#(i want him to learn i don't want him to have a mental health crisis over this seriously that's not good)

[blubefishy]

As a lesbian woman, I have a lot of thoughts about James Somerton but really all I can think of now is just that I want people to learn from James' mistakes.

If you actually want to have a supportive community, listen to us. Raise our voices up. Actually look into the history of oppression against those in our community other than cis gay men. There is no point in trying to 'one up' each other. We all struggle at the end of the day, and we all made this community to help one another.

[caesium-55]

—seven days. [ vi.ii ]

pairing: max verstappen x manager! reader.

summary: as the third time world champion, max verstappen's manager, you function on the belief that whatever max verstappen wanted, max verstappen shall get. but this time, after four years of working as his manager, you can't give him what he wants anymore and that was to stay.

author's note: guess who's not listening in her calculus lecture rn. also, wifi is acting funny rn.

tags: @whatamidoingwithmylife-ramdom @eugene-emt-roe @bellezaycafe @barnestatic @theseerbetweenus @wcnorris @notyouraveragemochii @lpab @vildetry06 @a-beaverhausen @formula1mount @loloekie @alucardsdaddyissues @juky-ps @cassianswh0reeee @devotedlycrookeddonut @amberpanda99 @supermaxv1 @evie-119 @spideylovin @harianaswhore @formulaal

masterlist.

2020

There have been a lot of new protocols to follow. Social distancing. Wearing face masks. Races being rescheduled. Australia, China, Netherlands, Monaco, Azerbaijan, Canada, and France are canceled. Vietnam is postponed. The first race of the season takes place in the Red Bull Ring in Austria and Max gets a fucking DNF.

After exchanging Instagram accounts in December, Max has spent a normal amount of time stalking your feed. That's what you do when you’re trapped inside your apartment alone because of a global health crisis, you explore the online world.

It seems like you’ve been operating the account since your university days and a lot of your posts show a side of you that’s different from the manager he knows. He learns that you play billiards competitively. You've even reached an Australian tournament. He learns that you watch NASCAR and motocross and drift racing. He learns that you know how to drive a firetruck. He learns that you like partying in LA and you took up volunteer work in the LA fire brigade around your sophomore year. He learns that you’re particularly fond of taking pictures of the skies at different times of the day and the things you’re studying. He notices that you only post group selfies or low angle blurry selfies of you. You don't take pretty pictures of just you.

The oldest post is a photo of you offering a middle finger while smiling and filling up the gas tank of a truck. You're also wearing a red sweatshirt with the letters USC written at the front and skinny ripped jeans. If you swipe right, the next photo shows a picture of you and your group of friends writing on papers on the hood of the truck. Max sees numbers and scratches and crossed out sketches. Max notices a canned beer on your other hand while you press down on your scientific calculator buttons and shakes his head. You do not change.

The latest post is a photo dump of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2019. A picture of the aerial show, grainy zoomed in pictures of the garage, selfies with the mechanics, a bathroom mirror selfie, and a blurry picture of a beer in your hand from the after party. He presses like in every post, latest to the oldest.

you: fucking stalker

max: fuck you

max: *sent a photo*

max: nice teeth by the way

you: i hate you

you: *sent a photo*

you: ya think im the only one who looks ugly with braces?

Since then, Max’s relationship with you has considerably improved. The two of you spend a lot of nights dm-ing each other on Instagram and sending each other reels.

max: SOS

you: ??

max: I THINK THE STOVE IS ON FIRE

you: the stove is supposed to have fire

max: ITS ON FIRE

You and Max sit on the floor, back against the kitchen counter, chest heaving in quick breaths, shoulders bumping against each other. You hold the fire extinguisher close to your chest and your eyes are closed and your lips are parted a little. Max observes your side profile.

You're not a categorically attractive woman. But with the way the sun rays enter Max’s kitchen window and hit your face at all the right angles, you look like someone worth missing a sunset over. Max allows himself to stare and mentally tries to convince himself that this is a very normal amount of staring at one’s manager slash friend.

He’s crossing the line that divides friendship and something unnamed.

“Do you need me to call maintenance so we can get your stove replaced?”

Max nods.

“Yes please.”

You post a new picture on Instagram after a long period of dryness. Max gets a notification. He checks it out.

The caption reads: meet my full time dog and part time boyfriend

The picture is blurry and grainy but Max can make out your face perfectly. There’s a billiard table. Max sees a person in the background. A man. He's wearing a Williams shirt.

Is that a racer? Max immediately thinks of Nicholas Latifi. You and him are around the same age. But the blurry man in the picture doesn't look like Nicholas. The hair color and the build is different. George, maybe? He’s a year younger than Max. Do you prefer your men younger? Scratch that. That’s impossible. Max knows he has a girlfriend named Carmel or Carmen or something.

max: you have a boyfriend

you: youre fast

max: when did this happen?

you: uh

you: earlier?

Max resists the urge to hurl his phone across the room.

max: details [name]

max: i need details

you: nuh uh kid you havent unlocked that level of friendship yet

you: that's friendship level 8 ur still on level 6

max: i will hunt you down and force you to tell me

max: and don't call me kid i'm one year younger than you

you: id like to see you try

max: i think u forgot im the one who gave you the apartment where u live rn

You introduce Leo to Max a month later.

Leo is a British brunette guy with a face that one would consider mid in Europe but a ten in the US. He is one of the Williams mechanics. You mention that he used to do karting as a kid and even went up to F3 but he’s decided to discontinue his racing career because he thinks engineering and the technical aspects of a formula car is far more interesting than racing.

He’s basically the complete opposite of Max.

He’s a good guy, Max can tell. He’s well-mannered, he’s calm, he knows how to treat you right. Above all else, he makes you the happiest. You have the most genuine and beautiful smile on your face when he comes into your view.

He also handles your relationship very maturely. He doesn't demand. He understands that you work for different racing teams with different jobs and that means different priorities.

The weekly IG posts are also too cute. It looks like it came out of a Pinterest board.

Max will never tell you that he spends a good hour every time you post something with Leo in it like an obsessive freak. He tries to make sense of the feeling in his chest. Something green. Something ugly. Something he can't name.

Max should be happy that you found a guy as great as Leo. But he cannot, for the life of him, be fully happy for you. He doesn't know why.

“PR told me that you received a dinner invite from Kelly Piquet,” you state, sitting down on the empty chair across from him and putting your packed lunch on the table. You carefully lay the folded clothes on the other chair. Max deduces they will be the ones he’ll be wearing for the interview scheduled in about two hours. You already sent him the list of questions in his email but he hasn't opened them yet.

“Yeah,” Max says after swallowing. “She’s been sending invites since two months ago.”

“And you left her on seen?”

Max scoffs, “I didn't leave her on seen. I just…well, I saw them late and declined them politely.”

He knows Kelly Piquet. He’s aware of the history she shared with former Red Bull Racing now Toro Rosso driver, Daniil Kvyat. Max also knows she’s the daughter of Nelson Piquet, retired Formula One champion. He thinks it's rude to take the guy’s ex-girlfriend after he’s taken his seat in Red Bull.

“She’s interested in you,” you claim, opening the tupperware and quickly saying grace before digging in.

Max is not good with dealing with women. Twenty-three years old and he’s still girlfriend-less. But he knows how to recognize people who are interested in him. A significant number of women have tried their chances with him since he began racing professionally and he may have used you as some sort of getaway driver to get him out of all the awkward situations where he has to deal with women who are interested in him.

You have a very scary resting bitch face if you try hard enough. Its efficiency in scaring off people is proven to be, well, efficient.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Are you interested in her?” you question.

Max thinks about it. Really thinks about it.

“Do you think it’ll be good if I get a girlfriend?” he throws you a question instead of an answer.

“You're twenty-three, man. It's about time you start doin’ somethin’ about your empty dating history.”

Max nose scrunches but doesn't say anything because it's the truth. His dating history is hilariously empty.

“What’s your opinion of Kelly?”

“Uh, cool pussy, I guess. Don't really care.”

Max rolls his eyes, “You’re so crude.”

You shrug uncaringly.

“But I don't mind who you wanna date, man. I mean, it's your life. Date who you wanna date. Live the life you wanna live. All the jazz and shedazzle.”

Max accepts the dinner invite.

The 2020 season ends with Hamilton standing at the top, officially becoming a seven-time world champion. Bottas is behind him. Verstappen, like 2019, still stands in third place. Max vows 2020 will be the last year Hamilton becomes a world champion. The team doesn't hold a big afterparty like it usually does and Max flies home to Monaco immediately.

It's been months since he's started seeing Kelly and the woman is pleasant company. Her daughter, Penelope, is the most adorable human being that ever stepped on Earth. Max loves the little bean with all his heart and he himself is surprised that he’s capable of loving a little human this much. He’s practically convinced that he’ll be a shitty father one day. He does not have a good model figure to look up to when it comes to fatherhood.

Little P, Max learns, is obsessed with crocheted things. Max sees her little bags and little hats—all crocheted. Kelly says she pays their housekeeper to make things for little Penelope because she likes them so much.

Max decides he wants to learn how to crochet. He buys the material and learns through hundreds of Youtube videos. His first masterpiece is a bag. It's white and light orange. He shows it to his mum, who questions how on Earth did her son take an interest in a hobby other than racing or anything car-related. Despite that, she compliments it and Max feels confident that you’ll like it, too, now that he’s gotten his mother’s approval.

He finishes making it by the eighteenth day of December and he calls you, hoping he has the chance to give it before you fly down to Texas for the off-season. But you already left Monaco, just the day before and are now spending the first few weeks of the break in New Zealand with Leo.

“So it's serious?” Max asks you over the phone. He stares at the dark sky in Belgium. There's no stars tonight. Only the moon and it’s looking down at him like it's mocking him. Max wonders what the sky looks like in New Zealand right now.

“Of course,” you say.

“Well then, enjoy the holidays.”

“You, too, man.”

The call ends.

2021

Max sees you enter the Red Bull hospitality. The first thing he notices is that your shoes are brand new. Same model—the black and gold YSL Opyum heels, yes he knows the name because he searched it on Google—but brand new. Your bag is also brand new and it’s not the old cream-colored tote bag with peach prints. It's a cream-colored tote bag with Van Gogh’s painting—the Starry Night—printed at the front. You show it to Max excitedly and tell him that it's from Leo, the bag and the shoes, and Max fakes a smile the whole time. When he returns to his room in the evening, he throws the crochet bag he made over December in the trash bin. Kelly sees it but she doesn't question it.

“PR suggests that you film a Tiktok.”

Max groans, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes to the back of his head.

“Tell them no.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” you encourage him, shaking his shoulders. “There's a lot of dance trends right now.”

“I said no, [Name].”

“Max.”

You throw your hands on your waist, looking at him pointedly with your lips pursed. Max returns the stare.

He gives up after five seconds.

“Fine.”

You huff in triumph.

“But you’re doing it with me,” Max bargains.

“Oh come on,” you throw your hands in the air.

“Now you know how it feels. Tell PR that I’m not going to film a Tiktok unless you film it with me,” Max smiles cheekily.

You're not going to film a Tiktok video with him. He knows you hate filming yourself and posting it for the public. There's a reason why you avoided cameras as if it’s the sun and you're a vampire and had all your social media accounts in private.

You pull an unexpected move and you nod your head.

“Fine.”

Max’s smile drops.

You film a Tiktok using Red Bull Racing’s official Tiktok account. A simple dance. Max does not know the title. The steps are simple and it's easy to memorize. He believes he can do this fairly easily. You don't look like you’re having fun while memorizing the dance steps but you're not overly struggling.

You film the video in three takes. When Max sees the final outcome, he cringes. His long limbs look awkward as he performs the steps despite thinking that he’s doing fine while filming it. You, on the other hand, look fine.

You look good while dancing actually. There’s a certain grace that accompanied your movements.

“You dance good,” Max comments.

“It’s the Latina in me,” you claim, raising your chin a little.

Max snorts.

You show the draft video to the PR team. Without hesitation, they scratched it.

“Why?” Max asks, brows furrowing.

“Apparently, they're too tired releasing statements that we’re not dating. They're afraid that the Tiktok video would bring back our dating rumors,” you roll your eyes. “They’ve decided to just make you do a Tiktok filter game.”

Max does the one filter where he has to solve the simple math equations projected on the screen. He has to tilt his head to the side where the right answer is placed and he needs to do it quickly.

Max is not bad at Mathematics. He’s not good at it either. He’ll say that he’s just average at it like every human being on Earth.

You sit beside him, barking him the answers before his brain can even process and perform the required operations.

“60 points. That's not good enough,” he says.

You nod, “Damn right. You're not tilting your head to the right answer fast enough.”

“Maybe you're not giving the answers quick enough.”

The video gets more than ten takes. The two of you don't stop until you get the perfect score.

Monza is a disaster. To summarize: the 53-lap race is won by Daniel Ricciardo, who has now moved to McLaren. He capitalizes on a good front-row start and the crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to take the race lead. Lando, Daniel’s teammate comes in second with Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas in third. Max and Lewis—DNF.

Max doesn't remember the last time he’s been that angry and the anger doubles when he sees the seven-time world champion celebrate on the tracks. Max then decides that he’s going to be more risky, especially now that he knows how safe the car is. Max is willing to risk his life for number one.

Max lies in the medical bay and he hears voices outside. Too many voices. He’ll appreciate it greatly if the voices disappear. He's too angry right now that the noise of the outside world is too much.

“Max?”

The voices disappear and it's only you he can see, he can hear, he can feel. You're everything.

You said it. His name. It sounds even better than he imagined.

“[Name].”

After making sure he’s okay, you tell Max that you wish to go to Danny and congratulate him for winning. Max grabs your hand, unwilling to let go.

“You're not his manager anymore,” Max reminds you. “You're mine.”

He’s very much aware that he sounds like a child who refuses to let his older brother borrow his favorite toy but he cannot find himself to care. Screw Daniel.

You give him a long look but follows his demands anyway, “We’re gonna congratulate him later whether you like it or not. He’s our friend and he just got P1. We’re gonna be happy for him 'cuz that's what friends do. I’ll drag your ass to his hotel room if I have to.”

Jos Verstappen is not happy. When has he ever been happy with Max anyway? He calls Max after the Monza race and proceeds to yell because that’s all he ever does with Max. He yells. Max is embarrassed that he’s twenty-three and he’s still getting yelled at by his own father.

“Your Dad’s an asshole,” you stated after he ends the call. Max knows you heard his father’s voice even though he has not put the call on loudspeaker.

“Don't talk to my Dad like that,” he reprimands, though not unkindly. “But yeah, he is.”

You snort, “You okay?”

Max lets out a shaky breath, nodding weakly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You would think that after all this time I would get used to it but I don't know. It still makes me feel so uncomfortable and like I'm doing everything wrong even though I've been doing that for such a long time now and I've achieved so many things he asked for."

Your gaze softens and Max mentally begs that you stop looking at him like that. He does not want your pity. Pity is for the weak. Max is not weak.

You open your arms, “Rein it in, big guy.”

“What are you doing?”

“You need a hug.”

Max hesitates but he invites himself to your arms anyway. He allows himself to melt. In your arms, he feels like he's home and that he's good enough.

The breakup happens two race weekends later. Max is not dumb nor is he so emotionally indifferent that he cannot sense if a person is going through a breakup especially if that person is someone so close to him. He already knows there’s something wrong and he knows exactly what’s wrong and yet he still asks, “What's wrong?”

“Nothin’,” you say a little too quickly as if you already know that Max is going to ask the question.

“[Name],” his fingers circle around your wrist. “It's not nothing. Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”

He wants you to open up. He wants you to say something. He wants you to share the heartache you carry so it won't feel heavy on your shoulders. He wants to be someone who’ll carry your problems with you when the world feels too big and you too small.

You sigh shakily, forcing a polite smile. Your hand comes up to squish Max’s cheek in between your palms and Max’s brows rise slightly at the action. Your hands feel cold and they’re trembling slightly and Max wants to point it out, but he sees how your lips wobble and his mind just blanks, “It's not important. You only have one thing to think about and that is to win. You hear me?”

Max considers marching to the Williams Racing livery and demanding for Leo Stark but he chooses not to. You won't want him to, anyway.

Max never realizes how horrifying blood is until he sees it dripping down the side of your head. He watches as your face changes from shock to realization to absolute anger. It’s like watching you transform from human to a rabid animal who wants to shed blood. At first, he tries to pull you away and calm you down. When he sees the girl’s boyfriend appear, Max joins the fight. No man is allowed to hit you. Not on his watch.

The higher-ups are not the happiest when they learn of what happened. The PR team is having a field day as well. Someone captured the event in video and posted it online. Max has been given a script for the video he’ll have to do to save his image but it’s written differently. Different in a way that the way the words are arranged feels odd to him unlike the way you write your scripts for Max. You write the scripts as if Max is the one who writes them. You write the script in a way Max will write them. Because you know him enough to know what kind of words he wants to use and how he’ll phrase things. You choose words that are easy on his tongue and you structure the sentences so that he can memorize them easily.

Helmut is the one who says, “She should leave the team.”

“If you fire her, I’m leaving,” Max decides.

Christian narrows his eyes at him, “You won't dare.”

“Try me,” he challenges. “I am willing to pay millions to leave if she leaves.”

The other teams want him, Max knows. They know he’s rising to stardom, a racer who can stand equal to Lewis Hamilton in the right time. Red Bull is too afraid of spitting out their star now. Not when Max is already giving Lewis Hamilton a big run for his money this year. Not when Max just showed the world that he’s capable of more than just being third place.

The wretched Hamilton fan decides to sue and Max calls upon his mother’s help to find the best lawyers to fight for you. Sophie willingly helps him.

Max is going to protect you, like you always do to him.

[honey-crypt]

can you do some headcanon drabbles thingies with a farmer that has BPD? Bachelors please

a/n: yippee i get to write about bpd!!! fun fact but i was diagnosed with it for about two years (it ended up being a misdiagnosis) and i did a ted talk (like a legit one lol) about it and the criminalization/demonization of personality and other "undesirable" disorders :3 thx for this request and enjoy!

warning: discussion of bpd splitting, mental health crisis, and self-harm

★ sdv bachelors with bpd!farmer ★

alex

★ seeing you split for the first time is the catalyst for him to address his own issues, such as dealing with his father's abuse; to an extent, he can see himself in you, longing for approval and love from others, only to fall apart when others don't provide that

★ a very good listener, he opens his ears and mind to you to talk about what's on your mind and you do the same for him; it's very helpful and therapeutic for the both of you

★ does his best to keep you away from george, he worries that his grandfather's behavior would trigger an episode in you but he couldn't keep you away from him forever; it does cause an episode but with evelyn's help, alex manages to get george on his best behavior around you

elliott

★ often writes you letters of reassurance and love for you to read whenever you're having an episode, it's his way of supporting you through your hard times

★ he attends workshops to learn methods to assist you with bpd episodes and symptoms after harvey recommended it to him when he confided in him about his concern for your wellbeing

★ adds a small piece of candy, such as a starburst or skittle, in your pill box so you have a little reward/pick-me-up when you take your medication

harvey

★ out of all the bachelors, he's the best equipped to support you during your episodes (he did a psych rotation during his residency) but he tries his best not to go doctor mode on you

★ covers your farmhouse with sticky notes that feature medication reminders, words of affirmation, and so on; you save each and every one of them in a little scrapbook that you look back on for reassurance

★ harvey makes you feel safe, you're truly able to trust him and confide in him; you both make it work and even though others are critical of your relationship, either of you really give a damn because you love one another

sam

★ he's familiar with mental health conditions because of his father's ptsd and in the beginning of your romantic relationship, he kinda isolates himself from you when you're splitting because he genuinely doesn't know how to help

★ but thankfully, he learns how to support you with harvey's education on bpd, such as grounding you with music or encouraging you to socialize with others

★ he enjoys writing and playing you songs as a means of grounding, you're his inspiration and he wants to brighten your world with the power of music

sebastian

★ he goes into research mode after you inform him that you have bpd, he knows that personality disorders are heavily stigmatized and he doesn't want you to feel like he thinks you're a bad person for having bpd

★ does dbt (dialectical behavioral therapy) homework with you when you come home from group (group therapy); it helps him just as much as it helps you, he learns a lot of coping techniques that he utilizes when he has to deal with hardships or shitty people like demetrius

★ gets you an enamel pin for every month you remain clear from self-harm, you have an ita bag that you secure every pin on and it's one of your most treasured possessions

shane

★ a match made in hell... JK JK you two have the potential to bring out the best or worst in one another, depending on your relationship and whether or not you both are in therapy

★ if you're friends, you're able to support one another through bpd or depressive episodes, you both are different sides of a very similar coin and your empathy for one another transcends the boundaries of your typical friendship

★ but if you're dating or married?? i'm sorry but it's not gonna work out well unless both of you are consistent with your meds and therapy; you often get paranoid about your relationship with shane and it only intensifies during his 14 heart event where you and marnie think he relapsed with his drinking, causing you to split... luckily, it works out in the end but you still struggle with coping and trusting shane

[the-bad-batch-baroness]

Where's Mommy?

Wolffe x Lilith Sestri (OFC)

Part 14

Summary: Wolffe's wife suddenly dies, leaving him a single father in the middle of a war.

Pairing: Wolffe x Lilith Sestri (OFC)

Characters: Wolffe, Cara (child OFC), Comet

Tags & Warnings: heavy angst, mention of death, off-screen death, spousal death, grief, hurt/comfort, family fluff, funeral

Word Count: 1.6k

Author's Note: Well, this is it. The moment everyone has been waiting for. The funeral scene. I'm going to be brutally honest with y'all. It's a tough read. When I finished writing it, I had to hop into a discord voice channel with my friends to cry it out. I don't think I've ever been so emotionally invested in a character who had zero screen time. I recommend this chapter to be read with caution. Please ensure that your mental health is in a good place before reading it and take breaks if necessary. I don't want anyone to be hurt by this. It's such a terrible day for rain. As always, please enjoy 💚

Beta: @/beating-a-dead-plot

Part 1 || Prev | Next

Series Masterlist

With what strength Wolffe had left, he picked Cara up and walked towards the pyre. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, for either of them, but it was necessary. Cara was going to learn what death meant and there was nothing he could do to shield her from that pain, even if he wanted to. With every step he took, he felt the air leave his lungs and refuse to be replenished as a tightness encircled his chest. It squeezed him until he could barely form a thought and his brain shifted into autopilot to protect him from the anguish trying to surface.

"Mommy!" Cara gasped when her mother came into view, effectively pulling Wolffe from his mental cocoon of safety. "Look, Daddy! It's Mommy! Mommy's back! We can go home!"

Wolffe couldn't speak a word. His voice was stolen. He wanted to say something. He wanted to correct the misunderstanding, but maybe she needed to figure it out for herself, so he let her. He brought her to the side of the pyre and let her investigate. It may have looked cruel to some, but to Wolffe, it was the only way he knew to finally get through to his daughter because no one else would convince her that her mother was gone. It all was due to that same incorrigible stubborn streak his wife had passed down to her.

"Mommy!" Cara called. She reached down and shook her mother's shoulder, but there was no response, so she tried again. "Mommy, wake up. I want to go home."

As her excitement faded to confusion, Wolffe could tell the gears were starting to turn in her mind, which was fine with him, because watching his daughter try to wake up her dead mother was beating him into the ground emotionally. It's not like he could blame her. He wanted to do it, too. He wanted to shake her out of death's cold clutches and demand her to come back to him as if she died out of selfish reasons and not a random health crisis that was out of her control. No, that would make too much sense.

"Mommy?" Cara shook her mother harder, trying to rouse her from her eternal slumber with no effect. "Mommy, wake up. Daddy, why won't she wake up?"

Wolffe exhaled a ragged breath. "She's not going to wake up, baby. She's… dead."

"Why?" Cara asked, turning to look at Wolffe. "She's right here. She just needs to wake up."

"When people die, they can't wake up," Wolffe explained.

"I don't want Mommy to be dead!" Cara yelled and turned back to look at her mother. "I want Mommy to wake up!"

"I know, baby," Wolffe soothed. He hoisted her back up to rest against him and rubbed her back. "I wish she'd wake up too, but she can't."

"Mommy!" Cara cried as she tightly clutched Wolffe's uniform in her hands.

Wolffe held her as she wept, trying his best to offer her as much comfort as he could give, but he would never be able to replace her mother. He could be the best father in the galaxy, do and say all of the right things, and be there night and day for her, but he would never come close to being the mother that she needed. It wasn't in his nature. Fatherhood? A maybe at best. Motherhood? Not a chance. He didn't even want to try or pretend that he could fill his wife's shoes. She was amazing and he was not.

"Cara," Wolffe said when her cries quieted down to sniffles. "I want you to repeat something for me, okay?"

Cara sniffed, pulled her head back from Wolffe's chest, and rubbed her tear-stained eyes.

"Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc," Wolffe began. "Ni partayli, gar darasuum."

Cara did her best to imitate the words and sounds. "What's it mean?"

"I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal," Wolffe explained. "It means that Mommy lives on forever as long as we remember her in our hearts. In our ka'rta. We make a promise to never forget her."

"I won't forget Mommy," Cara said, then she leaned against Wolffe's chest for comfort.

There was a moment of silence between them before Wolffe spoke again. "It's time to say goodbye," he whispered.

"I don't want to," Cara whined. She shifted her face to bury it into his neck.

"I know it's hard," Wolffe said while rubbing her back. "But I need you to. For mommy."

Cara pulled her reddened face out of Wolffe's neck and twisted it to peer down at her lifeless mother. It only took seconds for fresh tears to well up in her eyes. "Bye bye mommy," she said. The simple words broke what little resilience she had left and she began to sob. "Mommy," she hiccoughed. "I want mommy!"

Wolffe turned around and looked at Comet with pleading eyes. Comet took the cue immediately and stepped out of the formation to get to Wolffe's side.

"Come here, ad'ika," Comet cooed as he took Cara from Wolffe. "Let's give your Daddy some time with Mommy, okay?"

Cara nodded and continued to cry but didn't fight him, so he carried her back to the line of onlooking clones and soothed her the best he could.

Wolffe, now alone, looked down at his wife as she lay silent atop the wood pyre surrounded by a border of her favorite purple wisteria flowers not yet wilted after being cut off from their life supply. It was a beautiful touch, poetic even, he thought, but it felt like a waste for them to be burned alongside her. However, her beauty still rivaled those of the flowers she so loved, even if she did look paler than normal. He huffed at his insensitive joke, even though he was the only one who could hear it in his head, but she would've laughed.

"Ner riduur," Wolffe said sweetly while brushing the back of his knuckles down her cold cheek. "I miss you so much." Tears fell silently from his eyes as he spoke. "You weren't supposed to die before me, you know that, right? This… This is wrong. Cara doesn't need me, she needs you. She needed you…" he sucked in a shaky breath. "I would give anything to have you back in my arms. Anything. I'd sell my soul just to see you smile one more time." He went silent for a moment, trying to figure out what he wanted to say next.

"Maker, this isn't fair!" he finally exclaimed. "Why'd you leave me? I'm so angry and frustrated with you, but I don't want to be. I know it wasn't your fault. You were innocent." He paused, collecting his anger. "I'd trade places with you. Right now. Without a second thought. I'm not even a real person, but you made me feel like a real person. Like my life mattered. What am I supposed to do without you?" He shook his head. "Tell me what to do. Tell me how to raise our daughter. Please. Tell me you love me, just one more time."

The silence from his wife was deafening. He knew she was dead. He knew she wouldn't come back, and yet he waited for her to respond as if she would spontaneously come to life and answer him just because he asked her to. He sighed long and hard, resigning that there was nothing more he could do and nothing more he could say. He could ramble on for hours by her side and talk about everything and anything he could think of until his hair grayed and his own body decayed, but she would never answer him.

He leaned his forehead against hers, cupped her cheek, and whispered, "Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum. Maria. Ner cyare."

Wolffe lifted his forehead from hers and left a parting kiss atop both her eyelids. After a final lingering touch, he stepped back, grabbed the torch from its holder, and lowered its dancing flame to the pyre. "Goodbye, my love," Wolffe said, and the pyre ignited with a sharp whoosh, engulfing her body within its all-consuming blaze.

"Mommy!" Cara screamed when she saw the fire. She squirmed in Comet's arm, trying to break free. "It's hurting Mommy!"

Wolffe stepped back from the flames and glanced over his shoulder, unconcerned about the terrified look on his daughter's face. They taught her as early as possible what fire was and how dangerous it could be. She knew what it meant and he knew it horrified her to see her mother swallowed by its deadly red and orange colors, but he couldn't do anything about it even if he wanted to. He had nothing left to give her as he let his grief consume him for just this moment.

Comet held Cara tighter and turned her head away from the fire and into his neck. "Shh," he soothed while rubbing her back. "Don't look, ad'ika. It's gonna be okay. Mommy can't feel it."

Cara continued to cry, and her wails of anguish echoed and intertwined with the flickering flame and swirling smoke, traversing up into the evening sky. As the fire burned, all that could be heard were the cries of a distraught child and the crackling of wood. No one dared to speak a word. Wolffe stood and stared, mesmerized. He watched as his beloved wife burned while unabated tears streamed down his face. His deep cries of sorrow were muffled by his daughter's screams and the sound of roaring flames. It was over. It was done. It was finished. His wife could rest in peace now.

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[twotimeracewinnerlandonorris]

i know i said i was gonna leave f1 alone for a while, but things are weighing heavy on my soul right now and i need to get them out. they're jumbled so just bear with me.

first of all, i'm gonna put it very plainly that i did not and i will not celebrate piastri's win. it feels incredibly hollow, and i don't think a single driver would be happy about a win where your teammate had to slow down for you to jump a 6,2 second gap.

there's always the same thing when it comes to lando, and him saying that he's faster on the radio. people comment on every single social media that he should "be faster then, race harder." well, do you know what happened yesterday and what oscar should've done? he should've been faster. it's a fact that he does not have Lando's race pace and that he still has so much to learn, especially regarding tyre management.

they're in the same car. according to social media, piastri is the better driver out of the two: more mature, faster, more reliable, more level headed, more of a championship material. let's just ignore the fact that he came into a team on the up and up and after only six months had a car capable of getting podiums (although that was mostly just lando, you know). luckiest driver in years.

what happened yesterday was a travesty. it showed how incapable of running a good strategy mclaren are, and how they are still always looking backwards instead of looking forwards.

and don't even get me started on the caps. who the fuck brought them? it better be piastri's team cause if it was mclaren it is one of the most disgusting things i have ever witnessed.

if oscar was allowed to fight at the start, then why was lando not allowed to fight til the end? why did mclaren decide before the race how it would end? why was lando told 25 laps before the race was over, that he should give back a place that he was then not allowed to gain back by racing oscar? why was lando pitted first? why was he not told how things would go before he was called into the pits? why did will and andrea emotionally manipulate and blackmail him into giving up his win?

i am beyond disgusted with the way this has been handled and brown and stella's refusal to acknowledge the way the team behaved towards lando (especially on the radio), and stella's "oscar is the youngest on the team, but the wisest" comment which must be a fucking kick in the stomach to lando's mental health.

lando is an incredible teammate and team player, and i don't want to hear a single thing about how piastri has been shafted time and time again because fuck that. they have been shafted the same amount of times (also welcome to mclaren, who have been fucking lando over for years. deal with it).

i don't believe piastri will repay lando for this weekend, the man didn't even publicly thank him post-race. i have zero expectations of mclaren cause they have clearly decided who their number one is, and who they want to lead the future. and it's not the guy who could've been 69 points behind verstappen after this weekend (a verstappen who is furious to his team cause they're fucking up left, right and centre). red bull is in a crisis, they only have one driver who is doing shit at that team and even that driver is barely getting on podiums lately so lando absolutely has a chance for that wdc. well he had a chance, let's see how mclaren and piastri will fuck that up for him as the season progresses.

how in the hell has someone who has given his heart and soul to the team for the last 5.5 years, someone who has given them 21 podiums and a win, many poles and fastest laps and is 24-fucking-years-old being relegated to the back for someone who has been there for 18-months?

how has the communication at mclaren dropped so badly since stella took control? and how in the fuck do we justify will plainly lying to lando about the condition of his tyres to make him slow down?

how are they going to repay him? cause i have not seen a single thing from them since 2019 that shows me that they will ever support lando in a 1-2 situation like they have with their aussie drivers.

i have zero respect for anyone at mclaren, except lando. i will never root for this team again, and they only have one driver as far as i'm concerned.

if you in any way feel that lando was at fault for anything that happened yesterday, you're a shit person. that's it.

[transbeamrooikat]

some killjoy hcs/rambles :3

big fan of the HC that Ghoul has hearing loss like. look at that fella and tell me he has any sense of safety precautions

i also think he knows how to shoot his raygun and obviously has his explosives but if a fight ever becomes close range she just starts Biting

and that fucker can bite HARD he has dogshit dental heath (but that's pretty much a given if you live in the zones, i think) but his bite is so strong he often would rather use his teeth than scissors

also playing around (like. considering) with the hc of him being bigender? idk, thinking about that

cause i hc him as being raised in the zones + his crew died when he was young, i think he doesn't really have like. a strong idea of binary sex/gender/sexuality? like, i feel like labeling people is mostly a City concept, and killjoys just do whatever (although some killjoys do label themselves, it's just not an often occurrence)

SPEAKING OF THE CITY!!! i think Party and Kobra where both raised there and escaped together

Party realized they were NB and probably some flavor of queer when they were pretty young and tried to repress it at first, but that's obviously not health so it lead to them having really shit metal health/had a mental health crisis, but eventually they told Kobra and he tries to give them advice/ just be someone for Party to talk too

i also think they stopped talking their pills pretty young (like, i think Party stopped around puberty? so 10ish) and Kobra stopped a bit before Party came out to him (which is why he didn't report them and was able to help them)

Party's queerness is kinda what led to them leaving the city (i think there also may have been a confrontation with their parents that narrowed down their options to either running away or getting turned over for "reprogramming" but hey ho)

i think they would've met Jet Star and his crew pretty soon after them leaving the city, and they helped them to get to Dr. D

Jet couldn't convince the crew to let Party and Kobra stay any longer so they parted ways there

i actually don't have many Jet specific hcs other than that his eye patch is probably either due to an accident Ghoul caused or due to a clap with a drac

i think about a year after meeting Party & Kobra he leaves his own crew to go form his own/traverse the desert

which kinda leads to a general killjoy hc that they tend to be in crew with their families till they leave to form/find their own at around 15-20 (although some killjoys do stay in their original family crew)

there's probably zone-wide gatherings/parties where a tone of killjoys meet up to relax and have a good time

i flip flop between Party and Ghoul meeting at one of these and them meeting in some abandoned area while Party's doing a supply run

Ghoul speaks Afrikaans because i said so :3 (don't ask how it makes sense in canon - it doesn't really)

He reverts back to speaking it when angry/feeling very strong emotions (although it tends to be very choppy cause although speaking afrikaans is like his coping mechanism, he wasn't taught much of it by his family before they died)

I think she'd try to teach the other killjoys at some point cause it'd make communication easier, but Party's the only one who's remotely good at it cause they're the only other person in the group who can roll their r's

Party & Kobra r very shocked when they learn that other languages is a thing like. at all. cause growing up in the city they wouldn't have been taught that other languages r like. a thing ++ they would kinda also be taught at the same time that "everyone only speaking english is better cause then there's no error in communication ^_^" or something like that

idk whether or not i want Ghoul to be the reason they find this out… it'd definitely make for a good fic idea

like I said, I hc Ghoul as having bad dental health, but I think that also applies to Jet

Party and Kobra's good dental health is actually pretty unusual -- people tend to be able to tell they're from the city because of it

I also think they all have some kinda acne/acne scarring

for Party (and to a lesser extent, Kobra) it was a (bad) way to cope with the stress and anxiety of living in the city, and it became a habit that's still very hard for them to break

for Ghoul and Jet i think it's more a background thing they've never thought too hard on? like, oh there's red spots on my face now and some of them hurt? slay /pos

[aeraspais]

The hate for the Kim storyline also feels so disproportionate compared to criticism for, say, the Buck coma episode, but in a way that makes sense because people seem to misread that episode as saying everyone else's lives would be miserable/over without Buck, which services Buck-centered watchers. But these misreads have affected so many of Buck's storylines (the lawsuit, the sperm donor, etc.). It's funny that they have no room for empathy with Eddie despite the character they love having it leak out of every pore he has.

it bothers me so much. by now, it's been well established that I'm an Eddie girlie, therefore much of my time is spent dissecting his storylines and how it fits in the scheme of thing. so, frankly, this has led me to develop a far more greater appreciate for Buck and his journey since those two are interwoven — to understand Eddie I must also understand Buck and vice versa. but this is not how the fandom operates. it feels so bad to complain about this all the time, but I'm sorry, it's objectively disgusting that I've seen fans dismiss the Kim storyline as "unnecessary" and also how "Eddie doesn't need a coming out storyline", that he just needs to "learn how to be a good boyfriend" for he can be ready for Buck. everyone just views him as a provider and servant and caretaker for Evan Buckley, which is just an insidious form of racism that's not just coming from Buck stans, but from some self-described Eddie stans too. we see this time and time again in white/poc ships, where fans just dilute all meaningful characterization from the non-white half to solely focus on the white half. like, this is why I think buddies enjoy fixating on bucktommies. their existence gave them a convenient scapegoat for the racism that has always been present in buddie fandom. they demand perfection from Eddie without any consideration or empathy for his struggles, but now they don't have to look inward or explain why the Kim storyline bothered them so much because they can just say "hey, this side of the 9-1-1 fandom is much worse (than we are)!" but they're not, they're characterizing Eddie one degree away from Machismo stereotypes by either fantasizing about him violently punching his fucking bigoted boss, even though the fight club arc was a FORM OF SELF-HARM, like a deadass mental health crisis, or insisting he's some aggressive dom top who only exists to fuck Buck when, canonically, he is someone yearning to be freed from his restrictive, conservative upbringing, he wants someone he can lean on. this is the man fandom wants to box in because they have woobified Buck so hard that he's blond.

[hjemne]

Thinking about my queer telenovela Trigun WIP again, and I'm still not sure about to what extent it's a good idea to write Wolfwood as recently having left the church after coming to terms with the fact he's gay, and so has little experience with the queer community. Currently in my plan, Wolfwood starts off not really knowing anything about what it means to be trans and he is still working to unpack the homophobic Christian teachings he's internalised. He ends his years-long relationship with Milly and then meets Vash & it's his confirmation that yes okay he is definitely gay. Wolfwood doesn't know Vash is trans for a while, and Meryl is stressing out during that time because she's worried about how this recently Christian man with a limited understanding of transness might react to the guy he's been crushing on not being cis (Vash, her friend, who's been through enough already and who she wants to look out for). Meryl doesn't really know Wolfwood, and the worry is partly coming out of her habit of catastrophising, and Milly knows Wolfwood very very well and has full faith that he wouldn't be a dick about Vash being trans. But idk if I should cut these scenes because they're Too Much. For plot reasons the girls can't properly communicate with either Wolfwood or vash btw. My point is to show that Meryl is also unlearning stereotypes and her immediate assumptions about people, but I'm not sure if that justifies bringing up the fear of transphobia in a fanfic

Wolfwood finds out when he and Vash are finally about to hook up, and it takes him a moment to work through the initial surprise and confusion before going 'you're literally a man and I'm so attracted to you I think my dick might explode but also I have zero concept of what a trans man is so you might have to gimme some pointers on how this all works.' So basically there's a moment where Wolfwood is processing Vash being trans, and Vash is a little wary of him & how he'll react, but that moment almost immediately passes and then it's a case of Wolfwood being uninformed but very enthusiastic to learn.

I think it's important for me to show a character deconverting and the fact that when you deconvert you have to unlearn and relearn so many different things, but also I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for a plot point to be 'is Wolfwood going to hatecrime Vash?'.

I'd love to get some more perspectives on this. The fic setting and tone is (at the moment) fairly realistic so I don't think this would be a super weird tonal shift. In the fic the world is unfair and harsh but can be beautiful when people love and care for one another. Theres big plot points about how social and economic inequalities impact people & how people react & survive when pushed to the margins of society etc.

More things I'd like to discuss under the cut <33

Id also appreciate advice on how to write about Vash & Knives' transition. In my current plan, they were adopted by Rem and were both fairly erratic as kids bc they had trauma around something relating to Tesla (can't decide what exactly without bringing the tone massively down). Rem fully backs them when they transition (although she & knives get into a fight over him giving himself knives as his legal name) and I want to emphasise how positive the process of transitioning was for them. V+K get closer through it and knives gets a supportive group of friends which is particularly important because he's the more unstable one. But then there's tension between knives and rem because rem isn't the no 1 fan of some of his new friends (legato + elendira) and knives gets increasingly volatile as he refuses to process his trauma and his worst habits are enabled.

I think I want to say that Knives then causes an accident which kills Rem and injures Vash, but idk whether he does this deliberately, fully accidentally, or because he's experiencing a mental health crisis. Any thoughts about how to handle this would be super useful 🙏 Otherwise I might say that there was a car crash / other random accident, and that this was the tipping point because Knives can't handle being the only one to walk away without a scratch. Either way, Knives then disappears and Vash is trying to track him down and help him when Vash & Wolfwood meet in the main plot timeline.

The main plot is around Wolfwood trying to find Livio despite him having been declared dead after he ran away from their orphanage a few days after Wolfwood was kicked out and was never seen again (&so WW blames himself for Livios disappearance). WW eventually finds LR, who has been living under the name Razlo and avoided being found BC they actually ran away because their birth parent was released from prison and they FREAKED at being forced to go live with them again. LR has been forced into incredibly shit and precarious work because they have no legal identity or protection which is being taken advantage of by chapel. WW and LR bond and WW convinces and helps them to get away from chapel & get themselves un-declared dead. LR has met both Vash and Knives at various points (helped Vash w his t shot in a diner bathroom. this is also how he and Meryl met) and eventually Vash bumps back into WW, and they find Knives with LR's help, and everyone's happy. Milly and Meryl have gotten together during all this, and all 6/7(?) of them move in together because I make the rules and want them to be happy. Knives (& razlo tbh) gets the support and stability he's needed and is doing much better. Wolfwood gets to live with his bff Milly but can be out and proud. He probably proposes to Vash within the year. Vash & Wolfwood both have their brothers back and a family again. LR get official legal status again and change their last name to Razlo to separate them fully from their birth family. Milly and Meryl are the sweetest couple known to mankind and Meryl is welcomed into Milly's big Christian family. Will knives and LR get together? Haven't decided. But I think they would get on super well. And probably hook up. Also it's very important that you know that Wolfwood used to be a youth pastor in a church while with miss Melanie (who raised him in a Christian orphanage). Melanie cries when she sees LR again, and gives Wolfwood away when he and Vash get married.

[kitsunefaux]

Hey!! Anon cause I'm shy, but I'm a big fan of your writing! Ive left some guest kudos on your fics and am always waiting patiently for the next update! I was wondering if you had any recommendations for fics since you seem like the type to have good taste... I'd love to read more stuff that reminds me of your work!

Hey! Thank you! I definitely do have some recommendations I’d like to share. These are in no particular order.

Ryou-centric (and/or tendershipping)

Corruption by firetrap

After seeing the pharaoh off to the underworld, Ryou comes home to find that his own spirit hadn’t left like he thought.

The Last Puzzle by tenderwulf

11 years after the Ceremonial Duel, Atem and Bakura inexplicably find themselves back in Domino. When they meet their previous hosts, they realize how much things have changed: Yuugi, the now world-renowned King of Games, is going through a marriage crisis, Ryou is struggling to balance studies, work, and his brittle mental health, and Malik... well, Malik is living his best life—and his own yami is nowhere to be seen.

They soon realize they all have to work together in order to solve the mystery of the yamis' return: some to make sure that they stay, and some to make sure that they don't.

Haunted by Ehtar

Ever since receiving a strange artifact from his father, Ryou Bakura’s life has changed. He gains the friends he’s always wanted, and the bullies are disappearing. At night, though, he dreams of the life of a thief in ancient Egypt. A young boy who was the sole survivor of his village’s slaughter, who must turn to thievery and worse in order to survive on his own.

Ryou knows that something is wrong when his friends begin to fall to the same malady as the bullies, that something is wrong with him. It’s not until he makes some new friends in Domino City, including a boy who has an artifact similar to his own, that he realizes he harbors the soul of that thief within himself – that he’s been possessed for years by the spirit of a killer.

He should rid himself of the evil spirit, save himself and those around him. The only trouble is, now he doesn’t know where one of their souls begins and the other ends. After so long, he’s not even sure he would reject the spirit if he could. After all, no one knows him so well as the spirit that haunts him.

Cornered by YadonushiRyou

Life is different for Private Investigator Ryou after a too close encounter with a maniacal killer. Ryou has to deal with physical and mental scars, navigating through life only to find that he can’t forget Bakura as easily as he would have liked. His partner Malik tries to help him along the way, but things between them are much different than they used to be, causing tension in their close relationship. Meanwhile, time is running out when it seems the killer on the loose has already chosen his next victim.

An Unwhole Half by SheIsHoldingACat

The problem with being one half of a whole is that the other half has to agree. The problem comes when the other half wants it all to itself.

Or:,

Ryou wishes he had the bond with his spirit that Yugi has. He wishes it was possible.

Philosophy of a Knife by crushedmary

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ryou learns this the hard way when he becomes the vessel for Zorc's power.

A canon rewrite where Bakura wins.

Other Yugioh

Gratitude by Resuri

Amir is an assassin. His job is easy. Someone give him a target, he kills them, and he gets paid for it. Not to mention he is really good at it. However, never could he had imagined his job would have him to be acknowledged by the most beautiful and horrific creature he ever saw.

But, hey, Ryou just wants to thank him for the meals!

Our Scars remind Us that the Past was Real by Sesshy380

Imagine waking up, and everyone is trying to convince you that the things you 'remember’ never happened, and that those 'memories’ exist only in YOUR head. The Thief King doesn’t have to imagine…because that’s exactly what happened.

-or-

The Thief King get’s a second chance at life.

Martyrs by SheIsHoldingACat

the history of the shadow games extends three-thousand years, to Ancient Egypt...

~

A rewrite of the events of Memory World, with emphasis on moral greyness, political intrigue, and the premise that Thief King Bakura was entirely justified

These are a few of the fics I really like. Thank you for your ask!

@resuri-art @worldendercharles @tenderwulf @crush3dmary @sesshy380 @millenniumringg

[mo0nfairy]

HELLOOO????? OMG THAT WRITING IS MAKING ME FOAM AT THE MOUTH-, ok, ok, can we take a moment to appreciate the writing about Carlos?, Jill, you're still my baby but Carlos has a place in my dump called heart 😫, the way in which you write his despair at not having Y/n or us idk, it's the same, it's impressive, how he went to the extremes of hallucinating day and night for 6 years in a row, scratching any limits of common sense and preparing us food that probably with the passage of time it becomes moldy and even rots-, the letters, the gifts, absolutely everything, and oh, my God, those lines where you wrote his suicidal tendencies, the crisis, the desperation, it's just incredible, I have no words to describe how I feel, and oh, that necklace, that cute bee necklace, I want one too 😭, as a person who grew up with Disney movies in their childhood it was really nice to see what you added from the movie the lady and the truly romantic tramp although it was definitely tainted by Carlos' obsessive and even slightly perverted tendencies, but okay, okay, I can help him recreate that scene as many times as he wants, besides one of my favorite foods is the spaghettis :D, I can't wait to have how rotten everyone else is, and oh, I'd also like to add something about Y/n or us, can we mention how their mental health is going to shit?, (more than I think I was already-) , right?, nobody? , oww... well, it doesn't matter, it will be for another comment, I really want to write more about your story but my stupid forgetful brain can't retain much even so, thank you very much for bringing us this wonderful work!, please, do not take it attention to those comments complaining that you do not publish "enough", each writer has his personal life, it is necessary to learn to respect it, keep up the good work!, also if you reply to me feel free to correct any errors Whether it's spelling or grammar in my writing, I'm Mexican and I really don't trust Google's shitty translator, apart from my English is too basic to write messages like this, so an apology in advance if I misunderstood any of your writings! Have a nice night/afternoon/day! I love you very much! ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა

eeeeeeek you are too damn sweet!!! your comment literally makes me smile so much. thank u so much for the kindness and giving me a good laugh, as well!! and i love your intel of my story cause YES, readers mental health is snowballing into a pit of sheer despair. like it is OVER for poor reader. thank u so so much and i love you, as well!! <3 <3 <3

[casketscratch]

There is so much happening with my family that any time I try to sit down and put words to it, my brain just stalls. Tires stuck in the mud and going nowhere while you hit the gas kind of feeling.

Content warnings for way too much writing, way too much writing about my own family, grief, child abuse, denial, suicide threats (not mine, just mention of someone else's), cocsa, sorry if I missed any but consider it a dumping ground.

My maternal grandad passed away earlier this year. As my sister put it: my dad sucked, my stepdad sucked, and he was really the only one in the family who you'd call fatherly. I haven't cried about it. I haven't missed him. I haven't felt anything except nothing. Which I also know isn't true, because when I went to see him in the hospital for the last time (knowing it would be the last time), we dissociated so severely in the car on the way home that we split. So there was something there! And now it's gone.

Since he passed, my grandma moved in with my aunt, who couldn't cope. She's... I don't know. I try to be compassionate. I try to be understanding. I know this aunt endured a lot of abuse, and as a kid there was always some crisis revolving around her mental health. Not to be dismissive -- there was a stalker that her mom/my grandma enabled, she was assaulted as a teenager and never got the help she needed, her parents were genuinely neglectful in a lot of ways. My grandma in particular.

I don't really want to get into the weeds about her because it's not the point. The point is that the entire family has suffered for years because she basically sucks the rest of us dry. Even as a little kid, I couldn't ask my family for help or tell them anything because there was always a crisis going on that revolved around her problems.

After a few weeks of living with my grandma, she messaged a bunch of us basically saying that we needed to relocate my grandma for 4 weeks because my aunt needs space to "work on herself." i.e., she's finally taking therapy seriously but only has 4 sessions left because This Fucking Province.

Which... great, because in the lead-up to that e-mail, a lot of us had been talking about learning how to set boundaries as a family, supporting her without constantly rearranging our lives and bankrupting ourselves to pay her rent and bills, about not walking on eggshells because if she gets upset then she'll disappear for hours and vaguepost about suicide. She's in her 50's and it just sets my teeth on edge because I have been catering to her wellbeing my whole life, at my own expense. My sister, too. She had a whole crying breakdown the last time we saw each other because she'd had no room or time to grieve, or take care of her own kids, because she's sort of terrified (I think) that she'll fail to show up for my aunt one day and then be the reason my aunt kills herself. And to some extent I think our entire immediate family acts this way. It's not sustainable anymore.

Which is something I finally expressed to my mom. Whose basement I am living in after having to quit my job, flee the city I was in, etc. You know. Actual crisis, life or death shit. (This is also the aunt who, when I told her I'd been dx'd with DID, thinking she was maybe the one person in the family who'd understand it as someone who's openly lived with CPTSD and talks about it a lot, told me that "just because doctors say you have something, doesn't mean you do" and that was the end of that).

So my grandma is now living with us for four weeks so my aunt can "have space" by entirely upending her grieving mother's life and kicking her out with only a few days notice.

And, like, there is a lot wrapped up in my feelings about my aunt. There's a kind of fucked up survivor's guilt, right? I'm the "good" victim who's "doing the work," it feels like. Somehow I'm more stable despite going through what I did as a kid. Somehow I'm more self-aware and can actually do the work and try to put myself back together. Somehow, somehow, somehow. (It's the DID. Look at us go.)

And there's an endless tug-of-war between trying not to victim blame her, and... just being fucking honest. She's manipulative. She's poisoning the relationships a lot of us worked really hard to heal. No, it's not okay or normal to send us messages about how she's trying to remove some component of her car so she can fill it with exhaust. No, it's not okay to kick your widowed mother out with no notice after committing to living with her and we all pitched in around the clock to make it happen. No, it's not okay to turn around 8 weeks later and reverse course entirely, while trying to talk us into continuing to help pay for a 2 bedroom apartment all to yourself now, or whatever. No matter what happened to her, none of that is okay!

What's gutting me is how much my mom agreed with me, and how hard she's reversed course. I was honest weeks ago, explaining to her that my aunt has always done this -- and my mom... isn't not helping her, but is more invested in helping me. She helped me paint my room last weekend because the wall colours would trigger me so badly that I was dissociating and carving "fix it" into the paint, because they were the same colour as one of the rooms I was y'know, [redacted] in as a kid.

She's recommitted to helping me with therapy and showing up and not leaving me hanging for months. She plainly said that she does not want my aunt to interfere with my recovery, that she's spent HER whole life taking care of her younger sister like this, and can now see the toll it had on her own family/kids, and it's not okay.

I don't know what to do with this. I really don't. Mostly I feel guilty knowing a lot of people in my situation don't get that kind of help, too. My mom was mostly not around when I was a kid because she was in school and working full time -- we were living with this aunt, and my grandparents, so they more or less collectively ignored raised me. My mom truly had no idea about the abuse and trafficking, and has been so helpful this last year. I grew up bitter and angry at her, but a lot of the work early on in my trauma shit was realizing that I was (I am so ashamed to type this for some reason, even if it's kind of just facts) really just brainwashed by my dad's side of the family against her. It's complicated.

So, okay, right? My aunt is a lot, but it's something I spoke to my therapist about, he helped me with boundaries and encouraged me to focus on my own stuff, because my aunt is the sort of person who... no matter how many times you show up, it won't change her. You just keep showing up until you're drained, and she moves on to the next person.

My grandma, on the other fucking hand.

Couldn't be here 48 hours before she was sitting down and bringing up the kids I grew up with. The ones whose parents were also involved in the same trafficking rings. She has no idea; she will never have any idea. She is so, so insistent on seeing only the good in people that it has ruined this family, it feels like. She enabled her daughter's stalker. She defended my mom's rapist/my sister's biodad because there must have been some good in him (he fled the country on suspicion of murder and my sister is working with the RCMP about it, but never mind that part either). She continued to be friends with my stepdad after I told her what he'd done. She chided me for going no contact with my biodad because "he always gave such nice gifts."

She started talking about those kids, anyway. And about how one of them was just a Bad Kid, malicious and evil at 8 years old, or whatever. She would babysit the neighbourhood kids after school, so there were often a bunch of them over at our place. She was talking about how one afternoon someone turned the knobs on the barbecue outside, turning the gas on, and she almost lit a cigarette before smelling it and nearly blew herself up. Clearly on purpose!

My mom interjected to be like, that's just kids playing with knobs and things, and I cut in with... she was a really abused kid at home. She wasn't bad, her family was horrific, and I left it at that. And my grandma?

"Oh, but their house was always so clean, I can't believe that!"

Which mostly felt like I was smacked across the face, and I think Stephan fronted, because I heard myself say something like, "what the fuck does that have to do with anything?" and then it's a lot of fog.

My mom even pointed out how this friend would often have to borrow my pants because she wet herself so often, and how that was a sign of CSA, and it just didn't matter to my grandma. My friend was just "lazy."

Anyway, "It's just so unbelievable" there were so many "bad" kids on that block, what a coincidence! So weird how many of us are addicts now, or just dead, when she was friends with all our parents and they were all the greatest people! Haha, how does that happen!

And I saw in that moment just how impossible it would have been for me to ask for help, let alone get it. Nothing can be wrong around her. She needs the world to be perfect, hunky-dory, everyone is good, and it left so many of us wide open to abuse. My aunt included. Myself included. And I kind of see where my aunt developed her constant crisis mode, because only life or death will get through to my grandma -- and even then, not really.

Like. She has singlehandedly facilitated or enabled abuse of most of her family because she refuses to admit people can be bad (and there's the urge to be like... but she's like that for a reason, and deserves sympathy, and surely that means what she did is understandable, and etc.).

I just foresee myself spending a lot of the next 4 weeks in the basement avoiding all of this because we just started doing the real trauma work in therapy, we just started reconnecting with the rage and processing it, and it's like oh god no shove it all back in the box because our aunt said we have to so our grandma will be taken care of!

Fuck that. She can't make it down the stairs and I have a refuge in that. And my room is painted my favourite colours now, I never want to leave it anyway! (It's a very dark navy blue with deep turquoise on one wall.)

Just. It's a lot. It's a lot, a lot, a lot, and I keep compartmentalizing or forgetting why I'm so tired, and so at my wit's end, and none of these are even my problems to deal with in the first place. Maybe that's callous? Maybe not. But either way she sat on my couch, defended several of my traffickers while I tried to point out that they were in fact abusive people, and doubled down about it, and I really don't feel obligated to cater to that anymore!

I'm kind of really proud of myself for this one, actually? It has taken a LOT to get here.

[the-romantic-lady]

I don't really like that they want to focus on the causes they are passionate about, it's way too activist for me. It's like the vegan people who go to grocery stores and dump milk on the floor. Or the stop oil lunatics who block the road and people can't get to hospitals. The energy is exactly the same "the cause I am passionate is important everything else doesn't matter".

TBH the causes they are passionate about are very elitist causes. Yes yearly years is important but there's very little some parents can do. People are living in a col crisis, both parents have to work sometimes more than they wish, and have their children in childcare for more time of the day than they wish. They can't spend as many time with their kids as they would like, they have work, sometimes commute, they have housework. Sometimes it's just not feasible even if they wanted to. Then in comes someone who is the privileged of the privileged. Who has 3 homes, none of which she paid for. Who has house staff, a full time nanny and barely works, to lecture people about how much the early years of your kid is important and how you should focus so much energy and time that you just don't have on that. Without actually offering any practical solution might I add.

Then we have the mental health one. Yes mental health is important, but how talking about how important it is help anyone? Like so many people that I know would like to go to therapy but can't afford it. Or if they live in a country that does have a public healthcare it's incredibly hard to get a therapist because the line of people already wanting is too big, there's never enough professionals to meet the demands. People could not heat their homes this winter, the food is more expensive by the day, the cost of property is going up so much that people can't afford to have housing. For anyone this is horrible for mental health, working yourself to the bone and you still can't have your basic needs met, and if you can there's not much left for anything else. You feel like you get stuck and nothing you ever do is going to help. What are they doing to help people have a better life so their mental health improves? Yep, nothing.

Then we have the climate change thing. Yes Earthshot is an amazing idea, I loved how it focused on getting solutions to the problems. But like the first step to help the issue is REDUCE. And I'm not one to say people shouldn't fly, but there are things that are just unnecessary. The Queen went to Sandringham by train, but William is always going by helicopter. If it was safe and good enough for the Queen, why isn't for him as well? It's very hard to take anything he says about how important is for us to care about climate change, when he can't even give up one of his luxuries that serves no purpose. This is not a trip to a vacation once in a while, or a work trip that is necessary.

What it bugs me the most is that even if Earthshot does provide solution for the problem it focuses on, their initiatives in general do absolutely nothing concrete to help anyone in the UK. It's not like the Edinburgh Awards or The Prince's Trust that actually offer things to the community. They help young people, small businesses, what do W&K foundation do besides help themselves learn and talk about things?

On top of that, they feel like they are too good for the boring engagements, it's not enough impact to their taste. Like bitch what impact your lectures have? If it helped anyone you would have stopped talking about mental health, it's been years and you are in the exact same place.

Cutting a ribbon is not below them. And they should do it. This should be their main job. The UK is not paying their security bill so they can follow their passion, it's for them to serve them, they are glorified public servants they should serve the community not just worry about their own interests. How many activists receive public funded security just to follow their passion? Yeah no one, because that's not what the job is about.

I don't agree with this completely. I do think they need to stop thinking of themselves as activists but the public complaining is part of the problem. Their pre-2017 engagements were considered blank and not big projects. So they went this direction which I am not a fan of.

I do see the importance of their causes though. Early Years is important in a time when children will be raised by daycares and technology. Part of her earlier work has been to spend time with them, take them to nature, and socializing with other parents. The unfortunate truth is that many parents don't value this anymore. It's not about how many homes, nannies or money you have. My parents were pretty much always poor and that didn't stop my mother from giving her all to us sisters. It's because she understood the importance of raising children, giving them time and attention among other things. On the other hand, I have family that have children whose children go from school to daycare to a day home. Society is disregarding the family and the upbringing of children and we can't look away. Early years emphasizes this once more to slow down for children and I stand behind the message.

I am less interested in climate change and all but I think the solutions and award system is good. Although you do have a point with the lack of focus on Britain. But William is supposedly launching a homelessness initiative so I hope that is promising and a cause I care more about.

There needs to be a balance. There is nothing wrong with Catherine visiting schools and nurseries but then she should work more to do other things. They need to expand but their current projects are not bad imo.

[amphiptere-art]

I am boiling over with rage. I do not think I can put my words sensibly out. So I'm going to copy and paste some rambling I did in discord. This is only half the conversation.

Talking about eclipse coming back.

I'm just sad that he's going to go through the same arc as his backup

Reply - Were ALSO gonna give eclipse another identity crisis?? Again??? Maybe for the third time???

Probably. There's no other arc for eclipse. They're going to make him a character fed by revenge. That's what they've done with all their villains.

He's going to be forced to realize that he doesn't actually have anyone that cares about him. Relishing only on the fact that people actually pay attention to him, and in a cruel way care about him because of his villainous acts.

He's going to go through the same bullshit, where he just learns that his life has been meaningless. That he hasn't done anything with his life. Especially since now he's just doing it for revenge.

They are probably going to kill him, and remind us all over again that eclipse is a lonely sad soul, that only turned into a monster because he was treated like one.

If they do not change their tone, and actually make something of either the characters, or eclipse. I am going to throw a massive fit.

Either force moon sun and everyone in that posse to realize that it is their fault, it is their mistake, and It is because of their actions that they made a person who only knows hate. That they left somebody alone, I didn't even consider their mental health.

If they don't do that, They have to try and give eclipse some sort of redemption ark. I don't necessarily care how it works. Just that somebody is trying to help Eclipse.

If they don't do either of those options, They are just throwing Eclipse in, for tension. They're going to make him live through the same hell, and I am not here for that.

Do not want eclipse here for a show. Whether he is the backup survived, another backup eclipse, or OG Eclipse who has lived and seen the mistreatment of his own self.

The hell he lived was already painful enough. I don't need a redo.

[reasoningdaily]

No One Cared About Jordan Neely's Life. They Just Want to Use His Death | Opinion

1

One thing I've learned as an adult is that people who actually care about someone don't let them continually fail. Instead, they address that person's problems head-on, because people who care actually want you to succeed, and success often requires course correction.

Progressives are currently beset by a sick reversal of that, where no one is willing to address the root problems of the people they claim to care about, because the people who are failing in our society are more suitable as political pawns and social commodities to exploit for attention and donations.

Instead of addressing real problems like mental illness, violence, crime, and homelessness, progressives are normalizing these things, gaslighting people who call them out as unacceptable, and denouncing any attempts to truly rectify the problems that have our cities in a stranglehold. And they do it all in the name of compassion.

Ka'Chava [The Gold-Standard of Health Shakes] The Gold-Standard of Health Shakes

This phenomenon has been on full display in the Left's response to the sad killing of Jordan Neely this week. Neely was a homeless man with a long history of arrests who was suffering from extreme mental illness. Neely tragically died while being restrained in a chokehold by a passenger on the subway after Neely was aggressively screaming at passengers, per witnesses.

The story is horribly sad. Everyone seems to have failed Jordan Neely, as well as everyone in that subway car with him. But the incident has brought out the gross hypocrisy of those who claim to care about the indigent, with a detail to satisfy every political appetite.

Jordan is a Black man who was killed via chokehold by a white man, so let's bring out the term "lynching," because it'll always elicit racial animosity. If the racial angle doesn't work for you, you can always use Jordan's death to show the world how much of a do-gooder you are by exclaiming how the "unhoused" have a right to scream as much they want in an enclosed space. You get to wag your finger at the three men who refused to participate in the New York City tradition of keeping your head down, pretending these people don't exist, and praying that you don't become their target. And you get to accuse those who don't decry those men loudly enough of condoning murder.

Let's be real: These people don't care about the homeless. The upper-class city dwellers of New York treat homeless people like bears in the wild: Don't make eye contact with them and they won't bother you. When this strategy doesn't work, they gaslight you into accepting rampant squalor as not only normal but progress! And when you vocalize your guttural displeasure with watching people live in filth and desperation, the self-appointed homeless-whisperers will manipulate you into believing this is just what city life is supposed to look like.

They do everything to avoid addressing the issue and helping people recover a normal life. And in so doing, they entrench the problems—all while posturing as white knights.

New Yorkers are supposed to just accept that New York's Penn Station looks like a scene from "The Walking Dead." Wanting to do something other than accept the status quo of submitting an entire train station to drug addiction and suffering makes you intolerant, per the Left.

Progressive politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jamaal Bowman will fire off a tweet about "another Black man dying" or complain about rising rents, but it's just a precursor to drafting up a new round of donor emails, much like after the death of Tyre Nichols.

You know what they say: Never let a crisis go to waste.

Never mind that Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman could actually do something about homelessness in New York. It's actually their job!

But to do something, they would have to actually care. And you know they don't care because they don't act, and anyone who suggests they should is cast as a heartless bigot.

Everyone is debating when someone can or can't use a chokehold. But no one is willing to ask why Neely was on the streets in the first place. The Left's supposedly compassionate approach of letting the homeless just exist means not ever really contemplating what we've let this city become. We've been trained to not look at the homeless as people but as inconvenient rats whom we need to quickly scurry past. They didn't just one day wake up at the feet of your subway station's stairs, but no one cares how they ended up at the bottom—as long as their bottom doesn't interfere with their walking path.

If any of these protesting progressives cared about Jordan Neely, they would care to understand his declining mental health after his mother was murdered and stuffed into a suitcase by his stepfather when he was 18 years old. They would attempt to empathize with the trauma of having to take the stand against the man with whom he shared a home with and comprehend how his own stepfather took the most important woman in his life from him forever.

The man who went through that needed help. He needed an intervention from the state.

Instead of admitting this, they brandish videos of Neely dancing like Michael Jackson in subway stations, as if this activity is a sign of success and happiness, not desperation and struggle.

Would you tell your highly talented friend that dancing in the subway will get them far? Of course not—but it's suitable for Neely because they don't really care.

If you want to know if someone cares, they'll be honest about what is happening around them and want realistic change. They won't pretend that everything is fine. They won't work extraordinarily hard to convince you that depravity is normality.

But I don't think most people actually care about Jordan Neely's life. They just care about what his death can do for them.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of "Black Victim To Black Victor" and writer on Substack at adambcoleman.substack.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Jordan Neely's Criminal Record: Man Killed on Subway Had 42 Prior Arrests

Jordan Neely's Killing Is the Predictable Result of Dehumanizing and Despising the Homeless | Opinion

Who Killed Jordan Neely? Police Silence Over Former Marine Raises Questions

[watchinglikeafangirl]

Akk and Ayan live in their own heads basically

Throughout this 8th episode, we see these two caught up in their own thoughts, they go all lengths to protect those and let it rule over them.

Ayan is still trying to teach that school a lesson and is not letting go of the idea he could have stopped Dika in any way. We learn, Dika suffered from depression and tried to kill himself not only once. So by blaming Suppalo entirely, Ayan ignores Dika didn't kill himself because of the school. Teacher Chadok - or whoever else - might have been a trigger but Dika was probably already so lost in his depression he saw no other way no matter if the school pressured him or not (I'm sorry if this is not correct. I admit, I don't know anything about mental health diseases). By blaming the school, Ayan projects his own guilt onto something untouchable because it doesn't exist. He hates the system but in reality it's just an excuse of him not being able to let go. He fears losing Dika's memory but he won't, he will see that.

Akk's way of thinking is twisted and in itself inconsistant, I find it hard to understand him. At times, he opens up but then he seeks fighting again and he and Ayan are back to the way they were three episodes ago...all to protect the school which is an ideal he will never be able to reach. He pressures himself so much and thinks being loyal to the school is in contraire to a love life. It doesn't make sense to me but to him it does and it's so real for him, he closes himself off to everyone because deep down he's very sad about the consequences of his actions. But he is just like Ayan, he can't let go. It goes against what he believes even though nothing will happen if he lets his guard down for once.

Honesty is the most important noun to describe this show because the characters never lie. They are true to themselves and with each other. Especially Ayan is the personification of honesty. He addresses issues and matters directly but still manages to ensure everybody of his care for them. He listens, he cares, he saw when Thua wasn't feeling good mentally, he ensured Kan Thua is not the one he likes. He endured everything Akk did, endured the way Akk ignores matters that go against his priciples but he has enough of that since their nearly kiss.

"Why didn't you let me do it?" "Nothing happened there." "I think something happened, Akk."

He states his point very clearly. He wanted to kiss Akk but respects his choice of backing away. The difference is though, he is not accepting the action alone, he wants an explaination. If Akk is rejecting him or felt something as well. Ayan approaches him, touches Akk to reach him but Akk is in his spiraling mind and rejects the try. He is confused for sure. Admiting to Ayan would mean Akk would have to come clean about so many other things like him being the Suppalo curse. There's more coming along that promise than he is willing to give or bear. The thing is though, Ayan understands that. He knows Akk feels a burden and supports him by finding his answer.

"Are you going to deny everything? You have the right to follow your heart."

Using his parents - who are not anywhere close - as an excuse shows exactly, Akk is not shy he just wants to escape. I don't believe Akk didn't know he likes guys before. He never seems to have an identity crisis or inner conflict about that. He just doesn't want other people to judge him which differs him from Ayan a lot because Ayan doesn't care. Akk has a much harder time to shut his brain down whilst Ayan's brain only works overtime at night when he is uncontrolled. It's a big difference when it comes to how they spend their day and how they socialize. Akk worries too much about the world which keeps him from moving along with it. He always feels kind of left behind. By becoming the school's prefect, he finally caught up but Ayan reminds him, he in fact did not and that is something his ego doesn't take too well.

"You keep saying you're afraid people will see. What if they do? Can't two male friends spend time together?" "I don't know. But I'm not okay with it."

Again, Ayan is trying to reach Akk by just talking. But all that comes out are accusations that are true but keep on push the barrier between them. Ayan is frustrated and Akk annoyed with him, so the conversation goes nowhere until Ayan tries a different way and just hugs Akk without warning. Akk panics instantly because he likes it but I wouldn't call it gay panic, it's more the fear of admitting he fell for someone - and he fell hard.

"Step away or I will punch you!" "Look into my eyes, Akk. Do it." "I won't do it."

There we have it. Akk is powerless and it's scary. He doesn't know what Ayan thinks about him in this moment because he is provocing him but at the same time, Ayan makes Akk feel extremely unarmed.

"Now tell me how you feel. I will tell you my feelings and you will tell me yours."

At this point, I was melting. Ayan tries to meet Akk halfway. He knows Akk won't say the truth on his own initiative, so he takes the first step and admits he likes Akk a lot in the hopes of getting a confession in return - which he doesn't get any time soon and just pines for a few days.

By locking eyes, which are the gate to the soul, Akk is powerless. He doesn't deny like he did at the beach. The denial is long gone. But he doesn't confess either because his head won't allow him to have that. Nevertheless, he lets himself feel this moment of not thinking too much and sticks to not saying anything at all. He is close to tearing up because Ayan doesn't leave no matter how hard of a challenge Akk might be. He doesn't give Ayan what he wants, yet Ayan still stays, he still chases him, he keeps following him. This kind of unasked and unanswered affection touches Akk in places he doesn't know, so he can't word it. He is not used to it BUT AYAN KNOWS THAT AND IS WILLING TO WAIT. I can't with this man.

Like I said before, they have to oversome themselves first which is why we don't get a real first kiss in the sense of starting their dating era because they can't take care of themselves. If you can't grow on your own, you probably won't grow into the relationship. The show takes its time with the characters and doesn't rush things without creating painful slow burn. It's really interesting.

[stinkrascal]

While on the topic of relationships I wanted to ask something and I hope its not overstepping if so you can feel free to ignore this. Im a sufferer of chronic pain and I think there will be a point where I cannot work anymore. How did you go about expressing to your partner your unable to work and provide 50/50 and is he okay with it? I don’t know how to open up to my boyfriend because Im scared he will feel pressured or overwhelmed. Thank you for reading Jaiden!

hello anon! i was gonna answer this last night but i fell asleep aha, but you're not overstepping at all! i'll put this under a cut because it's pretty long

when we first discussed me not returning to the workforce, i basically just sat him down and told him my feelings about why i didn't think i can maintain a job. this was during covid, before the vaccines, so i still couldn't find work without significantly risking my health or his parents' health, since we still lived with his parents at the time, and his father is immunocompromised. i can't drive (i tried learning but it ended dangerously, that's all i'll say), so finding reliable transportation would be difficult. there's also the issue of our location, where at the time we lived in a rural town in bumfuck louisiana (we live in a city now, but still nothing compared to cities in bigger, more densely populated states) where job opportunities for me, someone with no education and no prior job experience, were sparse. and lastly of course i brought up my absolutely terrible mental health crisis, which he's witnessed firsthand, so he knew what i was talking about when i explained the deeper symptoms i'd been experiencing. i literally just made a list of all the cons and explained to him why i personally didn't find it viable, but still reassured him that i was open to finding work if we ever needed extra income, as well as reassuring him that i wouldn't be mad if he didn't agree with my reasoning, i simply wanted to put my thoughts out there so we could communicate our expectations. he is a very kind person though, so he understood exactly where i was coming from and we planned accordingly.

i also feel compelled to say that our circumstance is very unique in the modern day, as we had a lot of privileges a lot of people i know don't have. my partner attended college and received his bachelor's degree for free on account of his scholarships, so he has no debt, and neither do i. he works in a field where jobs are always in demand no matter where he goes, where the starting salary is very comfortable, and where growth is inevitable, and that combined with the fact that we live in louisiana which is a low cost of living state compared to many other states makes our decision a viable one. we also always had support from his parents, who have been nothing but kind and encouraging and have fully integrated me into their family. we're in a really privileged position to make this decision and i fully recognize that, and i understand that not everyone can make this decision because of various factors. so please don't take this as me trying to like "sell" this lifestyle or whatever, there's that weird trend online of the ~tradwife life~ and ~divine feminine~ and whatever, and i never want to seem like i'm shoveling that to my followers, it's just that the circumstances of our lives worked out in such a way where me not having to work became a reasonable option.

if you and your partner reasonably cannot live without two incomes, which is very common given how expensive it is to live, i would highly suggest discussing the possibility of you working less hours and contributing less financially, so maybe instead of working a full 40 hours a week you can take up part-time work, and pay for all the groceries/utilities while your partner handles the rent. instead of splitting 50/50, y'all can try something more like 40/60 or even 30/70 depending on your needs. try to emphasize the good this will do for your physical and mental wellbeing, and if it helps you like it helped me, i would make a structured list going through the pros and cons of your thought process! assuming you begin working less hours, i'd also recommend taking on more housework as a compromise, since you'll be working less. obviously you don't have to do all the housework since you're both still working and it's unfair to expect you to do all the housework while having a job and paying bills. honestly i don't work and my partner still helps with chores and he's responsible for his own laundry and cleaning his own office and stuff, so don't let your partner think you have to take on ALL the household labor while working part time. but still, try to level the division of labor by doing a few more chores, maybe doing the dishes more often, or cooking more often, or cleaning the shared spaces more often as a compromise, since you'll be working less than they are.

there's also a lot of remote work available nowadays! so if your chronic illness makes it difficult for you to work shift work, i would highly suggest finding something where you may work from home. one of my best friends works remote at a call center, where they provided the computer for him, he just had to find a way to pick it up himself, but otherwise he never has to leave his house for his job. there's plenty of jobs like that, so i would definitely try to find work like that if you not working isn't an option, but you want to find work that isn't so taxing on your body!!

sorry i rambled so much, apparently i had much more to say than i thought i did ahah. i really hope things work out for you anon, i'm sending you lots of love. take care of yourself <3