fans that way since SEASON 1, when we were nothing but a nice fandom just asking “maybe” questions. Yet, they were avoiding it already. And Eliza was YET the “main event” of that ship. Just picture yourself, you’re on a tv show, and it’s been four years that you have to watch everything you say regarding a ship, and then you have all that drama coming from another one, and everyone is exploding and her friends were bullied and everything. Like, okay, she didn’t defend Bob and the others, but she was like… MIA from twitter and instagram at that time. The antis translated that by saying “she just haaates the show sooo muuuch” when I guess she was just… hella running away from them. Because as soon as she promoted the show again - like, ep13 I think? - she got tons of shit and hate. Just because a LARGE vocal, very active and very rabid part of the fandom (the antis) interpret things one way, doesn’t make it real! The “Bellarke shit” wasn’t meant to be deliberately MEAN, so yes, she’s “schocked” that it hurt a lot of people (because guess what, she truly is disconnected from her fandom, whether it looks like it or not, she just keeps repeating the same words at every con she goes to, and doesn’t put more efforts to it), just like the writers were shocked that Lxa’s death hurt a lot of people. They are SHITTY at adressing their fandom about ships, and that’s no news. I know Bob handles it better, maybe it’s a question of maturity, or prep, or because… HEY HE ONLY HAS BELLARKE TO TALK ABOUT IN TERMS OF SHIPS?? While Eliza had… three majors one up until now? What would happen if Bob was stuck between VERRRYYYY high expectations from Braven fans, and high expectations from Bellarke fans? Yeah, everything he’d say would be very problematic in some aspects. Just like everything Eliza says is problematic to some aspect. Does she deserve to be hated, I mean- BODY SHAMED?, shitted on and everything because she’s doing something SHE’S NOT GOOD AT? Just because she said something offensive, doesn’t forbid her from defending herself when she sees horrible tweets body-shaming her, people insulting her and everything. Guess what, maybe by reading these comments, she was just as hurt as “her fans” when she says something they don’t like.
