Okay FuseBox Writers, I See What You Did There...

Okay FuseBox writers, I see what you did there...

🥺💖

TSIME: The Casa Girls

While I was preparing to write Casa Amor from the boys' point of view for The Sun in My Eyes, I realized I'd have to create the girls, because we only really know Shannon. Even Blake is a bit of a mystery as we learn almost nothing about her, other than she's seems thin-skinned. So I spent some time sorting out the main personality trait of each original islander, and then made each CA girl a combo of 2 of them.

Marisol + Priya

Amber is a huge snob and decided as soon as she met Emily that she was stupid and low class, and needed to be put in her place. Amber is a bitch. It was really fun to write two women who were both WAY too good for Jakub, get so caught up in competing with each other that they forgot that what they were fighting over wasn't actually a prize.

Just Hope

Originally Siobhan was Hope + Lottie. A self-important troublemaker, but she just didn't flow that way when I started writing her. I didn't want to write yet another brittle black woman (Fusebox has that on lock). It was more fun to make her have all of Hope's best traits (playful, direct, ambitious) yet none of her worst. Siobhan is who Hope could be if she weren't so insecure. A self-actualized Zen badass. Basically she's S3 Yasmin before S3 came out.

Hope + Marisol

What's there to say about Shannon? I love this manipulative, savvy bitch. And she deserved better than Rahim's triflin' ass dithering between multiple girls.

Lili + Lottie

Yuna was an accidental villain. It was supposed to be Siobhan telling everyone about what Emily did, but once I started writing, it just felt right for this spoiled, chronic talker to thoughtlessly spill Emily's business to anyone who'd listen. And for her to lie to Bobby in order to manipulate him into choosing her. Love Yuna or hate her, you gotta respect the audacity.

Lili + Priya

You know, I really wanted to redeem Blake. I always thought she took a lot of heat for simply being a little thin-skinned, and I wanted to give context for her behavior when she came to the villa. But I underestimated just how much she was hated and no amount of context was gonna make anyone empathize with her 😆 Oh well. I tried.

Chelsea + Lottie

Oh, Emily. Girl. I love her tragic, bad decision making ass. And her wise, resigned kitchen conversation with Bobby is my favorite thing I wrote for Casa. I head canon, but never explicitly wrote into the story, that she DMed Lili the moment she left the show to apologize. Because that's just how she is. Emily is a fuck up, but she's an honest one.

Just an aside, but I gave her my mom's most endearing skill, the ability to cross one eye and keep the other straight. Something that never fails to make me laugh 🤣

Stay tuned, my post about Bobby's OC family is coming... eventually.

Thanks @longbobmckenzie for pointing out that my original post is missing for some reason.

A Victorian Quilt and the Power of Words

TW: Very brief mentions of SA and attempted un-aliving

This is kind of random, but it's 2am and I have no one to talk to about it, so here we are 😆 I really enjoy watching J. Draper's YouTube videos. She presents all these fascinating little historical tidbits about London and while I'm not traveled nor from the UK, I like interesting tidbits.

Tonight, I stumbled on one of her longer videos. I'm only halfway through it, but it's a deep dive into what it was like to be a Victorian in-home servant. They worked 6am to 10pm every day and had no days off and very little time for themselves. On their days off they had to be quiet so as to not disturb the family. And they were highly discouraged from reading anything but the Bible, because a maid who wanted to better herself or rise above her station was not considered desirable. So for many, all their downtime was spent sewing. Quilts and samplers. And in the Victoria & Albert Museum in Kensington, there's an interesting little bit of history. A sampler, 30x34 inches (84x74 cm). The height of two bowling pins, or six cans of Coke-a-Cola. And it's a bit plain as there is nothing on it but words. At first, I thought it was full of Bible verses. It's not.

It was a diary or autobiography if you wish to call it that, written by a house maid named Elizabeth Parker in 1830. Believing herself to be illiterate simply because she didn't know how to write with a pen, she told the story of her life, not in ink, but in tiny, precise red stitches. It tells of her family, her jobs, and her pain. Of how she was SA-ed by an employer and then thrown down the stairs for objecting to it. Of how she was so ashamed what happened that she never told anyone, not even her closest friends. That she attempted to end her life, because she didn't know how to cope with it. And her worries about the fate of her soul.

The sampler ends mid-sentence, though her life went on for many years, as a historian has since discovered. Elizabeth eventually became a school teacher and raised her sister's daughter after she died.

The story really threw me. I had to sit with it for a few minutes. We take so much for granted now. Not just things like laundry detergent and spreadable butter, which do make our lives much, much easier. But we really take for granted the way we can so easily communicate and experience communication. It gave me a chill, a shiver of appreciation for all that we have. Not just quick laundry and butter that easily glides over toast. But the way in which we can express ourselves, explore who we and others are. Talk to friends night and day. We can read books, and scribble quick notes on paper or phones, and tell stories to each other. Real ones. Fictional ones. Pixel ones.

Words have power. Our stories have power. The ability to share experiences and lessen the burden of pain with others, has an immense power. And it wasn't always something we had. It's something many people still don't have.

Whenever I complain about how hard it is to write, I am going to try to remember Elizabeth Parker. A woman who was so driven to tell her story, to leave a mark of her existence, that she spent the precious few available hours of her day pricking her fingers and sewing the details of her life into cloth, because it was her only means of satisfying the very human and real need to be seen and heard. And our ability to so easily do that now, isn't something I want to take for granted.

OMFG I wasn't ready for that. Needy Lucas. MY HEART. 🥺🥺🥺

he will show you that he needs the reassurance by clinging to your side like a baby koala

I didn't think of him as being someone heavy on the PDA but now I can't unimagine it. Man, I really need to finish the Lucas fic I started two years ago 😆

Can you do Lucas being needy hcs??

🪐 You already know how much this big boy needs reassurance; no matter how confident and self-assured he may seem, deep down he feels very insecure

🪐 Will rarely ask, "Do you love me?" or "Tell me you love me," but he will show you that he needs the reassurance by clinging to your side like a baby koala

🪐 Lots of wrapping his arms around your waist from behind, nestling his face in the crook of your neck and pressing a lingering kiss to your shoulder, hoping you'll turn in his embrace and press yourself against him by locking your arms around his neck

🪐 Coming home from work and a workout at the gym to find you lounging on the couch, dinner all ready but you’re waiting for him - he drops his gym bag and work bag, takes off his shoes and shrugs out of his leather jacket before pretty much sprinting towards you. (He’s definitely picking his stuff up later and tidying up, but that can wait) He bends down, picks you up with ease and hugs you to him without saying a word first. Then he whispers, "I’ve missed you," and you giggle and murmur, "But it's only been a few hours." To which he shrugs his shoulders and says, "Doesn’t matter. A few hours is still too long without you."

🪐 Grinning like a Cheshire cat when he glances at his phone during his shift and sees a text from you - it means you're thinking about him, and that means the world to him. Makes the butterflies flutter, too

🪐 Will often ask you for a spicy photo because you know he can never get enough of you; it's not that you don't satisfy his needs, because damn it, you do and then some. It's just that he's pretty much insatiable when it comes to you

🪐 Will never admit that he regrets this one thing in his life - not having a loving, trusting family and parents who make him feel safe and at home with them. But whenever you take him to see your family and he sees how much they love and adore you - just like he does, to be fair - it hurts a little. Of course he's happy for you, and he wishes you nothing but the best. He would never forgive himself if he or anyone else hurt you, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when he sees in your family what could have been - and should have been - how his family treated each other too

🪐 You see that he is hurting because you, and only you, can read him like an open book. In his dark brown eyes you see all shades of emotion, and he can never hide how he really feels, and so you take his hand in yours as you eat lunch with your family and rub his palm soothingly in circles, squeezing his hand a little. It's nothing big, just to reassure him that you see his pain and care, and that's more than enough for him

🪐 You know he is a jealous lover, so you will have to reassure him often. And you’re okay talking about the same subject over and over again because you love him and know he is struggling. He's not trying to lock you away, he just really doesn't want to lose you, and this is his way of showing you that

🪐 When you're together at a party or at a work thing, he's constantly looking out for you whenever he can't tuck you into his side. And of course it's also because he's possessive and not afraid to show it, but you know it's so much more than that. It's the constant fear that you might slip through his fingers if he doesn't do everything in his power to prevent it

🪐 Lots of placing his warm hand on the small of your back, running his little finger subtly yet visibly along the edge of your hand, and pressing gentle, not-too-short kisses on your cheek or temple

🪐 If he’s downright jealous because someone else is obviously trying to get your attention, you need to show him that you still want him and no one else. If you don't do anything about it, like kiss him demonstratively or just grab his hand and intertwine your fingers, then he’ll do the job. He will practically fling you against his chest, preferably face first, put his one arm possessively around your waist, tilt your head up and kiss you very deliberately. And not just the sweet I-love-you kiss, but rather the rough and passionate I-need-you and I-want-you and I-won't-share-you kiss that is guaranteed to take your breath away

That's it for today, thanks for this ask <3

Seeing Double (trouble)

Don't worry Roberto, I can see how difficult it would be to tell us apart 🤣

I have no idea how anyone does that. I like to play at being tough, cynical, and soulless, but the truth is, I cry all the damned time. I didn't for years and now you can't fucking stop me. Commercials make me cry. Thinking about fudge cake and how delicious it is makes me cry. Putting on a shirt and having it fit me perfectly makes me cry. If you cry in front of me, I will start crying too. I weep at the sad things. I weep at the happy things. Billy Joel's song, "For the Longest Time" makes me bawl every single time I hear it. I'm just a crybaby and I don't care. I have big feelings and I'm glad to feel things, because thanks to trauma, I spent way too many years disconnected and feeling nothing at all.

Me, all the time^

how do people endure this world without constantly feeling like they have to burst into tears