#This convo happened two years and 4 days ago!

[clever-and-unique-name]

Oh. Something in me is snarling and snapping. Okay.

Sorry, most of you aren't going to have a lot of context for this because it would take far too long to explain and these feelings are melting my brain. The short story is I made a discord server 4 years ago for friends with OSDDID and just left it yesterday.

I still have a couple friends there still. So I've been kept abreast of the conversations that happened in the wake of me leaving. Because nothing can ever be discussed openly, to the face of who it's about, right? That's a big part of why I left in the first place.

So, some things, to recap, mostly for my sanity. Sorry, this is going to get extremely long, because I want to say all I need to say.

Initially, I made the server to foster a small, intimate community of people with OSDDID. One of those people is someone who groomed me as a teenager.

Over time, some of the people there helped me realize I was in a toxic relationship with that person. When things finally came to a head and that person left the server (2? years ago?), I was...very not okay. But I had people there supporting me through it, and we got closer through the fallout. I am genuinely thankful for their support through it. It would have been exponentially more rough without them.

Time passed. I went from being unemployed to working full time. I had less time to spend socializing online, partially due to the strict divide between our work-parts and home-parts. I began to neglect my friendships, and though we tried--god, we really did try--we just couldn't figure out how to talk more than maybe once a week, when the right alignment of parts were out to be Home and Social in the way we felt we needed to be. And it just dwindled from there.

At some point around there, I started talking to B. We bonded over our shared love of art and character creation. She was welcoming to all of my parts, insisted on talking to anyone who was present. A novelty for me, to be individually recognized and not have to hide anyone. She got me on my stressful days and rough nights--vulnerable times I didn't feel I could share with people previously. We have talked every day for two years.

Resentment began to grow from the people I'd previously been close to. Obviously...it hurts to be told that someone doesn't have space for you like they used to, while they're clearly engaging in a close and intimate friendship with another person. I tried to reassure that I still cared about people, and tried to reach out when I could, but it kept cropping up with different people in the server: you don't care about me anymore, we're clearly not friends anymore, well you can make room for her so why not me. It was almost like clockwork for a bit, once a month someone new would step forward and I would try to put out the fire again.

(The thing is, every single one of these people expressed that they completely understood and sympathized/empathized with my limited social ability. They insisted that our level of contact was fine, until it apparently wasn't and they confronted me about it. So as I was having a conversation with one person with them saying "No it's totally okay that we don't talk much, I still love and care about you sooo much!", I was fielding a convo from a different person who had said the same thing to me weeks/months ago, talking about how I had actually been horribly neglecting them and that we weren't friends anymore.)

Then around a year ago, that person I mentioned, the one I knew as a teenager, created a new account to bypass my blocks, and reached out to me again. Trying to "apologize" for something, the subject of which had me questioning if someone I knew was tipping them off to things I was processing semi-privately. Right at the crescendo of all the other social issues.

Lit match. Powder keg. Boom.

I withdrew hard. From absolutely everyone but B. I didn't know who to trust with their reassurances of "we're totally okay, love and care about you!" I didn't know who harbored resentments. I knew, from past experiences, that there were people in the server prone to gossiping with each other, and I had stepped on their toes by pulling away from them. I mean. That's how we had bonded in the first place--by us privately talking about the person I knew, among others. You know what they say about bad karma.

I all but disappeared from the server, owner in name only. I fought the urge to delete it, and instead promoted others to mods so I could further remove myself. Every time I attempted to talk there, I was overwhelmed with anxiety to the point of physical illness. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head, that I was just having attachment trauma, that I could sit with my discomfort and everything would be fine. More and more, it felt like the only person I could truly trust to be emotionally attached to was B. Out of 20-odd people, 6 had heel-turned and told me I hurt them with my distance. I was just waiting on the rest to do the same. And waiting. And waiting.

And suddenly, a couple days ago, another server "friend" (I hesitate to call anyone that because it was impressed upon me, multiple times, that I was not being a friend to people) blocked me. I found out when I went to send them a meme and discovered I couldn't. I thought I was used to it, I thought I couldn't be blindsided anymore. But it had been a while since it had happened; I thought everyone who had a limit with me had reached it.

I checked our convo history. Yet again: us talking about how much we understood each other, how we're both prone to isolation, how we still cared about each other.

Upset, I told B, who was also friends with them. Who immediately found out she was blocked too.

So we both decided to leave the server. We announced it yesterday afternoon, and hung around to talk a bit, wanting to leave as little confusion as possible without outright calling anyone out. We knew there were people there who didn't know about any of this going on (I'm so sorry for all the drama that's been dumped on your feet, guys.) We also knew there were people there who had been talking about all this behind our backs--we just didn't know how many. Again, the suspicion and speculation and "when will it happen again" was really what was eating us alive.

We left amicably. And then as soon as the doors were closed, of course people stepped forward to talk about how I had just stopped caring about them to focus on B instead. As if it was that simple. As if they had stopped at any point to talk to me about it (and the ones who did vehemently denied that it was an issue of comparing our friendship to mine with B.)

Caring was never the issue. I cared about people until they blocked me, or outright told me I wasn't a friend to them anymore. I kept caring about people, against my fears that it would end like that again, because it's just my nature to care. But caring in silence doesn't feel like much of anything, does it? I know that. I'm sorry for the way I've made people feel from that. But connection is a two-way street--where the hell were you? B has talked to me every day for two years. When someone talks, I respond. If you wanted me there, where the hell were you?

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA Episode 8 - Legends (3/4)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

<previous/next>

Aang hearing all the past Avatar's advice to him before he makes his decision makes him merging with the ocean spirit make more sense and temporarily closes his character arc. Here's where I think people are riding on nostalgia and not seeing what this decision means to the live-action Aang. In the animated series, his decision to merge with the ocean spirit comes out of nowhere, he just somehow knows that he can merge and it'll unleash a 'super crazy powerful spirit attack' on the Fire Nation. There's not much more thought in it other than 'all hope is lost, we need a deus ex machina' and I just so happen to be able to do that. In the live action, Aang is following the advice of the past Avatars: Kuruk's indication that the elemental spirit's powers are greater than the Avatars, he's putting the needs of the world above his own, he's willing to give up his own future to secure one for everyone else, he's trying to do it alone (with the ocean spirit, but still), BUT he's still 'running away' - he's STILL having a power greater than himself do the heavy lifting.

Like we learn in the Guru episode in season 2, in order to take the Avatar state, you have to surrender everything, all your attachments, and become a conduit for pure energy - we see Aang do this as he takes a deep breath and his tattoos glow and his eyes light up, the echoing voices of all the past Avatars in his voice. He's surrendering, but as we'll (no doubt) see in future seasons, it wasn't a 'balanced' surrender. It was a surrender of despair and resignation of his fate. Through the next two seasons, I'm sure we'll see Aang working on how to take that state in a healthier manner.

I love Aang's speech here - about how he should have been lost 100 years ago, this isn't his time or his world - again calling back to how he couldn't save the air nomads, but he CAN save the people now, and he's willing to give up himself to do it. Because the power of the elemental spirits is far greater than even the power of the Avatar. So he gives himself to the ocean spirit to become wrath itself and save the world. I like that Aang's struggles revealed in The Storm episode of the animated series lingered until this episode - Aang struggling with not 'belonging' in this time is a huge aspect of who he is and I like that the live-action gave it room to breathe.

Iroh's relief at seeing Zuko alive is beautiful, meanwhile Zuko is staring slack-jawed at the giant fish screaming at the sky. It's pitch perfect that Zuko is ready to fight Koi-zilla for the Avatar - he's really that crazy and desperate to capture Aang! I think it was a great choice to merge parts of the first Agni Kai with Zhao in the animated series to this point in the live-action. Zhao and Zuko do face off during the siege, but Zhao in the live-action was always more of a cerebral antagonist to Zuko - they focused on that aspect of him rather than the physically imposing antagonist he was in the animated series.

This is Zuko taking out all his frustrations about his life out on a singular target - he's just 'lost' the Avatar for good, Zhao destroyed what little hope there was to reconnect with his father (as it looks like Zhao told Ozai Zuko is a traitor), and he tried to kill Zuko. Zuko thinks if he can just beat Zhao in a fight, maybe he'll get some manner of relief. Unfortunately, Zhao being the cerebral antagonist he is, physical defeat doesn't win the day - Zhao still beats Zuko by throwing the truth of his family dynamic in his face.

They moved the monologue Zuko gives to Aang about his relationship with Azula (while Aang is unconscious) to the fight with Zuko and Zhao. While I like both, I think having that convo as the 'send off' to Zuko in season 1 was a good choice. It makes Azula's presence felt in the narrative the entire time (because she was behind Zhao's successes) instead of her just being a random after thought that doesn't affect the story until season 2. Giving Zhao the speech to Zuko that destroys Zuko mentally was a great choice. Zuko has been running from the truth of his family for so long and Zhao knows it'll destabilize him. He lays it all out in the open - how Ozai wanted to get rid of Zuko and would never take him back, how he was just motivation for Azula, and how the favorite child had already been chosen: and it wasn't him. Everything Zuko had been working toward this season, burned to ash, revealed that it was never going to happen, all that hard work had been worthless.

In the animated series, Zuko just ends the season having lost the Avatar once again. In the live-action, he's destroyed not due to the Avatar, but because of his own family and their games. He's mentally broken far more than he was in the animated series and I think that will put him in a much more interesting position at the start of season 2. When he says 'I'm tired' at the end of the episode, it's not because it was just one more bid to capture the Avatar that failed, it's because his entire world has been shaken.

The Ocean spirit confronting the Fire Nation ships was haunting. No music, just the sound of panicked shouting, the low moaning of the spirit, and the horns of the ships. It's such an eerie scene and even though they're the enemies, you feel the terror now taking the Fire Nation as they face down the wrath of an elemental spirit. Yue explaining how the ocean spirit will wander the world forever looking for its partner but never find it gives me chills every time. It's such a tragic concept and the way they juxtapose that with Katara calling out for Aang, being there to pull him back, is really beautiful.

I love that they give Yue the agency in her choice to give her life back to the moon spirit. In the animated show, Iroh notices her eyes and suggests she can do something, in the live-action, Sokka is looking for ideas and she realizes it herself and chooses to give up her life for the spirit. It's such a great touch that she can still waterbend - because she has the moon in her. Her speech about how it's worth it to live, even for a night, is something that belies all the advice of the past Avatars - they argue to hold yourself apart, to sacrifice any wants of your own for the sake of the world. But Yue argues that it's worth the risk of losing things you love - getting the chance to feel that love is worth the pain of losing it.

Katara talking Aang down out of the Avatar state and control of the ocean spirit was so well placed here. Like I've said before, I think having Gyatzo's memory calm Aang in the first episode rather than Katara like happens in the animated series and moving Katara's speech to the end of the season was a fantastic choice. It bookends the lesson of the season for Aang - letting go of the past so he can start moving on into the future. Katara's pleas that 'we're a family now' to Aang in episode 3 of the animated series feels hollow - we accepted that line because it's a kid's show and they wanted to hammer home to us that these three kids are going to be your protagonists going forward and they'll be a family. But until that point, they'd known each other for a few days - they weren't ACTUALLY a family. Here, at the end of the season, that claim of family has been earned. They've built the foundation of a real connection that's been battle tested and tried many times. It's TRUE that they're a family now, that this IS his world and he's more than 'just the Avatar'.

The ocean spirit turning to look at the restored moon is such a beautiful shot - honestly this whole thing is shot just so beautifully.

"The world needs you. I need you." That statement is soo true and I love how it was shown through the season before being told to us.

Aang is exactly the person the world needs now - someone who knows the suffering and loss of this world, but also knew a better one where people were kind and helpful and there was no strict divide between the nations. His childlike belief in the goodness of humanity is what's needed in an Avatar for this time, not a hardened person who's never seen diplomacy work. If fate was at play when Aang got frozen in that ice, then it knew what it was doing: Aang is the only Avatar soul that would be able to save the world now.

[copiousloverofcopia]

This is one of my favorite asks because it hits pretty close to home.

How would the Papas (or Ghouls) react to finding an abandoned baby on the steps of the Abbey?

For a Bonus: How would your OC react?

(In the universe of my OC you say.....)

When a baby shows up unexpectedly at the Abbey, the whole place is buzzing with the news. Any time a child is born there is such happiness and cheer within the Ministry. Now having one show up mysteriously at the doorstep adds to the excitement.

After all something like this hasn't happened since Copia was found and brought into the church. 😉

Primo is excited and ready to add one more to the brood, in his full on grandpa mode, the second a little one coos away in his arms.

Terzo is also very happy too. He's glad whomever gave the child up did so safely, as the alternatives can be far too grave to even comprehend. Him and his Prime Mover offer to take shifts to watch the little one until we can find them a suitable couple in the Abbey to become their parents.

Copia is very much like Terzo. He volunteers to be on rocking duty anytime the baby cries. He and his Prime Mover spend time ooing and ahhing over the baby any chance they get.

Now... Secondo and I well. As soon as we find out, I immediately go to check on them. I work in the infirmary after all and of course it's my job as head nurse to make sure the baby is ok. I am the one who gets to spend the most time with them. Feeding, rocking, cuddling--- it isn't long until it's the go to place to find me. When Secondo comes to visit us, only days after the baby has arrived, this convo would take place:

"Tesoro?" He'd ask finding me once again in the nursery.

"Oh shoot Papa, I know I'm late for dinner but I'd had to check on them one last time before it's Terzo's turn" I would reply, embarrassed that I had lost track of time so easily. I have 4 kiddos and a very hungry Papa waiting on me to come upstairs.

"Ren, you do realize I know what your thinking and we already have 4 children...one of which you just gave birth to a year ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Amore... I know you want another baby... You can't hide that look from me." Secondo says, completely calling me out. I feel sad. I do want to take the little one in. I already love them so much my heart aches and what's one more right?

"I just...I just..."

"Love them?" He asks me, and of course I nodded. I haven't been able to hide anything from him for our entire relationship. I'm teary eyed and gently swaying the baby in my arms. Smelling that sweet smell, only babies have that makes my heart ache. Secondo comes to stand beside me, wrapping his arm around me and kissing the crown of my head.

"I do love them already." I sniffled.

"Tesoro..." He smiles, as I look up at him with the wiggling buddle in my arms.

"Yes love?"

"Let's go bring them to meet their new brothers and sisters. It's dinnertime and the whole family should be there." Secondo says, kissing me once more. My heart bursts in my chest and I kiss him back so hard I think both our faces go numb. The two of us then walking out together, with our new baby back to the Papal suites, hand in hand.

[jardaddy-a]

JARDINAE FOLLOWING LOVE LETTERS FOR NEW YEAR ! This post is dedicated to my beloved mutuals , consider this as a belated Christmas present , New Years Greeting &&. a thank you . This will be under a read more because of chibi-esque art &&. long messages for people , miss Reine Surrealis talks a lot , ok ? ok ! To my newer mutuals , hopefully we can interact more next year , thank you so much for supporting this original existencial mess !

Thank you all for supporting and writing with my OC Universe / World . I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a better 2023 !

@serpentsexile / @bellusnymphine - Angel Dior Demiurge my belovedest ! Bestie , I can't believe that we've been friends for 4 ? 5 ? years ! Tumblr is where the three of us met those many years ago and we've seen each other's lore and characters . It feels like yesterday when Envy was brunette, to blonde to sable-haired , to the white haired destruction daddy we know and love today WWWW , you also watched Jardin / Natura / Existencia develop over the years and we hit each other with our angst . You're my literature buddy , YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE . WE'RE TIRED OF ROMANCE WE WANT DARK FANTASY AND MURDER /JJJ , we always plot unhinged threads and exploration and i really love studying in-depth characterization with you . You also influenced me in many ways in writing and in spiritual world-wise . i'm super blessed to have met you and welcomed you into my life . I deem you and Rose as my platonic soulmates / siblings . We better make that cottagecore dream happen / SRS . Anyways , I know life is terrible but just know that I'm always here for you and when you need me , I'LL NEVER JUDAS YOU BBGIRL, WE RIDE AND DIE AND GET HATED BY GROWN MEN / CHRONICALLY ONLINE TWITTER KIDS FOR BREATHING . Anyways , Invidia / Envy is best destruction God and Hydrangea is best bimbo princess , my reprisal OTP . I'm still flabberghasted over how long its been , i still remember our first interaction being two of our lead characters : Invidia and Marigold , how far these two have gone . I am excited for your creations and what you will make in the future . I want my signed limited edition copy of Reprisal once its out , ok ? Anyways , I love you bestie , Happy New Year .

@lexpape / @laxmaisonxdieu - ROSE MY BBGIRL MY BASIL , pleASE COME ONLINE MORE / J . You're always busy and you always get fucked over by Alistair literally . I love spending random times with you when you stay online and rambling about random shit and we literally kinassigned ourselves as Sunny and Basil , You gon help me hide dead bodies fr <3 BYEEEE . Either that or the three of us just laugh at cringy shit together , it's our favorite pasttime <3 . It's endearing how bullyable you and your characters are <3 /JJJJ . But you're so funny and for what , but I admire how sweet and hardworking you are . Invite me to your wedding , bestie . Whose ? We'll find out ! LMAO . You inspire me a lot and I miss your presence and your furries , bc of you i'll force myself to tolerate furries :(((( , come back to us girliepoppp BYEEEE . Let you know that I'm always here for you and I miss your ocs and characters , when are you gonna update your lore , Angel and I are always waiting for food . One day when we finally crash at the same place , cook for us , ok ? I always wanted to try your cooking . I was supposed to draw Alistair too but fuck him , this isn't about him . I love you bestie , Happy New Year !

@sangdelune / @theircurse - STELLA !!!! ILY STELLA !!! I still remember several months ago I came across your promo and said ' oh worm , someone who write children very well ! ' and hit that follow button so hard . BUT STELLAAAA we've known each other for some months and we only really started to dm a lot when we finally exchanged discords , but our convos have been so fun and ofc bc canon is so terrible to Misha and Yumeno , I have decided that Jardin / Natura canonically adopts both of them &lt;;3 I care for you a lot and Alice and you two have been the sweetest and funniest companions ever . I hope to write with you more next year bc we did promise these two will interact with everyone in Jardin LMAO . But I super love your interpretations of these two kids , they feel like your characters now and I'm excited for your upcoming oc multi . ONE OF US ONE OF US !!! Anyways ILY and Happy New Year !

@embxllmer / @kunsttgalleriie - ALICE ALICE ALICE ILYSMMM !!!! We've been friends for months now , My fellow IDV Player and Joscarl Enjoyer . We both share the love for Joseph and Aesop and getting annoyed with toxic players <3 . Thank you so much for listening to my long ass Existencia Lore and I love your Historia Gallery lore so much and your characters , I cradle them in my hands . Tysm for keeping me company even on times you're super busy with work and school . We talk about Joscarl / Naibemma IDV in general , we ramble , rant , and share lore . I feel super connected with you and I feel super blessed I managed to meet and Stella this year , you two have been like gifts on my tumblr return . Thank you so much for being my friend and I want to spend more years of friendship with the two of you !!! Wait for me guys , i'll be kicking in Germany one day bc of the health care !!!

@imarahuyo - SOPHIEEE , you're one of my biggest insps and fellow peenoise . I admire you so much when I see you on dash , and i cackle during our discord chats . your writing is so artistically poetic and i love your interpretations of canons esp miss sen , i love miss sen sm , i hope the gacha gods finally have mercy on you and you get her in your next 20 pulls ! your writing & metas are so beautifully articulate so i can't wait to see you more on my dash . ( your commission is still halfway done so take this offering for now while you wait <3 ) . i hope to write with you more next year !

@crxstallium - SERIN ! ! ! Another big inspiration of mine , I love miss Crystal so much you have no idea . I love the silly moments we have on discord , and Crys really kicked in the gates of Jardin and bothered this supernatural found family and became Mimosa's sugar baby/JJJJJ . One of the best female ocs ever , I love your writing style your prose is so well-thought out and constructed that it takes me an hour to reply to your threads because of the :sparkles: QUALITY :sparkles: I hope to interact with you more & your other ocs and canons next year &lt;;3

@vibraea - CLEFGA ! Gemiya is another favorite female oc of mine , I love how you made her so flexible in any verse and scenario and she's always a delight to see in my dash and I love that she's just welcomed by Jardin and meshes well with a lot of my characters . I love all of our threads and I'm excited to write more with you in the future .

@terraeferae - KENNIE MY LOVES !!! Like Angel and Rose we've been mutuals for a long time now BYEEEE . I am loving the new and improved Wildlands ( pls post more metas on your blog i'm especially waiting for those ) , I drew Maiko beloved ( I owe her i recall when I got sick I'm so sorry it took so long <3 I'll draw better fanart one day . ) Hope to write with you more soon !!!

@fxtelism - We've been mutuals for a long while , you're a comfort to see on dash ! ( i dont think you remember me from my very old blogs , and i hope you don't ! LMAO we erase that cursed memory . ) I appreciate Alice's friendship with Venus sm , I hope to write with you more soon and have more of our ocs interact !

@aesthetiquement - Hi bes , you think you've seen the last of me ? Hello my labs and fellow peenoise too HAHAHA Thanks for being my textmate minsan bes . I love Meisha sm and our rambles and shitposts on dms , hope to interact with you more next year ! Bless Miss Meisha for tolerating the slowburn Knight DnD addict and my theiving British Dressmaker .

ADDITIONAL MESSAGE : @dcmure , @khaloymes , @phantasmaw , @londonfallen , @wonderloste , @spiritwhispers , @nulltune , @purewhiteprophet / @acandlelitdeath , @aceparagon , @sheyearns , @sapphiresands , @gainsflora , @earthssprout + everyone of my mutuals !!!

If you're reading this , I just want to let you know that you're one of my biggest writing inspirations and your presence on dash makes me incredibly happy ! I hope when the days get hard and you doubt yourself . Please be reminded that there are people who support you and your work and that your presence will always make a single person happy ! Keep doing what you enjoy doing ! I hope I have the pleasure to see you more next year and we get more interactions . I wish you all a happy new year and I hope 2023 is kinder to all of us !!!

[schlagerkopf]

Ableben

On paper, I’m supposed to despise Naftaly Bennett, very much so. But I don’t. I think he’s a solid dude. His external look gives me some kind of chill vibe. He’s got that Cheshire cat look. He’s the type of person I want to dance with, soaked in sweat, in a wedding or a big event.

Maybe it’s not Bennett I should despise, but his manager – the genius who came up with the elections slogan “Something new is happening”. This insanely transmittable slogan that showed on buses and other random places I’ve been and went these last few months has kept reminding me that terrible moment in which I was given the bad news that “something new is happening”.

It happened today exactly one year ago. Friday night, 15th of June 2012. I was 26, two months and four days. Lying on my bed, my old N95 phone from 2007 was stuck to my left ear. My airconditioner was making noises of working, hardly making anything cool – I wasn’t cool in any way, not the situation, not me. On the Friday night news in the living room, my parents were watching the panelists laughing about something, while I was slowly dying in my sinking bed. The room was lit only by the hour on the digital counter on the TV cable transmitter – eternalizing the hour in which love died. I won’t be 100% true if I will argue it is exactly what she said – “something new is happening”. Maybe it was “something is beginning”. Her stream of words continued without pause, her voice sounding as if she is a little unsure, trying not to hurt – but knowing how much it hurts, how much pain it brings about.

“He’s not sleazy, he’s really sweet”.

And then started my elegant pleas for another chance:

“I love you”

“Give love another chance”

“Please”

And the likes.

That also had a pretty built-in response, that was pretty much based around “too little, too late”.

“It’s over Amir, you do not hear how many ‘No’s’ I’m giving you in this conversation”.

Then: “Good luck in the exams”.

That’s it. Alles ist vorbei. I’m left alone, shocked, crying like a baby with my old ass phone, while everyone’s already got smartphone, and she’s probably going to kiss him and do other deeds that I will never ever do again with her in this dimension.

She tapped that long red thingy on iPhones to end the convo. For me it was a simple “END” button. And when they were hit, that’s it, it was over. One year and ten months. 18 months overall. 547 days. And that’s it. A little button is pressed, a little dance of a finger, and we turn from actuality to history. A notable part of two people’s lives has ended. One, as it seems, only wants to forget it. The other, good god, a 26 year old and 4 months man, crying like a baby.

  Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an Israeli public intellectual who said interesting things. On one show in 1994 he was asked if he missed old Israeli politicians, from the age of those who built up and founded Israel. He answered with his special accent that hints he was not born in Israel himself, that he does not understand the question.

“I do not understand the question. What does it mean to miss a person?”

The person who asked the question tried to sharpen, resulting in Leibowitz simply saying:

“All of these – they were right for their hour. And we are dealing in this hour”.

I watched this some sad evening and it lifted me up immensely. Here’s a role model. What is it to miss someone, at all? What good does it do? It helps nothing, it’s not constructive. What was once, was. What matters is now.

If Leibowitz indeed didn’t miss anyone, he was a superhero of sorts, and the strongest one. Superman can fly, yeah, sure, but doesn’t he miss someone? And Spiderman? Doesn’t Batman miss his parents?

Missing is my kryptonite. It makes me weak. Especially when I am in my bed, full of memories and so empty, and especially if it happens in a late-night hour.

Missing is a sort of alchemy. It’s not something real, existing, it’s not something you can touch or smell. Mine is the worst kind of longing. It’s for something that was but isn’t. I believe the Portuguese call it “Saudade”. You can miss your friend but you know you’ll see them next week. And you can miss your lover, knowing you’ll never see them again.

  It’s hard to write about breakups. I wrote her a letter two weeks after the breakup. It was six pages and I’ve included some chocolate and a flower. It didn’t help. Because writing about breakups is futile, in a sense.

It’s hard to write about breakups because seemingly there isn’t much to say. I mean, yeah, ok, there is, but what will I say? It’s a paradox seeing that I’m in the midst of writing a long piece about breakups. It also doesn’t go with the fact that if it weren’t for breakups, most music we would be listening to nowadays would be instrumental. So, let’s agree that there’s a lot to say about breakups but at the same time there isn’t – life is complicated like that. I can say that I am hurting so much but how will I transmit this pain to you, the reader? The longing, the pain, the regret, the heaviness on the chest at 2am, when you wake up from a dream where she still loves you, and you realize reality is here and she doesn’t anymore. She used to, a lot, but no anymore. No more “good morning” text messages.

And what can you say anyway? “Time heals”. “Many fish in the sea”. I spent all of summer 2012 depressed in my room, what a waste. Sleeping on the pillow she bought me for my 25th birthday. A 90s boombox she once found and gifted me on a random morning where we said goodbye with a kiss, five months before she dropped the bomb on me – if to quote the Gap Band.

On the morning of June 5th 2012, after she spent the night over at my place, we just kissed and she got into her car and left to work. It was just another goodbye. How was I to know it was the last one ever? That it’s the last time I ever see her? The last time I see her in a world where she loves me? In a world, in a galaxy, where she has love for me in her loving heart? I thought about this moment for so long, about our last kiss – not knowing it is our last kiss. Maybe she knew already? Just a kiss and she left. I was clueless. Like I always am.

  In university, I studied about Martin Heidegger the philosopher. The professor talked about a word in German named “Ableben”. Like many others in Deutsch, it has many meanings, one of them is “Came to an end.

I see the word as the following: “An idea that came to an end. An idea that died. The idea that was between her and me, love, has come to an end. Suddenly, one side decided it is over, and the other side must deal with that.

And that’s something I learnt about breakups in the sad year that I had since she said the words that ended up meaning “it’s over”. Breakups are TOTAL. That is why they are so hard to accept, why it’s so hard to let go. If you don’t accept the breakup you’re not in tune with reality. But reality doesn’t ask you. It’s a madness, like The Stranglers called it in their song “La Folie”. It’s crazy to think and cry about someone all the time, dedicating all that brain power to someone who, maybe on a good day, dedicates you two neurons. Why don’t you do something better with your time? It’s like dancing on a grave.

And here is the realness of “Ableben”. It’s not like somebody died. It’s an idea that died. It’s so abstract. No more good morning and night texts. No more emails that come in the right time in the middle of the day, filling you with love and hope. No more I love you’s, no more kisses and hugs. This all came to its bitter sad end at a certain moment.

I thought a lot about the moment in which love dies. I understand it’s a long process, stopping to love someone who you love dearly. You don’t stop loving in one second. But it feels like it’s some epiphany, some inner switch that you go to sleep loving Amir and you wake up not loving Amir anymore. And it’s so hard for me to fathom how you can stop loving someone you’ve shared so much with, that you were such close friends and lovers.

And it’s crazier that I lover her still, as I write these lines. Of course, not as strongly as I loved her last year, but I still love her. I’ll always love her, even if I don’t know who she is right now, she’s changed. I can feel closer to the woman in the grocery shop than her. And even though I am mad at her and understand that breakups exist and it’s part of life. I still can’t understand how you do that to someone who you call a friend. I stopped caring about the singing of the birds in the morning, and that’s the greatest loss.

And the memories, my my, the memories. They keep playing. It’s like self-torture. Some streets I won’t dare walk through in Tel-Aviv. The bench from August 2010 here we kissed on our first date. When something new was happening and nothing was ending. I still miss her and who she is and what we were. Our long hugs every time we met. And I regret my actions that led her to another’s arms. And still I bite my lips whenever I pass by that garden where we shared our first kiss and look at the empty bench and grass and try to understand that feeling that is so amorphic, knowing that something is dead and that something else, new, has begun, and that new thing is the most beautiful thing in the world but you’re not part of it, you’re dead in the water; for me the new thing died, and I continue staring at the “Game Over” screen.

[mysticonsheadcanons]

This is a gacha character I made based off of the principal from detentionaire, she's a reference and I name all my characters after what I reference them from, so her names Barrage (because the school principal on detentionaires called Principal Barrage), here's afew things about her:

#1: Barrage is 33 years old and works as a teacher/principal at her old highschool

#2: Due to her being in the army for 5 years she's been a no-nonsense person (atleast, 99% of the time)

#3: She has no kids but would have liked 1 or two, maybe even 3 at most

#4: She's half robot and doesn't like talking about why, she also doesn't like it when people ask her about her parents, she always just replies with "They're sleeping..." and without further convo, she leaves the area

#5: her Favorite activity besides exercising is watching action movies, more specifically about war

#6: She always acts like she doesn't have any emotions infront of her colleagues due to not wanting anyone to see her sad

#7: Barrage has the same nightmare most nights about a particular event that happened to her parents when she was only 3 years old

#8: Barrages favorite color's are black and purple

#9: she's the oldest one out of all of her co-workers

#10: Barrage is a fairly independent person, she also does not like to be disturbed when she's exercising or doing work

#11: She acts like a child some days but it's linked to a certain day of her past (she acts like a child sometimes because to her she feels like part of her mind never grew up, hence, why sometimes she might be seen playing like a kid does with toys)

#12: When Barrage has a hard time falling asleep she either takes a midnight walk, or goes to her attic room window and stares at the moon until she feels tired (she sometimes makes a wish that her parents were beside her too)

#13: her favorite subject in school was actually gym, as she believed it would help her become a soldier in the future

#14: She doesn't express her emotions to anyone, like, at all, she only does when she's alone because she thinks that by expressing herself, she's letting her guard down

#15: whenever A.Nigma high (still working on a better highschool name with nigma in it and one that's not the exact same as the detentionaire school) takes a field trip, Barrage likes to sit at the very back with her headphones in because she hates it when people always wonder what she's listening to, and because the bus is always slightly too loud for her on field trips

#16: Barrages favorite song to listen to is an old lullaby her parents sang to her all the time 30 years ago (the year her life starts in is 2185, her year of birth)

#17: She doesn't want anyone knowing her last name for "classified" reasons

#18: She has assassin quickness, and super-senses, for example, if she was sleeping, and it was so silent you couldn't hear a thing, and she was in the attic, she'd hear the lightest sounds coming from the basement

#19: her favorite place to visit is the lake her parents always took her to when she was little, she loves swimming in the lake even though it reminds her of her past

#20: even though she's never told anybody, she actually thinks of her colleagues as friends

#21: Barrage doesn't like total silence, but she lives alone, so she always puts on a song at random to drown out the silence because it always drives her insane

Proxima, Quasarla, and Naivara, heads up about the quiz I'm going to try and give you each a couple of the same questions! Also, the next thing I send in will be the quiz! Also, sorry there's so many facts, it's just that I had alot of fun writing this!

PROXIMA: I look forward to it.

QUASARLA: Alright.

NAIVARA: That's a lot of stuff to remember (Note: I'm fine with that amount of information. I just imagine her as someone who likes learning on her own terms, so she wouldn't be too thrilled at memorizing all this.)

[jodilin65]

THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1992 I’m watching Candid Camera now waiting for my talk show to come on.

Well, today was another good day but it sure was hot and frustrating waiting forever at welfare to fill out a stupid form, get a date, and a letter for the food bank. They gave me a lot of really good stuff at the food bank. More than the churches.

I think I’ll have to go for an appointment on the 3rd. Mark said he’ll take me. I gave him 4 more loaves of bread. Now he’s got bread for months and I have 4 or 5 loaves in my freezer. I sure hope they mail me my food stamps before I run out of the food I got today.

I have other things to write about like Jake, a friend of Fay’s who’s bi. Andy liked his body and his hair but says his face looks devilish. They talked for a long time but there were things about him Andy didn’t like. Otherwise, Andy said he was very interesting and very open. Jake is only into casuals and Andy wants more than that, so it’s all up in the air pretty much. If they can be friends, that’s cool.

There was an awesome storm with neat lightning, thunder, rain and gusty winds at 45 MPH. Mark and I were enjoying it outside our doors as I was sprinkling my unwanted pinto beans in the gravel.

Two missionaries came here looking for Robert upstairs. He was there as I could hear him walking around up there. He didn’t answer his door, though, and Mark and I were busting the missionaries, saying he was an escaped convict profiled on Unsolved Mysteries. Mark told them to put a bulletproof vest on as he’s a psycho man who was in the war.

Around 9:30, I went over to Andy’s and I tried calling Fran but there was no answer. We called Nervous instead and I taped him. We were on the phone till almost 11:00 and I billed the call to Bob.

Jake was telling me I have beautiful legs and a beautiful body.

Ha! My legs are my worse feature, besides my teeth.

He also says in time he could find me a feminine woman for sex here and there. Oh, sure. I don’t want any more good-looking people in my life. I don’t want anything to do with Rosemarie either.

On this talk show, a comment which I’ve heard before got me cracking up. This applies to gays and straights and people looking for one-nighters as well as commitment. That when you’re not looking is when you meet someone. Really? Well, I haven’t been looking and I’ve had only two one-nighters since early 1991 after me and Brenda split up. This is why when it comes to sex, relationships, and careers, I don’t think a negative or positive attitude is relevant. If you think positive about something or someone you really want and bust your ass trying for it, it’s not gonna happen if it ain’t meant to be. We do not make our rules to a degree. God or whatever’s up there does. There are only certain things we can control. We can dump or keep our friends. But who we can and cannot get as friends is beyond our control. We can choose what we eat, what we wear and things like that.

Well, now I choose to go listen to music. After that, I choose to be in bed with an attractive woman and be a professional singer, but God won’t allow that. Maybe in the year 2000. The singer, in the next life.

I began editing Nerv from tonight’s convo. It’s pretty funny as usual.

Later…

I fell asleep around 4 AM last night, and boy was I pissed at 7:45 when I awoke to loud knocking. I thought it was my door, but it was Mark’s friend Lance knocking on his door. I was over there getting Andy more pot and I told him I was royally pissed at being woken up, that I ain’t up that early, so knock softly or on Mark’s bedroom window. I think for the rest of my life I’ll be woken up 1-3 times a week. It just isn’t destined for me to wake up when I want to. Well, it beats being woken up 24/7 in the old project. And never hearing yourself think till midnight-7 AM.

Where is UPS with my packages? Where are my pictures Ma’s supposed to send back? She better send back all 12, too. When are Tammy and Lisa gonna write? She told me a few weeks ago she had letters coming out, so what’s taking so long?

I can’t wait for the rest of my picture collection (of celebs). It’s been two months and a week.

Later…

I just went out to mail a letter to Jayke. The one we worked with at Denny’s in Chicopee. I wrote this letter for Andy when I first got here before I got my own place. He lost her address and he waited for her to write to him and she just did.

On my way back from the mailbox, I saw Albert, Donna’s husband and he said hi. I said hi too, and kept on walking.

I’m gonna be eating dinner at Andy’s at 7 PM. He bought chicken and I supplied the potatoes. He’s very obnoxious to eat with, though. He makes these gross slurping and smacking sounds and it’s pretty impossible to not hear it, even from across the room.

He gave me another tape he no longer wants, so I’ll use it as a blank. I just threw in a CD of Linda’s.

Later…

I’m copying some tapes for Andy and there’s not really much more to say. Only that Fay and I may bring Andy to the airport. Then, on the 3rd when I’ve got to pay SRP and go to welfare and to the store, she may take me.

I went into the Jacuzzi a little while ago. Rick came out on his patio and we said hello to each other. I went up and knocked on their door and no one answered. I said to myself, OK, I’m outa here. They’ve never made any attempts to see me so that pretty much tells me something.

I don’t know what could be going on in their lives and yes, they did seem friendly before, but now I feel like something’s up. Like something’s telling me to just stay away and that it wouldn’t be a wise idea to waste my time with these people.

Andy and Fay are enough for now. Both Andy and I really like Fay. I’ve simply taken so much shit from people and especially the really good-looking people. Rosemarie is a perfect 10 and I swore I’d just hang out with average or below-average-looking people. Also, low-income people.

Well, I just lit my cigarette off the stove. My lighter conked out and I ran out of matches. Nervous quit smoking 8 weeks ago. That’s pretty good but he’s miserable on a daily basis with urges to smoke. Poor guy. But he was getting the beginnings of emphysema.

Later…

Well, I just went to make a collect call to Debbie in Oakwood Knoll and she got her number changed to a non-published one. Barbara never answered. I’m sure they unplug their phone at night. They’re probably thinking, gee she’s all the way in Phoenix and she’s still bothering us! She’s not here to be woken up by us, but she’s gonna wake us up for sure if we don’t unplug our phone at night. A few days ago, I was making collect calls to them and Debbie said my name. I was cracking up afterward.

With my luck, though, they called Tammy or Mary Jane and then Mary Jane called Tammy. If so, Tammy would just say what the fuck do you want me to do about it? But Mary Jane knows how I, Tammy and the rest of my family feel about her and Oakwood Knoll so I think she’d be hesitant to bother. The same goes for Barbara and other tenants. They really drove me up the damn wall there.

Andy will no doubt get a kick out of learning about the new non-published number and about Barbara having to unplug her phone at night. Whenever I call after 10:30 at night there’s no answer and I know they’re there. I’m sure they can’t afford to change their number so they’re willing to deal with it in the daytime. At night they must unplug their phone so as not to be woken up. Meanwhile, they can’t wake me up.

I really must start writing some letters. I need to write to my niece, Tammy and my parents. I will send that cat I drew to Tammy to give to Karen. It came out well. Better than I expected. I have Tammy’s birthday card and my parents’ anniversary card. Next Monday I’ll mail my parent’s card.

What’s taking them so long to send the pictures Andy took? Maybe she’s waiting to show them to Tammy after all. I know she will be there through August 1st – 8th, but when the exact date is they leave and return, beats me. I’m not even sure if they’re driving or flying. I think they’re gonna fly. If Mom does have those pictures when Tammy, Bill and the girls are there, they can all rank on them together. Why is it taking her so long to ship me the rest of my stuff? In a letter to me, she said she’d be shipping them out ASAP. Over the phone, she said it’d take months. She wants me to believe she hasn’t got the money to ship everything at once.

When Andy’s tapes are through, I’m gonna take a walk over with them to his place.

Rosemarie said her birthday is August 6th and I have all those cards ma sent. Half of me says to give her one, but the other half says it wouldn’t look right. Is it a dumb idea? I certainly wouldn’t tell her my mom sent me tons of all kinds of cards, so she’d assume I bought it. But why go out and buy a card for someone you don’t really even know? I think I’ll just go and wish her a happy birthday.

I think I’ll watch Hard Copy and A Current Affair instead. I haven’t seen them all that much lately and I believe Andy has to work tomorrow. If so, he’s gone to bed or is going to bed very soon. Of course, I’ll also watch Candid Camera and the Jane Whitney talk show.

Why are there so many fucking crickets in here? I know they’re harmless, but they sure as hell are annoying. They jump out at you unexpectedly and really make a racket. Current Location: Arizona

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1992 I am watching Candid Camera now and next is Night Talk with Jane Whitney.

On this talk show, there are “lipstick lesbians” on now. I’ve seen this before.

Earlier I did stop up to see Rosemarie but Rick answered the door saying she was asleep. I would’ve loved to go climb into her bed and join her, but instead, I just told Rick I’ll see them some other time.

Andy and I went to the grocery store where he bought us TV dinners. He also got me some milk, lent me a roll of toilet paper, and brought us some popcorn which we had while we played Crazy 8’s. I’m glad we’re finally playing Crazy 8’s after about 15 years. I wonder what took us so long to get back into it as it really is a lot of fun.

It’s almost 1:30 now so I should really try to get to bed soon. I’m gonna go listen to my music first which I haven’t done all day.

Later…

I got up at 10:30 and then at noon I went to the pool. Andy was there and then he came over and gave me $40 which I gave to Mark & Lance for his pot.

Fay came over too, and she brushed my hair out for me. It looks much better now that I’ve washed and conditioned it. It was all matted down and tangled from the pool. Fay said she’d brush my hair whenever I needed it.

Fay and I played a game of concentration and she said she’d stop by tonight at 7:00. At 8:00, there’s the conclusion of a really good movie I want to see. It’s based on a true story about 4 guys who killed an Indian girl. All the shows are on an hour earlier here. The news is on at 10:00, rather than 11:00. Movies run from 8:00-10:00, rather than 9:00-11:00.

Later…

In an hour I’m going over to Andy’s as we’re both having T-bone steaks. Those are good and I’m starving.

I hope all goes well tomorrow at welfare. And quickly, too. You spend 95% of the time waiting and waiting and waiting. The food bank I need a letter for closes at 3:00 and I hope I don’t have to fill out the form all over again. It’s a long form and they already have all the information they need.

I will not be getting an SSI check anymore. This state has no cash supplement which means my monthly income will be $426. That’s ridiculous. It totally sucks. How do people live that don’t have parents sending them $50 a month?

On the 3rd, I’ll need to go pay my electric bill and my direct deposit better be here. I don’t want to have to stop at the bank for them to get my check from CT. I’ll also have to notify Tammy to close out my account as soon as my SS check comes to my bank here. I’ll also need to call Access and find out why they haven’t mailed me my Medicaid card. I try calling, but it’s always busy.

My main concern is getting my food stamps and seeing how that goes and my electric bill and my overall situation financially. Last month my electric bill was $65 and I need to be sure it doesn’t fluctuate drastically here and there. If it stays around $65, then I can get a phone with Mom’s extra $50. I can’t tell her if I do get a phone, though, as she said she wouldn’t pay the $50 if I do. I know why she really wants me not to get a phone. I wasn’t born yesterday or the day before, but that’s OK.

After Andy returns I’ll take the TAP form to my Doctor.

Mom sent a roll of film which we’ll do up when Andy returns, so she’ll have more to complain about. First, it was my clothes and now it’s the way I pose in pictures. I guess posing in 3 out of the 12 pictures in a really happy, goofy mood is a crime and the end of the world to her. Is this personal or something? Like is she jealous? Sure makes me wonder at times!

Fay wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes from me and I knocked on her door before, but she wasn’t there. At 7:00 I’m gonna have to leave her a note as I’ll be at Andy’s. They both know I’ll be watching the movie tonight but I hope no one else knocks on my door.

Guess there’s not going to be any friendship with Rosemarie. Why is it always me that has to do the approaching, visiting and seeking out of others anyway? I visited them 3 times. Now let’s see them come to me.

All I get is junk mail lately. When am I gonna get some letters? I haven’t heard from anyone. I drew Tammy’s friend Karen a cat. I told her I would a few months ago and it came out nice.

Later…

Soon, I’ll be taking a walk to Andy’s.

I just saw Fay walking her mother’s dog and she said her aunt has a cage full of guinea pigs. I miss having pets. I gave her a pack of smokes and I’ll stop by for a while later.

I guess I’ll go over Andy’s now as I’d like to use his phone.

MONDAY, JULY 27, 1992 I just got back from the pool once again, and Donna was there. My God, I never really realized just what a sick little bitch she is! A very sad and sorry little puppy hiding behind a mask of glory. Why is it that whenever someone else’s life is going shitty, or you’re not what they want you to be, they pretend they’re on cloud 9, contradict all they’ve said and cut you down?

Donna said, “I have lots of friends, everything’s going so great, my husband got a raise, we got a new car, and no friends have ever dumped me like that.” That’s ironic cuz when all was well between us, she told me she hardly has any friends cuz she gets dumped so much. I think she’s just being so vindictive cuz I dumped her when she wanted to be friends.

She was telling me I can’t handle things right and I get upset over stupid things yet there she is freaking out all hysterically. Everyone was looking at her like she was crazy. She told me she got all mad due to the fact that I think she’s pretty. Even fought with her husband about it. Now is that ridiculous or what? Who the hell fights over someone that tells them they’re pretty? What a totally melodramatic waste of time, anger and energy! I mean, come on, grow up! I never realized she was that judgmental and such a backstabber and I am never gladder that I dumped her. I never realized how unstable she is and I meant it when I said all the pretty ones are snobs. She’s got her mind set on what I’m all about and she’s so sure she’s got me all figured out. She says I don’t have a lot of friends and I told her she’s damn right as there are so many contradicting assholes like herself. I cannot believe just how paranoid she is. She can go on thinking she’s wonderful, but as far as I’m concerned, I have no room in my life for people like her.

Fay gave me a poster of unicorns to color and I’m gonna give her a word find puzzle book. I’ve really gotten to like her and enjoy our talks.

I’m also tempted to visit Rosemarie but after dealing with people like Donna, it makes me wonder once again if I’m not better off just minding my own business. I don’t know what to do. It’s all so asinine and stupid. I’m so sick of people but I guess I can do what I did to Donna if I need to. If I ever meet anyone who turns out no good, I’ll just dump them. Including anyone I currently know. The most shocking thing isn’t the low blows someone can give you as I am very well used to that. What’s shocking is how quickly someone can change from one extreme to another.

Later…

I just helped Fay fill out a 19-page form. It’s information on her son James, herself and her family for a therapist. I feel for those who are slow and have learning disabilities like she does. Life isn’t fair for all those who have so many ordinary things they’d like to do, other than being a singer, yet they’ll never be able to. And then there’s me, a quick learner with the abilities, but who doesn’t want to be anything other than a singer. Either way, I told her to never hesitate to ask for help with something if she needs it. It made me feel good to be able to help her.

SUNDAY, JULY 26, 1992 Yesterday was a very good day. I continued to get more color and I swam all day. I spoke with Fay and briefly saw Rosemarie. I didn’t want to seem so pushy and smother them. I know what it’s like to need breathing space. I didn’t want them to feel like I was invading their daily lives. I never went up to their apartment, but when I was in the pool Rosemarie came out onto her patio. I called out hi and asked if she was gonna go for a swim. She said she didn’t feel like it and that was it. They did say that they’d come see my place sometime.

Last night at 7:30, Andy and I went in Mark’s truck to get that bed. It’s a twin-size bed but very comfortable. It really felt good to get off the floor. I gave Mark his foamy thing back but that sure saved me from feeling like I’d break all my bones, even though I have nice plush thick carpet. I slept very well. In fact, I even fell asleep at 1 AM, maybe earlier. I woke up at 8:30. Yesterday I woke up at 10:30.

After we brought the bed back here, Andy gave me a twin-size sheet. I can easily still use mine by tucking it in between the mattress and the box spring. I do have a frame but it’s missing a clamp. There’s no hurry for it, but it’d be nice to eventually have for a few reasons. One is it’d raise the bed up a little higher and my quilt wouldn’t be on the floor as much. Two, it’d be on wheels and easier to move. Three, I could store stuff under the bed.

I took Andy’s vacuum and used that and now my place looks so cute. Now, all I have to worry about is getting my food stamps which Andy will take me to reapply for next Wed. I also am dying to get a phone. I must first get situated financially and get my food stamps.

Later…

Fay came over. She found a white dress in the dumpster that fits me perfectly. It’s a little too long, though and it looks almost like a wedding dress. It has a few stains but ones that aren’t overly visible. It’s got long sleeves of white lace and the rest is solid white. There’s a lining inside but the outside is like chiffon. Streaming down the back to the floor is a piece of chiffon and there’s also a lace bow in front. Even with heels, it’s still just a wee bit too long so whoever wore it was also a size 3, but maybe a few inches taller.

Fay also found this tiny, colored pillow I had for a long time that I threw in there. I gave her two other little ones Ma sent. She’s got a bad back so she uses it for that.

Later…

Last night after I vacuumed and fixed up my bed, Andy and I played Crazy 8’s. Something we haven’t done since we were kids.

It’s time to write everyone’s letters. A lot has happened since I last wrote. I sure can say one great thing, though, and that is that I haven’t had but a few bad days since June 9th! That was all over money, of course.

Now after being here as long as have I can now truly feel a difference in my asthma. Sure I still wheeze and wake up a little congested. But I no longer sneeze my ass off like there’s no tomorrow. Overall I feel so much better and now I know firsthand why they recommend that asthmatics live here.

I will wait to reschedule my appointment for my pap smear and also have him fill out the TAP form (Telephone Assistance Program) to waive my installation fee.

After Andy returns from home he’ll take me there, and we mutually agreed and compromised on one thing. That is that until it gets cooler, he’ll drive me places, but rather than wait around forever, he’ll go home and I’ll call him when I’m through.

I hope next Wednesday I can get a letter to go to the food bank. There, they gave me quite a bit. At the church, Mark took me to, however, they didn’t give all that much.

Later…

So far today I’ve gone to the pool by Rosemarie 3 times and I just came back from the other pool.

I was walking out my door at the same time Fay was walking out hers across from me. Fay and her son James and I were headed to the “Rosemarie” pool when we saw how it was infested with little kids, so we took off for the other pool. That pool was crowded too, but not nearly as mobbed as the other one was. On weekends it’s pretty crowded. At night during the weekdays, it’s ok.

At the other pool, I ran into Stephanie. Pez screwed her over and now she’s got a new roommate also from New York like Pez and Stephanie. I’ve met her before and she’s sort of pretty but she’s straight, according to Steph.

It’ll be a long long time before I see another woman as gorgeous as Rosemarie. They’re far and few between in my opinion.

I told Stephanie that Andy told me she used to pay Pez $15 to clean her bathroom. I told her not to hesitate to ask me if she needs help cleaning. If I were to only clean her bathroom once a week for $15, that’s $60 extra a month! That’d be great but I know better than to count on it, even though she said she’d let me know when she gets her paycheck.

She also said she’d come check out my place and mentioned going to clubs. I told her I’d go to clubs with her if she needed someone to take along, but she stood Andy and I up last time. She said some serious shit went down that night, so we’ll see how reliable she is.

There’s a little part of me that’s tempted to go visit Donna. She’d be happy if I did, I guess. She really wanted to be my friend, but then I dumped her. Afterward, I swore I’d make no more friends and acquaintances - Fay, Stephanie, Harriett, Debbie, Robert, Mark, all the maintenance people, Dave the security guard, Rosemarie, Rick, and so many others I don’t know by name. With most of these people, I didn’t even initiate the conversation. They began to speak to me. Lots of people strike up conversations with me. Males, females, kids, young and old. I haven’t seen Ellie, though.

Last night I ran into Angel and Grace. We had a quick yet nice chat. Angel still hasn’t had her baby yet. They were just taking a walk and I invited them in to see my place all fixed up.

I told her that I wasn’t ever angry at her and that I’d been worried about money, but that she still had a friend in me. I apologized for seeming to have pushed her away and shut her out. She said she had thought about stopping by but has been busy.

Later…

I’ve never met so many people at once other than in schools or funny farms! I was just at the pool and I met a guy named Chuck, his Vietnamese girlfriend Lily and his son. I forgot his son’s name but they were all very nice. It seems I can just stand in the corner and not say anything and people will talk to me. I guess it’s a lot easier to socialize at pools as opposed to someplace like a grocery store.

Mark and his friend came home. The one who hooked up my VCR and asked me out to the movies. Lance is his name. I still can’t program into the VCR all the channels I want to record. I guess there’s a certain cable I need for that. Lance mentioned giving me one he didn’t need. Maybe he forgot or hasn’t had time. Or maybe he isn’t bothering cuz I turned his “movie offer” down.

I want to wait a little while before visiting Rosemarie again. I don’t know exactly how long, but although they said their place is always open to me, I do not wish to wear out my welcome. I’d also like to see if they come over here. I’m still so shocked at how friendly and open they are. They also said they were glad I was open about being gay. They really seemed to like my personality and were very into discussing my music and all about me. Every time I asked them about themselves, they’d say they were boring and had nothing to say about themselves, then ask about me.

Later…

There’s gonna be a good movie tonight I’ll want to see, but I’m sure I’ll be interrupted. I can’t record it yet. I’ll ask Andy what he thinks about that and what I should do.

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1992 Well, I sure had an adventurous last two days! I’ll save the best for last. First, I met this girl, Fay, who I’ve seen around here a lot. She sort of reminds me of Tracy K, although she’s not quite that ugly. Close though. I’d never touch her, even though she’s bi. She’s got a boyfriend and a son but she’s had threesomes and lots of woman fantasies. She’s very tall and heavy with very short hair.

Later…

I just stopped for a while cuz Andy came over. I gave him Julie B’s letter which he’s gonna mail when he goes home from August 1st – 8th. He’ll be spending most of his vacation at the beach. Julie is a friend of Velma’s. Or was. She’s a hairdresser like Velma but she did some things to piss Velma off. Velma says she will hear all about the letters and get a good kick out of it. We just wrote a bunch of strange stuff. Nothing too scandalous.

I also played Andy a CD of Stevie Nicks.

Tomorrow between 4:00-4:30 we’re gonna go to Donna’s place for the twin-size mattress she’s got, I guess. We’ll see, but if she stands me up I’ll never count on her for shit again. We’re gonna go in Mark’s truck.

I spoke with Mark yesterday and also met a friend of his. His friend asked me out to the movies with him but I told them I was gay. Mark said no problem, but he hates gay guys. He said, however that cuz he’s my friend he’ll be cool. I said he better be cuz Andy’s not the least bit attracted to him and not to flatter himself. Also, anyone who fucks with my friend is fucking with me.

Mark and I also went swimming yesterday and today he brought me to a church to get food till I can reapply for food stamps. They usually have a Spanish interviewer there but he was out at the time. Two women spoke no English so I interpreted for them.

When Fay came over she had a piece of cheesecake for me. It was really good. We chatted here, then I brought her to Andy’s and we got some wrong numbers. We had some fun with those. I chatted with her today and told her all about my visit to Rosemarie and Rick’s place. It went super well, too. I’ve been pretty psyched about that. I told Fay how I felt about her before I finally got to meet her and talk to her last night.

When I get back from the pool, I’ll write all about it. Right now, though, I really am dying to go for a swim.

Later…

I am going to bed soon so I’ll write a little bit about Rosemarie and Rick. I was over to their place yesterday and today and I really like them both very much. I was a little nervous last night but tonight I felt much more relaxed. We all laughed and joked and talked about many things. Not sure I liked Rick’s joke about my being cheap cuz I’m Jewish, though. Don’t get me wrong. I can take a joke. But was it purely a joke, or was he being serious in some way? His tone made me wonder.

Most people blush when they’re around people they’re attracted to, so I thank God I’m fried with lots of color all over to hide it. My face would’ve been as red as it is from the sun. I’ve gotten a lot of color too.

My first night there, I noticed how they were really determined to get to know me. They really wanted to know all they could about me. They insisted I stay and talk and they said I was welcome to their place anytime. They were really coming at me from all different angles, attacking me with several questions. Their curiosity was genuine, not phony. They seemed very truly interested in all I had to say. Rosemarie kept asking me to sing and asking questions about that.

It at least seemed that they were open-minded and sensitive and very accepting. I even had no problem telling them of my being on SS.

Last night, before I went over there, I had to think of an excuse. I know this was being a little dishonest, but I told them some girl knocked on my door telling me Rosemarie had something to tell me. Next time I see them, Andy’s friend pulled this “joke” on me is what I’ll say.

I told Andy all about last night. Next time I see him, naturally I will fill him in on tonight’s visit which was 10 times better. Rosemarie brought up the subject of a boyfriend, so that’s when it all came out. Right away they were quick to reassure me that they did not think any less of me cuz of how I am but they did have a zillion questions for me. I told them to ask away and that I’m used to answering tons of questions and am very open about it.

Eventually, we were laughing and joking about everything from this butch who used to live near them to the underwear my mom sent that could cover her car. Rosemarie said there were two gay women next to her. One was feminine and nice, the other a mad, bitchy, jealous butch. She used to give Rosemarie dirty looks and Rosemarie said she was terrified of her.

Rosemarie also knows I’m very attracted to her. I am so glad we met. She and Rick are so friendly. They are very accepting of me. For Rosemarie being as pretty as she is, she’s so nice! I know I’ll never get her in bed but I do want to be friends with her as long as possible.

Well, now I think I’ll go listen to music before I go to sleep. I sure hope I’m sleeping in a real bed tomorrow night!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1992 I know I’m wasting my time chasing Rosemarie, but hey, it’s fun. Andy also believes she’s got a boyfriend that she lives with, but it won’t be the first or last time that I’ve wasted my time.

I got a lot of color back yesterday that I had begun to lose. It looks good. When I returned to the pool, Andy was there. We had a very nice talk and I said all the things I wanted to say. He listened. I listened to him too, and simply told him I don’t want to fight with him or anyone else.

Those two girls from Terros, Sheryl and Annette, will be here at 7:00 this evening. I’ll have some happier things to say than the last time. My place also looks much better, too.

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1992 Earlier I got my second set of shelves. I used them in the living room and it looks so much better now. The whole place looks great, even the walls. I’ve always been good at decorating.

I managed to stay up until 4 PM and sleep until midnight. More and more I wish I could be up during the days. Even if I had nothing to do. At least I’d have the pools and I’d feel better. Also, if I did have something to do, I’d be able to be awake for it. Well, Andy said he never could be a day person if his life depended on it till this year. Hopefully, that’ll happen to me even though right now that seems impossible, but who knows?

Later…

I just ate and ran off the dishes. The dishes here don’t get really clean and I was told it has nothing to do with the dishwasher. It’s Arizona’s water. California has the same problem. There’s supposed to be something you can buy to put in the water or the dishwasher, but I don’t know what.

As I saw Mark walking towards his place, I tapped on the slider and waved hello. He knocked a few minutes later for a light for his cigarette. He came in and saw how I’ve decorated since getting my shelves. Said it looks so girlie. Yeah, it does.

I’ve got an hour or so yet before the pool opens. I’m psyched to get on with my tan. I’m losing what I had. Mark’s gonna blow up my raft sometime.

All I keep thinking about is Rosemarie. I know she’s straight as a pin, but I like to seek, chase and do my homework and detective work even though I get absolutely nowhere. She is the ultimate attraction for me. Ann Marie was no second best but she sure is compared to Rosemarie. All in all, God will never grant me that much. It just ain’t meant to be and will never happen for one night. As I’ve learned, just cuz you’re positive or want something bad enough doesn’t mean you’ll get your way. If you pray for something you want or bust your ass trying to achieve it and it’s not in the cards, you’ll never get it. If Rosemarie were meant to be, God would send her my way whether I wanted her or not.

I saw her yesterday morning for the first time in the bright sunlight. She’s so beautiful. I can tell so even though I’ve still never seen her close up. I was in the pool and she walked around the fence obviously on her way to work. She seems like a very friendly person. I could be wrong, though, since I don’t know her and everyone seems nice till you get to know them. We said hello to each other and she asked how I was. She also said hi to two elderly ladies and I don’t even think they know each other.

Right after that, I ran back to my place to see what time it was. It was 7:55 AM. Well, at 7:45, I will head over there and sit down on the bench.

I have makeup on and that sundress Donna gave me. My hair is all brushed out, too.

It’s fun, but on the other hand, I know I’m completely wasting my time. I think she’s with a guy. Well, it isn’t the first time I’ve thought of someone who never thinks of me. It won’t be the last either. I want her sooooooo bad. At least I hope to try to get to know her and be friends with her. It’s better than nothing and I doubt there’s any way she could be bi, let alone gay. Yes, she’s a neighbor and yes, she’s got a job. But this is an exception I can’t pass up.

MONDAY, JULY 20, 1992 I am just slowly beginning to wake up. I slept like a log from 12:30 PM-8:30 PM, but I am still groggy. I guess that’s good, though, as it’ll keep me up longer tomorrow if I take my time waking up.

I hope I get the rest of my stuff soon and a letter from my nieces. It’d also be really nice to hear from Kim, Bob, Fran or Nervous but that’s wishful thinking.

I’m gonna call SSI and the food stamp people out here. I should hopefully be able to reapply over the phone. I’ll also call about seeing a therapist and reschedule my doctor’s appointment for my pap smear. This Wednesday I’ll be through with the antibiotics and will be able to continue on with my tan.

My TD has been really pissing me off. Since being on the antibiotic it’s been worse. Some medications can make it worse. My TD also acts up and becomes worse when I’m tired or upset, but we’ll see if it subsides a bit when I finish the antibiotics.

The gay bars – well – I went to two of them and they shocked the shit out of me just as the shrinks in Natchaug did. Just when I thought nothing more could shock me. Back east it was 95% butch and a very occasional feminine woman. Here, there were lots of butches but also feminine ones mixed in. There weren’t tons and tons of them, but there sure was enough. More than a few. For the first time, I felt like I had the same variety as gay men do.

I met these 5 girls named Becky, Carmen, Carol, Holly and Lori. I gave them all my number or Andy’s number, I should say, but did they call me after telling me how pretty and nice I was? No. Of course not. Whatever’s up there is determined to let me only have two one-nighters a year.

I was also shocked at all these people who say they want relationships. And after I tell them I only want one-nighters here and there so they won’t feel threatened or scared that I’ll smother them or put strings on them. Yet I still get nowhere.

Why are people so afraid to pick up the phone? If they really want to check into someone, why don’t they put any effort into it? Why is it always me that does the seeking and approaching? The only one that approached me was one that wasn’t ugly, but not in the least bit attractive, naturally. What else is new? To tell the truth, though, after dealing with more and more shit with people, I’m glad they never called. Donna and Andy reminded me just what I’d be in for.

The only ones out of those 5 that I may have been attracted to enough to sleep with would’ve been Carmen and Becky and maybe Holly. Not Carol or Lori. I highly doubt they called during this shit with Andy. If they did he may be spiteful and immature enough to not tell me, but if that is the case, he’s done me a great favor and has spared me more bullshit. I don’t think he’d be mature enough to leave a note on my door at least, no matter how I felt about meeting them. But I’m completely turned off after his and Donna’s shit. Even with pursuing Sonja who’s never called back after I spoke to her. We had an OK talk too, or so I thought.

Wait till my sister calls. He can’t wait, no doubt, to go on and on crying on her shoulder. She won’t fall for it and knows better but if she questions me I’ll tell her it’s our problem and our business. I’m sure Velma and all his other friends have heard all about it on a daily basis. Well, enough of Andy, but I’ll say one last thing. That is I give what I get and if he can go back on his word so can’t I. That means I ain’t cleaning his place worth shit!

SUNDAY, JULY 19, 1992 I got the $50 from Mom and that was great. I really needed real food. All I had was stuff like bread, cereal and pasta, and I get sick of the lack of variety. I can’t get away with not eating right anymore.

I still haven’t gotten anything in the mail from Tammy or Lisa and I also haven’t spoken to Andy. I did leave him the $10 stamps I owe him and $10 in cash. My God his place reeks! How can he live like that? His place always reeks and is a pigpen. The way people live really reflects a lot about them. We both have had our depressing times and my place is sometimes a little trashed. But if you compare each other’s definition of “trashed,” they’re completely different. Even when I’m miserable I still usually have my place nice and my appearance too, if I can help it. He, on the other hand, always is a mess. That tells me something. I just cannot stand those that contradict everything they say. I feel so misunderstood by him. Part of it is that he’s got a lousy memory. Maybe cuz he smokes pot. The other part of it is his stubbornness. You’re a liar if he doesn’t want to accept, hear or believe something you’ve said.

I hate people who are so verbally abusive and think they can cut you down when they’re miserable, pretending to be king of the world and the happiest son of a bitch alive. I can see through that, not that he’d ever own up to it. He has said how he’s bitter and lonely and hates people and wants to lash out at them and treat them like shit. I can very much relate to those feelings too, but not with what’s supposed to be my best friend. Can’t people spare their best friends? We’re either gonna be enemies with no contact or friends that treat each other like friends. I’m not gonna go back and forth with him as we did in Springfield. It’s normal to fight here and there, but I won’t tolerate such shit like his on a regular basis. If he ever found anyone for a relationship, he’d never make it work more than a week any more than I could. Also, just like me, he’d attract the wrong kind of person, but for a totally different reason than me.

Later…

I got some of my old edits from Andy and duped them. He also gave me a tape of his best calls for me to edit. I’ve begun that as well as other editing. He and I have made some calls from his place. I still have lots of editing to do, but I always have more stuff to edit. I edited down all my convos with several different folks and left a few blanks for taping convos. Then I edit out anything boring onto another tape.

I still have to reapply for food stamps and set up something with a therapist. I sure hope there’s an agency that makes home visits. It’d be so much easier. I have a number to call that two counselors gave me the night I was all freaked about money. I ran in a panic to the payphone and cuz I didn’t know who to call, I called 911. I spoke with the dispatcher for a while and then she connected me with Terros. The police routinely come out first, then they send Terros out. I’ve seen these same two cops twice and this woman twice. I forgot her name but she had a different male partner with her each time she came out. I’ve forgotten all their names, except for Sheryl and Annette. They do a weekly follow-up for a month or so and they were the ones who came out last Wednesday. They’re gonna be here again next Wednesday on the 22nd at 7 PM. Annette’s white and Sheryl’s black and I don’t know why, but I really liked Sheryl. It almost seemed like it was mutual from what I sensed. It’s not that she’s gorgeous but something was there. Of course, I plan to keep my mouth shut.

Most types of people with real jobs that I’ve always seemed to click with are cops and security guards, like Dave here for example. He’s 40-something, I guess and is very nice to chat with. On weekends he’s here at night. He locks the gates at the pools at midnight. He’s here at night on weekdays too, as I’ve seen him lock the pools up at 10 PM. The pools open early in the morning but on weekends it’s open till midnight. I wish they were open 24 hours on my schedule, but there’d be lots of loud wild parties and no one near the pool would ever sleep.

After I got my $50 today, Mark next door took me to Fry’s, the grocery store right near here. He said to let him know whenever I need rides. That’s great as there’s no way I can walk in this heat with or without asthma. Early in the morning, nothing’s open and I never would walk at night. Can’t tell Andy that, of course.

Today it was 112º. Tomorrow it’ll be 110º.

Later…

I was just sitting here thinking of several things here and there about this and that. I can’t wait till I get the other pictures. It’s been almost two months. Also, I’m really looking forward to that second set of shelves ma’s sending. I’ll use them out in the living room.

I wish Arizona paid as much as MA did between the two checks. In MA it’s $581. In CT and AZ it’s $442 cuz it’s cheaper to live here.

I really wanted a 1-bedroom. That’s what I’m used to and I need the extra space. Especially the extra closet space. I’ve seen them and they’re so nice. Perfect. I miss being on the top floor, too. My place, though, minus furniture looks nicely decorated. Now that I’ve got shelves, tables and chairs, the only other thing I need is a bed. A twin would be fine as it’s just me, although you can fit a double bed in there and I’d still have room for my shelves. Luckily I do not have my old queen-size waterbed. That would definitely not fit in there. A color TV that’s a little bigger would be nice too, but no big deal and certainly not the end of the world.

I am now just about completely updated. All I need to write about are these two lesbian bars I went to a few weeks ago. Also, 3 more drop-dead gorgeous girls I met at the pool. I mean, they are all a 10+! LaDon, Lisa and Rosemarie. Rosemarie looks the most like Gloria out of any others I’ve met, though I think she may be Italian. I haven’t spoken to her much yet, just exchanged a few hellos and mentioned that she looked like Gloria. She says she’s told that all the time. Late-night two nights ago at the pool, I met LaDon and Lisa. They’re gorgeous too. All 3 of them have bodies that look like models. They’re perfect from head to toe. Their teeth, flat bellies, and straight thighs. Standing next to them makes me look below average when I know for a fact that if I’m compared to the average female, I’m doing pretty well. The typical, usual bummer of it all is that I’m sure they’re all straight as an arrow.

Cigarette break now, then I will write about those bars. Then, I shall finally be all up to date unless there’s a little detail here and there that has slipped my mind.

SATURDAY, JULY 18, 1992 Well, I never did get to bed after the last time I wrote. I felt really shitty and couldn’t stop worrying about money. I called Ma and I should get $50 soon. She’ll send that monthly along with a box of non-edibles that food stamps can’t buy. That really brought me a lot of relief and then I jumped in the pool. When you’re trying to stay up cuz your schedule keeps changing, there’s nothing like having a pool. It really revives you when you jump in. It’ll be easier to change schedules here. If you need to stay up all day to try to sleep at night, you can lie out by the pool all day and relax. You won’t sleep that way but you won’t be overexerting yourself in any physical way.

In a half-hour, I’m gonna watch Little House on the Prairie.

Earlier at 9:30, I ordered a pizza that never came till 11:15, so I got it for free and saved $7.14.

I wish I had a little microcassette recorder. This way I can speak about all the subjects I want to write about without forgetting them if several days pass by before I write. At least I do have a fairly decent memory that I know I can rely on. It’d still be great to have a microcassette, though, as that way no details would ever slip my mind here and there. Many times, say I’m at the pool, for example, I’ll remember something I want to write about, but when I do write I forget. If I brought a microcassette recorder around with me to most places I go, I can speak little notes in bits and pieces of the subject, then play it all back whenever I decide to write.

FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1992 In 1984, this is the day I walked free from Valleyhead. It was my last walk down Reservoir Road and I didn’t even know it. But I told myself I’d be damned if I’d return. I was a junior staff who had graduated. I’d done my time there.

Denise, my best friend there was taken in by Michelle. Michelle was my favorite teacher there. Michelle also despised Donna and her psycho sister Margaret. Also Barbara. She left for the same reasons any student there can’t wait to leave. She saw and knew how the kids there were treated.

I haven’t seen Andy since last Wednesday. All people want to do is fight, fight, fight. No one can let anyone be themselves. They flip out over the most stupid things. They knock you down when you’re already down. For a girl that expresses herself well and communicates well, I sure seem to be so misunderstood. I don’t want to fight with anyone. All I want to do is be happy. I try my best to get along with people but they’re always so determined not to get along with me. When are people gonna stop fighting with others so those who don’t want to fight and argue don’t have to?

I know I’m doing the right thing by avoiding Donna and Angel. And Andy agreed with me before all this happened that it isn’t always too smart to get involved with your neighbors as lucky as I sometimes was in Springfield. Who wants hostility so close to home? Plus, in Springfield, the only place to be was in your apartment. Here, I’m always at the pool and it’s harder to avoid people you don’t like or who don’t like you when you’re at the pool constantly.

A little over a month ago, I met a woman named Kathy at the pool. No, she wasn’t a butch as most Kathy’s, Carol’s and Karen’s seem to be. In fact, she was OK-looking. She’s got 3 kids. Her fiancé is a maintenance guy here. We chatted briefly at the pool and she told me she was home all day and could use some company. She gave me her apartment number and told me to come by anytime I wanted. I stopped at her place once for 15 minutes and I’ve never seen her since. She never said or did anything to scare me off but I know how all friendships are cool in the beginning, then take a turn for the worst. All is well when you begin anything, then it changes. If it doesn’t become a horrible situation, it gets boring. Maybe friendships are just as bad as intimate relationships after all.

Sometimes people are hard to avoid. Especially when you don’t plan on talking to them, but they talk to you. I did consider staying away from people with jobs and thought maybe it’d be better if I pursued more people on SS and SSI. I’m not ashamed to be on SS and SSI but so many people with jobs are bashing and knocking people like me. I don’t hate myself and I know I’m not stupid. However, when I tell people I’m on it when they ask what I do, they paint themselves a pretty bad and false picture.

I’ve written before about how one can only change the way they feel about certain things but not all things. How I wish I wanted to be anything else as bad as I want to be a singer. Sometimes, I look at all these people with jobs and wish I could love something else like I love to sing or be able to settle. I wish I had some sort of responsibility and a reason to get up every day. But even if I were a day person and had a decent job, I would have to constantly have to deal with people. I’m sure that no matter how well I did my job and kept my mouth shut that someone would stir up trouble for me.

There are a lot of people, though, on SSI and SS and everyone’s got their fair share of worries, fears, doubts and problems. I’ve been seeking out a somewhat “lower” class of people lately. No one on drugs or overly crazy, but low- or no-income people. People that are in my present situation, and if they have a similar background, that makes it even better. I used to try to seek out people who are fairly financially and emotionally stable with a better background. But these are the people who look down on me and feel they can do better, whether I hated myself or not. Opposites don’t attract.

Yesterday at the pool, as I was unlocking the gate, a woman called out, “Hi there,” as if we were old friends. Well, she’s 48, on SSI and SS, has lots of problems, is depressed and dead broke. Her name’s Ellie and she also has no car so we may walk to the store tomorrow. Normally, I wouldn’t coldly reject or try to change Ellie as many others would, but I’d be reluctant to get too close. I’d be thinking - can’t I do better than this? I’ve matured, presented myself better, don’t talk too much, remain evasive about my past and present life and don’t hate myself.

Later…

I went to see my primary physician here and he gave me Amoxicillin. I can’t wait till I’m off of them so I can continue with my tan before I lose what I’ve begun so far. I thought I had a yeast infection downstairs but instead, I have a bacterial infection. He couldn’t even do a pap smear as I am so tender there now. I’ll have to go for that after I’m through with my antibiotics and to make sure I don’t acquire a yeast infection since antibiotics can cause them.

My mom said she’d send me $50 a month and I hope she does soon as I’ve only got $5 until the end of the month. I really dreaded calling mom and telling her what’s been going on financially as she’s done a lot already but she was very understanding. I still must reapply for food stamps and hope I have a little extra money here and there once I get settled. I tried and fought for my SSI check but it’s hopeless, even though I was not overpaid.

There are so many non-edible things that add up, so even with food stamps, there’s never enough cash. I want to give Andy some money as soon as I can and God only knows if I’ll ever be able to afford a phone. The next few months are gonna be a struggle but I hope I’ll be OK. It’ll relieve the bulk of my stress if I don’t have to keep worrying about money. I still don’t know what SS is gonna do to my check.

I sent mom 12 pictures Andy took which came out fairly nice for a change. I told her to copy whatever she wants, then send them to Tammy. Have her do the same, then send them back to me so I can throw them into my collection.

I got some really nice packages from mom and dad. My pictures, typewriter, some papers, records and one guitar aren’t here yet. They sent my vacuum, one guitar, two quilts, two more bathing suits, shoes, suntan lotion, hair accessories, coupons and a small black and white TV. Also a lamp and two hideous shorts and shirt sets. Worse than conservative. I mean tacky, geeky, baggy and dull colors. That and a couple of pairs of cotton granny panties.

She also sent a table and two folding chairs. She asked me if I wanted the other two chairs and I said no. The two I have are enough. I like this so much better than my old kitchen table and chairs. They were getting old, dingy and beat up. It’s blue and matches my carpet well. The top of the table is soft leather-like material. To go with it she sent 4 mauve-colored placemats. The chairs are hard but there are two floral cushions you tie on to make them softer and more comfortable.

She also sent a raft and I was gonna sleep on that. I had figured it’d be wider but it’s too narrow for me to sleep on. Mark next door said I can continue using the foam mattress he lent me.

She sent me 5 plastic shelves just like the ones I used to have. That was fantastic so I could get shit off the floor. She’s gonna send another set which I’ll use in the living room. This set I put in the bedroom.

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1992 Once again, I really need to get my ass in gear and write daily. I have so many fantastic things to write about and so many shitty things to write about. Well, why not start with the shitty stuff and save the best for last.

I’m listening to the original “complex” argument with Fran and Nervous. Thank God Andy had this even though it’s only 90 seconds long. It was always my favorite and it’s very funny.

Right now I am very disgusted and pissed off at Andy. I thought he changed. All he kept telling my parents and I is how he’s become more giving as far as car rides, for example. He told me to make any appointments I needed to make on his days off and he’d have no problem taking me. In these 115º temps, I cannot walk, even though the grocery store and the bank are very close. I’m not used to this heat yet and need to wait till it becomes a little cooler. He said that was no problem and understood. The other day he went back on his word and insisted I could walk in this extreme heat. He’s been going back on his word on so many things and bitching at me for doing or saying things that he himself does or says as well.

He’s lied to me and my parents about a few things and that has me wondering what else he’s said that may be a lie.

All he does every day is bitch about how stressful work is and the zillions of reasons why he hates his job. Yet I have never condemned him for it or said things to him like, “Shut up about it,” and “Don’t let it get to you,” and “Just smile and be happy.”

All he’s ever said to me since he’s been here is that he’s miserable and depressed. But yesterday he turned around and said he’s always happy and he wants to be around happy people, and that I should be happy all the time myself. Then he goes back to telling me how much he hates people and doesn’t want friends. How he wishes he could stand in a corner and never say anything to people. How he can’t be himself and is lied to and led on. I told him I feel the same way and that I stay isolated so I can be myself. But yesterday he bitched at how I’ve got a wall up around me and I’ve got to make friends because all the bullshit friends go through is worth it. In the next breath, it’s not worth it at all.

He’s offered me things I never asked for like to eat dinner with him. He’s knocked on my door and said he was on his way to the store, would I like to come along? Later he said how he shouldn’t have fed me or driven me to the store. Then why the fuck did he do it?

Then after bitching at me about how I don’t get out and live life, he goes right back to talking about how he’s gotta be alone and have space. He says that after a stressful day at work he’s gotta be alone and I shouldn’t come over every day. Any time he’s asked me to leave, I have. I gave him a ribbon to tie on his doorknob if he doesn’t want to be bothered. But he bitched about his space after I gave him the ribbon and that problem was fixed. He is a very sad, lonely miserable guy who cuts people down while pretending to be happy and king of the world. He’s told me how he wants to burn people and feels bitter just like I do. But why is he taking his shit out on his friends? Burn someone who burns you or pick up the phone, I told him!

He and so many other people continuously have to tell me what to think, say and feel. If I say I like the color pink and for whatever reason Andy can’t handle that, I’m a liar. As far as he’s concerned, I really don’t like the color pink if that’s the way he wants it.

I dumped that girl Donna cuz she too, started to judge me and assume shit when she doesn’t even know me. All she knows is why I moved here. I know Andy’s spoken to her, and I’m not sharing friends with Andy. I learned that with Brenda, Steve, Jai and a few others that it’s not good to share friends with him because of the way he tries to turn them against me when he gets pissed at me.

Andy insisted Donna could be a good friend and I shouldn’t dump her. I’m sure she could be in other ways and I’ll always appreciate the help with the food she gave me and the dress, but I will not be who she wants me to be. I know I did the right thing by cutting Donna off, even though there’s a little tiny part of me that misses her. The thing of it is, though, if Donna had been the one to dump me, Andy would have been on her side.

I am not gonna take his shit with Andy like I did in Springfield!

SUNDAY, JULY 12, 1992 I still have much writing to do. A few miserable things have happened to me since I’ve last written. I can’t help but feel guilty and cursed as I usually do, despite the fact that I had no control over the situation. I had a great month to start with here, then I wound up wishing I was dead again. I got so scared and depressed as reality hit me. So many fears, doubts, and questions were going through my head. All I kept thinking is that I didn’t want to live my life scraping pennies. Just barely able to pay the rent, the electric bill, food and other non-edibles that add up. Because I know now 100% for sure I’ll never have my dream, what the fuck is my purpose in life. What am I here for? To just barely ever eat enough and eat right? To be scared that SS will cut or stop my checks? SSI already stopped the check I get monthly for $16. They claim I was overpaid which is a crock of shit. There’s no use calling them as you just can’t fight them.

What is my purpose in life? To wonder if I can fully come up with the rent money and the electric bill? This is gonna be my life cuz I cannot settle, cannot have my dream and will never live in a project again. I couldn’t settle even if I wanted to. I couldn’t get up day after day very early in the morning. I’d only sleep 2-4 hours a night. We already know what effect that has on a person. Live in the NHA if you can’t sleep before 4 AM and see how it feels. I can’t afford to get up at 7 AM, lay in bed from 11 PM to 4 AM-5 AM and get up at 7 AM all over again continuously.

I also cannot afford to go without medical benefits and pay thousands of dollars for medical shit. So once again, what is my purpose here?

On July 7th, I had a horrible day. My food stamps are gonna be delayed now another month cuz the asshole in CT never closed my case. The worker in AZ said the worker back there never knew I moved. Bullshit. Tammy and Dad spoke to her. They do this to delay you as while they’re delaying you they save money. I’m so sick of harassment from public assistance, SSI and SS. I was so stressed out and was crying so long and hard that my eyes were nearly swollen shut. I thought it’d be easier financially here. That is one of the reasons why I moved here.

Besides being scared shitless about money, I got a notice from the office here. Either pay a $50 fine and be evicted or get rid of Shadow. I knew I had no choice. Andy and I drove him to Paradise Valley where Stevie Nicks lives. We dropped him and his box over the wall onto her property. God, do I miss that cat! As obnoxious as he was, I miss meowing with him and his being so loving and affectionate.

I’m too upset to continue on now and that pretty much covers all the bad news. It’s gonna be a long boring life of struggling financially, wishing I could settle happily, wishing I wanted to be anything else as bad as I wanted to be a singer, and wondering what my purpose is here on earth?!

When I continue, believe it or not, I’ll have better things to write about. Right now, though, all I can think about is Shadow. Most of the time I have him pretty well blocked out. Now, I can’t get rid of him.

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1992 Right now I’m only gonna do a quick rundown on topics I’ll write about in full detail tomorrow. First of all, since being here I had a very scary close call a couple of days ago. It concerns financial issues and Shadow. I was a devastated bundle of nerves for almost 24 hours. The financial issue has been fixed, but I’m crushed about something else and I always will be.

I’ll also write about packages from my parents. Packages I have gotten and packages I’m expecting. Also, about tapes and calls. Tomorrow I must go to the office for my CDs.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1992 I have many things to write about, but I think I’ll save the bulk of it till later this evening. I have done so much writing in the last few days, so I need to take a break. Plus, I really need to go warm up my voice as I believe Andy and I are going to go and compete in a karaoke contest tonight. I don’t know for sure. All I know is that when I went over to his apartment to use his phone at 4:00, he was sound asleep. Oh well.

[executeness]

In which NHS and WWX use their arranged marriage as an excuse for insincere, dramatic courting and everyone else suffers

Starring: @aethersea as hummingbird, @words-writ-in-starlight as Gabriel, and myself as Errant, the bitch in blue

The images are all screenshots from a Skype chat. Transcript below the cut. I’m sorry, I know it’s more accessible without the cut, but I don’t have it in me to put a 2.4K word post on ppl’s dashes.

Note: Found this in my drafts and went why? haven’t I posted this yet? Oh right I was going to Tag It Properly with accents or w/e but uhhhhhh... fuck it!

Errant: NHS and WWX engagement of convenience

hummingbird: now that would be a fun fic

Errant: They're bros, just bros engaged to be married

hummingbird: they're also the two people in this whole show most likely to spend every single night getting drunk and causing merry chaos through every city of every street

hummingbird: it would be the most chaotic marriage in a very long time

Errant: Probably a marriage arranged when they were pretty young and the adults involved still had some illusions about them getting more responsible with age

Gabriel: God, NHS and WWX are engaged and they put on this HUGE performance of swooning into each other's arms every time something goes slightly awry and NHS one time sees a snake and flings himself at WWX like a kid hurling themself at their parent's neck, and everyone is like "well at least this will keep them both Out Of The Way" while LWJ just absolutely drowns in envy.

Errant: And then NHS and WWX are actually in the same room for any significant length of time and the adults are left calculating whether there's any polite respectable way to bow out of the marriage arrangement just to, y'know, keep the buildings of the cultivation world standing

Gabriel: They got tipsy and made out one night in the spirit of experimentation and then they kind of frowned at each other and simultaneously went "well" and decided they would just have nice quiet affairs.  NHS is gay and WWX is bi but like.  It's just.  It's weird.  

hummingbird: as they get older they sometimes contemplate the merit of loud, flamboyant affairs, just for the drama. they have fun scripting some of the fights they'll have about it

Gabriel: WWX uses the engagement as an excuse to call NMJ "da-ge" just like NHS does and on the one hand this is a great marriage, like, politically, it's going to do great things for QingheNie, and it's nice that he's going to marry NHS (Not A Competent Cultivator) to the rising genius of the cultivation world, and it's great that NMJ has a brother to marry off so that he, personally, can focus on the more important issue of not dying of qi deviation any time soon, but also.

ALSO.

This Wei kid is going to drive him fucking insane before they're even married.

Errant: They would be RIDICULOUS if they were engaged and meanwhile the peacock would kill something for Yanli to even draw a little closer to him when startled? To smile at him sometimes and put her hand on his arm? Where are the snakes when JZX wants his fiance to leap into his arms (he ends up leaping behind her anyway)? H o w are NHS and WWX doing this

Gabriel: On the one hand JZX would peel his skin off and jump in vinegar before he ever asked Wei Fucking Wuxian for advice but also hEY WHAT'S YOUR SECRET

Gabriel: (Someday, eventually, LWJ and WWX get married, and NHS shows up to the wedding with the biggest most expensive wagon of gifts he could get his hands on and tells everyone who will listen about how lucky LWJ is and honestly it's a weird vibe, compared to pretty nearly everyone else at this wedding who is only barely convinced that the Yiling Patriarch didn't enchant LWJ into this.)

hummingbird: YES

hummingbird: nhs plays the tragic bereaved ex with absolutely no actual rancor and approximately three dramatic swoons per hour, and this while everyone else is standing around having awkward polite chit chat over canapes

Gabriel: LWJ has come around to NHS with the slow and confused progress of going from "you're going to get to marry the love of my life and I hate your fucking guts on principle but also I'm aware of how unfair that is so I will reserve myself to quiet glares from the sidelines" to "you were one of very few people to maintain even a neutral stance on the love of my life and you seem genuinely sorry he's dead so I guess we're alone in that camp and I should at least consider you an ally" to "you brought the love of my life back to me, and then hit him with a clue-by-four and made him come propose to me and then brought us a large collection of porn for a wedding gift?????" with VERY little in between those three states.

Errant: WWX gives NHS a booklet and gets a dramatic public kiss. JZX assumes it is poetry. It is not poetry. He does not discover this until after gifting Yanli a small booklet of poetry (it is, at best, endearingly bad). He swipes the booklet WWX gave NHS for "inspiration" and not only gets an eyefull of gay porn with no warning whatsoever, but ALSO gets caught by WWX, who goes into dramatics about JZX only liking men and leading on perfect angelic Yanli

Errant: Also NHS and WWX bicker gleefully over who gets to have affairs with whom

Gabriel: "I think Mianmian seems like a gentle lover," NHS muses, three jars of wine in.  "I want her on my list."

"You don't even LIKE women!"

"So????  Mianmian seems great!  I would buy her nice hairpins and we could go dancing!"

hummingbird: wwx decides he wants someone on his list from each sect and they start fighting over mianmian, The Only Sensible Person In The Jin Sect

Errant: I ENDORSE THIS MESSAGE

Errant: EVEN BETTER

hummingbird: mianmian does not hear about this, but jzx does and is conflicted over whether he has to challenge wwx to a duel now

hummingbird: conflicted bc he WANTS to, but he always wants to so he can't tell if this is a reasonable response or not

Errant: ... NHS seems too twink for WWX to call er-gege loudly and in public but I mean. Would that really stop him.

Gabriel: They meet XXC and Song Lan and after they're gone, NHS leans over to WWX and whispers quietly, "So, since he's your shishu, I get dibs on Xiao-daozhang, right?"

"He's a priest, A-Sang!"

"What's your point?"

Gabriel: Counterargument, they BOTH call each other gege and it's making everyone around them insane.

WWX, pouting dramatically: "Nie er-gege, buy me lunch?"

NHS, flinging himself into WWX's arms: "Of course, Wei gege, what's your pleasure?"

JC, so red he could feasibly be mistaken for a lantern: "GREAT NEWS! I'M GOING TO KILL BOTH OF YOU!"

Errant: OH. GOLD STAR TO THE SECT LEADERS FOR MATCHMAKING THE BIGGEST PAIR OF PILLOW PRINCESSES IN THAT GENERATION

Gabriel: I MEAN? PRETTY MUCH?

hummingbird: nhs is constantly buying wwx ridiculous gifts and no one can tell if wwx actually likes having seventeen near-identical lavishly embroidered kimonos in different colors (that he rarely wears, largely bc he doesn't want to get them dirty while training) or if this is some weird elaborate game of chicken they have going

Errant: NHS tries to imply that he'll have an affair with JC if WWX isn't careful. WWX basically falls over laughing and goes YOU'RE WELCOME TO TRY IT DEAR

hummingbird: for like a week nhs takes that as a dare and puts in a valiant effort

hummingbird: wwx spends that week following nhs around and crying out in anguish and woe whenever nhs flirts with jc, dramatically concealing his definitely-not-grinning face behind one of the twenty-three painted fans nhs has given him to date

hummingbird: this is partly so he can watch his brother get increasingly furious and partly so he can step in and rescue nhs when jc inevitably actually loses it

Errant: Obviously the adults have shit gaydar (the boys were just convenient) but who's going to look at them and see right through them like Wow. That's not even slightly going to work as an actual romantic/ sexual relationship

hummingbird: shijie has known from like day 2

hummingbird: jc still has not noticed

hummingbird: he gets deeply offended whenever nhs flirts with other people

hummingbird: lxc, in his position as resident owner of the lan braincell, notices, but doesn't really know how to have a conversation about it with his brother

Gabriel: He resorts to just wingmanning WWX hard and assuming that eventually either LWJ will admit his feelings or WWX will notice his

Gabriel: It. Does not quite work out.

hummingbird: he keeps arranging for wwx and lwj to be placed in the same groups for training groups, only then whenever they get back nhs and wwx run dramatically into each other's arms

Gabriel: NHS takes a while to notice that the only person more viciously angry when he flirts with other people than JC is LWJ but hey listen he wants his fiance to have the best! Maybe if he flirts even harder with everyone under the sun, someday LWJ will be so outraged that he's driven to defend WWX's honor! Wouldn't that be romantic?

Errant: Does he start flirting with LWJ or?

hummingbird: nhs has planned out like eighteen different dramatic fights with lwj over his fiance, trying to figure out the exact right nuance of bowing out with grace and yet still fighting hard enough to show to everyone everywhere that wwx is a catch and lwj is lucky to have him

Errant: WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE HOW LWJ HANDLES ACTUALLY UNWANTED FLIRTING

Gabriel: NHS flirts with LWJ one (1) time, and it's the only time he ever sees WWX actually bothered by it.  It's so jarring to see WWX's sun-bright smile flicker into something mildly pinched and frustrated that NHS drops the act immediately and asks if he's feeling unwell.

hummingbird: yes good

Errant: Okay but: who catches them in an extremely compromising position, maybe in their underrobes, b/c Nie Huaisang was trying to draw a porn position and couldn't figure out whether something was anatomically possible

Gabriel: Oh obviously it's LWJ.  This is the this-universe version of him finding JC, WWX, and NHS drunk and roughhousing, right?

hummingbird: absolutely

hummingbird: he tells Nobody

hummingbird: his brother is worried about him for like a WEEK afterwards, thinks maybe he's caught a cold or something and won't admit it

Gabriel: It's not--it's not against the rules.  It's disgraceful, to be sure, and a clear sign that NHS is not good enough for even such a rampant delinquent as Wei Ying, that he would seduce someone before they were even married, but they're engaged and it's not against the rules and he doesn't understand why he keeps seeing this flash of NHS yanking his hands off WWX's hips like he's been burned and the rumpled half-slipped collar of WWX's undershirt, showing a collarbone and a shoulder and the muscle of his chest and--

hummingbird: omg he goes straight to 'nhs is the real bad influence here'

Gabriel: LWJ is spending time in the cold spring for a different reason than healing, when LXC blithely sends WWX to find him.  He hasn't been able to fucking concentrate on meditating since he saw--this is ridiculous, and offensive to his sensibilities, and a clear indicator that something is wrong with his golden core, so therefore: cold spring.

Errant: First line of defense: sword Second line: Cold spring Third line: panic

hummingbird: wen qing is also one of the people who notices very quickly that this is never going to hold water as a real relationship. she's too busy to really get involved in any of this nonsense, but somehow no matter how many times she explains to wen ning that they're not dating and none of their fights are real, he still ends up roped into their ridiculous break-ups and their even more ridiculous dramatic reconciliations

Gabriel: Wen Ning, sweet kind boy that he is, has been convinced three separate times that they are really genuinely having a permanent falling out, and even if they're not going to get together together he still wants them to be friends, okay, jiejie????

hummingbird: "every goddamn time" wen qing mutters to herself as she finds wen ning once again carrying notes between wwx and nhs in the dead of night. everyone is supposed to be asleep. she was out doing recon for her secret wen tasks, and her baby brother was supposed to be asleep, but instead he's out here catching his death of cold as he runs messages back and forth for these two MORONS

hummingbird: "but jiejie they're not speaking to each other! this is the only way I've gotten them to talk in three days!"

Errant: Consider: NHS has a moment of deviousness and convinces LWJ to spar with WWX so NHS can do "figure studies"

Errant: WWX is under strict instructions to make the positions as compromising as possible

hummingbird: absolutely devastating for all involved

Errant: They're sparring, they're sparring, they're sparring... HOLD THAT POSE. LWJ is basically pinning WWX to a flat surface (vertical or horizontal) they're both breathing hard and the tiniest bit sweaty and at first WWX is joking and laughing (maybe flirting! In front of his betrothed! Shameless!) But then there's one where he's just staring into LWJ's eyes and LWJ completely loses the plot

Gabriel: NHS's sketches of it are uh.  Not Suitable For Public Viewing.

hummingbird: honestly he's not sure he should even show wwx

Gabriel: He and WWX have this in common, the being a good artist, and in this AU LWJ definitely hears NHS offhandedly mention that he wants to get WWX to paint one of his fans, have you seen how lovely his painted flowers are, Lan-xiong?  And then maybe Huaisang could paint it with watercolors!  WWX prefers black and white, anyway, wouldn't that look lovely?  And LWJ can't even begin to define the rush of bitterness that almost blinds him, he just cuts a frigid glare at NHS and sweeps away before he can see the satisfied smirk that spreads over NHS's lips behind him.

hummingbird: oh nice

hummingbird: hmm. how much goading can lwj withstand before he just up and leaves? gets himself an assignment chasing monsters somewhere just so he won't have to look at huaisang's stupid face anymore

Gabriel: Well, after the whole cold pond cave debacle, LWJ can't leave, because he's been given a task, he has to carry the Yin Iron, and WWX is trailing after him (NHS told him to go) and when NHS joins them he can't get rid of him because he's the bane of LWJ's existence but also he is the brother of a sect leader and he could go crying to his brother and make Lan Xichen's life very hard.

[sortasirius]

“Gimme Shelter” and The Bomb

Living in the middle of clown town is always an adventure but they’re recently opened a five star restaurant that’s free to all residents so we’re eatin good lmao.

Wow.  Uh.  Wow.  Lots and lots and lots to unpack here.

This is.........long lmao

I mean.  Should we just talk about some of the *cough cough* married details we’ve got going on?  That picture of Cas from “Tombstone”?  Who took that? Who else COULD have taken that?  Why is it a printed photo that Cas just happens to have?  Why did it look like it was cut in half?

Okay, I also want to talk about the energy between Dean and Cas, and not the energy of two intensely married people.  We haven’t seen them together that much since 15x09 right?  I mean we’ve had bits here and there, but to me something still feels off.  I just can’t help but go back to the unresolved ending of their time in Purgatory (”I have to say something.” “You don’t have to say it, I heard your prayer.”).  It just feels like there’s awkwardness hanging in the air, like when Dean and Sam leave right when Cas gets back, or the way that Dean hangs up on him.  It feels like we’re supposed to be sus, which I most definitely am.  Things aren’t 100% fixed, even though they’d like us to believe that they are.

Baby man Jack?  “Marvelous Marvin the talking teddy, I have one!”

Also just,

“Can we wear matching ties?!”

“Yeah, blue’s a good color on you.”

I CRY.

I think it’s FASCINATING that Rowena is spending her time in Hell making things “boring” for demons, changing things. “People will end up where they belong.”  There is NO WAY that’s throwaway.

“Hello!  Where can I find the Kool Aid.”

Literal king.

There are a lot of ~parallels~ in this episode, a whole lot of callbacks, and not in the jokey oh hey remember that episode.  There are all very deliberate and coded carefully into the dialogue so that even people who watch casually and pay attention will pick up on them.

“We...dated.  Years ago, sort of.  More like we watched a lot of old movies together.”

Ok.

Which, nbd, same exact fucking episode as

Come on guys.  Just like.  Come on.  Davy.  My man.

Good to point out too that Davy Perez also wrote “Tombstone.”

I just want to take a second and appreciate that we at got this Amara this season.  No weird drama between her and Dean, just a literal badass who knows she’s a badass.  Dabb and co are going to save every poorly written character before this is over.

Cas’ fucking speech y’all. 

“I do know what blind faith is.  I used to just follow orders without question, and I did some pretty terrible things.  I would never look beyond the plan.  And then of course when it all came crashing down, I found myself lost.  I didn’t know what my purpose was anymore.  And then one day something changed, something amazing.  I...I guess I found a family.  And I became a father.  And in that, I rediscovered my faith.  And I rediscovered who I am.”

First of all, we deserved to see this from Cas.  We deserve to hear him talk about how much he’s grown, how much he’s changed from the “soldier” in season 4. 

Cas found who he was with Jack, with Sam, with Dean.  He found out he was a Winchester.  His love for others is so palpable this episode, the way he mother hens around Jack, the way he looks at Dean, I just completely adore him, and I loved being able to see him reflect on his own growth.

Okay, moving along to Amara and Dean’s convo...fuck man.  F U C K.

Dean’s pain in this scene.  His pain over Mary, over the lack of choice.  It’s so palpable, and I don’t think anything could have prepared me for Amara’s answer to his “Why?”

“I wanted two things for you, Dean.  I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person.  That the myth that you’d held on to for so long of a better life, a life where she’d lived was just that.  Myth. I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real.  That now is always better than then.  That you could finally start to accept your life.”

“Hm.  And the second thing?”

“I thought having her back would release you.  Put that fire out.  Your anger.  But I guess we both know I failed at that.”

His anger.

His anger through the whole season.

His inability to let go of the anger.

Dean’s anger, his inability to let go, we now know, of course, that his happiness didn’t come from Mary.  He still had the fire, he still couldn’t let go of the anger, the rage.  So what is it?  Not even Amara knows what will bring him peace, she just knows that her solution failed.

And then, as if we needed more parallels to this season:

“I’m furious.  To learn that all my life I’ve been nothing but a hamster in a wheel, stuck in a story.”

If that line sounded familiar to you.  It’s because it is.

It’s not a common phrase, especially since Davy Perez FILLED this episode with callbacks.  We’re in the endgame, nothing is unimportant.

For Dean to bring this line back up, right after Amara tells him that she thought that Mary would bring him peace, that she was wrong in that assumption.  For that line to get brought back up when Dean talks about his anger in that scene with Cas, right in the middle of their breakup, where the whole catalyst of his prayer is about his anger, how he can’t let go of his anger.  How he’s sorry he got so angry at Cas.

Bruh.

And then, as if all of this wasn’t enough.  Jack drops the twist.  That he has to die to kill Chuck and Amara.

It’s his own version of the empty deal.  That isn’t a mistake.  Both are going to come into play, Jack’s deal and Cas’.  Mirrors of each other.

Putting his hand on Cas’ shoulder, telling him his death is not Cas’ choice, but his own.  I think this, this scene is going to come back into play.

And then to end the episode with Cas telling Dean, telling him about Jack’s death. 

“In case something goes wrong and I don’t make it back, there’s something you and Sam need to know.”

So...our fluff episodes are over.

There’s so much in this episode, but what I think bears repeating at the end is Dean’s anger, what will bring him peace, Jack’s impending death, and Cas’ deal.  All of these are going to be our catalysts moving forward.  Dean’s anger arc isn’t over, just as Cas’ deal hasn’t been resolved.  Next week ~seems~ like it’ll be a fluff episode, but I am certain that it won’t be.  There’s gotta be some big to do about what Cas is going to tell Dean.

Idk what to tell y’all other than the volume inside of this clown car is astronomical.

[mister-supernova]

Missed Connection

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Pairing: Hope Mikaelson x Reader 

It’s almost been a month since your encounter with the stranger you believed to be from your dreams. Without any luck of seeing her again, you were beginning to think that maybe that’s all she was; just some mere figment of your imagination that you so desperately wanted to have all the answers you needed. 

As insufferably difficult this summer was for you, you still managed to get through it. You thought it was because school wasn’t in session and that you’d be back in your element in no time once classes begin again. 

That was what you had hoped for anyways, but alas even when the halls were filled with your peers and your routine was back in place, nothing seemed to change. The mysterious void in your chest didn’t ease like you wished it would.

You couldn’t help but wonder if your friends had been feeling the same way, too. Surely there’s no chance that you could be alone in this situation, right? 

“You can’t tell me that things haven’t felt a little weird since Landon destroyed Malivore. He doesn’t even know how it happened, Lizzie.” 

The blonde Saltzman nearly whips you in the face with her hair as she abruptly turns to face you in the crowded hallway. “Y/n, we live in a world where witches, werewolves, and vampires exist. Everything in our lives is bound to have a tiny amount of weirdness.”

She made a good point and you knew that, but you also knew that this feeling was different. It had to be. 

Lizzie frowns at the disappointed look on your face and rests a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Look, the most important thing is that Malivore is gone. No more bizarre monsters coming to kill us every week. Now try to stop overthinking things and let’s get through this school year in peace.”  

Before you knew it, your conversation ended just as quickly as it started and Lizzie was on her way back to class. You hang your head with a defeated sigh, desperately searching the hallway for someone who may be just as lost as you were. Instead, you see everyone going about their first day back like normal. 

Students who were away with their families are now smiling brightly as they reunite with friends. Other groups of friends laugh at a joke another says as they pass you by and you wonder if there was someone you should be doing that with.

The clarity that you sought out today only made you more confused than ever. At this point you wished that it was still summer vacation because seeing your classmates having a great first day back had you thinking that you really were alone with your feelings.  

Maybe you just needed a day to hang out with your friends after class today. They may not share your thoughts on how odd things have felt recently, but being around them definitely helps clear your head. 

“I’m sorry, Y/n. You know Landon and I would be down to watch a movie or something, but we’re going on our official first date today.” Josie tells you, disheartened. 

After the multitude of movie dates the two of them shared throughout the summer, you’re surprised that none of those had been labeled as dates, but you weren’t going to tell her that outloud. The two of them seem to be really happy to be spending so much time together and you weren’t going to get in the middle and be the third wheel no one wants, especially on a first date. 

“No worries, Jo. I’ll ask Lizzie and MG if they’re free.” She gives you a gentle squeeze on your arm with a sympathetic smile before you go off to find her sister. 

Things didn’t seem to be going to plan here either.

“If I hadn’t already agreed to this stupid- I mean,” she grits her teeth with a forced smile, “very cool study date with MG I’d totally hang out with you. God knows I’d rather do anything else.” You knew you weren’t supposed to hear that last part, but Lizzie was always awful at lowering her voice. 

If you weren’t already feeling distraught, this definitely was the cherry on top of your depressing cake of sadness. 

Instead of showing Lizzie that, you plastered the fakest smile you could and responded with, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just… hang out downtown and get myself a milkshake at the Grill or something.” 

Plan “get your friends to distract you from the abrasive thoughts penetrating your brain” had failed, but you weren’t going to let it stop you from at least getting out of the school for a couple of hours. With everyone so busy while classes are back in session, it made you wonder what in the world you did after school before this year. 

As much as you tried hyping up how fun it was going to be hanging out downtown by yourself, it only made you feel even more bummed out. Like everything else you’ve been doing since the night Malivore was destroyed, something felt off and nothing seemed to be your remedy.

Minutes turned to hours and you ended up drinking four full glasses of cookies and cream milkshakes at the Grill, literally falling into a sugar coma at your table outside. The sun was barely setting when you got here, but then it was fully dark out when you were woken up from your sugar rush nap. 

“Jesus, Y/n. I thought you were dead or something.” You lean your head upwards to see that it was Landon who woke you from your slumber. 

“One could not be so lucky, phoenix boy.” You groggily respond, stretching out your muscles and wiping any drool from your cheeks.

Looking at your surroundings, you notice that Josie isn’t around. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?” 

There’s a pained look on Landon’s face at your question, “Yeah, about that… she, uh, she said she wasn’t feeling too good and decided to go back to the school.” 

You raise an eyebrow at him, “What, did you take her to eat sushi or something?” 

That was meant to be a joke, but the look of realization on the curly-haired boy’s face told you all you needed to know. 

“You went to a sushi place.” 

Landon quickly slides into the seat across from yours, “It’s what I suggested. W-Was I not supposed to?”  

“Jo can’t digest any sort of raw food without wanting to convulse. I learned that the hard way when I first started going to the Salvatore school,” you shiver at the memory, “Never again.” 

The phoenix begins falling into a full state of panic, “Oh my God. I didn’t know that! Wh-What am I supposed to do? What if I completely ruined everything? What if she never wants to go on another date with me again? What if-” 

Your patience was thinning very quickly, “Landon, just relax. Take a breather for a second,” you inhale, watching him do the same, and breathe out at the same time, “Go back to the school, check up on her, have a convo about getting some better communication skills and I’m sure everything will be fine.” 

Landon nods, “Okay, okay yeah. That’s good. I’ll, uh, I’ll do that,” he continues to sit across from you until you look at him expectantly, “Do I do that now?”

“For your sake, Josie’s, and especially mine, yes. Now would be great, buddy.” 

“Right, okay. Thanks, Y/n!” He scrambles out of his seat and begins to shuffle away from the Grill. 

“Go get ‘em, Tiger!” You shout with as much enthusiasm you could muster before slumping back into your chair. 

Still dazed from the sugar rush nap and exhausted from that conversation, you lean forward with your elbows on the table and begin wiping the sleep from your eyes using the palms of your hands.

“This is gonna be one hell of a year.”  

“Long day, huh?” You recognize that it’s a girl’s voice you’re hearing, but not one that was familiar to you. 

Moving your hands away from blocking your view, you look up to see the person you convinced yourself was just a figment of your imagination. The long auburn colored hair, fair-skinned, blue eyed girl from your dreams was standing right before you. For a moment, you thought that maybe you really had lost it. 

“Sorry. I just, I saw you sitting here earlier and thought you might want company.”

You’re almost positive that you were staring at her with your mouth hanging open like an absolute idiot. Just say something, dumbass!

“Mind if I join you?” She asks, gesturing towards the now empty chair that Landon left behind. 

“Yes!” 

Idiot! 

“I mean no! No, I uh, I don’t mind.” You chuckle nervously, adjusting yourself in every way possible to hide the fact that you were internally freaking out.

The girl gives you a patient smile before taking the seat in front of you, “So, party of one tonight, huh? I mean, I saw you finish talking to someone right now, but it didn’t seem you two were here together.” 

“Yeah, no. Not together at all or with anyone really,” for some reason you had to make this very clear to her, “That was just a friend of mine who’s having some lady troubles, so I decided to be a good samaritan and give him some positive advice.”

“How chivalrous of you.” Right away you could tell that she was teasing and the nerves you had seconds ago simply began to vanish. 

“Why thank you,” you smile, feeling a wave of warmth when she returns one back, “But yeah, it’s just been me, myself, and I for the night… and day… and probably for the rest of the school year if I’m honest.”

Her smile fades and she tilts her head inquisitively, “What makes you say that?” 

Oh, where to begin. 

“I’ve been asking myself that for a while now actually. Everything should feel perfect given the fact that I have these amazing friends, I go to this incredible school, I’m 100% healthy and not dying of anything that I know of,” you shrug at yourself, “I should be happy with that, but I’m not. It feels so selfish of me to say and I wish I could fix it, but I can’t. How can everything be so close to perfect, but yet there’s still something wrong?” 

The girl stares at you with such empathy and sadness in her eyes that you could swear she was holding something back. 

You continue, “Things also haven’t felt normal lately. My definition of normal anyways. For some reason everything has felt completely off, like I’m missing something. You know when you forget that there’s somewhere you’re supposed to be? Like an event and you don’t realize you’ve forgotten about it until the day of and you say to yourself, ‘oh shit, I can’t believe I forgot about this really important thing’. That’s how I’ve felt ever since summer started,” you notice her tense up slightly, but you continue, “but I can’t remember what I’m forgetting.”

At this point, you were surprised this girl didn’t think you were crazy and start running for the hills. If this were any normal stranger, you wouldn’t feel comfortable enough to overshare the thoughts you’ve been keeping secret from your close friends. For some reason, she made you feel the complete opposite. Strangely enough--given the world you live in--you felt safe with her.

“Everyone at school is making me feel like I’m the only person who feels this way. Everyone else can go back to normal. Everyone else can move on and go on dates and study dates and hang out with their friends and go to class without feeling lost and overall just be… normal.” You finally let go of the breath you had been holding in for what feels like months.

Then you start to laugh at the ridiculousness that just spewed out of your mouth, “Jesus Christ. I’m so sorry. You probably thought you were going to have an innocent ‘nice weather we’re having’ type of conversation, but instead you got a stranger dumping their whole life crisis onto you.” 

“You really don’t have to apologize. Trust me, I understand how insanely messed up life can get and how relieving it is to just vent it all out,” she gives you a reassuring nod with a genuine look of understanding that you’ve been wanting to see for months, “Even if it’s to someone who can potentially be a serial killer.” 

The both of you burst out into a fit of laughs and you swear that you’ve never felt so connected to a person you just met. It was as if your souls had met in another life and were catching up for the first time in a while. Neither of you had a name to place with your faces, but that didn’t seem matter because you already felt like you’ve known this girl for years. 

“I’ve had quite a rough couple of months myself. Not sure if I’d binge drink four cookies and cream milkshakes to numb the pain though.” 

You shrug, “Well, it’s better than the latter option that I can’t even legally purchase because I’m underage. Plus, it helps that these are the best milkshakes in town--even if they are 4 dollars a glass.” 

Now you’re hoping that your old co-worker can cover your bill since you only brought ten dollars with you tonight. Before you could reach for your wallet just to be sure, another thought crossed your mind. 

“Wait. How did you know they were cookies and cream? I know it’s a lot of milk to force inside by body, but I normally leave no trace of evidence behind. Are you a witch or something?” That last part was obviously a joke otherwise she’d be at your school by now.

The girl opens her mouth to speak, but it takes her a moment to come up with an explanation, “It was my best friend’s favorite. Yeah, we used to go out for milkshakes all the time and I guess something about you reminds me of them.” 

You smile, flattered, “Well, might I say, your best friend has amazing taste,” she purses her lips into a tightened smile and lowers her gaze, almost as is the memories of this said ‘best friend’ pained her to think about, “I’m assuming things aren’t so great with them right now?”

She sighs at the thought, “We were close for a long time. I’m actually surprised that they stayed as long as they did. I probably gave them a million reasons to bail, but they were annoyingly persistent,” she chuckles, “I’ll admit, it took me a while to settle into our friendship, but the moment I did was something I would never regret. From that point on the only thing that could separate us was death.” 

Judging by her heavy use of past tense words, you could only think the worst happened, “Did they, you know, um…?” You didn’t want to ask the full question seeing that she was clearly still hurt by the absence of this person. 

She shakes her head, “No. No, it turned out death wasn’t the only factor that was able to keep us apart. We meant a lot to each other and later realized that there was more to us than just friendship. Eventually, things started becoming serious but me being the person I am, I pushed them away and left.”

“Have you tried reaching out to them again?” You thought that there was no way two people who felt those intense feelings could completely forget about each other.

“Once, but things changed. They took one look at me and acted as if I never existed.” Maybe it was the empath in you, but it broke your heart seeing a small pool of tears building up in her eyes. You wished that you could say something to make her feel better and tell her that everything will be okay, but how could you when you don’t know her?

She quickly wipes the tears before they could fall and takes in a deep breath that you instinctively mirrored to compose yourselves. 

“I guess it’s my turn to say sorry, huh? I feel like my baggage was a little heavier than yours there,” she sniffs, huffing out a light chuckle. 

“Well, if we’re giving out medals here, you’ve got the gold. That’s for sure,” you grin, hoping to lighten up the mood.

Her laugh--that you could tell was genuine--gave you the assurance you needed. 

“I feel like I should give you a hug. I mean, if you’re cool with that,” you suggest, ready to push yourself out of your seat, “Because I could kind of use one and I’m just assuming--” 

“That would be great, yeah,” the girl nods with a relieved smile. 

“Alright, great.”

The two of you stand, moving around the table to meet each other in the middle. Her head seemed to fit perfectly against your chest as her arms pressed behind your back. All of the weight that had been piling up on your shoulders began to fall at your feet and the tension from stress that built up inside your chest began fading away. How this could happen from an interaction with a complete stranger, you had absolutely no idea. 

“Is it weird if I say this doesn’t feel weird?” You ask with the side of your head leaned against hers. 

“Well, I think things are only weird when someone makes it weird.” 

You pause for a moment, “Do you think this feels weird?”

She laughs and you know for a fact that she could hear your heart skip a beat, “No. I don’t.”

You fight the goofy grin from appearing on your face, but fail miserably, “Okay, good.” 

Part of you was afraid of what’ll happen the moment you separate. You had no idea when would be the next time you see this girl or if there was going to be a next time. This was the first day in a while when you didn’t feel lost, instead you felt that this was exactly where you needed to be. You felt normal.

Before you could actually start making things weird, you begin to pull away from her embrace, “Well, tonight I learned that I can click with a stranger within a span of ten minutes give or take, so thank you for that.”

She smiles, “Thank you, too.”

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re at the point of learning each other’s names now.” 

“Yes, because why start with those when we could just tell our whole life stories and share an intimate hug first?”

“Exactly! Actually, you know what? I think we should get married in Vegas really quick and we’ll just figure out our names during the vows section of the wedding ceremony. Whatever we come up with in the moment will just be how we refer to each other for the rest of our lives,” you joke. 

“You’re absolutely right.” Wow, a girl who can keep up with your sarcasm without thinking you’re a complete--huge emphasis on complete--idiot? She is the girl of your dreams--literally and metaphorically. 

You stared down at her in wonder, hoping to God that you’re not dreaming and that this interaction has been real, “It’s, uh, it’s Y/n by the way. My name. Y/n L/n.” 

“Hope. Hope Marshall,” she reveals and a victorious smile appears on your lips when you finally have a name to match a face. 

Your smile quickly drops when the clock tower starts going off and you realize that it’s nearly midnight, “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you tonight, Hope. I'm sorry to cut the rest of the evening short, but my school just got a new headmaster and unfortunately he’s a lot more strict on our curfew than our previous one. Don’t want to turn into a pumpkin, you know?” 

She chuckles, “No worries at all. It was nice meeting you, too, Y/n,” Hope smiles and you can tell that she didn’t want to leave. If you were being honest, you really didn’t want to either. 

Neither of you could find the energy to be the first person to walk away. To do that would be like trying to separate two annoyingly strong and stubborn magnets apart.

As much as you wanted to spend the whole night learning more about each other, you also didn’t want to be put in detention on the first day back at school. 

Unwillingly, you take the first step backwards without wanting to fully turn away from your newfound acquaintance, “Thanks again for the chat. I hope to see you again very soon, Marshall.”  

Hope rolls her eyes, but can’t contain a smile, “Only if you’re lucky.”

“I think I like my chances,” you wink playfully before turning your heel to make your way back to the school feeling the most energized you’ve felt in a long time.

~

apologies for the later update than usual with this series and I apologize in advance if it takes a while for part 6 to be posted. I’m in a bit of a writing funk right now and my mind is currently locked onto the Wilds soooo there may or may not be imagines for that fandom coming from me soon. anyways, happy late 2021 and here’s to hoping this year isn’t complete shit! much love y’all

taglist: @chicken-wang09​ @trikruismybitch​ @sodangtired​

[mr-lancers-english-class]

Second and last part of Phic Phight 2021!

Full text below the cut. Warnings for swearing and some drinking mentions.

Mary Baker had a list. She kept it in the back of her calculus notebook. It had started as a joke, something to amuse herself with any time differential equations or taylor series got to be a bit too much. In her three years at uni, it had evolved into a full-on conspiracy theory.

Somehow, despite the multiple thousands of people who went to her school, Mary had had a class with one Daniel Fenton every semester of her college experience. They weren’t even in the same major, but there was quite a lot of overlap between astrophysics and biochemical engineering, weirdly enough, and so every September and every January, Mary found herself walking into at least one class to find Fenton already there.

The list at the back of her calculus notebook was, in theory, very simple. In practice, it was the bane of her existence, and she was sure if she could figure out what it all meant, she’d be the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history.

THAT FENTON KID: WTF IS HIS DEAL???

Doesn’t sleep??? Ever???

Frosh roomie Jake says he always went to bed first and by the time he woke up, Fenton would already be awake

Jake is an avid partyer, joined the frat with the highest DUI rate

Jake goes to bed at 2am on a good day

Got an on-campus single soph + junior year

RA 1 Beth, says he never caused any issues

RA 2 Mac, Fenton brought them fudge a lot but only late at night

Espresso dealer knows Fenton by name and order

I have never once seen Fenton in that coffee shop when the sun is shining

LIBRARY!!!

Al says Fenton is in the library studying until like 4am when they close

Al also doesn’t sleep, testimony should be taken with caution

Climber/Boulderer/Parkour

Once twice thrice Came to class through 3rd+ story window

Calc 1: 12

History of Ghanian Art: 6

Intro bagpiping: 1 (carrying bagpipes in one arm and bag on back)

Chem 1: 4

Calc 3: 10

Phys 1: 8

Espresso dealer says Fenton chills on the roof of Smith Hall

No roof access to Smith Hall per janitors + admin

Smith Hall is in the middle of a field w/ no trees

Captain of Parkour Club

Also, founded Parkour Club

There’s like two other members and they’re both from the same tiny town in the middle-of-bumfuck-nowhere Illinois

Where tf is Fenton from???

Only does work in Spooky von Haunted Library

Racist pos can go die in a hole, I will only ever refer to that hellscape by the actual fun shit that happens there

But yeah Fenton never works anywhere else

Per Al, who works the night shift there three days a week

Checked with Greg @ SP Lib and Wren @ 28th St Lib, they’ve never seen him at their libraries

Talks to ghosts?

Per Al, has convos w/ legit nothing

Finally broke down? Wish it were me

Seems to get inspired by said convos w/ nothing

No sense of danger? There’s a better way to word that but idk man

Took 20 cr first semester, 3.8 gpa

SEE?!?!? DOESN’T SLEEP!!!

Took calc 3 with Smith

Which is the dumbest move possible, Smith grades way too hard

Also, somehow pulled an A

Parkour club

Dude ends up on top of tallest buildings on campus every week

And then fucking leans over the side to figure out how to get down wtf???

HazMat

I wrote this down like a year ago and then forgot fuck

I REMEMBERED!!!

Hazmat spill in chem lab, Fenton legit didn’t realize

Finished the lab, turned it in, walked out none the wiser

Might have drank hydrochloric acid once????

Nani says so

Normally I’d trust her, but there’s no fucking way

Def downed a whole bottle of ammonia

What, cocaine not enough for you???

But yeah chem 1

So yeah actually I believe Nani he totally drank hydrochloric acid

Bear

Oh lol yeah a bear got on quad

Fucking Fenton chased it away allll bu self

Also some jakcass had paintted it fucking brught green

lol frat boys amiright?

i’m too fucking drunk for thsi rn later mary can deal wtih the bear

Walked through a wall

Okay what the unmitigated fucking hell????

Fenton just fucking walked through a wall in the middle of the math building I swear to god

I am dead sober right now, it’s fucking noon on a fucking tuesday and he just walked through a fucking wall

Dude flies

I don’t think i was suppsed to see tihs one boys

Its kinda late lol like 4am but not toooooooo late

And i mean yeah mayeb i’m a teeny weeny bit itnoxcaded

But i stg fenton jst fckng flew

Jumped oof the top of Smtih Haal

And then jst knda hovred for a hot mnt or 2

then f*cking uh flew away

look i derw a baby star

No curses in ym bok, nope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im gona go to slep now

he fcuking flies i cant deal rn

[ahwait-no-yes]

so basically my friend told me today about her dream she had that involved a demon and of course my mind went “...SAIOU AU”

here’s our convo so it makes sense:

if I had the motivation i would DEFINITELY write a fic about this- the fluff/crack/angst potential is t h e r e

and as a bonus doodle,

story is under the cut (it’s long)

“I was gonna keep this in tags but hsdf;j” is what I originally wrote here until I started thinking about this more and sorta wrote the whole plot-

-> as ouma’s killing the other monster things he flirts with shuuichi while the poor demon has never been flirted with so he’s stood there all confused and ??? (his version of blushing would be like, the fire coming from his small horns gets bigger and brighter)

-> the one he summons ends up being like. kaede and they both just end up having to lecture shuuichi on why it is that he should not want to die so easily

-> eventually kokichi and kaede wanna give him a hug so they try to but shuuichi’s Extra Hot™ (from being a demon and also probably blushing) so they both immediately regret that choice but kokichi laughs and gives an obligatory pun about shuuichi being hot which only confuses him because ‘of course im hot?? im a demon??’ while kaede explains what ouma meant

-> imagine shuuichi crying (fire tears..) at the generosity of these two strangers who a) aren’t absolutely terrified of him, b) refuse to hurt him and c) actually *want* to help him and ouma actually inwardly understanding a little bc he’d never imagine someone actually wanting to be with himself either

-> saihara now wanting to know what it’s like to live as a human with ouma and akamatsu but being unable to find a way (except for maybe being undercover?) but promising he’ll bring ouma back to him (he’s aware of the whole aging phenomenon in the lil demon world so he wants to keep their time short) and ouma finding that now he has something to look forward to

-> the 👏 mutual 👏 pining 👏 that commences after they both have to leave each other (if kaede knows kokichi in the real world she’d definitely tease him a little knowing he has a crush- this is probably good potential for building oumaede friendship)

-> it takes a while before ouma and saihara can see eachother again because getting the two to escape without killing saihara exerted a lot of energy on him, but they do get to! about once a month to be safe, and they get to know stuff about eachother like which shops ouma likes to steal from and shuuichi’s really loud demon friend he once had (aka momota)

-> one day though saihara tells ouma that if he keeps doing this he’ll die of exhaustion (it takes a lot of energy from saihara to get ouma in and out of there) and ouma calling him an idiot but really being worried. saihara tells him not to worry about him even if something happens to him, and makes ouma go back to the real world

-> ouma doesn’t hear from him after that

-> he worries he might have been killed or saihara forgot about him and feels stupid for being so hopeful in something so childishly impossible and starts trying to forget about him

-> the real world is aware of demons cause people talk about them (and obvs you can tell when someone’s gone to their.. dimension thing because you can visibly see them age) so still denying that he’s curious and likes saihara still, ouma tries to go to libraries and do his own research on demons and ends up finding out that saihara specifically comes from a bloodline that makes him quite powerful if not for that he wouldnt want to take the risks that come with it and then lowkey gets excited again for saihara while still in ✨denial ✨

-> it’s been almost a year when saihara has enough energy (and more) to ensure that his new plan is successfully carried out and that ouma (and potentially 1 more..) gets back to the real world safely. he created this plan when he figured out how to exist in the real world- by sacrificing the thing he cares most about

-> so when ouma suddenly gets that off-feeling people get when they’re leaving the real world he feels very many emotions at once (giddily going ”ohh my god its not this it cant be this no way oh heck tthisis not happening not a chance”) until he sees the face he’s been waiting 4 months for again except this time it looks.. frighteningly cold

-> ouma’s instincts are screaming at him that something is very, very wrong here especially when he can’t hear any warmth when saihara says “Welcome back, Ouma. It’s your final time” and explains the whole ‘kill these monsters then kill me’ thing again

-> ouma’s confusion inevitably turns to annoyance as he kills the dudes (there appears to be a lot more than there was last time) and fires questions at saihara (‘is this saihara?’ ‘what happened to you??’ ‘do you even remember me?’) while saihara stays silent for the whole time thinking about how he really doesn’t want to be doing this. 

-> eventually ouma decides he was wrong (again) to have put his faith in a guy- a demon- he only met once a month.. even if said demon gave him something to look forward to

-> when he finally gets to saihara alone he internally notes that saihara cant look him in the eye, but he finally speaks to tell ouma that now either himself or ouma will now die (saihara knows this is for sake of the sacrifice, but he can’t let ouma know else it won’t work)

-> ouma refuses to fight him again, expecting saihara to snap back into the meek demon from a year and some months ago, but rather than that happening saihara actually says something like “if you won’t kill me, I’ll have to kill you” and swings at him

-> even if ouma was on his full guard, he still would’ve been surprised by how strong saihara actually could be when he tried to fight- and of course saihara can’t stop now that he’s started but ouma hears the hesitation when saihara asks ���are you going to kill me yet?” and gets annoyed that the whole time he spent with him and even akamatsu meant nothing. saihara smiles sadly knowing he’s achieving his goal but ouma thinks he’s smiling at the thought of dying and gets somehow even more annoyed

-> during their whole fight, insert “I’m alone, Ouma, and I will always be” line from saihara, “No amount of talking can convince me otherwise, Ouma. I’m sorry it took so long, but it was foolish of you to trust a demon you met only once” or something and yes it hurts saihara too but ouma’s staying silent and before saihara can continue, ouma fires back with “You’re right- you are meant to be alone. You were always meant to be that kind of guy” and stops dodging to start finally attacking- this is when saihara knows he’s pretty much achieved his target: sacrificing ouma’s trust in him

-> just as ouma swipes at him, saihara’s lil spell thing is activated that takes saihara back to the real world, disguised so people don’t see him as a demon. but now ouma thinks he’s just killed saihara (I just attacked him. and he is gone. i dont know what that light was but i must have just killed him. oh my god im a murderer.”)

-> saihara hiding in the forest to do the lil spell thing again but on ouma (all the time he spent saving on energy was worth it) so ouma gets transported to the real world too and immediately runs to tell akamatsu everything that happened

-> saihara trying to find to blend in with humans from what he remembers of how they act but he doesnt need to particularly eat he just needs a heck ton of sleep so he basically just lives in the forest now. he’s very sensitive to water so he actively stays away from it too (it wont kill him but it does make him sick). he’s still feverishly warm but not scalding and he also decides to work at a store to fit in more

-> ouma regretting what he did to saihara even though saihara hurt him first and realising he misses him

-> saihara ends up accidentally bumping into him at the store he works at that ouma conveniently steals from a lot (”Ouma, you’d make a good demon” “Nishishi! What do you mean? I’m a perfect little angel!”) and saihara gasping when he notices ouma’s unforgettable purple hair and cute smile.

-> ouma finding something familiar about this awkward new staff with the cute face and deciding he’ll visit the shop more often to see this stranger and not because said stranger might help him get over his demon crush

-> then they get to know eachother again for the 2nd time, and as much as this guy is really cute, he clearly knows more than he’s letting on... so of course ouma’s gotta now pay even more attention to him. just so he knows what the guy’s hiding. not cause he wants to know him.

-> one day saihara is sick from trying to protect himself from the rain (cause yk, water bad) so he stays in the forest instead of coming in to focus his energy on getting better and also not blowing his cover. ouma notices he isnt there on that day and asks other staff members where he lives and they’re all like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

-> it rains quite a bit after that, inevitably making saihara even more sick and in turn needing time away to himself, so ouma starts getting worried when saihara stops coming to work

-> saihara really wants to see him though, so one day he tries to drag himself to work in a terrible state where he’s actually almost cold for once and collapses after trying to run to ouma. ouma sees him and tells his manager he cant work nd takes him home himself where saihara wakes up confused

-> ouma lecturing saihara because he worried him and the way he fell reminded him of.. someone (demon shuu).. then he asks vague questions to saihara about if he’s ever met a demon and half-confesses to having met one himself multiple times and ending up falling in love and then probably killing them

-> saihara, in his tired state, tells him his story of how he was raised to believe he had no purpose other than to meet someone who would kill him, eventually finding that person but instead of looking at him with fear or anger he looked at him with admiration and playfulness, how the guy meant to kill him refused to and flirted w him instead. ouma has probably clicked on by this point but saihara continues to tell him he wanted to protect that guy with the power he had so he took time away from his first ‘job’ to find out how to be with him. saihara is probably shaking at this point while he continues telling him about how he found out he had to sacrifice the most important thing to him, so he “went and had a terrible argument with him one day and i ran away. but i’ve never stopped looking for him since, he showed me that even a demon like me can fall in love” (there’s the ✨grand confession ✨)

-> ouma saw it coming from the moment saihara started speaking, but that didnt stop him from being utterly paralysed. of COURSE saihara has to say “When I said you’d make a good demon I really wasn’t lying. Your hand is so warm it could fool even me” which possibly makes ouma completely combust before absolutely bolting out the door and calling akamatsu to tell her to get to his house (”AKAMATSU-CHAN I’M GONNA DIE RIGHT NOW IF YOU DON’T GET HERE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT THIS SECOND”)

-> while waiting for kaede, shuuichi explains that he needs to be Warm™ and immediately holds kokichi’s hold again, while the other’s having a gay panic.. and he doesnt know how to feel because on one hand, his beloved demon is.. right here, in the ‘flesh’, holding his hand, telling him he fell in love with him.. but on the other hand, that doesnt excuse the confusion and hurt he put him through back then, not being able to see him for a whole damn year.. 

-> ouma ignores all the feelings when akamatsu arrives where she’s brought water and blankets (just in case- i feel like shes the kind of friend who would do that) so saihara takes the blankets and ouma takes the water and she calms them both down and gets them to explain everything slowly and in their own time. its awkward esp for ouma who isnt particularly close with her, but they manage it in the end

-> they decide shuuichi literally cant live in the forest so of course now he has to live with ouma but akamatsu offers to help if it ever gets too much for ouma which obviously ouma denies. she leaves soon and its just them but ouma needs some time to himself to clear his head and he only returns late to see saihara asleep clinging onto akamatsu’s blanket with his life lmao so ouma sighs and brings him more. and if he kisses the sleeping demon’s forehead, nobody has to know

-> ofc its still very much awkward and it takes ouma getting used to having even just another presence in his home, let alone his sort-of-unofficial-demon-bf and saihara’s still sleeping a lot of the time but recovering

-> they probably establish their feelings for eachother properly when they’re more mentally prepared for it, and then 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 (they kiss) and are now actually legally boyfriends. i absolutely cannot let this end in angst so they’re happy and love eachother now yay the end

nngl. i talked about this with that same friend and I lowkey want to start writing an actual fic for it now that ive written... literally the entire plot, but if i do that it probably wont be out for a while bc i take 10 years to write lmao-- plus i hardly ever finish what i start so uh yeah.. but hopefully! im not even good at writing fic this is just the plot but yello

[theroguequeenaniki]

Questions 2009 -> 2021

This is from my Facebook. It popped up on my memories page thing. I originally answered this in 2009 when I was 15, it’s now 2021 & and I am 27, so I’m gonna do it again. Leaving the original answers. Original answers will be italicized. Commentary on the original answers in parentheses & crossed out? Lol. (I’m not gonna tag anyone, but, like, I guess if you want to answer these random questions from Facebook 12 years ago, go ahead lol) 

Questions

Can you fill this out without lying? You've been tagged, so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose people to tag. Don't forget to tag me so I can see your answers! To do this, copy this entire message, then go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy! Next, tag people that you think may enjoy this (in the right hand corner of the app). Click publish (at the bottom). Have fun! :) 1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth? My cup with my Big Red in it The straw to my Kate Spade tumbler to drink my HEB Cola Lol.

2.Where was your profile picture taken? I got it off the internet. it's a random anime girl. My bedroom. 3.Can you play Guitar Hero? Never played it. Probably wouldn't be good at it. Not to good at video games. But I am good at Mario Cart, both 64 and the Wii. plus I'm good at some Sonic games. Still never played it. Idk if I’m any good at Mario Cart or the Sonic games anymore, I haven’t played either in years lol

4.Name someone who made you laugh today? Doctor Who TikTok. My cats.

5.How late did you stay up last night and why? Umm, probably about 10:00 cause it took me forevor to get into bed. Uh..Past 4am. Lol. B/c my sleep schedule is fucked. I was in bed by 3am though, but I was playing games & watching TikToks on my phone. Lol.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you? Yes. I'd move to either New York or Sweden. I don’t know. Part of me says yes. But part of me says no..b/c even though Texas has it’s faults (a LOT of them), I cannot imagine living anywhere else long-term..

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? HAHA. Yeah right. I've never even been kissed! Still nope. I have been kissed though. He just didn’t kiss me under the fireworks the one NYE we spent together...

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you? Um, I think R, but D might also. D is accross Stasney from me and R is a couple blocks down (I don’t talk to these people much anymore & I’m not going to share their names on Tumblr) Uh. I think Maybe Raven? B/c they’re the only one who lives in the same city still. But, Sarah might technically be closer distance wise? Hold on. Ok, yeah, Sarah’s closer, even though she doesn’t live in this city anymore.

9. Do you believe exes can be friends? It all depends on the situation.(I totally stold M's answer but it's true) (I don’t talk to this person anymore & I’m not gonna share their name on Tumblr) I mean, yeah. Two of my best friends are each others exes and they’re still friends. I haven’t stayed friend with my ex, but, uh, he ghosted me so? Lol.

10. How do you feel about Dr. Pepper? I love it. I still love it. Lol.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard? I can't remember. I don't think it was that long ago, I had a light cry on Saturday, but I don't remember the last time I cried really hard. When we got back from our trip in July. Had a full on breakdown that night. Overheated all weekend. Overwhelmed. Anxiety. It was not a very good vacation..I cry a lot though.

12. Who took your profile picture? I got it off of google. I did. 

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of? Umm, either myself, or one of my family members. Aside from myself. I think my dad, on his phone, b/c there was a cicada on his shoulder and he wanted to ask the family group chat if he could keep it. Lol. I take a LOT of pictures of cats though. Lol.

14. Was yesterday better than today? Hail yes! To much drama today! And I couldn't avoid it cause I was in the middle of it! (Oof, what drama was 15 yo Linda dealing with that she couldn’t avoid? Lol. I mean, I guess, Sophomore year was a bit full of drama lol) Anyway, I mean, they were pretty much the same. One wasn’t better than the other. One wasn’t worse than the other.

15. Can you live a day without TV? yeah. Now Music there is something I can't live without! Yep, Do it almost everyday. Sentiments about music remain the same. Lol.

16. Are you upset about anything? Yes. I'm annoyed about something and it's making me upset. (I assume this has something to do with the the drama mentioned earlier lol) Always. Anxiety & depression are a bitch. My rooms a mess & I can’t get myself to clean it. My shelves are still a mess.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? yeah. though i havent really had one yet. I mean, yeah. Even though I haven’t had one last, aside from friendships, but they’re worth it. 

18. Are you a bad influence? I hope not. If so, let me know.(again I took M's answer but it's true) Probably. Idk. Lol.

19. Night out or night in? Depends on what's going on and how I feel about it. Night in usually. I do like going out sometimes, but, like, to dinner. Maybe a movie or a show. But, you know, we’ve been in a panini press, the only thing I’ve been comfortable doing is going to dinner (fully vaxxed & masked). But I also prefer staying home anyway. (Like I usually just go to dinner with my family lol)

20. What items could you not go without during the day? my computer. my book. my journal and a pen. My phone. My journal (b/c I write in it every night, as a diary, 14yo Linda wrote stories). Uh. I didn’t take food or drinks into account in the og, so I won’t in those. But, yeah. My phone & journal. I can go a day without my laptop if I need to. (Went the whole trip in July without pulling it out, though maybe that’s not a good example since my anxiety on that trip was so high..) I want to say a book, but I’ve been in a massive reading slump so...I wish I read as much as 15yo Linda did..

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? I don't remember. I think it was myself.(if you want to know, ask me in person) I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember the last time I was in a hospital. 

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say? "Mrbobbybones:  wish ted would finally meet their mother already. geez. get to it. However, I see myself in that character more and more each episode." yeah. That's what it says. It's from Twitter. (Huh? and I can’t even go check b/c my inbox doesn’t go back to 2009 on Twitter?? (I haven’t had my account that long) Wait wait wait just remembered I used to get tweets to my phone as text messages lol)

Facebook messenger: “ Cool” From our group chat. Lol.

From actual text messages on my phone: “ heeey! Just put up the Tuesday PDS just for you  it’s a big one.” From Phillip Defranco’s text line Lol.

23. How do you feel about your life right now? I'm loving and hating it. but hey nobody gets out alive right? Uh..I mean. I’m alive. I have WiFi. Food. Family. I haven’t seen my friends in 2 years. (Minus Alex, b/c they were here in July to cat/house sit, but I saw them for like, one night..) There’s a lot that could be better. A lot that could be worse. 

24. Do you hate anyone? yes!!! Oof. I mean, kinda.

25. If we were to look in your Facebook Inbox, what would we find? some random conversations. most of my convos on her though have been in chat or through comments. Facebook Inbox is now Facebook Messenger. So you’ll find all my Facebook Messenger convos. Mostly our group chat. And side group chats for secret planning (birthdays & stuff). Plus other chats? Lol.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass? I better! (excuse me miss 15yo Linda you absolutely could have passed a drug test you ALSO didn’t drink or smoke or take any drugs lol) Yeah. Absolutely. I don’t drink or smoke or take any drugs so, yeah? Lol.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before? 

Yes. But I can't remember when... Yeah. Pretty sure. 

28. What song is stuck in your head? Gee by SNSD(Girls Generation) They're Korean. A few My Chemical Romance songs

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be? EDWARD CULLEN! Joke! lol. No I don't know. If it was Edward, I'd call the cops. whoever it is though better have an explaination or they are gonna get hit in the head with my Book of Shadows. (Maybe I wouldn’t mind Edward at my window though? Lol.) Uh. My friends? Lol. Idk if I want anyone knocking on my window at 2am.

30.Wanna have grandkids before you’re 50? I don't know....... Uh. No? Idk. Most likely not gonna happen. 

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow? I can't think of anything right now... Eat. Should probably clean my room.

32. Do you think too much or too little? Way to much! lol. Way way way too much

33. Do you smile a lot? i try to. I think I do. I get told that alot in Theater...

I think so

[develation]

SCP AU

So @emeraldtrainer1 (Ao3), @writingforfunandbecauseboredom (Ao3), and DarkstarWolf53 (<-Dunno if they have Tumblr) did an SCP AU three-way Convo fic some months ago. I really enjoyed the outline and concept and asked if I could expand on it. With their permission and about a month of research into what the actual SCP Foundation is (and holy cow there is so much, no wonder people are all over this) I've finally managed to get a start on this. There is a decent amount of things that are different from their original Convo (via their permission) but it will basically follow the same storyline that they created. Please go check their Convo out, it's a very long and fun read with a lot of good fluff and Angst mixed in.

I will hopefully be drawing some of my designs soon but for now, writing seems to be the way to go. Here is a link to it on Ao3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/33213928/chapters/82464553

I'll also have it below in case you would like to read it on Tumblr instead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Error: (The End Of All But Me.) There are too many unworldly traits that spiders have that I couldn't just not give to Error, so I've kind of combined their Puppetmaster concept to my design. He has 4 arms with clawed fingertips, his tail is prehensile and his jaw can split open. He has 5 tongues still, 2 of them are spear-like, and can shoot out and impale victims. The saliva produced under the tips of the barbs on the two tongues can liquidity a prey items insides so he can drink them up (still a clean freak, using the skin as a cup and drinking up any mess leaving a skin bag behind). His other three tongues are prehensile and can extend to an unknown length, they are barbed aswell but do not carry the venomous saliva. Strings wrap along his bones from his eye sockets, which he uses to create a nest atop the ceiling of his cell.

SCP-002's (Apollyon class) cell is a blank room (it ask for a TV later on) that goes up vertically 2 floors. The top half is required to be shrouded in darkness as it likes voids of either white or black. It has filled the darkness of its cell with a nest of strings that it spends all of its time in, even when feeding. It does not attempt to attack staff, when asked why it replied with, "Not yet." Personal have not been able to decipher what it means by that statement. In an interview via speakers and mics within containment cell, it was asked why SCP-002 stares off at seemingly nothing for extended periods of time and never touches the ground. Subject responded with, "Busy." When asked what it was busy doing- "Watching." When asked what it was watching- "The world. Everything." Due to this experience, it can be concluded that 002 can view any place in the world and perhaps beyond via "screens". These "screens" are unviewable to anyone but 002 and 001 as the latter SCP had called them so, hence their given name. SCP-002 has a strange relationship with SCP-001 and it can not be determined if 002 likes or dislikes 001.

Ink created Error on accident. In the beginning, Ink didn't know what he was doing, and the brutality of Earth's natural forces of destruction were uncontrollable. If he wanted to bring life to his chosen planet he needed a way to control the chaos. And so through the storm, a new force was born. And even if Ink didn't create it, he did wish for it.

Error is a ticking time bomb for extinction. He waits and watches until he decides it's time for a "spring cleaning" and starts his work. The Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous mass extinctions were all him. He deemed the human race ready for a "cleaning" a long time ago and Ink agreed with him, ready to see and make something new. But Nightmare threatened the both of them by stating that he would make the earth forever inhabitable and they would have to kill him before he stoped his rage. Nightmare fears that if another extinction event were to occur he'd lose his boys.

Ink: (God doesn't care about what's right or what's wrong. God just wants to watch interesting things happen.) His form is always changing, different traits from different animals and organisms he's created. Ink is basically Gaia. Born when Theia crashed into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, he made everything that ever existed. Since he's made A LOT of organisms he has a ton of favorites and the traits from them are what mostly show up when he mutates. Sometimes it's Kaprosuchus with belonged snout and fangs. Sometimes it's Tylosaurus with its marine reptilian posterior. Sometimes it's Chital Deer and their antlers. More often than not though, his tail has consistently stated having bristle-like hair at the tip of it, which is basically his brush. The concept of paintbrushes is pretty new to him since the human race has been around for a short time compared to other species, so while he does have one, his tail is his broomie. If his next from doesn't have it then he just uses his hands and his blood.

Ink can't be contained. It's that simple, he just can't. He just sticks around because it's interesting and hilarious to see his creations so intelligent but so stupid. (remember how humans are still young in terms of Earth's age, so the fact that they're so smart... on a thought level that could almost match his own is so very interesting to see and watch. even if there ruining his planet.) The SCP foundation just has to let him do his thing and hope that he doesn't override 003's and 004's decision to not have an extinction event.

His cell is basically a mini-ecosystem, with all of his favorite organisms living within whether they are extinct or not. He loves his little sample of the world and it keeps him in his cell for a good amount of time so the foundation let him have it. If any of them even touch what is HIS without permission then he rips them apart and feeds them to the baby Rhamphorhynchus. Don't touch his babies.

...Cross though... he can touch his babies... and Dream... and maybe Error... That's it though!

SCP-001 (Apollyon Class) is a being older than all living things, despite his toddler-like mannerisms. Even more infuriating, within an interview, 001 openly admitted to being the cause of all SCP's and their anomalous effects. It stated that they were all just mistakes and/or experiments, testing the limits of their own abilities. 001's quoted response- "You don't get it do you? I made everything here! All of your little "SCP's" are just of my creation as all of you. Sure there all mistakes but, it just proves my point that it's time to start over again. A clean slate y'know? Pfft- wow you look mad! If it makes you feel any better, I don't like most of them either. They were cool at first but... it's like flicking black paint over a finished painting. Sure, you can try to get over it but eventually, it will just bother you so much that you just can't stand it! Well... I do kinda want some of them to stay... If I could just convince Ru..." -shows evidence to this conclusion. Termination trials were approved by the 05 Council, though have not been able to start since 001's creation of a barrier around its cell, preventing entry of anything that tries to pass.

[Note: Error, Dream, and Nightmare are not included in what Ink views as "mistakes". Y'know when you're trying something new and you don't know what you’re doing, yet it works somehow. That's them, happy accidents. Ink adores them.]

Ink finds the attempt of Termination trials on him to be absolutely hilarious. The fact that humanity's insecurity about their lifespan and control is so great that they'd try to KILL HIM. Amazing. He can't believe he's managed to make the simultaneously best and worst organism ever.

Dream: (When day breaks.)  Again he was accidentally created by Ink’s actions in an intense solar storm. The flare drifting over the earth in combination with Ink’s magic still working to bring life brought him to existence. Dream’s design is almost harpy-like, with beautiful golden, sun-like wings with a small feathery crest atop his skull. Two tail-like feathers sprout from the crest that can rise up and down depending on expression and mood. He also has bird feet and legs, and a tail.

Dream adores all life, his is the warmth and growth of the sun (original form being a ball of light and plasma that literally looks like a mini sun). He is basically like a piece of the sun on earth. His cell is kinda like Ink’s, only in the fact that there are just a couple of animal species. Some deer, birds, and insects mainly. Ink obviously just appeared in his cell one day and made it for him. While Dream could be considered to be a Safe SCP, his ability to damage or completely ruin the planet if inraged prevents that classification.

SCP-003 (Apollyon Class) has proven to be a relatively docile creature. It is elegant in nature (like that of a bird) and shows greater empathy towards all life in general. Unlike SCP’s 001, 002, and 004 who view it as more interesting and admirable, more like a pretty crystal than an actual being with its own consciousness. 003 can not be fully contained and has shown the ability to travel through light rays. Its aura has also shown to be some form of anesthesia, and exposure for prolonged periods causes victims to feel more at peace and calm. 003 does have the capability to travel through the “dreamscape”, what exactly that in tails is unknown.

Dream doesn’t agree with the extinction event thing because the Holocene period hasn’t lasted for nearly as long as it should. On the other hand, he does distaste humanity/monsterkind for all it has done to the planet. Even so, he feels like they deserve more of a chance.

Nightmare: (Does the Black Moon howl?)(Death) Complete with the theme of being Dreams opposite, Nightmare was born from a black moon and the combination of Ink’s magic bringing life to the earth. He isn’t an evil force or anything, just the night to the day. His design is pretty true to OG nightmare, although his legs and feet share the same digitigrade format. His tentacles are more ghostly than slimy and they drip upwards instead of towards the ground. His bones also have a ghost;y wisp to them, but it isn’t that noticeable. Instead of only having a turquoise glint in his magic, there are sparks of purple aswell. (His original form being a black sphere of what looks like smoke).

His cell is basically an entrance to a cave system that Ink had made for him. Inside is a galaxy of crystals and gemstones that glow and sparkle like the night sky. A small stream runs through, the light refracting off of the water, adding to the glow effect. It is a nice calm place for Nightmare to just chill in, his separate own little world.

Nightmare is kind of mysterious, in the realm of Error in which he likes to watch things happen. Just lurking in the shadows, a quiet observer. Though, he wasn’t as fascinated by life as the others. So to prevent his boredom Ink made him a present- Killer. Nightmare hated the little thing at first but it didn’t take too long to grow fond of the little guy. Not too long later Ink pronounced his joy in watching Nightmare sigh in frustration by sending 2 more bundles his way -Dust and Horror- and Nightmare had to threaten Ink to stop before any more joined the fray.

SCP-004 (Apollyon Class) is an entity whose intentions are completely unknown. A mysterious being that chooses to dwell in the cave system 001 made for it. The entity refuses to interact with personal unless in interview. And when it does respond, it does so in riddles and metaphors. It seemingly takes joy asking more questions than the interviewer, turning the conversation in its favor. On such question that has been repeated multiple times - “Does the Black Moon howl?” has puzzled personal. Though 004 states that if answered correctly and explained why, then it will share its secrets with that person and that person only.

004 proves to be uncontainable like its counterparts, able to travel through shadows. SCP’s 012, 032, and 024 seem to be “followers” of 004, and regularly go missing from their cells. Most likely 004’s doing.

[Ink created Killer, Dust, and Horror during the era where dinosaurs were still alive, so they have some traits from them.]

Killer: (War) Was created by Ink for Nightmare to keep him entertained. Killer was born as a baby in Ink’s very hands, a little skeleton with curved blades for hands and digitigrade legs and feet (and little quills on his back). Growing up under Nightmare’s care was an interesting experience, but he thought Kill’s everything he needed to know.

-[SCP-012, Keter]-

Killer is fast, very fast. And he enjoys killing things (what a surprise). He’s pretty much the same cocky boi as always. His more SCP side is that he doesn’t seem to ever feel pain and the black liquid that leaks through his eyes. That can be used as a type of venomous toxin to whatever he pleases.

Dust: (Pestilence) You know Epidexipteryx and Therizinosaurus? Those are Dust hands, long with even longer claws. He can also turn into literal dust, more of a phantom or wraith in nature. He can walk through walls, and turn others to dust and grow himself if he wishes.

He and Horror could be twins since Ink made them both at the same time. Holding his little creations in his arms as they wriggled and whined in confusion at suddenly being alive.

-[SCP-032, Keter]-

Dust is pretty quiet and tame. He has his episodes but he stays pretty much the same as bookwrym’s, writing’s, and Dark’s Dust.

Horror: (Famine) Since Horror is a vent crawler I based his design on that. Horror’s second set of arms are like a praying mantis with an extra joint, hands serrated blades almost like Killer’s. He used to sit in trees and wait for prey to walk underneath him, plucking them from the ground with his long arms and eating them alive.

Same thing when in vents, just waits over the openings and plucks a person off of the ground and into the vent (if personal don’t keep up with his feeding times)

-[SCP-024, Euclid]-

Other than his design Horror is pretty much the same as bookwyrm’s, writing’s, and Dark’s concept.

Outer: [SCP-044, Safe] His stardust makes him have luminescent galaxy and star patterns on his bones. He floats regularly without control over it and can sometimes make other objects float, in rare cases people, aswell. Ink made him a jacket where pieces of its hood and aglets float off like a sort of fluffy foam. The pieces orbit him like planets to a star before joining back, making a continuous cycle.

(And yes writingforFUN, he will still keep his anime sparkling eyelight’s).

Cross: [SCP-00X, Thaumiel] Was created by Dr. X to help contain and terminate Keter SCP’s. Being forced to kill his brother when he turned Keter, not completely in control of his actions. Dr. X’s “programing” making him see his brother no longer as such, just an object to be eliminated. When Cross became uncontrollable Dr. X put wiped his memory without the 05’s or administers permission and an MTF was sent after him that came back empty-handed. Cross was brought back soon enough and had his memory wiped.

They bring him back in as a staff member and that’s when the story kicks off, mostly following bookwyrm’s, writingforFUN, and Dark’s original outline/convo.

(I apologize for any typos)

[saurons-pr-department]

Thank you for the tag @finwaytootired I know you tagged me in this ages ago, but I'm just like this T_T

How many works do you have on AO3?

16 apparently! Some are very very short though, 'cause they're part of a little rambly Mairon series

What’s your total AO3 word count?

33238 See! Short!

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

2-3 depending on how you group them. 1) The Silmarillion 2) The Hobbit 3) Star Wars

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1) There's a First Time for Everything (or Why Only Good Things Come From Spying on Wood Elves) 2) Let me Please You 3) Can Toddlers be Tried for War Crimes? 4) An Embrace of the Spirit (I'm actually surprised by this one XD) 5) Dark Days Lie Still Before Us

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes! ...Unless I forget to... If I've ever forgotten to get back to a comment you've left, I am so sorry T_T

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh that definitely has to be Take it Back. I even got complaints about it (more on that later)

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Not on AO3..... *sigh* confession time... back in the day... on FFN... I had a SpongeBob and Phineas and Ferb crossover (the lads built a submarine and went to BikiniBottom).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Hmmm.... not 'hate' exactly... but in Take it Back I decided to break up Russingon (I know, I know, I'm a monster) because Fingon thought that Maedhros had abandoned him and so had moved on. Someone left this big long rant about how I should write a sequel that basically undid everything that I had done in this one shot so that Fingon left his wife and new child (Gil-Galad Plotholeion) and went back to Maedhros and like... I get it but also, who leaves a comment on a fic saying that the writer should write a story where none of the original story happens or un-happens???

It also got a bit of a mixed comment where the person just generally seemed to enjoy the angst but also felt the need to tell me that they don't agree with the interpretation of the characters and that the characters had gone about the interaction all wrong. Messy emotions lead to messy conversations dear commenter..?

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Sometimes. Pretty tame though. It usually involves one character not really being that experienced. On one occasion it was for comedic effect, the other was because I accidently but not so accidentally wrote an aroace Melkor

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. Do I have anything worth stealing??

I was accused of plagiarising once though! Someone thought my MaironxEonwe fic was too similar to another MaironxEonwe fic on the grounds that they both showed Mairon in Aule's forges and the two were talking about a festival happening in Valinor. You know, because no one in the history of Silm fandom has ever depicted Mairon in a forge and as we all know festivals never happen in Valinor.... -_-

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I'm aware of!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Myself and @outofangband wrote a short piece on Tumblr together once! Well, it was more like they wrote something and I jumped on to their post XD It was really fun though!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Hmmm.... Angbang? Silvergifting? Fallen Banners? Mairon/Maeglin? (which I have now just decided to call Fall and Drown XD), Mairon/Eonwe?

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Hmmm.... there's nothing at the moment that I feel like I won't finish... but in terms of a WIP that I really want to finish? Dark Days lie Still Before Us

What are your writing strengths?

Honestly...? No clue...

What are your writing weaknesses?

I completely fail at getting myself to actually sit down and write in the first place. Does that count?

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oooffff, it depends... How long do I have to scroll down to the a/n at the end to get the translation and how easy is it to find my place again? XD

Can I get the gist without knowing the words (the comment was an insult or term of endearment maybe?) or have I missed out on an important convo?

How much is it breaking up my reading experience?

Sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it's a pain in the ass.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

(Don't worry Elian, we've all been there XD)

Mine would be Star Wars. Not cringy in and of itself, but the writing was deeply cringy stuff though T_T

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I had a lot of fun writing Sometimes Curiosity is Rewarded for the Secret Santa last year!

It's about Celebrimbor wanting to have a nose around Annatar's office and then essentially accidentally pledging himself to a Dark Lord (but he doesn't know that)

tagging: @foxindarkness @elennalore ahhhh, I'm blanking on who writes XD

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

I m sorry if this post makes u upset but honestly this is something i have been wondering a lot about. So i m sure the admis are aware of a theory that has existed for long time in t/k spaces that BH was holding t/k back. So wrt that we also know the boys recently became partners of BH by buying shares sometime in 2020. They also renewed their contracts in 2020. We also know tae has become happier and the famous t/k conversation took place in 2020. We can also see that t/k have more on (1/2)

screen interactions and are more frequently paired together since after the ITS convo and also appear to interact more with each other in various cobtent. Also there is a fall in j/k content no? I wonder if that theory was indeed true and that tae being happier could be bcoz of him getting to be more open with jk now and not hiding their relationship infront of the cameras and if that has anything to do with them being shareholders and the new contract. Bcoz this kinda makes sense to me (2/2)

Admin 1: The only thing with which you’ve upset me is by ignoring what I’ve said just a few posts ago about how the only ships I feel have actual potential of being ‘real’ are vmin and, to a certain degree, namjin, and how I’m more than open to talking about other duos etc as long as we talk about them as their real life friendships. Just yesterday I said that I don’t really care or pay attention to what other shippers do because it’s simply none of my concern. Why is that? Because no JK+ML ship has ever given me reason to go “huh?” or given me the impression there could be more than just friendship. Also, I’m not here to try and disprove other ships, or somehow try to convince anyone that my views are the only correct ones, I simply want to have a good time talking about vmin, namjin, and Bangtan, and that’s it, which I’ve said it yesterday as well.

I’ve been ARMY for many years now and yes, I’m more than aware of this theory because, in a way, it’s inescapable even if you try to stay clear of what T/K (and J/K) shippers are up to. And yet, despite that, for years my opinion on the topic has not changed in the slightest. I’ve written a whole post about ships and BH and how they are used for marketing purposes in rather obvious ways at times, how more screen time doesn’t immediately equal them being romantic (and the whole no screen time = no bond paradox), or BH “allowing” them to show off their relationship more, because that frankly, to me, sounds ridiculous.

Even if we’d entertain the idea for a moment, while also remembering that apparently T/K is still the biggest BTS ship, wouldn’t it make more sense for BH to show them? Because that would bring in more money? So, in that sense, hiding them wouldn’t make such sense business wise? Someone could argue that scarcity creates more demand, which once they do supply that demand, the money basically rains down on BH like crazy. And yet even that, to me, doesn’t really make all that much sense, given that they could just put T/K content behind a paywall, as in keep their interactions as paid content exclusives, but even that isn’t the case since apparently there hasn’t been much T/K shipper satisfying content even there. So, what exactly, would be the business point for BH to “hide” them? Remember, they are a company after all, not a matchmaking service.

Anyway, going back to my thoughts. We have 4 O’Clock followed by the knowledge that not that long after Tae started working on Happy Christmas, a duet for himself and Jimin which supposedly was too much for two members to sing it together (the implications here are rather clear), which was followed by Scenery (which has clear connections to the same event as in 4 O’clock and to Jimin), and add to all of that what Tae replied to that ARMY on weverse (this I also have a whole post about which I thought might’ve made my thoughts clear in a way, but I guess it did not). That does paint quite the obvious picture, does it not?

Just yesterday I said that the biggest rule in shipping is respect and being respectful, yes? Do you think it is respectful to still hold on to this made up T/K theory despite being faced with Tae’s own words? Despite how ridiculous it sounds? I don’t think so.

Therefore, for me, with everything Tae has done to express his feelings in connection to Jimin, as well as clearly stating that 95z is love (just a few months after telling off that shipper) and the fact that (despite surely having to jump through many hoops along the way) Jimin answered Tae in kind by making Friends happen which solidified them as soulmates to us but also made their wish and promise of remaining together even when the cheers are gone known (here’s my analysis of that song). That’s no small thing. And if that T/K theory held any merit, I highly doubt either Tae or Jimin would do all this, which I’ve also already once discussed in a previous post. Add to that Tae’s Weverse reply, their conversation during ITS, and Tae wanting Jimin to come sleep next to him on JKs birthday (that being something the company has no control over and is their own free time and their free will of telling us about it), the only “relationship” that Tae has with JK, in my opinion, is that of close friends, band mates, and colleagues.

As for their contract and them being shareholders and that having some kind of connection to them being able to show their relationships more freely—while yes, they did say that they’ll sign the contract and thus give BH seven more of their years so long as the contract reflects their hard work and achievements, it’s rather ludicrous to think that there might’ve been some kind of clause in there as well about how BH won’t “hide” a ship anymore or allow them to just run free and show off their relationships. Frankly that would be stupid and way more risky than worth it both for BH and the members themselves. Besides their personal relationships, especially romantic ones, are not for public consumption, so to speak. Even more so in the world of idols and with the prospect of having to do their military service in the future (this being doubly important and risky when considering their relationships being between two members and therefore LGBT).

We have no way of knowing what is exactly in those contracts, and what kind of effect them having BH shares has on their work-relation with BH, all we do know is that whatever was in those contracts was satisfying enough for all seven of them to sign it and be happy with that choice. Everything else is pure speculation.

This is the final time I’m answering such an ask since now I think I’ve truly made my stance on JK+ML ships known sufficiently, and this time I mean it.

Also, for future reference, can we please talk about JK not in romantic connection to a member for once? I have a whole post expressing my grievances with the treatment he gets from shippers and how there is so much more to him.

Admin 2: We live in a materialistic capitalist world where money is the leading power. Many people get up in the morning and work their a*s off to bring in enough income to live and to feed themselves and their possible family. But there are also people who find ways to make money without having to work their a*ses off. Such possibilities in todays day and age gives you, among other things, making videos on Youtube. If you’re sneaky enough and have an eye for what sells best at any given time and what brings in the biggest viewership, you might come to find that a great way to earn well is by making videos about BTS, and more specifically, about popular BTS ships, or even the most popular one at that.

Maybe you noticed how at some point there was a boom on youtube when it came to people making reaction videos, especially to anything BTS related, as well as hundreds of channels about shipping doing analysis videos, especially for T/K and J/K.

More below the cut:

In that moment when Tae basically said no to T/K being romantic, those T/K channels faced potentially “losing their jobs” and thus losing a very lucrative source of income. When I say lucrative, I mean up to $90k a year, which is a sum of money the average person can only dream of. Therefore, to save their existence and income, they decided to push on with their agenda and disregard any signs pointing against their ship. That’s why I think theories such as the one anon presented us with are ones that are created during conversations between people with such channels as wonderful solutions to explain away signs and behaviors that simply didn’t fit them and their agenda. There is a whole own eco system between those channels and their views, and shippers at large, to keep their shipper fantasies alive at all cost.

We know that T/K is one of the oldest, and the most popular one, among BTS ships, which relies on how fun and nice interactions between JK and Tae are to look at, how silly they used to be in the past together, and how some of their on stage behavior worked well in terms of “awakening” crazy fantasies among shippers. The most important in all of it though has always been that this ship contained the maknae and the next member closest to him in age, and thus also to many of those who ship them. But that of course isn’t all there is to it.

Since 2016 we’ve had 4 O’Clock and Scenery, both inspired by the same event, as well as vmin defining each other as their soulmate. These facts alone are, for me, a glaring contradiction for this whole T/K theory and any kind of romance existing within either T/K and J/K. For me, it’s a rather absurd thought to have a soulmate and also be in a romantic relationship (or harbor romantic feelings) for another person. Just like it’s absurd for me how supposedly two big JK and maknae ships are supposed to be real at the very same time and the band also exists at the same time as some form of background noise.

We also later on have Tae who wrote Sweet Night in which Tae sings about falling in love with his best friend, who has always been Jimin. Taking into account what Tae told that shipper on Weverse yet months later announced that 95z is love, that he sang Friends with Jimin, which was also co-written by Jimin, I very much doubt that there have ever been any romantic feelings from Tae toward JK (and vice versa).

I’d also like to note that Tae and JK didn’t spend any time together during their vacation in 2019 (according to them in the first episode of BV4), as well as JK having shown a kind of distaste toward the idea of one of Tae’s friends already having gotten married (or at least that’s what his facial expression looked like) which to me indicates the same thing they said in the ITS conversations: they’ve matured and their personalities have simply grown in different directions making parts of their friendship a bit awkward.

On the FESTA 2020 Rolling Paper Tae called JK his comedian while JK called Tae is safe place, which for me makes it sound that their bond is simply that of an older brother and his younger brother. I feel like during their ITS conversation they tried to communicate to us that they had some issues with each other but at the same time also try to somewhat negate all that obsessive romantic shipping that's been going on involving those two for so long. But that obviously hasn’t worked out.

Tae did say that he had to take certain steps and now he’s happier, but personally I believe that had far more of a connection to their work, or specifically Tae’s mixtape and the work and negotiations around it, since we know some of it might’ve been pushing the lines a little too much if BangPD felt the need to call him and ask him to tone it down a little. If I put on my delulu hat, looking at how happy Tae seems in recent months, I’d be inclined to believe this also had something to do with Jimin, who also seems to be in quite the happy mood as well.

Even if I’d step into a whole delulu tent, I see absolutely no connection to JK when thinking of all the things that could’ve been a factor that led to Tae’s happy state.

It’s easy to see that we’ve been getting more T/K interactions recently, which can be due to marketing strategies (since Tae’s mixtape is coming soon, and potentially also JKs since it’s been mentioned here and there last year) but also due to them getting closer again friendship wise after working through whatever was causing them to be awkward with each other (or at least slowly doing so). We all know that Tae is a very honest (as much as that’s possible in their line of work) and the only thing all of this shows us that Tae is simply showing us with JK that they’re doing better again, but none of their behavior in any way diverges or exceeds anything that’s normal for all of BTS and how touchy and full of affection they are with each other to various degrees. We have a whole post on the bias of body language as well.

Personally, I see no indication whatsoever for there being anything romantic about T/K, since that’s what you’re essentially asking about. After all Tae was the only one who had no idea about JKs drawing for Hobi, so if they were romantically involved, don’t you think JK would’ve showed it to him or at least told him about it?

I’d recommend listening to what Tae told us, remember that especially when we see him put his arm around JKs shoulder or touches his arm, that that isn’t a show of his romantic love for him, but just their normal level of BTS affection. Don’t let people convince you into buying into their agendas because at the end of the day, they have a lucrative business in doing so while, should it all one day come to an end, you will be the one that gets hurt due to their words and theories.

The sole fact that T/K relies on many of the same arguments as J/K, and both have JK as the part of them, is, for me, an indication that those ships aren’t real and instead that Tae and Jimin treat JK as their younger brother whom they love, just like all of BTS does. This is simply how BTS are. Everyone touches everyone’s arm, thigh, back, and hugs each other, it’s simply them being them. In order for a ship to be romantic and “real”, it takes a little more than just a touch of a thigh. There needs to be something more, like we’re able to find/see that something more with vmin, for example.

Tae is my bias and it always upsets me when people don’t respect him and the things he’s said.