#because it changes NOTHING. i'm still depressed. i'm still a loser with no future and no prospects. reliant on the people around me.

[krikeymate]

For song suggestion things because this just came on shuffle and I’m sat here crying at 2am thinking about Tara.

Ethan Jewell - Snowglobe

I'm slamming you against a wall. Don't even talk to me about Ethan Jewell man. His music really enhances my depression. I listen to him all the time.

Snowglobe is SUCH a Tara song.

Imagine you're in a snowglobe, right? / And all these people keep coming and shaking you around / It's above, below you, and then you're on the ground, the snow flutters around / Searching for a soft place to land -> Tara feels trapped. In this town, in this family. She's stuck while everyone around her can just... leave. Her life, it feels like a circus act, a spectacle for people to gossip on. They're always whispering about her, about poor Tara with the hard life, with the shitty family. This is her childhood. She's protected, put in a bubble, a little isolated and only seen from afar. An accessory for her father, a trinket for her mother, something to be cherished by her sister.

The person stares and appreciates, but not for a tad / Bit later they begin to shake more violently, and you begin to trip less valiantly / And then it all comes crashing down -> As she gets older, pity becomes more questioning. People expect more, they want to know more. They want more from her. But she has no one to hold on to. No hand to help guide her through this, through growing up. Sam doesn't want to talk to her anymore, she's pulling away and she's always so angry. The world becomes a little darker, a little colder, and then Sam's gone.

You wake up in a cold sweat, it's 3 am, and you're still depressed / Why is this happening, where did I go wrong / Is God angry at me / Or am I just another sad song / Another sad, sad song /Just another sad, sad, sad, sad, song -> What did she do to deserve this? To be so alone. Was she not worth staying for? Did she drive them away? Why wasn't she good enough.

Cause here we are again in this endless fucking snow globe / Round and round we're shaken, stared at like an alien probe / The snow's overwhelming, defeating every sound / Please, giant human, can you just drop me and smash me to the ground -> Every day it's the same. Life just becomes a series of repetitive motions. Smile, pretend to be happy, pretend like the heart inside her chest isn't held together with tape. Go to school, laugh with her friends, come home to an empty house. She wishes it would just stop. That something would change. Anything.

[karizard-ao3]

I love how you normally write Eren in his normie phase, and in tune with his more abrasive, early-aot self. But I’d like to know, what if Eren and Mikasa meet (again) when they’re a little bit older, and Eren is in his manbun phase. Think of that closed, jaded, distant Eren from season 4.

It's hard to write manbun Eren for me because I believe normie Eren is his truest self and manbun Eren is a façade that he could not possibly maintain if it were not for depression stemming from his future memories and his efforts to achieve them. I'm trying to think and I believe that Anamnesis Eren, despite being a cleancut guy with cabin hair, is probably spiritually the closest to manbun Eren out of all the versions of him I've written because he struggles so much with his mental health and the fact that when he doesn't keep it in check he hurts other people. Of course, Anamnesis Eren is much more sweet and vulnerable with Mikasa but I think his overall vibe is closest to manbun, because really manbun Eren is just a sad and misguided man who feels he has nothing to give the world but destruction and pain. His childhood aspirations have become twisted and skewed by the truth of the world and he's not coping well with it. In a modern au, the stakes are much lower and so his issues are not insurmountable. I think it would be much easier for him to work through them with Mikasa as his catalyst for change and revert back to his true, happy loser self. He'd be ODM gear manbun Eren from that official art: kind of vicious still but unburdened and having the time of his life. In canon, he can't overcome his issues. He has no choice but to keep moving forward toward hell and so if he met Mikasa then, it wouldn't make any difference beyond perhaps making him even more depressed. He wouldn't be able to pursue her or be with her, so she would be just another thing he had to give up and he wouldn't let her get close to protect her from him.

So, in short, I guess my opinion is manbun Eren reconnects with Mikasa and quickly becomes a dumbfuck again, at least when he's with her. He's like two different Erens. The rest of the world sees a sullen jerk who doesn't give a fuck how he makes other people feel and she sees a lovable puppy dog of a man who is nothing but kind.

[inorganicone2230]

um... i'm sorry to bother you but i was hoping you could do a yandere!erasermic x depressed reader. you know where they tell them that they want the reader to be theirs but she feels as if she doesn't deserve it. please and thank you, by the way i love your previous works

Soft Yander!Erasermic x Shy/Depressed Fem!Reader

I'm not entirely sure if this is what you meant but I hope you enjoy it none the less! 😊

You honestly couldn't remember how long it had been since they had taken you. You knew that it had to have been about a year based on the changing of the seasons outside. At least, that's what you assumed since you were so rarely let out of your comfortable basement room. It had been late summer when you were kidnapped. Looking out the window now, you could see that the month's had rolled back around to early spring, with patches of green grass poking out of unmelted snow piles that littered the ground and fresh buds covering the trees of the forest that surrounded the out-of-the-way house. It was quite tranquil, even for someone in your situation.

When the pro hero's Present Mic -who you knew by reputation only- and Eraserhead -who you only knew because of the press coverage surrounding UA High- had first approached you on one of your late night treks home from work, talking to you as if you were an old friend, you had been a bit flabbergasted to say the least. You didn't know either of these men and you told them so.

“I-I’m sorry, the two of you must have me confused with someone else. Sorry for the mix up.” You had mumbled quietly, gaze downcast to avoid eye contact as you tried to bypass them and continue on your way. You were stopped however when the two heroes stepped back into your path.

“We don't have you confused with anyone else (Y/N).” Eraserhead said matter-of-factly.

You froze as fear gripped at your senses. “H-how do-”

“We've been watching ya for a while now, since that night at the bridge.” Present Mic cut you off to clarify.

At the time, it had felt like ice was pumping through your veins instead of blood. You knew exactly what night he was speaking of. It was the night that you had contemplated jumping, to plummet yourself into the raging waters of the semi-flooded river.

You'd had depression for a few years now and that night you had made the mistake of picking up some liquor and indulging just a little too much. In your drunken and self-loathing state, you had gone to the bridge. No one had been there, or so you thought, and you had cried and screamed out your frustrations before climbing on the edge to sit. You had sat there for a while, going back and forth in your mind about whether to go through with it or not.

In the end though… you went home.

It takes a moment for you to notice, but while you had been distracted they had moved closer and you instinctively took a step back only to have them follow you step for step.

“We were in the area that night,” the voice hero explains, “and we heard ya crying. It was so sad and broken.” He had looked like he was about to cry at just the thought. “When we saw ya sitting there about to let yourself fall, Shouta got ready to catch ya with his scarf, just in case.”

Shouta picked up the story from there when his companion started to become a tad bit too emotional and for the life of you, you wonder why you hadn't just screamed or tried to run immediately, not that it would have done you a lick of good. Instead you had made the mistake of standing there and listening to them. “But in the end you made the right choice and didn't do it. You went home and we followed you to make sure that you got home safe and sound.” He flashed you a small smile. “After that, me and Hizashi, we've been following you ever since, watching to make sure you stayed safe.”

They had smiled at you so sweetly, shining eyes and faint blushes dusting their cheek, it would have been cute were it not for the unsettling situation it was coming out of.

Hizashi seemed to have gathered his wits by that point and had picked up the tale again. “At first we just wanted to make sure that you were going to be ok over the next few days. But…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his head as if he had been nervous to keep going. “But, we eventually started to see what a sweet girl ya are. I’m not sure when it happened, or even all the reasons for why, but we found ourselves falling for ya. Falling hard (Y/N)! That's why we're here tonight, we finally have everything ready for ya to come home with us.” He finished with a great big smile, spreading his arms out wide like he'd expected you to run into them.

“Excuse me?!” Your voice was squeaky but you had commended yourself on your lack of stuttering. Your mind was racing and you thought you had to be hearing that wrong. They did not just admit to stalking you and there was no way they were implying what you thought they were. You were simply misunderstanding them was all, right?

The looks on their faces told you otherwise.

You had just made the decision to turn around and make a break for it, realization finally dawning on you just how disturbing this whole encounter was, but Shouta must have sensed this shift in you and reached out to snag your hands in his. Gently, so as not to frighten you further, he'd tried to reason with you. “We know this is all very sudden for you Kitten, but we just want what's best for you.”

Arms came to wrap around your waist, trapping your own arms to your sides. “This is for your own good Sweetheart. Ya might not understand it right now, but you're just gonna have to trust us. We want you to be safe -even from yourself- and the only way to do that is for you to come with us.” Hizashi finished, laying a little kiss on your cheek.

You had wanted to run, to scream and kick and bite. But being a passive person by nature on top of being terrified, you'd attempted to reason with them instead. “T-that's very flattering and a-all, really it is. But… I'm going to have to s-say no. I-I’m not in the best place right now and I'm n-not ready for anything like this.” You had foolishly thought that that would work.

Your eyes snapped wide open when, without missing a beat, a firm hand clamped over your mouth and you felt a small pinch in your upper left arm. Looking down as best you could you saw that the erasure hero had produced a small syringe from somewhere and suck you with it, the last drops of the clear substance plunging into your body before you could even process what had just taken place. You had a sick feeling you knew what was in that needle, or at the very least, what it was going to do to you. Tears welled up in your eyes and you shook your head in disbelief at what was happening.

“We know your not ready for a relationship right now Kitten,” Shouta said, pulling the needle from your arm and capping it before putting it away for future disposal. “but your coming home with us regardless, we still need to keep you safe after all.”

Hizashi used the hand on your face to turn your head to the side as he nuzzled his face into your neck, “We know it's going to take awhile for ya to understand and we're willing to wait as long as ya need. You'll see honey, we'll be best boyfriends you could ask for!”

That was one of the last things you heard because not long after, the drug had finally kicked in and you passed out only to awaken hours later, locked in the basement room -prison- they had set up for you.

The first few months had been hard as they kept you down there 24/7. The spacious basement was more like an apartment, being equipped with off life's necessities. A nice bathroom, a big comfy bed covered in warm blankets and pillows, books, TV and movies, and a fridge loaded with pre-prepared food and snacks, no cooking by yourself though since that involved knives and other things you could potentially hurt yourself with. Despite all that though, it was maddening to see nothing but the same things day after day. And in an effort to be granted little freedoms like being allowed upstairs, which is where you currently find yourself, you began to behave for them. You stopped trying to get away.

You know that this is probably the isolation and Stockholm Syndrome talking, but in all honesty, neither of the two heroes were all that bad. Sure they had kidnapped you, but they did genuinely seem to care about you and want your happiness. They never pushed you to do anything that you weren't comfortable with, always limiting their touches to small hugs and handholding, sometimes even a light kiss or two if you were having a particularly good day. They were unfailingly kind and understanding of your feelings, that's probably why you began to crave their affections more and more as time wore on. It was nice to feel wanted, even under the circumstances you found yourself in.

But there was one thing weighing heavily on your mind. It was the one thing keeping you from accepting them completely, and so you asked them.

“I'm not good enough to deserve this level of devotion from anyone, I'm just some nobody loser who never did anything with my life. So why do you want me in the first place?”

They stare at you like have grown a second head before their expressions morph into ones of concern and they move closer to you, taking a seat on either side of you on the couch.

Hizashi puts a warm hand on your knee, “What are ya talking about hon? Your perfect! Sweet, kind, caring, beautiful. What more could we want? Who else could we want?”

His words stir up your emotions and you try to keep yourself from crying, “I don't know, maybe someone more confident, someone who would be able to stand with you, not behind you. Someone the exact opposite of me.”

“Kitten, will you please look at me?” Shouta asks softly. You do, meeting his tired eyes with your own watery ones as he cups your face in his hands. “We love you (Y/N). We don't have all the answers as to why, but please believe that we do. You are a wonderfully sweet girl and we will do whatever we can to help you see that. To help you see that we want you to be ours.”

The tears are freely flowing now and you feel him pulling you into his lap with Hizashi cuddling up to your back as quiet sobs shake your small form.

“Just trust us. Let us handle everything.”

“We'll make you happy if you just give us the chance. Can you let us do that?”

You know that this is fundamentally wrong, you shouldn't be fine with this, you shouldn't want this. But it's just easier to give in and accept the hand that you've been dealt. You want to be loved and cared for so badly, and if they want to spend their lives proving that that's what they want as well, then who are you to deny them and yourself. Especially when it's what all three of you want.

It's small and quiet but you nod your head, “I-I can do that. J-Just please don't let me down. Please.”

Hands are petting your back and hair as you all stay like that, curled up together and just enjoying the presence of one another.

“Never Darling. Never.”

[mollyphoria]

(off my chest post.)

As soon as I turned the age of 27 last year it was like I've been awaken from a cruel false dream. I opened my eyes then boom I see 27 years of my life laid out in front of me wasted. Yes it took 27 effin years for me to wake up. I wasted all this years and now I'm suffering the consequences of not following my heart, now I'm suffering the repercussions for not realising my dreams sooner as well as pursuing them. I don't believe in myself enough to stand for what I really want so I let society dictate me. I dont love myself enough to believe that I have the capabilities to follow my dreams, luck wasn't on my side too,the odds were never in my favor. So yes I guess I blame both myself and the circumstances given to me on why I failed in life. I failed myself. Society failed me. The system failed me. Oh how I envy people who were able to realise their dreams when they were a kid. these people mostly turns out to be the successful ones in life while I'm left in shambles of not knowing what to do or having such a huge dream I knew I would never reach it. I wanted to become a supermodel but I'm not pretty and tall enough plus I'm from a country not supported by society on having supermodels. Then I wanted to be a rock star. Touring the world, playing the guitar, performing on stage. I can probably make this happen but once again I don't believe in myself and lack of support from family/society was what made this dream seem to get more impossible. I would like to pursue the arts anything from singing, dancing,writing ,painting,drawing etc but I let myself be influenced by what our society drills in my head everyday that there's no money with any of these endeavours so I never got serious to try to achieve greatness from these "useless, juvenile" dreams and plus you need God-given talent to qualify pursuing the arts and I don't have an ounce of it.

So as time goes by I continued to grow older like a dead leaf flailing around in the wind without a specific direction but downwards. But deep-rooted in my soul I knew what I wanted but I chose to stupidly ignore that little voice in my heart that tells me what to do. I to this day continue to beat myself up why I haven't even tried to listen to myself.

So what I did was to completely surrender myself to settle for a lesser,smaller dream that I could possibly reach according to the circumstances I'm handed with

I took up a course in college that I felt at the time would be something I would enjoy and easy,cheap enough to simply graduate and have that diploma just for the sake of it. When I got into the real world and became a full pledge adult for the first time ever I got hit by depression and that's when I first acknowledge that I'm not made for this at all but what I did instead of abandoning it was to try again and aim higher which is to have my own wings and to fly high in the sky and see the world. I held on to that dream. I went to school again. For a moment I had a purpose and for the first time I had direction. I thought I found myself as I try to get those wings. I thought that this will be my redemption. I made myself to believe that I'm meant to do this. I went above and beyond to achieve success. But alas I continued to be the chosen reject and once again odds weren't exactly on my favor and I have given up by the time I'm 27 years old. This is when it all crashed down on me I was chasing a dream gone dead all those years and basically wasted my youth as a result and gained nothing at the end. And I have to admit that i somewhat resent God for putting this dream to flourish in my heart but never gave me a breakthrough to even achieve it. I was left beaten and destroyed. I slaved myself away for nothing, experienced all those sufferings for nothing. I got nothing for all those sacrifices and hardwork I did. Literally all those blood,sweat and tears were for absolutely nothing at the end. I was utterly broken down,my heart was utterly crushed nothing left but broken pieces and a whirlpool of regret. If even this small, mediocre dream I settle myself for is still unattainable for me then my life is no longer worth living. I then proceed to wallow on self pity and resentment and went down to the worst depression I've ever experience in my life. Tears kept on falling like faucets in my eyes. Every streak of effort, energy, motivation ,hope left my body,mind and soul altogether. I turned ultimately dead inside. I don't have anything left in me to even pretend to continue fighting my way into this world. I can't even help myself to help myself. it's like I already died and what was left is just a hollow husk of my former self.

At 27 yrs old i went back to zero. I'm left with nothing to hope for, I didn't gain anything from all the things I went through. After Having the painful knowledge that the journey I made for myself all throughout my teenage to mid twenties is only to become of worthless dust and vomit at the end it made me inevitably bitter about life in general. I started acknowledging thoughts of dying for real. How I realized that it's better to be dead than to be alive, how I wish to have never been born at all. I missed all of these opportunities to win in life and I felt like giving up. Because Life is Suffering nothing more nothing less we will continue to suffer coz that whats life for this is the true meaning of life we are just put here to live so we can suffer and I'm not cut out for it I'm too weak to even restart again.

I realized alot of things. When I was a kid I was always looking forward to the future. I was foolishly, completely convinced that my life will get better as I get older and now that I'm older it turned out to be such a stupid thought coz life didn't get better it only gotten worse and it could only get worst from here on out.

Starting now I shouldn't hope for things to change for the better. It's dangerous to have a false hope and I swear to myself that I wouldn't let myself be fueled by false hope anymore.

And now that it's October I will turn a year older unless I cease to exist first.

I'm honestly scared of the future, now that I can see the true essence of it in its whole entirety.

At 28 I'm running out of time.

I missed the chance to get my life stable.

At 28 I'm entirely clueless on how to get my shit together and I don't even think I have the strength to improve myself. I felt like I just don't care anymore.

At 28 I should have already bought my mother a new house instead I'm stuck and rotting away in a room at her own old house.

At 28 I'm still miserable asf

Still bitter asf

Still dumb asf

Still doubtful asf

Still a loser asf

Let me discuss the thoughts I have about this song 28 of Agust D. This song single handedly describes the anxiety I feel for getting older. The fact that the age he pertained on the title of this song is 28 exactly the age I'm about to turn into soon just solidifies the strong grip it acquired to hold my heart and soul. I felt extremely lucky to turn 28 at the same year with someone as genius as him (tho his 27 international age) nevertheless I'm thankful about this.

Tho there are things that I'm honestly confuse about him having the same fears with someone like me who's a nobody without any single awards, recognitions, accolades or any kind of impact to the world, who's not loved and praised by millions nor have millions of money in my bank account, who doesn't have a big house,big cars nor big rings.

It baffles the living daylights out of me that a person like Min Yoongi who achieved so much in life would feel scared about not knowing his dreams is really about as he gets older. He basically achieved every single one of the dreams I have for myself. His overly set for life that his great great great great great grandchildren will be also set for life. His life wasn't the same like before. His life changed for the better . He earns millions of money by doing what he loves at such a young age. He simply won in life.

We are both 28 but the life I'm bestowed in is the utmost opposite of the life his bestowed in. I'm at the loser end of the spectrum while his in the winner side yet we share somewhat the same fears and anxiety about having to grow older.

This made me question if happiness is really just an illusion. well the genuine authentic euphoric kind of happiness.

Is existence all really just a one big mess with occasional ephemeral pleasure?

If a person who accomplished so much at only 28 still feels depression what's left for me then should I just go kill myself?

Alot of the reasons why I got into this level of depression is because I didn't fulfill anything Yoongi fulfilled.well I'm not really into fame so much but i hope i succeeded on not having to worry about whether I could buy a house or rent an apartment. Yoongi could buy a building for himself while I can't even afford a bedspace of my own

Yoongi could travel the whole world in a whim while I'm mostly stuck in the same place

The stark contrast of our lives is so immense I cant even get my head wrapped around it

My only dillema is that I'm afraid to die but I'm also afraid to live

It's been proven to me now that living in this world is not really living at all it's just purely surviving and I can't deal with this

I'd rather die than to be a slave to the system. And it seems like I don't even have a choice maybe to disappear is the only way out

I'm just not cut out with the cards I've been dealt with

If only I could voluntarily pull my existence out of here then I would do it in a heartbeat

I wish there is a stop button from all of these

[strongislandsuperfan]

2022 NFL Season Preview

New stadium names, new rosters and....the same ol' QB in Tampa

Yes, that's right folks! It is almost that wonderful time of the year. The 2022 NFL football 🏈 season is upon us!

As it stands right now, the Buffalo Bills are the odds on favorite to finally win it all at Super Bowl 57, with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs being a close second. However, you can't count out the reigning Super Bowl Champs, The Los Angeles Rams, who are slated to stomp all over their division rivals and possibly win back-to-back titles.

Let's take a brief look at what we could expect, who might wreck their division or who might wreck their entire season.

Bear in mind, any opinion or prediction expressed is just that; an opinion. Take it however you will.

2022 Possible division winners & losers

NFC West division winner: Los Angeles Rams. It makes too much sense. One name: Aaron Donald. 'Nuff said.

NFC West division loser: Seattle Seahawks. The last of the legion of boom is gone as well as their future hall of fame quarterback. This could also be the last hurrah for head coach Pete Carroll. Expect a depressing season in the Emerald City.

NFC North winner: Minnesota Vikings. I know people are saying that the Packers will once again rule the division, but with Minnesota's bolstered weapons ready for a breakout season, Aaron Rodgers is due to get humbled (but, Green Bay will still make the playoffs).

NFC North loser: Chicago Bears. Face it, the Monsters of the Midway still need more work. They might actually finish with a worse record than their counterparts in Detroit. Another long season for the Chi-Town fans.

NFC South winner: Tampa Bay Bucs. Yes, they have the old man back, Tom Brady. As much as I'm disgusted with picking him to smash this division, the fact is, Atlanta, Carolina & New Orleans just aren't strong enough.

NFC South loser: Atlanta Falcons. With their stars gone, Not much noise will be made from these guys this season. You football fans down in Georgia might want to focus on your college football teams this year. Sorry.

NFC East winner: Philadelphia Eagles. It breaks my heart to admit this, but their roster is probably the most complete in this division, but don't count out the Washington Commanders or the New York Giants.

NFC East loser: Dallas Cowboys. Dak is losing his touch, Ezekiel Elliott is on a down slope & maybe the only thing that'll give this roster hope will be their defense, if they stay healthy. I expect some heart break from these guys this season.

AFC West winner: Los Angeles Chargers. I say that with slight ease because the fact is, the AFC West is going to be the best division in the NFL this year. However, I believe the Chargers will be the last ones standing, with Kansas City closely following behind them.

AFC West loser: None. I expect this entire division to make the playoffs. As I stated, this is going to be the best & most exciting division in the NFL this season. Expect fireworks.

AFC North winner: Cincinnati Bengals. They're too hungry...and too angry. I expect a lot of smash-mouth style football from these guys this season.

AFC North loser: Pittsburgh Steelers (maybe the Cleveland Browns). With the name changing of their stadium (which many fans have voiced their disgust over), plus other roster holes that, on the surface, might not be a big deal, I expect this to be Pittsburgh's first season to finish under .500, yet somehow, they will do better than the Cleveland Browns. It still won't be enough.

AFC South winner: Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts. These two teams literally own this division. Both teams have star running backs that their rivals wish they had. It'll be a tight race to the end.

AFC South loser: Houston Texans. The team that can't even do a rebuild correctly. Expect another lost season, with nothing to hope for.

AFC East Winner: Buffalo Bills. They are the new kings of the AFC East, as long as everyone stays healthy. However, I'm pretty certain that Bill Bellichek & his New England Patriots got something up their sleeve this coming season.

AFC East loser: New York Jets. I mean, I hate to do it because its pretty much expected at this point, but the Jets aren't even close to being considered dangerous enough to crash the playoffs. The good news? They might win 2 more games this season than they did last season. Some hope, I guess.

2022 NFL Playoff & Super Bowl Predictions

-The entire AFC West is going to the playoffs. Powerful acquisitions made this off-season and great strides made with their rosters, this is going to be the division most visiting teams will be scared to play against....unless you're the Buffalo Bills.

-Yes, Minnesota might win the division, but Aaron Rodgers & the Packers might get the last laugh.

-Hey, Cowboys fans, you're going to get your hearts broken again this season, playoffs or no playoffs. Have a box of kleenex on standby.

-NFC Conference game might come down to the Bucs vs. the Eagles, with the old man pulling off some last second heroics and sending the Eagles back to Philly in heartbreaking fashion.

-AFC Championship will definitely be the Bills against the Bengals. Yes, the Bengals are on a season of revenge tour, but it will backfire.

-Super Bowl 57 might be the Bills vs. the Bucs. Winner? Buffalo Bills. I promise you that I'm not making this prediction out of spite, but this franchise is due. Long overdue. I wouldn't be mad at this.

That is all.

[thiscityscreamsyournamee]

it's about to rain

it's about to rain here in Cuenca. it's getting so cold and I'd only want to wrap a blanket on myself all day. I'm absent from work today because my neck and backaches are killing me. it's the first time I wasn't at work and had no worries about the things I'd be missing out on.

but it's 4pm now and it's starting to get dark. and the worries are starting to bother me again.

it's my seventh month on that company this December. still haven't been evaluated. I don't know if they'd still want to regularize me. it's not like I'm "un-performing" as an employee. but maybe underperforming if we're going to base on that fucking scoreboard that doesn't even show my hard work. I'm always so tired and burnt out but when you translate that into numbers, it's still not enough. never even had the chance to prove myself through required presentations of my finished accounts. other people always get to present my presentations. and they always get to take the credit for my hard work. and when they decided to give my task to the other employee who's older in the company and who might do it better than me, it didn't do any good for them. she had more of a hard time than what I had.

it's three months this December since I tested positive for the deadly virus. and after I recovered I started living my life with more and developed anxiety. I always wake up in the middle of the night just to scare myself and think of the possibilities of getting the virus again. I'm always so scared of the idea of taking a bath and suddenly not being able to smell the soap. or eating my breakfast and suddenly not being able to taste the food. and every day I get nervous and wake up shaking from my bed.

I don't want all that to happen again.

my quarantine days were the worst, most depressive days of my year. it was the time there was nothing to distract me from my miserable self and present state of life. there were lonely and deadly silent nights where I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how I failed myself and everyone around me after I graduated college. about how maybe all this time I was a loser. a weak, pathetic quitter. there was a bright future ahead of me, they said. and now I work at a job I hate where I let people scream at me and look down on me just because the system of the company failed them. and I couldn't leave because I still remember how I struggled to find a new job after I resigned from the last one that didn't do me any good either. last year I was thinking about how I was a wasted potential. this year I don't even know if I really had that potential at all. I did cry a lot of times on my quarantine days. it wasn't physically exhausting no matter how much my head ached. it was more of a mental situation.

it's been roughly three years since my father almost lost his mind. he hurt himself from too much burnout. he had a mild stroke but he's all good now. except he's now having more hard times with his eyes. and he had a drastic change too. he struggles in reading and writing and sometimes in speaking cohesively. and he couldn't work for us just like he did before. that happened way before I graduated college. before all that, I've always thought about how we'll both be working for the three of us (with my mother). and then I'll work hard until the day he wouldn't need to work anymore. now it's just me working for them. and it's just two years since I graduated. and I'm just twenty-two. and twenty-two is when you should be starting on building whatever career you dared to dream to build. but now I'm so fucking tired. the pay I get every month is not enough to pay for the utilities and for the food. I couldn't even buy a new laptop to replace this old laptop that shut down on me while I was writing this. I needed to re-write the first half because of that.

gosh, I've always felt like I'm slowly carrying the world. maybe that's why my back hurts. I don't have any idea where I'm heading to. that's why it's scarier.

when I was eighteen, I felt like I'm on top of the world. I felt powerful. I'm smart, creative, hardworking, and I always know what I'm doing and what I'm going to do next. whenever I mess up, I would always know how to fix that. and it always works out.

now that I'm twenty-two, a small inconvenience would make me cry. making a choice would never make me have a good night's sleep. and whenever I mess up, I mess them up even more by attempting to fix them. I know life was never better. but it was a hard day learning how life is actually more difficult than you thought it was. I've felt like every year I don't get old by a year. I just get older, older than I should. it's confusing how it feels like I'm old enough to deal with things, but still feel like I'm too young to deal with the same said things. on top of all that, I feel so fucking alone.

I can't even tell if it's just getting too much today that's why I was writing this. I've always felt like it's always too much, and this is just one of those rare times I start addressing it again.

I'm scared I wouldn't stay longer in that company. although I know to myself that it's unfair that I won't. I work hard and do my job the best I could. I'm scared to get the virus again. although I know it wouldn't be fair for me given the circumstances. and the circumstances are that I am poor and my parents are old and I can't afford to get sick.

but life is sometimes fucking unfair, isn't it?

[kuriquinn]

Hey Kuri. I just need a little life advice. How did you find your call in Teaching? I'm kinda struggling right now trying to find what I want to do with my life. Im going back to college soon but the subject I'm studying isn't what I'm interested in. I've tried to love it but its been difficult. I often times feel like a disappointment to my family because my siblings are all doing great and I feel like a loser not getting there yet.

Strap in, there, Anon, this’ll be a long one…

If I’m being honest, my call isn’t teaching - it’s writing. Even now, though I have a Big Girl Job and everything, which pays my bills and keeps my fur babies in food and toys, I consider my writing to be my real job. Even if, at the moment, it’s just writing fanfiction.

The first piece of advice I would give you for anything in your future is to do something you love. That way it will never be a chore and you will stick with it longer than five minutes. 

Now, on the heel of that, the second piece of advice is: if you can’t pursue your passion, pursue something you don’t hate. And it might take you a while to figure out what that is. 

I graduated high school with pretty decent grades, went to a good college and did well there (Liberal Arts), and I applied to university hoping to major in Creative Writing and Minor in German Language. My outside logic was: it would help me get into a writing field like journalism or translation. Inwardly, I figured I was just taking university courses while I was busy writing my novel and that before graduating I would be published and famous and rich.

Yeah, eighteen-year-old me was a bit of a naive idiot. 

Cue life-experience:

My parents were kind of wary about the whole thing, they didn’t really believe I was doing a good thing, but it was my choice and they had to respect it. They knew what I didn’t, but would learn for myself. At the time I was also working in a bookstore, which while not my passion or anything, I actually enjoyed. Work never felt like work, and for minimum wage, that’s a good thing.

Flash forward to my first semester of university, in which I learned that a) my German skills were beyond what I could be taught at uni and I wouldn’t be able to take half of the courses I needed to fill my minor, so it was basically a waste of time to take and b) my Creative Writing classes basically centered around having a published author (and I use this term loosely to define a person who self-published one grungy, literary shock fiction and passed it off as literature) get up and talk about how to write. And not write actual good stories with decent plots and characters and such, but the gritty, sensory, detailed lyrical crap…and if you didn’t try to write exactly like that person, they flunked you.

So trying to follow my first passion didn’t exactly pan out. 

I ended up switching my degree completely, majoring in Classical Civilisation and minoring in History. I figured, I love history, and I love research, maybe a degree in this could help me get a job in museum studies or as a researcher or something. The next two years passed quite nicely…and though my part-time bookstore job fell through because of crappy managers, I started to tutor a lot more (and my brother was in his last years of high school at this point, and needed my help getting through his classes) and I realised that I was actually pretty good at breaking down information and explaining it in different ways. Plus, I already had a lot of experience with learning difficulties due to my brother.

So, one year before I graduated, I get the bright idea to become a teacher. I had enough credits to switch majors, but the problem was, my university only offered Early Childhood Education…and while I dearly love little kids, more than five or six of them below the age of ten would probably drive me insane. I figured teenagers would be more mature.

(*pause* *waits for riotous laughter from Those Who Know Better*)

Anyhow, I had to apply to a whole new university program just to get into a high school teaching program. And that was the most miserable two years of my life, because teacher education is the most useless piece of trash degree you can take. You know when you learn? When they stick you in a school as a student teacher. I didn’t learn one thing from my second university degree except that sometimes the only way to move on to the next stage of your life is to sit through the boring shit and get a stupid piece of paper saying you sat through the boring shit.

And THEN…

I didn’t even get a job for another two years. 

The thing people don’t tell you about university is that when you get out, there is almost no one hiring. The Baby Boomer generation is not retiring any time soon, the job market is flooded with so many newcomers that competition is fierce, and on top of that, your chances are reduces based on what field you go into. Science, Engineering, Computers, Medicine, Business and Law? Competition will be fierce, but you will definitely have a job at the end of your degree. Anything else? Unless you somehow become famous, every other job out there has a crappy percntage of hiring, and chances are you are going to have to get an average Joe job for a year or two before you actually get hired to do what you studied.

Me, I had one learning experience where I moved to England because there’s a huge demand for teachers (and learned why there’s a huge demand is because the school system there is complete shite), and then spent a year unemployed and basically acting as an unpaid domestic/caregiver because my mother was sick (I lived at home, though, so that’s why it worked out). I still tutored when I could, but I didn’t have as many clients as I had hoped for. Things were so bad at this point and I was so depressed I couldn’t even write…

I did finally get hired, but the way I did won’t make you feel better. I basically sent my resume to one of the schools where I did my field experience, telling them I was available for tutoring in the upcoming year. I got a call back (on my birthday) to see if I was interested in taking on an actual teaching job - they remembered me from my internship and remembered my brother (who once was a student there).

So I basically got the job because I knew someone.

And that’s the reality of it. You will not get a job (in certain fields, at least) unless you know someone. Networking and good interview skills are so important to getting hired these days, and your ability to be social (or fake being social) is key. 

Even now, I’m not exactly secure in my job. As a teacher in the private sector, I don’t even have a contract. I literally spend every August sitting by the phone biting my nails hoping that they’re going to call me back for the year.

But it’s a foot in the door. You always have to think about it that way.

Contrast this to my brother - he finished high school, took a trade (auto mechanics), and had a job within a year. He now makes and will continue to make more in a year than what I will in two. He had his forever job at 19; I didn’t find mine until I was 27.

Now, if you’re still with me and I didn’t bore you with my life’s story, here’s the take away:

1. Pursue your passion. If you can make a living from it, you’re one of the lucky few. Keep doing you, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Friends, family or loved ones, it doesn’t matter what they think.

2. If you can’t pursue your passion (full time, at least), do something that you don’t hate. Something that you are good at, a job where you can show up to and do your work happily and then go home at the end of the day and not stress about. Again, if anyone is telling you to do something you hate, DON’T. In five years, you’ll be burnt out, stressed and miserable. It is so not worth it. And if this is an Average Joe Job like working in a bookstore? Fine. Do that. It gives you more time to pursue your actual passions, and looks good on a resume.

3. Get a trade. Seriously, if you put off university for a year to get a trade, like real estate or mechanics or electrician or something, you not only give yourself the ability to be hired sooner, you can also support yourself throughout your academic career - and for those of you facing a future of student loans, this is so important!

4. If you pursue higher education, be prepared to change your mind A LOT before you graduate. You might find your are more interested or better at a certain subject that you thought, or a complete loss. There is nothing wrong with changing your major or minor until you find the right fit, just make sure you get all your General Education courses out of the way first so that you have that leeway.

5. After graduating, unless you’re in certain career fields, be prepared not to have a job right away. Get an Average Joe Job to keep you going, keep sending out CVs and going to interviews, and just hang in there - you will eventually get there, even if it takes you a little longer than your friends. And network! Make sure you keep in contact with people who might be able to help you in your career.

6. If you have the money and means, travel. Because chances are you won’t have the chance to do it once you join the rat-race.

7. MOST IMPORTANT: Do not let stress take over your life. You MUST find a way to balance your life while you worry about school/career stuff. Go out with your friends, travel when you can (even if it’s just a day trip to a museum!), write or paint or play music or build models or code or binge watch your tv show of choice, or whatever it is you do for fun - make sure you do it every day. Because your brain needs a way to unwind from the not so pleasant adulty stuff.

Anyhow, that’s the advice Twenty-Nine-Year-Old-Present-Me would give Nineteen-Year-Old-Me on the eve of starting university. I don’t know if she’d listen to all of it, but I wish someone had told me all that. Especially the parts about not getting a job right away. I thought I was a humongous failure because I couldn’t find work, when the reality was, I was just one of thousands of people seeking employment in an uncertain economic environment. 

So, on that note, I hope that you managed to find some comfort or guidance in these words. Remember, you are not a disappointment and everyone moves at their own pace. Maybe you’re having a slow year and your siblings aren’t. Maybe next year you’ll be the one who has exciting new opportunities and they are stuck in a rut. Our lives are very static and you never know what’s coming around the next bend. Just keep on keeping on.

And personally? If I was struggling to love my college program? I would take a very good look at whether it was really for me.

Thanks for the ask :)

[miracufic]

I feel like your the best person to ask, so: do you think in the end, everything will be ok? I know this is a bit of a weird or stupid question but I'm feeling terrified tonight like a lot of others.

I am very probably not the best person to ask about this. My reaction to the election was to sit in a depressive haze and eat cookies for four hours straight. My reaction to the inauguration was to sleep until noon and watch obscenely happy anime for the rest of the day in an attempt to forget that I lived in a world where that was possible. I am not a person that reacts well (e.g. with either optimism and action or unbridled fury and action) to bad events.

So in the immediate future, no. I don’t believe that everything will be okay in the immediate future. I think that there’s going to be a lot of backsliding even in spite of our resistance (especially if the Democrats don’t get their fucking shit together and start acting like an opposition party instead of a bunch of schoolchildren with appendicitis), and a lot of attempts to lock that in for a generation or two.

But if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that while history may not repeat, it certainly does rhyme. Canada had an asshat of a PM for a while, and then kicked him out for a seriously more moderate (while not perfect, definitely more moderate) guy: Trudeau. Britain bounced Margaret Thatcher out, eventually, even if they are sliding back now. In Germany it is still literally quite illegal to be a Nazi, spout pro-Nazi claptrap, or similar. At least for now.

So I do expect backlash to come eventually.  My gut is telling me that it’s going to be messy, and there will probably be blood involved, either metaphorical or literal.  But it will come.

Let me leave you with the following thought.

He heard the sound of sobbing from further along the barricade.  It wasn’t young Sam, he knew, and Nobby Nobbs had probably cried all the tears a body was capable of some time ago.  It was Reg.  He sat with his back to the makeshift defense, the threadbare flag across his knees, and tears dripping off his chin.

“Reg, you ought to go,” Vimes hissed.  “You don’t even have a weapon.”

“What’s the good of it, eh?” said Reg.  “You were bloody right, sarge!  Things just go round and round!  You got rid of the bloody Unmentionables and here they are again!  What’s the point, eh?  This city could be such a great place but no, oh no, the bastards always end up on top!  Nothing ever bloody changes!  They just take their money and mess us around!”

Carcer had stopped twenty yards from the barricade, and was watching it carefully.

“Way of the world, Reg,” murmured Vimes, counting enemies under his breath.

And a big covered cart came around the corner, rocking under its load.  It rolled to a halt a little way from Carcer’s crew, partly because the way was blocked but mostly, perhaps, because one of the men had walked up to the driver and aimed a crossbow at his head.

“And now the bloody bastards have won,” moaned Reg.

“Every day of the week, Reg,” said Vimes absently, trying to follow the movements of too many people at once.

The other men were spreading out.  After all, they had the firepower.

The man holding up Mr. Dibbler, the cart driver, wasn’t paying too much attention.  Now Vimes wished he’d put himself in the wagon.  Oh, well, someone had to start the rumble—

“Yeah?  You want to shoot something?  Bastards!”

They all stared, Carcer too.  Reg had stood up, was waving the flag back and forth, was clambering over the barricade…

He held the flag like a banner of defiance.  “You can take our lives but you’ll never take our freedom!” he screamed.

Carcer’s men looked at one another, puzzled by what sounded like the most badly thought-out war cry in the history of the universe.  Vimes could see their lips moving as they tried to work it out.

Carcer raised his crossbow, gestured to his men, and said: “Wrong!”

Reg was hit by five heavy bolts so that he did a little dance before falling to his knees.  It happened in seconds.

Vimes opened his mouth to give the order to charge, and shut it when he saw Reg raise his head.  In silence, using the flag pole as an aid, Reg got back to his feet.

Three more arrows hit him.  He looked down at his skinny chest, bristling with feathers, and took a step forward.  And another.

One of the crossbowmen drew his sword and ran at the stricken man, and was knocked into the air by a blow from Reg that must have felt like it had come from a sledgehammer.

This passage is from Night Watch, by the late Sir Terry Pratchett, from the Discworld series.  I really, really recommend that you read his books (but do look around for a Discworld reading order guide because the series as a whole can get a bit overwhelming, I know that thebibliosphere has one floating around her blog somewhere) because they’re a reliable ray of sunshine and/or bolt of unbridled outraged fury and they’ve personally helped me a lot through the past few months.

But anyways, the whole point leading up to this is that the Revolution has failed.  One corrupt tyrant has led to another corrupt tyrant, employing the same (AND EXPLICITLY FASCIST) fucks as muscle.  This isn’t a spoiler or some big surprise; if you’ve read any of the other books or the rest of the book prior to this it’s an explicit part of the canon.  And frankly, this is the darkest part of the entire series.  In this moment, at this time, and in this place, there is no hope.

Right up until Reginald fucking Shoe, literally weeping with despair and hopelessness, with the tattered remnants of his ideals upon his knees, gets up and fucking does something.

It’s worth noting that this pack of government-sponsored losers does lose the fight.

Granted, he does die for his ideals (because having multiple arrows in your chest does do that to someone) and since this is the real world you can’t get up as a zombie like he does.  But please keep in mind that the bastards in power will do everything they can to break the rules, because the GOP is a bunch of worm-riddled, power-hungry tyrants.  The only answer I have to that is to be furious about it.  To remember that there is a right, and a wrong, and that they do not get to dictate what it is.

And that while ideals don’t make fantastic shields, they do make wonderful weapons.